A Complex and Perplexing Problem

This week brings the Transgender Day of Remembrance, so I return to the subject I have written about often. Last summer an op-ed piece in the New York Times addressed the issue of malleability in gender. Richard Friedman, a psychiatrist at Weil Cornell Medical College, spoke of two studies that have shed light on the transgender experience.

The first was conducted by Dr. Georg Kranz at the Medical University of Vienna and published in the Journal of Neuroscience. A specialized MRI was utilized to study the functioning brains of four different groups, natal males and females, male to female transsexuals, and female to male transsexuals. All of the trans participants had not yet begun hormone therapy, since it is known that brain structure changes with cross-sex hormones.

The findings supported the hypothesis that gender dysphoria is neural in its origins. The MRIs of both groups were about halfway between the natal males and females. What accounts for the findings? It is known that biological sex develops in the first trimester of gestation, while the brain’s sexual wiring does not develop until the second half of pregnancy. The study makes the educated assumption some kind of glitch occurs when the brain is wired with its gender identity, leaving a brain not in sync with its corresponding body.

The second study was completed by the Karolinska Institute in Sweden. They followed 324 transgender individuals for 10 years post-transition and found the incidence of suicide 19 times higher than the population at large. Friedman did not mention that the study was of people who transitioned before 1989, a time when virtually no society was welcoming toward transgender individuals.

Dr. Friedman does not believe the Karolinska study shows that transitioning is unwarranted. To the contrary, he acknowledges that transitioning resolves gender dysphoria. His question, which remained unanswered in the article, is why does transitioning not make for a better life? Fortunately there are more recent studies that answer that question.

A study of 1229 transgender individuals published in August of this year showed 35 percent of the participants had seriously considered suicide. But the additional findings of the study shed considerable light on the reasons for that suicidal ideation.

First, transgender people who had the support of their families had an 82 percent lower rate of suicide than those who did not have family support. The study also showed that transgender people who were not a part of a racial/ethnic minority and had a higher level of education had far lower rates of suicide. Additionally, transgender people who “passed” in public reported a quality of life not statistically different from the population at large. In other words, if you are like me, white and educated with a supportive family, and you can live in your new gender without people on the street staring at you, your chances for having a satisfying life are pretty good. If you don’t have all of those things, it is a different story.

The study showed those who had been discriminated against in employment and housing had a higher rate of suicide, as did those who were subject to physical violence and those who did not have the means to complete the legal name and gender change process. Alarmingly, another study showed that transgender youth whose parents were not supportive had a 13 times greater chance of suicide than those whose parents were.

The biggest indicators of difficulty in transition are alienation from family, friends, and co-workers, and the accompanying deep sense of shame. If the trans person internalizes transphobia, their adjustment to their new life becomes monumentally difficult.

Some have used the suicide rate to attack the transgender community, suggesting these suicides occur because of multiple mental disorders, when the reality is the suicide rate is not high because of psychiatric comorbidities. It is high because of societal issues. When trans people have the kind of support received by the population at large, they report a quality of life in line with the population at large. The problem is that a lot of trans people are not supported at all, but face rejection everywhere they turn. That is the main reason they internalize transphobia.

The debacle in Houston is a prime example. Millions of dollars were spent to create a threat where none exists. There is not a single record anywhere of a trans person attacking anyone in a restroom. But that did not stop the misguided zealots from their shame-inducing smear campaign. The tragedy is that this vilification of the trans community does not happen in a vacuum. Real live struggling trans people in Houston were subjected to a barrage of attacks that for those who do not have the support they need, result in the internalization of shame and transphobia. The hate pedaled in the name of decency will lead, with great certainty, to the suicides of vulnerable trans people. It also perpetuates the global hate that leads to one transgender person being murdered every 29 hours.

We live in a world in which hate abounds, minorities are vilified, and innocent people are slaughtered, often in the name of religion. The solution to all of the hatred is not complicated.

On his last day of public ministry, in answer to the last question he was ever asked by the population at large, Jesus said the greatest laws were to love God and love your neighbor. Everything else was based on those two. Matthew tells us his audience didn’t like the answer and Jesus was greeted with dead silence. Matthew goes on to say from that day on no one dared to ask Jesus any more questions. He made clear what he wanted people to do. They just decided not to do it. And 2000 years later, not much has changed.

And so it goes.

Minneapolis in October

Three weeks ago I attended the OPEN conference in Minneapolis.   A fascinating crowd of dreamers, intellectuals and assorted pilgrims gathered to discuss what it means to be a progressive, inclusive leader in today’s Evangelical-ish church. Speakers included Brian McLaren, Doug Pagitt, Frank Schaeffer, Kent Dobson, and a variety of other better and lesser-known folk.

As with most conferences, the unscheduled conversations were the most enjoyable part of the event. I listened to the heartfelt stories of a few megachurch senior pastors who lost half their members because they became LGBTQ inclusive, but who can now sleep at night. I had dinner with Teresa Pasquale, the author of an excellent book on spiritual abuse called Sacred Wounds. I enjoyed lunch with a seminary administrator who has bravely moved beyond her southern fundamentalist roots. I listened to a brilliant young therapist who helps families work through their children’s sexual and gender identities.

I especially enjoyed the hours spent in our rental house with many of the dear leaders from Highlands Church, grateful that God has led me to such a transparent, devoted community. With the Highlands folk we welcomed the staff from a church in New York and talked late into the night about the bold steps of faith to which God is calling us all.

I’m guessing no one in attendance was a person who believed in unquestioned obedience to the Scriptures. This was not a group that sees the Bible as an inerrant rulebook. This was a group of faithful questioners who see the Bible as the inspired record of God’s people on earth, a guide to understanding what it means to live as Jesus might live today. In the spirit of the Old Testament prophets, they call into question the typical way of seeing things and humbly, yet boldly proclaim the news that the gospel really is good news for all.

Many of those in attendance have been on a spiritual journey similar to my own (well, without the part about transitioning genders.) They grew up in Evangelical or Fundamentalist homes and through a thousand questions processed by curious minds, they all arrived at the station platform surprised and delighted to meet others waiting for the same train. Echoing the words of Carl Sandburg, they all know the travelers on the Sunset Limited are going somewhere beyond Omaha.

We are wired for community, so I should not be surprised these people managed to find one another. No one wants to blaze a trail alone. There were common names that played a part in all of us buying tickets to the same destination – Mary Oliver, Phyllis Tickle, Wendell Berry, Brian McLaren, Rob Bell, Richard Rohr. All are people on similar journeys, though Phyllis Tickle’s journey has moved to another plane.

There was a ten-foot wild goose hanging from the ceiling at the church building in which the conference was held!  Yep, a little odd.  Yet it sent our thoughts to a poem treasured by many, Mary Oliver’s Wild Geese, a poem I memorized years ago. On the final morning the poem was quoted, acknowledging what many were feeling, “You do not have to be good. You do not have to walk on your knees for a hundred miles through the desert repenting.  You only have to let the soft animal of your body love what it loves.”  The poem ends with these life affirming words:  “Whoever you are, no matter how lonely, the world offers itself to your imagination.  It calls to you, like the wild geese, harsh and exciting, over and over announcing your place in the family of things.”

 And so it goes.

Rooted in Love

How my family and I deal with my transition is not a subject for public discourse. But my post from several weeks ago (All is Calm, All is Bright) has had a lot of page views and comments that go far beyond Cathy’s character and our relationship.

The responses invite me to consider a question. What can we expect from marriage? When we marry, virtually all of us hope our marriage will be fulfilling, but most of us are unaware how much baggage we bring from childhood, including deeply held desires for our partner to heal the wounds of childhood. But that is a tall order to fill and far beyond the capacity of even the most loving spouse. The only one who can heal a childhood wound is the adult child herself. And as many of us know, that process is arduous. All a spouse can do is stand by and offer support.

When I wrote that Cathy would come to me still, I was not referring to a childhood need to be rescued form that dark church hallway. Dealing with that memory is my job. With the post I was talking about the nature of the person I married. Cathy is deeply loving and fully devoted to her family. Though Cathy and I don’t exactly know what to call our relationship any longer, our love for one another remains. Many people never know deep love. They only experience relationships that are profoundly conditional, leaving them with little stability.

Cathy and I both struggle to understand how Christianity, a religion rooted in love, has become so completely a religion rooted in judgment and conditional acceptance. When it comes to our family’s life together, we have chosen to be rooted in the unconditional love Jesus modeled for us.

That kind of love does not have expectations the lover will take on our own struggles. The healthiest marriages are those in which each person attends to his or her own unresolved issues, but the couple works together on the one thing they can control, their relationship.

Cathy and I always encourage couples to see their relationships as an additional entity residing in their home. There is mom and dad and the kids, but there is also the relationship. Give it a name if you like, Hope or Joy or Grace. But give it the attention you give your children. It is the one thing remaining when the children leave home.

From our marriage Cathy and I expected to provide a stable home for our children, a base camp from which we could each climb our own mountains, and a secure environment in which we could grow through the decades. Of course we also expected to do it as husband and wife. When it comes to our current circumstance, there are no rules and little guidance. But wherever our relationship takes us, there is one thing we know. Our love remains.

In his book, Why I am an Atheist Who Believes in God, Frank Schaeffer writes, “My hope is that a trillionth of a second before the Big Bang, the energy animating the mystery of matter being created out of nothing was love.” I hold the same hope, that from the beginning and all the way to the very end, it is love that makes the world go round.

And so it goes.

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?