It's been a long time.
Sometimes in life, things get broken. Sometimes these are little things, sometimes they are an incomprehensible size. Sometimes they can be fixed. And sometimes they cannot. Yet, even if these things, be they physical objects, emotional relationships, or metaphysical concepts and constructs, are shattered into thousands of disparate parts, they can be changed. Even an outcome can have more than one meaning. And where there is hope, then whatever is broken can be used again. Perhaps it will not be for it's original purpose, but useful in a new and more meaningful way, if love is allowed in.
It may be unfixable, but it is not unchangeable.
I used to have a theology of brokenness. And it was the core of my religious understanding for more than a decade. After a soul-crushing experience in seminary as I transitioned gender from female to male, I was spiritually broken. I no longer believed in the trustworthiness of those ordained in the Christian church, or its traditions. I lost all confidence that those individuals saw me as a beloved child of G-d, not as I had been, or in spite of what I had become, but exactly as I was now.
Clergy, once my lifelong goal, were now the enemy.
I was beaten down to a point where I gave up on finishing what I had started, a ninety credit Master of Divinity degree leading to ordination in the United Church of Christ. I was four classes short of the degree, lacking Pastoral Care, Introduction to Worship, Field Placement, and one rotation of Clinical Pastoral Education. I needed only twelve credits, but I stopped at the seventy nine I had acquired.
These four classes represent the distance between me and ordination. But, since I no longer had faith in anyone who was ordained, I'm unsurprised that these are the classes I didn't take. My advisor had never believed that I should go into the pastorate in the first place. A 70 plus year old Catholic nun who couldn't stomach the idea of a twenty-seven year old out lesbian having pastoral rights, responsibilities, and authority, that she ultimately could never have herself. It was a brutal exorcism of my faith that led to a fear, hatred, and ultimate loathing of many of the religious traditions of which I had been raised in.
When I came out as transgender a few years later and pursued my change from one external presentation to another the vitriol increased one hundred fold. It culminated in closed door meetings where I was told that my hormone imbalances, my mental health, my personal problems were at the heart of my transition, not my true gender identity. More brutally, I was told that I had been "fearfully and wonderfully made" [Psalm 139:14] and was therefore going against G-d's will. And all I could so was to sit there and take it.
I was breaking apart from the inside out and the outside in. I was dying. And although my physical death did occur multiple times during a rare and frightening case of Legionnaires Disease, it was my spiritual death that had a far greater impact on the threadbare state of my soul.
And in this way, I had lost. I had lost the support of others. I had lost the hope that I needed to survive. I had lost the battle against my own inner demons. And I had lost what was left of myself in the darkness and depression of it all.
And every year afterward, I have found myself yearning to fulfill the dream of serving in a pastoral role, one with the ability to perform the duties that come with it. And every year I do serve in one form or another. I have been a church camp dean, a Sunday School teacher, a religious education committee chair, an assistant for youth groups, and a guest preacher.
Of course, my time spent in public school special education is its own form of pastoral calling as well, but the verbal omission of G-d limits my own sense of wholeness.
And my presentations, lectures, and speaking engagements are all opportunities to share how being a transgender man, and a transgender man of faith have shaped my worldview and how I choose to live in the world. But, these talks are not sermons, nor should they be.
Still, I want to speak the words of G-d to offer other ways of seeing the sacred and holy within ourselves and within each other.
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| Changed |
Recently, I received wisdom from a younger than I clergy member about who I am today. As someone who had never known me prior to transition, nor seen me struggle through it, she was easily able to say that I was not the person today that I was ten years ago when I ended my seminary career. Neither am I the person who entered seminary fourteen years ago, not in body, mind, or spirit.
Even though I've known this on an intellectual level, I couldn't hold it as truth within my heart. I was still seeing myself as a man built on a broken theology, rather than on a remade base formed out of the rubble. Like the keystone that locks all the other loose stones together, I was cut apart that way, was sought out, and was broken from the other pieces to be better than before. And to be an object of strength and unity, instead of just a pile of rocks that collapsed under their own weight.
So, for now, I still have a theology of brokenness. And, I have a belief system that tells me that even though the original may be broken, the new creation is stronger than the last. And, for now, that is enough.
Be well, love your neighbor as you love yourself, and remember to actually love yourself.
- Ari
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