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How lovely
ALISON
'to have the love and acceptance of Mum and her gutsy big brother against all those hypocritical ,so called "God fearing" bigots
who use religion for a crutch.They are not Christians in my eyes.Good story.
ALISON
Hey sis, you are absolutely and sadly correct...
...what really is disappointing to me is that this poor family is forced to defend themselves with the argument that the girl was born this way, and that her father prevented her from growing up as a girl. The issue remains is that they have to defend a child to begin with. What if she hadn't been born with an physical condition; testes and penis and no ovaries or vagina. What if their daughter is a lesbian; their son a homosexual? No matter what, it is heartbreaking because the church has shown nothing of the love of Christ.
Dio vi benedica tutti
Con grande amore e di affetto
Andrea Lena
Love, Andrea Lena
And Yet
With all that, you and almost every other Christian I know run to Church hoping for their bigoted acceptance. I don't get it. I stopped believing in disorganized religion a long time ago. I sleep better for it.
At my age, dear, I hardly run anywhere...
...I've tried to practice my faith here; what I and some of my friends believe is part of my calling in life. I do hope that I've at least shown some of the faith I profess. I have had my stumbles here; writing something entirely wrong to someone and hurting another in the process. Being unfairly critical to another. That I am human, I have no doubt at all, but I pray that I can display some love and caring. See you in Manhattan my next visit...maybe in March.
Dio vi benedica tutti
Con grande amore e di affetto
Andrea Lena
Love, Andrea Lena
From you, no appology necessary
RAMI
Andrea, from you of all people, I do not think an appology is necesssary. You stories are for the most part filled with some sorrow, some disappointment, but most of all the feeling of hope and a better tomorrow, even if that better tomorrow is not imminent and perhaps an illusion.
That you have a deep faith should be evident to all. That some churches and sects have not reached your level of faith or share your faith in a loving and foregiving Jesus is their problem not yours.
If on occassion you have slipped, and harmed someone, it is obvious that that was not intentional, and you have been quick to appologize.
As to this chapter, the protrayal of the various reactions to Randall revelations and his change to Rachel, seem to be realistic. His/Her close family support her, her close friends do the same, and those at church are divided.
Her biggest champion is turning out to be her 14 year old brother. Despite him raising issues about his father's conduct, he obviously learned something about being a man and defending his family from him before he died.
The reaction of the general will be interesting to see.
RAMI
RAMI
I agree with Rami, hon
Despite the odd slip-up, you act more Christ-like than many pastors and church leaders do. And good for her brother for standing up for her.
"Treat everyone you meet as though they had a sign on them that said "Fragile, under construction"
dorothycolleen
Most of them are like that.
I never can understand why people flock to churches so much in America anyway. "By their fruit ye shall know them," and all that. A country that still indulges in ritual judicial human sacrifice, that runs obcenities like the Guantanamo Bay Concentration Camp, that uses Torture, and to hide it has it done in third world countries for it, and that wages war all over the place, and what do you know? - it is full of damned Christians.
The joke is, if the founder of their religion were to visit one of their meetings he would never recognise them as followers.
But how lovely to have a big brave brother like that to protect you.
Sorry for blasting off at you all like that, but may be you'll think over what the rest of the world thinks about you some time, and then try to be a wee bit nicer?
Briar
Briar
Way to go, Garrett!
I was wondering if someone would bring up the fact that she was a girl all along, and she had been forced to cross-dress by her father. Well done!
I'm really enjoying this story, and I really want to read more of it!
Wren
Rachel's Complicated Life, Chapter 5
I totally agree with Garrett! I can see a splitting of this congregation over this.
May Your Light Forever Shine
May Your Light Forever Shine
Yep, I know that story!
It has been six years now, almost to the day. I was Foursquare (basically pentacostle, evangelical), and attended a large church in Hillsboro, Oregon. I was extremely devout; on my way to Bible School, but for some reason, Gwen chose that time to demand to be seen and heard.
So, I had one experience where I wore a very pretty skirt suit to church, no one recognised me, except one person, and they gave me the, "Hang in there son, Jesus will heal you" talk. I have heard of people like us being bodily thrown out, or worse, of churches. Later on that week, I had breakfast with the Pastor and he told me that he totally supported me but please not to go back to that church as they would eat me alive.
The anger and bitterness about it all has pretty much burned its self out, but I hope that people can understand why I would look for and find religious expression that would accept me and I did, but as a Muslimah.
I know that lots of other T folk have had the same experience. Hopefully, in time, we realise that God does not reject us. It is the ignorant who do.
Much peace
Khadijah
Blessed words indeed
I have never been a devout worshipper, even if I am, nominally, an Orthodox Christian. To me, faith, is more of a marker, a certain set of ideals, and the Church is a construction that lies on the foundation of those ideals. But if the foundation was created by a single person, the construction was created by the followers, a brick or a stone at a time, and everyone's contribution to it was differing from others. Some created a beautiful chapel of Acceptance, Unconditional Love and Hope, the others cobbled together a cloister of Ignorance, Power-Mongering, and Self-Aggrandisement. Me, I'm the visitor to the chapel.
Faraway
Big Closet Top Shelf
Where you can fool around like you want to and most you get is some bemused good ribbing!
Faraway
Big Closet Top Shelf
Where you can fool around like you want to and most you get is some bemused good ribbing!
I also know but in a different way
You see I am Presbterian and I was accepted with open arms by my church First Presbyterian of Palo Alto, California!
I stood up in the pulpit and told my story of transition!! Later thiose people elected me to be an ordained Deacon
in their church. I have recently moved to Columbus,Ohio and joined another Presbyterian church here!! Again I have
told my story and been accepted!! So don't paint all Christians with the same brush!! Some do follow Christ's
teachings!! BTW I am SO PROUD of Garret!!! Now there is a man!!
Pamela
way to go
great job, garrett
I LOVE this!
I absolutely love all the discussion. I think it's neat how we have so many things in common, yet so many differences. This is why I write!!!
I guess I'm a Pollyanna:)
Cindilee
Peace!
Cindilee
Hey I think I know that buffet place
The place is really big with the biggest center buffet island I had ever seen. It's amazing how many places there are along that main drag a mere mile or two from the main gate.
Religious nut cases is a realistic problem in Texas. I mean, really, one of the customers I worked with ( I was sent down as a troubleshooting engineer ) happens to be some kind of part time minister had the gall to ask me why I needed to work if all I had to is to get married. I had to really bite my tongue about that one. Grrrrr.
Kim
Men are pigs (sometimes)
Don't you hate that! I guess getting married solves everything (not)
Cindilee
Peace!
Cindilee
Oh, I so get that, Men are Pigs.
My hatred of Men, I think partially set me up to become a woman. My first real exposure to a Man was when I first met my stepfather, and at that meeting he beat me, swore at me, cut my hair and generally terrified me. He continued that pattern until I left home at 17, though, the beatings stopped at about 15 when I tried to kill him with a hatchet. Here I was, hating men and being one too!
So here I lived my life with a hair trigger around men. I just can not imagine how I stayed out of trouble with the Police. Though this one Lesbian State Trooper nearly threw me in the slammer when she stopped my daughter and I while I was taking her to work. The woman was completely sure that my daughter was a whore, and I was a pediophile for a while at least.
It is odd that after, I got my surgery, had very intensive and extensive counseling that I began to realise that not all men are animals and I really wanted one of my own! LOL
It hurts me to read about Rachael's treatment, but that is pretty much how the church responded to me.
Much peace
Khadijah
How sad.
I can totally see how that would scar you. You should write your story, If you haven't already!
Cindilee
Peace!
Cindilee
not
not that surprized, but i guess what isn't in the norm is always frowned apon. Makes you wonder if the minster asked the advice of his deacons before the service. well see how this tale spins on
Reading the moronic and
Reading the moronic and ignorant comments voiced by the Deacon and others in the church brings me to the following statement. At least 90% of religious leaders today, regardless of their professed faith, show me that they are no better than the Scribes and Pharisee's and "Priests" of Jesus' time. He was all over them about how they treat and treated others and constantly walking around with a "holier than thou" attitude. Oh, by the way, this includes my own religion Roman Catholic. I do love that Garrett stood up and gave both barrels to the Deacon and the rest of them. They certainly deserved what they received.
I agree.
You pretty much summed it up.
Cindilee
Peace!
Cindilee
The saddest thing about that church service is that
I can totally see it happening in the world we live in. While I no longer experience revulsion with organized religion, I could never associate with any church that allowed such words and actions amongst its members. The closest I have ever felt to total acceptance is in the rooms of AA, and even there I do not show my feminine side. It is enough to just relax, look over at a couple of young men who recently joined and are obviously gay, and know that NO ONE in that room will condemn them for who they are. In misery and recovery we are joined as one. To that extent at least. I won't push it to the next level. Perhaps someone younger and braver than I...
SuZie
SuZie
Three cheers for Garrett!
Well done on him for standing up to the closed minds of the congregation and speaking his mind in defence of his newly-minted sister.
I find it somewhat ironic that many Christian traditions appear to have got themselves into a similar mess to Palestinian Judaism about 2,000 years ago. It's been a while since I attended church or studied the bible, but I recall several passages where Jesus criticised the religious authorities of the day for over analysing and over interpreting what he regarded as God's Law, codifying a small set of ideals into a large corpus of strict laws, the breaching of any of which could land you in trouble (harvesting on the Sabbath springs to mind); as well as crafting their faith into an exclusive one, based not so much on who was welcome but who wasn't. Jesus apparently spent a lot of time hanging out with society's outcasts, whilst trying to reform his faith into an inclusive one, where everyone's welcome, regardless of background, wealth, honesty (think Zaccheus - tax collection was hardly the most honest trade!), health or appearance.
Unfortunately, over the intervening years, successive leaders have imposed their own prejudices on the faith, and in an age when vastly more people buy newspapers with a sensationalist attitude that hype up the beliefs / prejudices of their editor (e.g. The Sun, Daily Mail), never letting such trivial things as facts get in the way of a good story, and tend to take on these pre-packaged sets of morals, beliefs and attitudes than buy papers which are more objective and give the facts rather than the opinions; it's inevitable that many people will immediately take on a strongly conservative stance on gender / sexuality issues without showing the remotest bit of interest in the medical facts.
There are 10 kinds of people in the world - those who understand binary and those who don't...
As the right side of the brain controls the left side of the body, then only left-handers are in their right mind!
Garrett the Great in my eyes
Garett Has hit the NAIL ON THE HEAD! He is the best big brother Rachel could ask for he stood up for her in church when a lot of people didn't but yeat a lot of people did. A decon MY rear end he is the south end of a horse (if you catch my meaning) HE OF ALL PEOPLE should not judge HE IS A MAN OF GOD just like the pastor who stood behind the family as he should do & he told the plain straight truth he didn't know how to handle a lot of the information that was given to him.
However he said that he did have to pray over what he was told. but welcomed the faimily to church anyway.
Love Samantha Renee Heart
Love Samantha Renee Heart
Church service
Wow, I wish I had had a brother like him! For that matter I wish I had had a brother period to protect me from idiots! What a nice brother Rachel has.
What happened in Church though was typical I think. Mostly a bunch of idiots who speak like dumb monekys, not forget the monkeys as they are smarter, before getting any facts.
I wish also that my mother would have been stronger too and faced my father who was much like Rachels father.
Oh well, all is well right now anyway. "}
Vivien
Vivi