There are countless articles and studies and techniques and opinions regarding how we should teach our children to love their bodies.  I think the general consensus tends to be to encourage them to love themselves “just the way they are,” or to appreciate “what God gave them.”  And in this context, Andy wonders how to be a body-positive parent as a trans person.

I have always felt comfortable being female, never questioned my gender identity, even though I haven’t always fit into the “norm” of what a “girl” is supposed to be.  For me, my questions about how I fit into society’s norms were always role-focused, so I can’t speak directly to the trans experience.  But the more I think about the question that Andy raises, the more I think it’s not a stretch at all, if we think just a scootch more carefully about how we are suggesting our children (and we) cultivate a healthy body image.

My struggles with body image are pretty run-of-the-mill.  I have always thought I was too big.  I have always thought this bit was too small and that bit was too large.  And what I have learned, now that I really DO need to lose weight to be more healthy, is that I never had an accurate perception of what I really looked like.  Now, I’m a people-pleaser from way back.  I learned early on to listen to what others think before I remember to ask myself what I think or feel.  It’s a growing edge, and I’ve re-trained myself in most areas. Body stuff is more difficult for me.  I still hear the voices that tell me that I look like 6 pounds of flour in a 5 pound bag.  Or that those overalls aren’t very flattering.  Or that it is hard to be attracted to me when I have gained a little weight.  Many years in the weight loss community has taught me that I need to learn to love my body as she is right now today or tomorrow or next year, whether I push the scale up a bit or down, I’ve got to love myself in the present moment, AS I AM.

But what if I did not feel comfortable in my body?  What if I wasn’t a girl even though I look like one?

Or what if it were my child…

Love yourself just the way you are…  But what I am feels wrong.

How can I be a body-positive parent when I have gone to great lengths to change my own body?

This is where we need to think deeply about exactly what it is we are trying to teach our children.  It is more than just “love yourself just the way you are,” though that is still a part of it.  We need to be teaching our children a different skill.  Instead of “just the way you are,” let’s teach them critical thinking.  Let’s teach them to listen to their bodies, to listen to their hearts, and to create the self they want to be.  Society’s “norms” told me that I looked like a girl.  I was lucky.  I felt like a girl.  Society’s “norms” told Andy that he looks like a girl.  But he doesn’t feel like one.  Society’s norms told me that my belly was too big and my breasts were too small and my eyebrows were too heavy… And I believed them.  But now I know that my body is too big in places and that means that I can’t do some of the things I want to do.  I know that my cholesterol could be lower and my heart could be stronger.  I still have days when I think that I don’t look like society wants me to look.  But what is more important to me now is that I can’t do some of the things that I want to do.  I still struggle with the voices, but the motivation to change is different.  When I have a daughter or a son, I will do my best to teach him or her to honor personal experience.  I will strive to show him or her what it means to listen to the strength within the self and cultivate a deep body-knowing.

And so, for those of you who were born into bodies that don’t or didn’t fit what your heart knows to be true about your Self, take courage.  You are good and right and beautiful.  I believe that we can be body-positive not just by accepting who we are now, but also by making choices about how we want to be in the future.  It may not fit you exactly, but your body still carries you through the days and nights of living, and will continue to do so when you take steps to change it.  The deepest truth, though, is that your spirit living within it is a miracle.

Is turning and the waves of darkness

Begin to brighten the shores of dawn

The heavy dark falls back to earth

And the freed air goes wild with light,

The heart fills with fresh, bright breath

And thoughts stir to give birth to color.

The intentions are simple, and probably not that different from those I’ve set over the years, but I find that somewhat reassuring.  And yes, they’re intentions, not resolutions.  Perhaps this is a simple semantic difference, but I think it’s more than that.  I think it’s more than Myers-Briggs P vs. J.  A resolution, in my mind, is something limiting, often pejorative, and usually unattainable.  Quit smoking.  Lose 10/20/50 lbs.  You know the drill.  An intention, then, is more thematic, more fluid, and, for me, more useful.

My intentions don’t seem to change much.  I think it’s because life is distracting and busy.  But I spent a lot of time in seminary and in my residency and just in general thinking about who I want to be and what I want my life to look like.  I have a lot of goals (resolutions, if you will) that I haven’t met yet (let’s not discuss how long I’ve been trying to lose weight and be more fit) but I keep coming around to the same few things:

Do more art.

Stop to pause and reflect. More often than you think is necessary.

Love the people I love.  Deeply and truly, and out loud.

Take deep breaths. Often.

Be aware of all that I have, and try not to get distracted by stuff I don’t really need.

Move my body and try not to eat too much crap.

Fight for what is right.

That’s basically it.  This year, though, I’m adding a new one:

Admit I’m a mystic. Live it. 

More on this later.  Here’s the collage:

Happy New Year!

And so, today, on the second day of the year, I am thinking about resolutions and intentions, about who and how I want to be in the world.  I am not really a resolution kind of girl… I tend to set intentions and re-evaluate in a more seasonal, cyclical pattern, every few months stopping to do some artistic reflection on where I am, who I am, and how I want to move forward.  I used to do collages around the solstices and equinoxes, particularly at Winter Solstice, but then I started working in the church, and Dec. 21 got all swept away into the swirl of holiday work and Christmas services.  So, New Year’s Eve or Day seemed like a good shift…  But I’m getting all mired in unimportant details here.  The point is that I’m stopping and reflecting here and now today, and thinking about where I am, who I am, and how I want to move forward from this point.

The title of this blog is “SELAH,” that odd word from the Hebrew Bible, meaning (my paraphrase) a place to pause and reflect on what has come before, in order to move forward into the next verse.  And so, as I am contemplating phrases like, “Pray more,” “Do more art,”  ”Seek rest and balance,” it occurs to me that this is a logical place to which I might return.

I’ll be doing some art today, I hope, and in the days to come.  And I will look forward to using this blog as a place to pause and reflect.  Life has been a whirlwind this past year, and though I always struggle with the stopping and the resting, it is seeming more and more important to my soul.

Happy New Year, friends!

13. This quote from a speechless friend (a friend who is never speechless, at least as far as I have experienced) after the service: “It was so… I mean, it was… just… it was so… :long pause: Well, let me put it this way, there were a lot of butch lesbians in that congregation who were trying really hard not to cry.”

12. On the sanctuary walls around us, an exhibit of art made by children in the congregation. How perfectly perfect!

11. The people who came from far and near to witness this milestone in my life. I am amazed and grateful.

10. The way people are touched by the way that I see the world. From inside my head, it seems so normal and everyday–it’s just the way it is in here.

9. My mother, as she stood behind me with her hand on me during the laying on of hands, had a visceral memory of my birth. What amazing symbolism.

8. The words of the response to the psalm, “We are made from this earth, we are body borne, the spirit indwells, alleluia.”

7. Drummers and a singing congregation, rockin’ out to the calypso beat of an old Harry Belafonte tune. “We are of the spirit, truly of the spirit, only can the spirit turn the world around!”

6. The scent of the cinnamon mixed into the oil that was used to anoint my hands for the work of ministry.

5. All of the carved rosewood symbols of the world religions, the images that made me fall in love with the meetinghouse in the first place.

4. Even under the weight of the hands of so many people, an indescribable feeling of lifting, a palpable sense of being surrounded and buoyed by the Spirit. I was not and am not alone in this.

3. Music, such beautiful music, soaring and floating and winging its way around the meetinghouse, expressing so much more than just words can say, the love and the care and the beauty that is put into such artistic expression. Especially the arrangement of “Testimony.” Thank you, thank you, Justine!

2. A sense of accomplishment and pride in the path that stretches back to the past and ahead into my future. I worked hard, and will continue to do so. I wonder what’s next!

1. The promises I made that day: to be a witness to the human experience, to embody the spirit of our free faith, and to protect the sacred fellowship of all creation.

Tomorrow is the National Day of Silence.  From the website: The National Day of Silence brings attention to anti-LGBT name-calling, bullying and harassment in schools.  Each year the event has grown, now with hundreds of thousands of students coming together to encourage schools and classmates to address the problem of anti-LGBT behavior.   In honor of all the students who participate in this important day of witness, I want to share a reflection I wrote a last year, the day after the Day of Silence.  

April 26, 2008

I was so silent, I forgot.

Sometimes I get so swept up in the business and busy-ness of my own life that I miss something. Sometimes it’s something little that seems really big. And sometimes it’s something that is actually really big but in the whoosh and whirl of the day, gets treated as little.

We must not forget.

We cannot forget that one out of ten (or more) persons we pass by on the street, in the coffee shop, at work, anywhere could be bearing the weight of a secret that feels so terrible that it could crack the whole world open if it was shared.

I grew up in a politically liberal Unitarian Universalist family who did not tell me that a relative was a lesbian, not because they were ashamed or upset, but because it just didn’t register on the radar that it was something that should be announced. Marge and Eleanor were a couple just like Grandma and Grandpa.

Still and  yet, it took me until I was 21 years old to come out, when I knew I was attracted to women as early as age 7. Things are changing, but slowly, and there are still so very many people bearing the pain of shameful silence. Don’t let them stay imprisoned.

Make every day your day of silence.

May we wake every morning with the thought of those who cannot speak on our hearts, and compassion for those who keep them imprisoned: those who are too fearful to let difference be a part of the tapestry of humanity.

May we walk through our days breathing a prayer to the Spirit who fills in the spaces between us: a prayer that all those who are persecuted and silenced and live in fear every day of their lives may find healing and peace and security.

May we end our days with the knowledge that the way to healing is to begin with gratitude for the grace which sustains us, the possibility of change in every heart, and all the people who do not forget.

May It Be So.

My friend, assuming the worst—that her 8 year old had learned to swear—prepared to reprimand and punish, since the pastor’s children really ought not cuss like sailors. And then her son arrived on the scene, equally incredulous, ready to defend his own honor.

It turns out that the ‘A’ word he said was not the one we all assumed. The ‘A’ word he had, in fact, said, was “Alleluia.” You see, the week before at an Ash Wednesday service, the children’s time had included a ritual packing-away of the word “Alleluia,” in preparation for the fasting and reflecting time of Lent. The 6-year old had taken a literal reading of this particular children’s sermon, and elevated the word “Alleluia” to the level of the worst swear she could imagine.

I didn’t understand the purpose of Lent until I went to seminary. That first year I attended a Christian theological school, I watched my friends live—actually live—the forty days of Lent. I had only ever known Lent as a time during which people gave things up, like chocolate, or hitting their brother, and nobody had ever explained to me why they were doing this.

It always seemed kind of strange, and didn’t make much logical sense to me un-churched as I was. And when we did become churchgoers, I did not learn much about Lent in the humanist congregation my family attended.

I participated in an Ash Wednesday service that first year, in which we were encouraged to use the forty days of Lent to repent. Usually we think of repentance as pejorative—when we do something wrong, we must repent of our sin, we feel regret about something we have done, sorrowful or penitent. But in Greek, repentance is most often translated as metanoia, which has a much deeper and more complex meaning.

Meta means after, with, or outside of, and noia means to perceive, think or observe.
Theologically, metanoia is used to refer to a change of mind, a turning, a fundamental shift in consciousness. Further, in the Ash Wednesday service, it was explained that in ancient Greek culture, the soul was thought to reside in the head, rather than in the heart, as we might think today. So, if the soul resides in the mind, and repentance is a change of mind, we can really think of metanoia as a change of heart.

I think of repentance, or metanoia, as a turning. It is the fundamental shift in my consciousness that comes with deep self-reflection, with self-awareness and engagement with my own life’s journey.
Lent, a time of repentance, self-denial and fasting, which is meant to bring the Christian penitent closer to God, can be relevant to us as well. We may be humanist, atheist, Christian or non-Christian Unitarian Universalists, but ultimately the practice of observing Lent is meant to bring us closer to the truth that resides in our own hearts.

We pack away the “Alleluias,” not to be morbid or arbitrarily give up a vice, but because taking time to reflect deeply on who we are and what is important in our lives is a good practice. This is not about random self-denial, but about clearing away the things that distract us from our larger purpose, from our deepest thoughts and highest purpose.

Whether or not we are waiting to commemorate the death and resurrection of Christ in a literal sense, the season of winter is not over yet, and as we live in the chill air of a February afternoon, we wait for the time when green buds will appear on trees and the crocus will peek its tender green bloom from a crack in the still-frozen ground.

When Easter comes, when the spring begins, what will you have turned away from? What old habits and sadnesses will you have left behind? How are you preparing the garden of your soul for the growing season ahead?

If the opposite of success is failure, then, because of the way our society is structured–all about either-or thinking–it’s impossible to succeed, because there is not a human being on this earth who does not miss the mark at least every once in a while. In this world of dualism, you can’t be a little bit successful, or sort of a failure. You’ve either won the war, or not. (that, however, is a whole other story!) You’ve either got the job, or not. And if that’s the way we look at things, then I think we’re living in a pretty dismal world.

It’s funny, etymologically, there’s nothing really icky about the word success. It simply derives from the Latin succedere which means “come after” and the meaning of “desired end” isn’t recorded until the late 1500s. And yet, we get into all this contorting and judging and not listening to our hearts because we are so conditioned not to listen to our own needs around what it means to be successful.

How many of us have kept the secret of our sexuality from our family or friends because the idea of success is explicitly defined as Married to a Member of the Opposite Gender and Populating the World With The Requisite 2.5 Biological Children?

How many of us took a soul-killing career path only because it was what we thought someone else wanted for us?

How many of us go into thousands of dollars worth of debt, stretching ever further from the reality of our means because we simply must have the outward trappings of success to feel complete or worthy?

And how many of us are slowly dying inside because those outward trappings do not fill the longing we have inside? We are secretly sure that if we don’t cling to these things, there would be nothing of us left. How many of us are using the expectations and the need for success by another’s definition to remain trapped in a personal economics of scarcity, constantly trying to fill that hole in our hearts which feels like it is just getting bigger and bigger and bigger?

One of the things I have come to believe in my years of study and self-reflection is that, in fact, that figurative hole in our hearts is supposed to be there. I have come to understand that the empty space is the center of the spiral, the core of the spiritual journey, the place where the creative impulse resides. That empty space is the place within us where God exists, where the divine spark that animates our bodies and our breath fulfils its greatest purpose.

And if we can connect with that empty space, our lives will change. Can we find our way from fear into the creative free-fall? Can we find our way to defining success as the desired outcome of our deepest self: our heart’s wish.

I think we can. And just imagine the possibilities.

May it be so.

A week ago yesterday, she had minor surgery to remove a small mass from the side of her face/neck.  That’s the official story.  I say she had a lumpy-bump-ectomy.  But that’s neither here nor there.  We returned to the animal hospital last Thursday night and brought home a groggy and pitiful dog to be coddled and pampered and taken care of.  When we picked her up, she was, of course, wearing the dreaded Elizabethan Collar :insert ominous music here: which is not to be removed for 10-14 days–at which time the stitches would come out as well.

You might imagine that it has been an interesting week at my house.  The first night, we were up and out in the backyard every 45 minutes through the night.  Things calmed down after that–we got into a routine, and Miss Maia seems to be healing well.  But I wanted to share a few important lessons from the past 7 days at my house:

1.  Things can get confusing and disorienting.  It’s OK to let people help you.  In other words, don’t try to chase squirrels when you’re on doggie valium

2.  Sometimes you have to find a spot to squat without sniffing.  Do the best you can with the information you have.

3.  It can be a smart idea to back up a few steps before you move forward.

4.  Sometimes #3 seems like a good plan, but it doesn’t work as well as you thought it would.  In these cases, try Plan B:  Just plow ahead, moving forward no matter what’s in your way.

5.  It can be a waste of energy to break the cone you’re stuck in.  They’ll just go get you another one!

6.  Sometimes you have to embrace the ridiculous.  Being forced to wear a cone is one of those times.  Just live into the ridiculousness, wear the cone with pride, and trust that it won’t be forever!

7.  Be resourceful and think creatively.  For example, an Elizabethan collar can be used as a leaf scoop, a smell-magnifier, an echo chamber, a battering ram or a treat-keeper.

8.  If you make an extra pitiful face, you might get special treats, and even a cone can’t stop you from getting nose skritches.

9.  When all else fails, try curling up in a pile with the rest of your pack.  It’s sure to make you feel better.  And if it doesn’t, at least you’ll all be awake together.

See you in church!

Lisa (with regards from Maia)