Sunday reflection: Control is an illusion

Flowers from my sisters
after this week's scary time...

Today's reflection is brought to you by Luke 20: 27-36.

Today was my turn to lead morning prayer at Sanctuary of Peace. Here's what I shared with the community:

Even to our 21st century ears, the question the Sadducees are asking Jesus in this morning’s gospel reading sounds like a bad joke with a strange punchline! I mean, what is the likelihood that a woman would marry a guy with six brothers only to have him die, then marry each his brothers in turn, only to have the same thing happen again and again. Highly unlikely! 

My husband has three brothers, and if anything happened to him, I wouldn’t want to marry them no matter what the Sadducees' rules were. They are not my type, and I’m not theirs! Thank heavens my partner is alive and well, and that the Sadducees’ rules don’t apply to me! 

But the Sadducees theoretical story and the rules about marriage brought up other things for me. The imaginary woman in their story had no control over what happened to her because of the religious rules of the day. Women had no choice but to do what authorities like the Sadducees said, and they were all men, which also wasn’t fair. And while we'd like to say that things have changed, for a lot of women around the world, that’s not the case. We’re bound by rules, written and unwritten, that men have made.

But that’s not my main point here. My point is that none of us, no matter our gender, have as much control in our lives as we like to think. The idea of control is an illusion we offer ourselves – until something blows that illusion to smithereens. 

Accidents happen. People die. A friend of mine was recently fired for no reason. Another friend’s marriage ended. Things valuable to us are lost or broken. On Thursday, someone I love very deeply experienced a medical crisis, and all I could do was hold on to her and pray as medical personnel worked on her. She came through okay, but I’ve never been more afraid in my life. And I'm still afraid that other things may go wrong for her.

So the Sadducees’ silly story raised a couple of big questions for me this week. How do we feel when we don’t have control over situations in our lives? And what do we do with those feelings? 

I have a few methods for handling life when things are out of my control. Sometimes I bottle up my feelings and try to push my way through situations as if they don’t really exist. Or, I get really scared and angry and lash out at people around me even when it’s not their fault. Other times, depression and hopelessness can bring me to my knees. 

Sometimes I need to sit down and ugly cry for a while, or stand outside on a windy day and swear loudly at God. Ever done that? It's quite therapeutic, and God has big shoulders -- They can handle it. I’ve also been known to try to make deals with Creator, saying, “If you can improve this situation and give me back some control, I’ll do big things for you too.” Ha, like I can do big things for God!

But few of these “coping mechanisms” actually help. It’s only when I can really let go of my anger and fear and need for control, when I am able to accept an uncontrollable situation with some grace, that I can find relief and feel more peaceful about it. Jesus, in the garden of Gethsemane, is a good model for this. Facing his death, he somehow managed to say, "Not my will, but Yours be done" to God. Jesus stands in solidarity with all of us when we don't have control over life's situations. But I'm not as good at this as Jesus.  

Jesus didn't complain, or let people walk all over him. He stood up against injustice when he could. But his example tells me that when there’s nothing I can do, I need to cry and grieve and let go of my need for control; to turn the situation over to Creator, who holds us all together, who holds together this universe we live in through love for all that is. 

I need to to say that famous prayer, God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference. 

That’s when I remember that Creator sees each and every one of us as Her beloved. He cries for all the ways human beings judge each other and treat each other unfairly with arbitrary rules that favour some people and hurt others. Creator wants what’s best for each one of us, but They don’t hand it to us on a silver platter. God knows that we live and grow most when we learn to hand over control in our lives to the One who really knows what’s going down. When we can say, like in the prayer of the four directions, “we are little and need Your pity,” we can be freed from our need for control. 

But let’s go back to the Sadducees and their silly story. Jesus tells them, “You guys have it all wrong. You’re worrying about who is married to who in heaven -- which you don’t even believe in -- but Creator doesn’t care about all that. God welcomes everyone to the resurrection of the dead because they are like angels and are children of God, being children of the resurrection.” Creator made everything, and wants what’s best for all Their children. We just need to work with Creator to allow that to happen, even when things are out of our control. 

Allow me to repeat that: God wants what’s best for all of us. We just need to allow that to happen. Especially when things are out of our control. 

As I always do, I would like to leave an opportunity for everyone to rest a few moments in this Sanctuary of Peace, to have a conversation with Creator. 

I invite you to settle as comfortably as you can. Straighten your back, set your feet on the floor, close your eyes or lower them, and relax. Breathe in and out, slowly and gently. In… and out… 

Let go of your thoughts and make an empty space for God to fill you. 

Imagine walking into a room deep in your own heart, a room lit by a single candle. Creator surrounds you in this space, a loving presence, warm and enveloping. 

Just wait with Creator in the semi-darkness… Creator invites you to think about your life, and a situation where you feel like you have little or no control… 

Silently tell Creator about it… and how you feel about it… how you hope it might be solved… 

Creator makes no promises… but the candle burns a little more brightly as you sit together in the silence… 

As your time together comes to a close, Creator says, “I love you, my child. I only want what is best for you. Let go... and let me help you. Let’s work together toward your peace of heart and mind and soul…"

When you are ready, return to this space… 

Let’s pray together: 

Creator, 

We thank you for your presence in our lives, 

especially in those situations where we have no control. 

When we are afraid or angry, 

feeling helpless or hopeless, 

remind us that you are with us, 

and that you want neither suffering nor distress to harm us. 

Help us to trust you. 

Help us to believe in your love. 

Help us to let go. 

Give us your peace when we need it the most. 

Give all your children peace. 

 +Amen

Elli's documentary

I first met Elli fourteen months ago today and was immediately struck by her warmth and kindness. In the space of a very short period of time and subsequent conversations and texts, I knew I had met someone incredibly authentic and deep, someone who had been through a lot, but who knew herself better than many human beings ever do because of her own personal struggle to be true to herself. Now, Elli is all about finding and creating joy.

Over the past year, Elli, with the help of a Telus Story Hive grant and some good friends, has put together a wonderful documentary to share her life experiences so that trans young people can learn that they are not alone, and hopefully, find joy on their own journeys. Elli's honesty and her willingness to open her life up so that others can learn and understand is incredibly brave and generous, especially as the government of Alberta prepares to enact some terrible anti-trans legislation, to put it mildly.

Coming Home -- at least the first 5 episodes (I have yet to view the 6th) -- is definitely worth watching. That I am even saying so is a sign of how far I have come as a human being -- ten years ago (as my own trans child was coming out), the conversations in these videos would have made me deeply uncomfortable, but because I now know many people in the queer and trans community as friends (and family), my perspective has shifted in a major way. I know in my bones that our gender/sexuality is a special part of each of us, and that no matter how we identify, we are all Creator's beloved children and must do what we need to do to be true to ourselves, or risk dying inside.

As mom of a trans child, I have found hope and joy in Elli's documentary in spite of present circumstances. I want to believe that we as human beings can all become more accepting and inclusive of those who are different from us by welcoming them into our lives as they are.

Today is Trans Day of Remembrance, a day when we honour the lives of Trans persons who have died because of anti-trans violence over the past year. It's a very difficult day for many people who have lost friends or who already don't feel safe because of their gender difference. The day I met Elli, as I walked with a different trans person, a full water bottle narrowly missed is. It was hurled by some teens yelling slurs.

I hesitate to offer Elli's first episode because Trans Day of Remembrance is a day of mourning, and Coming Home is about joy. 

But if mourning prejudice and the injustices perpetrated against trans people can be combined with a deeper understanding of what it's actually like to be a trans person, it can bring about healing, too. So I offer the first episode of Coming Home here because Elli and her friendship have helped me to heal and grow in unexpected ways. If you are able to watch this on YouTube, the other episodes should follow.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=okZjq3SMk-U&t=7s

May we all be as kind and courageous as Elli!

Celebrating Transgender Day of Visibility

Photo by Sharon McCutcheon on Unsplash

No matter how you feel about the Trans community, I hope you will pause for a moment to open your mind and read this moodling. 

As the mom of wonderful queer kids of whom I am very proud, one of whom is trans, I invite you to try to understand something that perhaps you've never encountered, or that you've already judged in your mind one way or the other. After all, we only learn through openness to one another. 

I don't often write about my kids because I want to protect them and myself from people who can't see that human beings are not static creatures. Why can't we evolve beyond the two check-boxes of male and female found in the book of Genesis? 

As a Catholic woman, I've had a long hard struggle to reconcile my faith with my kids' lived experience. But slowly, over the past ten years, I've come to understand that God thinks and moves and creates and loves outside the boxes that human beings have assigned to God's creativity through centuries of mistaken theological wrangling. 

I've realized that, basically, God doesn't judge us the way we (or our churches) judge each other! God creates and loves every last one of us, whether we fit into human-designed check-boxes or not.

The problem with boxes is that they have walls, and they are often given labels that, too often, divide us from each other. They allow us to pretend that people who are different from us are WRONG. And what has that given us over the millennia? If you really want to know, look up Persecution on Wikipedia and read the sidebar under Discrimination. The long list is enough to turn the stomach.

But the antidote to discrimination and persecution is education. My children have certainly educated me. My youngest child is my greatest teacher. As I watched them struggle with fitting into a gender that didn't feel right to them, my heart hurt. Many times I wished they could be so-called "ordinary" gender-wise, because being non-binary is not something most human cultures understand. (Some do.)

I'll admit that there are a lot of things I wish I had said and done differently when I learned that my child needed to take a different direction than my status quo expectations. It's taken a few years to forgive myself for my past inability to understand. I questioned my kid's sense of self, cast doubt on their decisions, and grieved the loss of the future I had envisioned for them in ways that weren't helpful. Definitely not my proudest moments -- it was more about me than about them. Damned ego.

But when I was able to talk to them, to really understand how they were feeling about themself, I came to see that they were doing what was necessary for them to thrive in this world, even if it meant leaving me behind for a time. It was a challenging road, but they have moved on to become who God made them to be. Which, of course, is as it should be. As I said earlier, I am proud of them.

Clearly, our world falls short when it comes to understanding and accepting those who are different. It expects everyone to live into the same so-called "norms" -- even if those norms aren't really "normal" and often arise out of the fear of difference that creates xenophobia, racism, sexism, misogyny, homo- and transphobia, and any other ism or -phobia that divides us. Fear (of those fears, mostly) sometimes keeps me up at night, when I worry about the safety of my kids at the hands of fearful people.

It all boils down to the fact that too many people forget how Jesus spent his time with the very people his community pushed to the margins. And too many people choose to ignore how a spiritual leader named Paul once laid it out for us: "There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male or female; for all of you are one in Christ." (Galatians 3:28) For those who aren't Christian, there's an anti-discrimination rule that applies to pretty well every world faith, too: treat others as you want to be treated. 

It's all just basic respect.

We don't hear a lot about the International Transgender Day of Visibility here in Canada -- yet. In fact, I didn't even know the day existed until this morning. I do know about the Trans Day of Remembrance that falls on November 20th each year, a day generally spent naming trans people who have been murdered for refusing to identify themselves according to the sex they were assigned at birth. A very sad day.

But a Transgender Day of Visibility is an opportunity to celebrate! It's time to celebrate their ability to be visible in a world that denied or denigrated their existence for too long. We need to acknowledge that there are those among us who live their experience of gender differently than many of us do, who are less hung up on those M or F check-boxes, and who, because of that freedom, bridge the human-made boundaries between male and female in beautiful, gracious, and sometimes unusual ways. I know trans folks who are incredibly gifted and loving, and who deserve to be seen and celebrated in their own right on this day. They are some of my favourite people. Three cheers for them!

I've collected a couple of links to articles written by trans people speaking from their own experience. They deserve to be heard. The first is a parent who writes about their trans child way better than I do, the second is a two-spirit Metis elder who has come a long way to a self-acceptance that allows them to mentor others. And if you want to look further, here is a link to a Trans Day of Visibility and Trans History in Canada webpage. 

There are many other ways to learn about trans folk and the visibility that's been too long in coming. I offer these links today in the hope that they will help us all to realize that trans people deserve love, respect, acceptance, and friendship every bit as much as we do. 

After all, friendship, acceptance, respect and love are the beautiful gifts God gives to us so that we can give them to each other. Let's celebrate by doing just that!

(Thanks for reading. And if you want to engage in one-on-one dialogue on this topic, you can always email me through the link in my profile to the right.)

Sunday reflection: Love's holy harvest

Today's reflection is brought to you by
Philippians 1:3-11.

O God,
it's easy to thank you
for the people we love,
to pray with joy
for the ones
with whom we see
eye-to-eye.

It's easy to believe
that you are working
in those we agree with,
and to pray for their success.

But the real challenge is
to be grateful for
and loving towards
those
who frustrate us at every turn,
who do things we can't condone,
who demand our attention or our pity,
who are not as pure and blameless
as we imagine ourselves to be.

And then there are the strangers
who want to lay claim to our homeland.
If they seem to be
stealing our jobs,
turning our neighbourhoods into ghettos,
using our resources,
refusing to speak our language
or abide by our values,
how are we supposed to love them?

You,
O God,
are witness
to all the ways we love
or not.

And you love us all
equally.

All that we have
is free gift from you,
not to be hoarded.

So if we are to be
your hands,
heart
and feet
on this earth,
if we are to reap
a holy harvest
by embodying your love,
our willingness to share
your blessings
must overflow to all who cross our path.

Most especially strangers,
widows and orphans.

Show us where your grace is to be found
in the compassion and generosity
we show
to all your people,
especially those
we find most challenging
to love
with your love.

We are all your beloved.

+Amen

A zillion different colours

A rainbow cross made for me
by my new friend.

I don't know about you, but I'm getting really tired of this black and white world that so many of us are living in. You know, good versus evil, liberal versus conservative, gay versus straight, believer versus non-believer, east versus west, and any other seemingly opposing viewpoints you care to pit against one another. Dividing ourselves into camps is never a good idea for human beings. It's the antithesis of inclusion, of openness to others, and about as far from God's plan for the world as we can get. God includes everything, if we look around for a minute. It's just we humans who divide the world into opposing categories.

At the L'Arche Emmaus retreat in Montreal two weeks ago, I was blessed to journey with a young assistant who had recently come out as a gay man. He is a really beautiful person with many gifts, including a deep intelligence, compassion, understanding, warmth, openness, honesty, and a wonderful sense of humour. He gave me my best belly laugh of the week! Thankfully, his family, friends, and L'Arche community are supportive of him, and he is able to honour and celebrate the way God made him to be. We spent a lot of time talking about his hopes and his dreams, and it was a joy to listen to a man who knows and loves himself and wants to share his gifts with others, including someone to love.

But there are so many people in his position who feel that that they have no choice but to pretend to be what they are not, to deny their sexuality in places where its spectrum is not understood or honoured. In sexuality, as in most things, there is so much more than the black and white, this-versus-that perspective. The full colour spectrum is made of zillions of different colours, each of them important and necessary to the whole.

God sees all of the people he and she has created as important and necessary to the whole, too, or she and he wouldn't have created us! It's long past time for us to stop worrying about human-made categories in our ideologies, spiritualities, nationalities, sexualities, and simply live in the inclusive reality that is God.

Acceptance

In a shady corner in our yard is a rose bush that's never done very well. Every year it seems to become infested with spider mites, and I've been more and less effective in getting rid of them at different times. The poor little bush is often sadly neglected, and I've been tempted to judge it useless and tear it out. But for some reason, I've always wanted to see it bloom, and this year, it did!

I've been thinking a lot lately about our human tendency to judge each other... and how inhumane it can be. Where does it come from? Our need to be superior, our desire to be the best? But when we judge others, we are limiting our relationship with them by putting them in boxes of our own making.

Wouldn't it be better if we could just take people as they are, with all their foibles and limitations? It's the people who accept us as we are, who truly love us, whom we appreciate the most in our lives. Shouldn't we try to be that kind of person for all those around us? Isn't that what Jesus came to show us by his life?

Maybe we're all called to give the benefit of the doubt to all the rosebushes in our lives so that they can, eventually, surprise us with their hidden beauty.