Our new friend Tracy of Fiercely Loved wrote a blog post about how she’s expanding her monkeysphere and her concept of God by exposing herself to people who aren’t like her, listening with an open heart, and seeing the Divine in each of them.
Sounds pretty darn connection paradigm, right? Pretty darn freak-revolutionary? Most definitely. It touched both of us very deeply.
Some of the phrasing she used, however, triggered one of Kyeli’s landmines, which was planted there long ago by some bad experiences with Christianity. The two of us had a conversation about what came up for Kyeli when she read Tracy’s post, and about our different concepts of the Divine.
We recorded it, asked Tracy’s permission to share it with y’all (which she graciously granted), and are posting it here with all its beauty and warts for you to hear. Here goes. *deep breath*
Favorite quote: “It’s like putting funny glasses with a nose and moustache on the face of God. That doesn’t make it Groucho Marx; it’s still God!”
Have you read the Connection Manifesto? It tells the story of why there is so much hurt and sadness in the world, and how we can heal through connection.
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Found you from my blog friend Tracy. There are a whole lot of people out in the great big wide world who are like Tracy. The mean-spiritedness of evangelicalism is no longer defended mindlessly with bible verses and theological codes. Kindness is the new doctrine in many circles I travel in. I’m so glad Tracy found you so you can know her circle of Christian kindness.
Oh, anybody who is a Seth Godin fan is an instant hit with me. I love that guy, and I’m not a marketer or advertiser. But I am a human being and his insights on people are amazing. So amazing that when I was visiting Powell’s, the best bookstore in the west here in my city of Portland, I could not resist snatching up a Seth Godin action figure that was for sale. No kiddin’. I now own as Seth doll. Isn’t that crazy!
I plan on listening to the podcast later. I need to hop offline for a bit. I’ll be back!
Pam Hogeweide’s last blog post..Long Overdue Book Reviews
A Seth Godin action figure. That is so cool. We bought one of those for our friend Megan. (:
Hooray for kindness in all flavors!
I’d like to say that Pam is only over here to find different ways to taunt me about the fact that she has Powell’s in her territory and I do not. She’s knows how it tortures me and she follows me around to remind me of my lack! I’m trying to hire a programmer to block all of Pam’s comments anywhere if they have the word Powell’s in them :).
Pace, you and Pam would get along marvelously. I actually thought of her when I first read your blog. She’s a fellow-freak of mine for sure!
Tracy Simmons’s last blog post..“My Song Was Stifled For So Long”
I am so busted. Dangit. I thought my passive-aggressive moves about Powell’s was too sophisticated for detection., (which, btw, I will be at Powell’s next week and my daughter was just there last week and she sold a bunch of books and received over $30 in store credit. Powell’s is soooooo cool for selling books to. I’ve often gone in with a bag or two of books and recouped anywhere from $15 on up…my highest credit was $60 one time. Whoo-hoo for Powell’s!!!!!!!!!!!!!)
I just received an email from a transgendered acquaintance of mine who has stayed at my house before. It was not that many years ago when I would not have been able to open up my home for someone who’s going from being a girl to a boy or a boy to a girl or some place in between or beyond. I describe myself as a recovering evangelical. It is with embarrassment that I recall my former days as a judgmental bible-thumping demon stomping Jesus Freak. I viewed any kind of deviance from heterosexuality as perversion.
It is a long story of how my mind began to change. (you can read about some of it at my blog. click on sex stories in my sidebar)
I am now willing to see people as people rather than people as boy/girl/straight/gay/bi/transgendered.
People are people. The human soul transcends gender. This is my perspective now. And I will not ignore sexual discrimination any more than I would ignore racial discrimination.
Like this past weekend. I was sitting with some people and somehow someone got talking about homosexuality. Two of the people, whom I don’t know that well, began to berate gay people as being wrong for “their lifestyle.” I quietly listened up to that point but then had to speak up. “I think it’s messed up to judge people for their sexual orientation and call it a lifestyle. That would be like telling people who were born with brown eyes that they should have blue eyes instead.”
The conversation came to a stop. No one wanted to talk about equality, but at least the rant against our gay brothers and sisters ended.
And that, as my hero Martha Stewart would say, is a good thing.
:)
Pam Hogeweide’s last blog post..Long Overdue Book Reviews
@Pam: Thanks for sharing that story. (:
Another, more subtle misunderstanding I’ve run into a lot is that people think that gender identity and sexual orientation are on the same spectrum. They think something along the lines of “On one end, there are macho straight men. Then a little further down are effeminate men, then gay men, then drag queens, then transsexual women.” But then their heads explode when they meet their first transsexual lesbian. They think “But you liked women when you were male, why not just stay male? Wouldn’t it be easier?” Yes, it would certainly be easier, but it wouldn’t change the fact that I’m female and need my body to match up with that. It doesn’t have anything at all to do with who I’m attracted to. Maybe a “Transgender 101″ blog post would be a good idea, because I don’t talk about these sorts of things often.
Anyway, this is all a tangent from your actual comment. Back to the topic at hand, thank you for speaking up! I appreciate it. (: