And Know My Heart, I Pray

Last week it was my privilege to present a workshop at the national PFLAG conference in Nashville, Tennessee. PFLAG is a non-profit created by parents and family members of lesbians, gays, and transgender people. PFLAG is story based. They believe if families tell their stories, friends and neighbors will listen and the world will change. I believe they are right.

When an enemy is “out there,” it is easy to vilify them. But when that person becomes human, all but the hardest hearts begin to reexamine their opposition. When I preached at Highlands Church in Denver in August, I looked out over an audience of several hundred people, a sizeable portion of whom were gay or lesbian. About sixty seconds into my message I almost had to stop and gather myself. I saw mothers and fathers holding their children, showing a powerful passion for Christ, filled to the brim with love for one another. I tried to imagine Jesus standing before that audience and saying, “I am so sorry. Satan has deceived you. You are all headed to the fires of hell.” There was not one tiny piece of my heart that could imagine such a Jesus.

I know some of you can, in fact, imagine that Jesus. I invite you to stand before that same audience and preach. Pick a favorite passage on a subject that does not address the sexual identity of the audience. Speak for 25 minutes, talk with the audience afterwards, and see if you do not find your own theology to be troubling.

Too often we act as though our theological positions are without real world consequences. Until you walk a mile in the shoes of another, your theological positions are just that, positions. Until they become people, they have not faced the litmus test of conscience. “Could it be there is nothing wrong with these people? Could it be my hermeneutic is askew, and not this dear person’s life.”

At the PFLAG workshop I spoke to dozens of moms and dads and other family members of LGBTQ individuals. Most in the room called themselves followers of Jesus. One after another, with tears in their eyes, they told their stories of rejection, of churches casting out their children. In the name of Jesus they had all been hurt.

I know many of you reading this blog are disappointed I have taken this stand. But I invite you to listen to the stories these people tell, and see if your conscience is not pricked to its core. Once your conscience begins to fight with your belief systems, feel the cognitive dissonance. Don’t run from it. Ponder it. This is how, over the centuries, the church changed its stance on slavery, women’s rights, interracial marriage, divorce and remarriage, and a plethora of other issues.

At the end of my talk a gentle 74-year-old man talked about his 32-year relationship with his husband. He asked if I knew about a megachurch in his city, one I do know well. He said, “There is a young man on the preaching team who is a marvelous communicator and seems like a good human being, but his arrogance is unbecoming.” I knew of whom he spoke and could not disagree. On this subject and others, his arrogance is unbecoming.

I would love for this sweet man and his husband to become friends with the young, gifted pastor, and sit back and watch what happens. That is how lives change, one relationship at a time, arrogance replaced with understanding, judgment replaced with love.

And, God willing, so it goes.

A Welcome and an Expiration Date

I do not understand how Christianity went from a religion of love to one of conditional judgment. Rather than listen to the Jesus who talked about loving enemies, we somehow gravitate toward the desert religions and their economy of scarcity. Only a few can win. Everyone else must lose. The problem is no one wants to admit they see life that way. They want to project a different image, one that includes a warmer embrace. They know their judgment is a marketing problem and a public relations nightmare, so they feign acceptance. But in so many ways that embrace is disingenuous.

Christians often tell us God accepts us as we are, but we are also clearly informed if we do not change to become what the powers that be want us to become, we will ultimately be rejected. The window open for the required change may vary from one Evangelical camp to another, but in all of them it eventually closes with an ominous thud. We are left on the outside because we did not perform as expected. Love does not win. Judgment wins.

We have recently seen many Evangelical churches telling the LGBTQ community they are welcome just as they are. What is reserved for later is the more ominous message that unless they change their fundamental identity, their welcome has an expiration date. These churches have every right to hold their opinions, but I wish they would stop their bait and switch tactics. Put the expiration date in large letters on the outside of the package. Warning: Unless you stop your sinful behavior, God will not allow you into his heaven.

In my neck of the woods, the senior pastor of one megachurch spoke from the pulpit about his acceptance of a transgender member, and even wrote about it in one of his books. Yet he later informed her she was living a sinful life. I have no idea whether the decision was his or was handed down from the church elders, but the bottom line is that a woman was horribly misled.

I was asked by a social service agency to vet an Evangelical pastor who wanted to provide services to the agency. I decided not to waste anyone’s time and forthrightly asked, “Do you believe all homosexual relationships are sinful?” The pastor said, “We judge no one.” I politely suggested he had not answered the question.

I asked again, “Do you believe all homosexual relationships are sinful?” After half an hour of evasive answers the pastor finally admitted, “Yes, I do.” I thanked him for his honesty. He expected me to argue that his church should be fully inclusive. I said, “You have every right to hold whatever position you want to hold. You are a smart guy and this is an independent church. But we cannot allow you to host meetings with gay teens in the agency office when we know eventually, some day, somewhere, you are going to tell them acting on their homosexuality is a sin.” I have not heard from the pastor since.

To all who want to show your “acceptance” of LGBTQ people, but know good and well your theology is not going to change on the subject, do everyone a favor. Please stop leading these people on. These souls want a church family who will love and accept them as they are. They do not need to hear you tell them about your struggle with being overweight, or your inability to eliminate your lusts or control your anger. They do not need your evasive metaphors. They need the truth. If you cannot accept their sexuality, let them go. Please.

Put Down the Fork

I had a college professor who taught there was never a time for anger. A student from New Jersey challenged him with the Bible’s many passages about God’s anger. The student was dismissed with a quick, “That’s different.” The truth is anger is an important human emotion. If we deny our anger, all we do is turn it inward. Anger turned inward becomes depression.

I spent part of my childhood in the south, where people are not inclined to express much anger. I had to wait until I moved to New York to see a culture in which anger is readily visible. Initially I was taken aback. As time went on, however, I found people who expressed their anger were more likely to be honest with me. I liked that. I knew where they stood.

A few years ago a New York co-worker told a story about walking in Manhattan. My friend yelled at an aggressive cab driver, reminiscent of Dustin Hoffman’s famous line from Midnight Cowboy, “Hey, we’re walkin’ here!” The driver, unfazed, yelled back. Lots of blue words filled the air before my friend realized the cab did not have a fare. He asked, “Can you take me to LaGuardia?” The cabbie answered, “Sure, hop in.” Only in New York.

Another friend wrote to say he was glad my anger was dissipating after having been let go from the ministries I served. He said he had considered speaking with me about it. This particular friend is one of the truly good guys, and I would have been willing to receive his words, though I’m not sure he fully understood the necessity of my anger.

It caused me to reflect on why we Christians are uncomfortable expressing anger. Why was it only Christians who felt free to tell me they were pleased I had moved beyond my anger? None of my non-church friends said a word about my anger, other than to question if I was repressing it.

Sometimes we Christians are so focused on right thinking we relegate feelings and emotions to a back burner, as if they were lesser expressions of the human condition. As a child I was frequently admonished, “You can’t trust your feelings.” Seriously? When Cathy counsels people she often asks, “Where in your body do you feel that?” She asks in that way because if she simply asks, “How did you feel when that happened?” many people will have difficulty answering. They have been taught not to identify their feelings and never express their anger. When I am working with couples and there is no anger, I know there is probably significant denial and, more than likely, little passion in the relationship.

The problem with anger is not that we feel angry, but that sometimes we remain too long too angry. When we refuse to leave the table at the dinner of anger, we cannot see it is our own selves we begin to consume. After properly feeling and expressing our anger, we need to begin the hard work of examining the cause of our anger, often a deep hurt of some kind. But we won’t start healing the wound until we allow ourselves to feel the anger.

Like most things in life, the healthy place is in the middle, allowing ourselves a seat at the table of anger, but knowing when its time to put down the fork and begin the hard work of healing our wound.

My non-church friends knew they could trust me to put down the fork when the time was right. They did not feel compelled to tell me they were glad I had moved on any more than they would have told me after two hours of mountain biking that they were glad I was back in my living room. Anger is just a part of the journey, and an important part at that.

Finding the balance between repressing anger, expressing anger, and moving on is tricky business. Most of us need a little help determining when it is time to push way from the table. And it is not particularly helpful when people push us too fast in either direction.

(As I often do before posting, I sent this column to a couple friends and asked for their comments. I sent it to an Evangelical and to a non-church friend. The Evangelical had a suggestion or two, but for the most part thought it was ready to publish. The non-church friend asked, “Are you sure you have really dealt with your anger?” And so it goes…)

 

Moving On

There are certain passages on this journey that take us from one world to another. The change is always bittersweet. Today’s post is for the friends who were a part of the movement of which I was a part for so very long.

Friends,

I want to thank you for nurturing me, caring for me, and giving me a place in which to grow and serve. The egalitarian nature of our movement was unique and well suited for someone with an entrepreneurial bent like me. Through its structure I got to rub shoulders with others with similar ideas, desires and abilities. And we all got to work together to make a difference.

I was particularly blessed to spend time with fellow workers in church planting, and with a host of church and megachurch leaders. It was life giving. I will always be grateful for what you brought to me.

Working with Christian Standard was a delight. So many of my friends thought the magazine was irrelevant and dated. But we worked hard to make it strong, and people took notice. I have great respect for Mark Taylor, the contributing editors and staff.

Working with the Orchard Group was the highlight of my career. I got to serve with amazing people and great church planters, all hard-working servants who made me look good. Brent Storms is a very good leader with a heart that always wants to do what is best for the ministry and the people involved with it. The staff and board struggled greatly when I told them I was trans, and they did the best they knew to do. They are good people, all.

I still believe in our tribe, the one with no name. Restoration movement seems dated. Independent Christian churches seems the most descriptive, because, God knows, we are pretty independent. I miss our tribe. I have returned to the church, but I know I will not be able to return to the movement. It is what it is.

There has also been another side to my departure, also difficult. Cathy is a psychotherapist and was talking the other day about how often conversations stop far too early and people act based on inaccurate assumptions.

There have been assumptions made regarding my transition. Some were inaccurate. When you consider transitioning, you are encouraged (and wisely so) to “try out” your new persona in a safe environment. I chose to do that in a blog (not this one) that is no longer online, though much of its content was incorporated into this blog. When people looked at the timeline of that blog, some used that information to “prove” I knew I was going to transition long before I made it public. The truth is I went back and forth on the issue for a long time, and did not make a final decision until the summer of 2014. Those close to me are well aware of the timeline. Why others felt the need to “prove” my supposed duplicity, I’m not sure. Like I said, it is dangerous to make assumptions about people’s motives.

Did I make mistakes? I did. I have made amends in those cases in which I was aware of my errors. I intended no harm, but if you are human you can’t avoid saying or doing some unfortunate things. It’s all a part of the journey.

Do I have anger that remains? Periodically I do. It is difficult to be ostracized from your church family because of who you are. It is even more difficult when people attack your motives and tell close friends that I “was not the friend I claimed to be.” Those folks also acted on inaccurate assumptions.

On the whole, however, my positive memories of the movement far outweigh those difficult moments. There are thousands of good people I came to know and love, and I miss them.

Time moves on, and I move forward in a world that is able to accept me as I am. These people are no better or worse than those I leave. They have their own assumptions, some correct, some not.  But hopefully, all of us can stumble our way toward the goal we share, the reconciliation of the creation to the Creator. I pray we can be effective in that great endeavor, even if occasionally it is in spite of ourselves.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

All is Calm, All is Bright

In my first book, Laughter, Tears, and In-Between, I wrote a story about singing a solo in church when I was nine years old. Singing in church was not unusual. Most often I sang on Sunday evenings, mornings being reserved for adults and all.

Schumacher Elementary School had inaugurated a program teaching German over the classroom loudspeaker. It worked well enough for me to learn a few words and sing Silent Night in German.  My mother insisted I sing it at church. I was terrified. This was not the same as belting out America the Beautiful. This was a foreign language, at Christmastime.

But the choice was not mine, so there I sat on the second row next to my mother, far forward from our usual spot in the middle of the sanctuary. I wore a red argyle sweater with a white shirt and black bow tie. There in the wrong seat with a heart full of fear, I wanted the entire season to be over. “Please, dear God, take us straight to January?” But there were no miracles. The introduction began and I haltingly started, “Stille Nacht, Heil’ge Nacht, alles schlaft; einsam wacht…” And that was it. I fled out the side hallway and camped behind a pillar, peeking back into the sanctuary.

My father stood to preach and motioned with his right hand to come back inside the sanctuary. But the hallway was my sanctuary and I would not budge.

The service ended and people started trickling out. When no one was left but my family and a couple of elders and their wives, I slowly made my way back into the sanctuary. My brother and the Arnold boys were snickering in the back.

There was no conversation on the short drive home, but when we pulled into the driveway, my brother and mother got out of the car and my father asked me to stay with him. We headed down to Lawson’s store on Copley Road. Dad gathered a few things and then picked up a pack of Wintergreen LifeSavers. When we got back in the car he gave me the LifeSavers and patted me on the knee. Those were the best LifeSavers I ever tasted.

In my book, that is pretty much where the story ended. I used it as a sermon illustration a time or two, and retold the story in a Christmas Eve service.

Five years ago I was taking one of the final courses for my doctoral degree, a class on psychotherapeutic groups. One day we were asked to come to class with a story from our own background. Since we didn’t want to appear all that vulnerable, everyone in the class chose a subject that was not too personal. I chose this story, well rehearsed and deep in my past.

One of the instructors was a remarkable therapist from a Colorado retreat center. When I finished the retelling of my Christmas to forget, she asked, “Do you know why your mother did not come to get you?” I was stunned. Instantly my eyes welled with tears as I contemplated the fact that not once, not now, not ever, had I asked myself that question. After a long silence I replied, “It never occurred to me that it was something she might have done.” In that way therapists have, she replied, “Oh my.” My fellow students sat in silence, respecting the gravity of the moment.

After awhile the therapist said, “Cathy would have come to get you.” I cried so very hard. She was right. Cathy, with a heart of grace and a soul of compassion, my best friend and companion for the past 42 years, would indeed have come to get me. I know it beyond a whisper of a doubt.

She still will.

I Am

When I was a child I lived in a pleasant neighborhood on the west side of Akron, Ohio. Maple Valley was a safe enclave with good schools and kind neighbors. In 1960 my friend Bob and I held homemade placards proclaiming Nixon and Lodge and waved them at passing cars. Our efforts were superfluous. Pretty much everyone on the block was a Republican.

When I was in the ninth grade fear began to grip our neighborhood. We were all of European ancestry and African-Americans began buying houses on our side of Copley Road, the unspoken boundary in the process known as red-lining. “For sale” signs went up overnight and parents began whispering nervously. The elders at our all white church decided to sell the parsonage and buy another in a “safer” part of town. I blindly accepted it all as normal, routine, even necessary. Everyone said the neighborhood would crumble, crime would increase, and we would never be safe again. Except none of it turned out to be true.

My old block looks remarkably as it did when we made our fast getaway almost 50 years ago. Yards are tidy, fences are painted, children play on the side streets and life goes on. The neighborhood appears to be racially and ethnically diverse, certainly a place in which your average Millennial family would feel at home. The truth was obvious. There had never been a reason to leave.

I regret I grew up in a culture that endorsed such racism. I regret no adult showed me a better path or a deeper way. My racism was inherited, implied, and subconscious. I would have said I did not have a racist bone in my body. And of course, I would have been wrong.

Silence is part of the problem. We think, “Well, we are not a part of the opposition, so that says something, right?”  Yeah, I don’t think so. When it comes to justice there are really only two options. You are a part of the problem, or you are a part of the solution. Remaining silent is unacceptable.

When a newspaper posed the question, “What is wrong with the world?” G.K. Chesterton replied, “I am.” Had the newspaper asked, “What is right with the world?” Chesterton might have given the same answer, “I am.” We are all the problem. We are all the solution.

I am pleased to be a part of a church that is racially, ethnically and socio-economically diverse. Yet the little town in which I live just voted down a measure that would have brought affordable housing into our prosperous white enclave. Something seems out of kilter being a part of the solution in one place, and a part of the problem in another. While I voted for the affordable housing, I did not canvas the neighborhood in support of it. It only lost by a few votes. I could have made a difference.

The gap is widening between the comfortable and the desperate. The solution is not complicated. It is simple. The solution is me. When it comes to making this world a better place, I am the problem. I am the solution.

And so it goes.

Am I Crazy, Or…

I suppose it is understandable that I have devoted a lot of words to trans issues. As I have written several times, embedded within my identity are responsibilities, and I don’t aim to shirk them. But should we really be devoting this much time to this issue? Could it be possible more pressing issues need our attention?

I have been shocked by the never-ending protestations among Evangelicals on LGBTQ issues since the Supreme Court decision and the media focus on Caitlyn Jenner. Concerning gay marriage, Albert Mohler, president of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville said, “Marriage is the ultimate social issue.” Okay, Al, really?

When you woke up this morning, there were over 19 million refugees in the world. Four million are Syrian refugees. Bashar al-Assad became the ruler of Syria in 2000 and when protests erupted as a part of the Arab Spring, his regime responded with gas and barrel bombs aimed at his own people. Assad wanted to take attention away from his atrocious government, so he targeted Sunni communities in the hopes of turning the civil unrest into a religious war between Shiites and Sunnis. His ploy worked. Sunnis from all over the Middle East came to fight against Bashar al-Assad’s Shiite government. The fear of ISIS then caused Iran and other primarily Shiite nations to support Assad, playing into his shrewd hands. Raging in Syria is a civil war with planetary implications. Yet here we are, focused on gay marriage.

Over 200,000 Syrians have been killed by one side or the other since the beginning of the Syrian civil war. One in five residents of Syria has fled the country. Every single day, thousands travel 3,500 miles over land and water to reach the few welcoming nations of Western Europe. Though they recently stepped up border controls, Germany has been the most supportive. Syrian refugees call Chancellor Angela Merkel, “Mother Merkel.” (Should we be surprised it is a female head of state who welcomes the homeless?)

While four million people have fled Syria, the United States has agreed to accept 10,000, one in 400. I guess we’re too busy watching Caitlyn Jenner’s reality show and choosing among the zillion Republican candidates who intend to somehow overturn the Supreme Court decision on gay marriage. We don’t have time to devote energy to housing the refugees of a brutal war. We are in the midst of the most serious refugee crisis since World War II, yet it took the picture of a dead child in the arms of a Turkish border guard to bring attention to the plight of millions.

Still, Evangelicals focus on gay marriage and trans rights. Last week I was interviewed by a Denver area newspaper because a transgender member of an Evangelical megachurch was barred from attending her church’s women’s retreat. Millions are fleeing their homes, and a megachurch focuses on a single transgender member who wants to go on a retreat.

I mean, that’s kinda like one potential shoe bomber causing an entire nation to have to take off its shoes, while between 1999 and 2012 there are 179 school shootings and nothing is done to stop the proliferation of firearms. Uh, wait a minute. That actually happened. Maybe I need to find a different illustration.

So you tell me. What should we be focusing on? Should it be the straw man we’ve created who has supposedly threatened the fabric of Western Civilization, or should we be focusing on the 19 million refugees wandering our planet who are desperately searching for a new home?

You tell me?

Life and Love Without Labels

My mentor was a retired Roman Catholic seminary rector with whom I often had lunch. During one afternoon at Joe’s Pasta and Pizza in Bay Shore, New York, I asked Jim about his rather unique use of the word conversion. With his smiling eyes he graciously answered: “There are moments in life when you come to two paths and must make a choice. You choose a path and are greatly surprised where it takes you and what it demands of you. If you allow the choice to shape you, it can be a moment of conversion. I have had four in my life.”

I do not remember what his conversions were, because I was too busy being self-referential, thinking about my own conversions. (Alas, the lessons we miss by not listening.) Not long before he died, Jim told me he was entering his final conversion. He said, “I am dying, and I must let go. I must fully let go and give myself to Jesus.” I miss Jim, but his spirit remains in me.

My first conversion was when I came to realize I knew better than to follow my church with blind obedience. I like Derek Flood’s language in his book Disarming Scripture. He says there is unquestioning obedience and there is faithful questioning, and the Scriptures give examples of both types of people, frequently at odds with one another. I knew I was not like most other people in my world. I was a faithful questioner.

Another conversion came when I accepted the role as CEO of the Orchard Group, a position I did not particularly want, but knew I needed to accept. Taking that risk caused both the organization and me to grow exponentially.

My call to transition to Paula was the most profound conversion of my life, but I’ve written enough about that, so we’ll leave it alone. My most recent conversion was, like the others, unexpected. Given the church’s rejection of me, I assumed my years in the church were over. It was a big loss, but one over which I had little control. My spiritual life would have to proceed where two or three were gathered together.

Then on June 21 I was surprised by joy. I attended a worship service at Highlands Church in Denver (highlandschurchdenver.org) and cried clear through the service, from one end to the other. Jesus came in the form of my friend, Jen Jepsen, who loving placed communion in my hands. It was a moment of profound conversion – the body of Christ, broken for me. I knew I was called back to the church.

Two months later, on August 30, 2015, the worship was excellent, the building inviting, and the weekly communion a celebration of life together, just like it always is. But on August 30, I preached! Jenny Morgan, Mark Tidd and Rachael McClair (the pastors) invited me into their home and trusted me to fix dinner. It felt completely and utterly normal. I did what I was created to do and for the first time I did it in the right body, the one my soul always inhabited. The response was amazing, incredibly warm and affirming. And the best part were all the people who talked with me about the Scriptures I used and what those stories meant to them. The fact I was trans was, if not exactly incidental, not really all that big a deal either, because Highlands Church lives its ethos.

This past Sunday was the church’s sixth anniversary. Jenny preached a thoughtful, well-crafted message about a community covenant based in humility. The church planter in me estimates the church is running 500 to 600 people, pretty good for a church started from scratch.

I ask myself what accounts for that growth? I know it wasn’t great funding or denominational support. Highlands had neither. I think it is the leadership with which the church is blessed, and the ethos Mark Tidd penned nine years ago, three years before the church started. Spirit-inspired, that ethos permeates the building and the people within:

Married, divorced or single here, it’s one family that mingles here

Conservative or liberal here, we’ve all gotta give a little here

Big or small here, there’s room for us all here

Doubt or believe here, we all can receive here

Gay or straight here, there’s no hate here

Woman or man here, everyone can here

Whatever your race here, for all of us grace here

In imitation of the ridiculous love Almighty God has for each of us

And all of us, let us live and love without labels!

A Butterfly Kiss in a Hurricane

We pray for times we can rest up for whatever is going to happen next. Maybe it will be the death of a loved one, or the end of a long marriage, or the loss of a career. We do not know what it will be, but sooner or later every human knows great pain.

I remember the day my father drove home after returning from his own father’s empty deathbed. He was coming to collect us for the funeral. I greeted him at the door and he did not say a word, though he gave me a hug like no other. I was not quite 10 years old, old enough to feel his pain. For months I made cemetery roadways from marbles and drove my pretend hearse through the quiet resting place of those who had moved on.

When my mother first saw me after the death of her father, she dissolved in tears in a way that alarmed me greatly. I still remember my fear as I stood in that dark staircase, my mother’s tears falling from above. My aunt pulled my 10-year-old body close and assured me everything would be all right. I wasn’t so sure.

I remember seeing the email that said, “The executive committee wants to see you this coming Wednesday night. Clear your calendar.” I had no idea a meeting was in the offing, and the sight of the coldly clinical words felt like something vetted by attorneys. Those words were so terrible I felt them with my whole body. Things got worse before they got better.

Jacob lay beside the river Jabbok and anticipated the end of his days. He deserved to die at the hands of his brother. A life of self-serving manipulation had caught up with him. An angel appeared and before he knew it Jacob was in a wrestling match that was still playing out at the light of dawn. It appeared Jacob could have won, since the angel did not seem inclined to continue the fight. But Jacob knew better than to win a wrestling match with God, and with the rising sun he asked God for a blessing.

In this time of resting up for whatever is going to happen next, I have come to know that even in the most tumultuous of days there comes a brief moment in which you realize, “I’ve faced the worst this day could offer and I am still here, all right and fully human, with an intact soul.” It is a moment of blessing, when you realize you were not alone as you wrestled through the pain.

Sometimes this blessing is as light as a butterfly kiss in a hurricane. Yet in spite of the howling winds and stinging rain, the power of that brief kiss is enough to keep the earth spinning, fueled by nothing more or less than a certain kind of love.

It is confirmation this is not a random planet in a boiling cauldron of mindless energy transactions. It is a realm into which life has been breathed, warm and sweet. And no matter the dark words that have invaded your space, in that brief moment of blessing, when the flutter of a silver maple disturbs a darkening sky, you apprehend the truth that this life is precious and holy and deeply good. And that is enough. For all of your days, that is enough.

 

Ten Lessons

Last week I wrote about my first full year as Paula. This week I write about a few of the most salient lessons of the past 12 months:

1. Coming out faster is preferable to coming out more slowly. There were over 6,500 page views on the day I announced my transition. The hate mail was mean-spirited, but before long the firestorm settled down. People are busy. They move on.

2. You cannot discern which friends will stick around and which friends will leave, but you can be sure a lot more will leave than will stick around. I also realized a number of people would see me once, and never again. If they wanted to maintain a relationship with me, everyone had little choice but to transition with me. For many it was too much to handle. It’s all right. I just have to let them go.

3. No one is going to understand how much you suffered before you transitioned, or understand how staggering your losses have been since, so don’t try to explain it. Just say with Dag Hammarskjold, “For all that has been, thanks. For all that shall be, yes.”

4. Being Paula has been the easiest part of the past year. Living as a female has been very natural, every minute of every single day, without exception. It has been quite a confirmation of the reality I am transgender.

5. This journey has both broadened and deepened my faith. My strongest and most ardent supporters have been very wise and knowledgeable Christians. Their bold discipleship and passion for justice have stoked the fires of faith within my own heart and soul. I owe them a debt of gratitude.

6. I will always be a third sex. In spite of my height, I am usually able to make my way in the world without people realizing I was ever a male. That has allowed me to enter the world of women in ways I never would have imagined. It also makes me realize the many ways in which I will never know what it feels like to be a natal female. That is something I grieve.

7. It is hard to know when to tell people you are trans. Who deserves to know? Who does not? I’m pretty sure the agent at the American Airlines counter does not need to know. But what about my dentist, or the leaders at my church? It’s harder to figure out than you might imagine.

8. Sometimes I have doubted myself. Time is a great healer and I forget how much I struggled before my transition. Yet I live in the midst of great existential losses. One of my therapists said, “Your doubts are understandable. I have been a therapist a long time and I have never had a client go through the unjust losses you have experienced. This was hard before so many people made it unnecessarily harder.”

9. You never get over how much this affects your family. I knew my transition would be difficult for them, but I underestimated how hard it would be. They have shown incredible mercy, unending grace and great love. They still suffer, and I am aware of their suffering every single day. I never get used to it and it is never okay.

10. I have learned Rilke is right when he says, “Winning does not tempt that man. This is how he grows, by being defeated decisively, by constantly greater beings.” The defeats have been humbling, but necessary. Living well means living with ever-increasing consciousness, learning to say yes to what is. I was called to say yes to my true self. When you answer a call, you pay a price. Every sage, prophet and poet knows that. It is the cost of living authentically. And, I believe, it is the only decent way to live.

And so it goes…