Feelings, Facts and God

Work is busier than I ever remember. Long weekdays and weekends as well.

Driving back on Saturday I listened to Chris While and Julie Matthews singing. It was their latest CD … Hitting the Ground Running … which I know I have mentioned before. All of it is excellent … buy it and you won’t be disappointed.

The song Four Walls by Chris While is so beautiful. Sad. Haunting. But beautiful. Fills my mind with thoughts. My heart with feelings. Eyes with tears. Here it is:

Four Walls

by Chris While

Four walls surround me

There are days when they close in

Sometimes I turn them into steel

So no one can get in

I regularly paint them

In different shades of blue

And the only one who breached these walls

Is you

I hang pictures on them

Old faces I love

My own perfect family

Watching from above

There’s an open door among them

That I cannot get through

And the only one

I’d go out for

Is you

But you’re far away now

A distant shining star

So hard to reach you

Or get to where you are

No conversation

No holding in the night

But you’re right here

Beside my heart

A fire burning bright

But you’re far away now

A distant shining star

So hard to reach you

Or get to where you are

There’s no conversation

No holding in the night

But you’re right here

Beside my heart

A fire burning bright

I woke up this morning

So sure you were there

Ah just another dream then

That we can never share

I try to relive it

And bring it into view

But the only one

Who knows my dreams

Is you

I try to relive it

And bring it into view

But the only one

Who knows my dreams

Is you

Listening to it tonight I thought of love. Of feelings. Dependency. Hurt. Pain. Sadness. Loneliness. Beauty.

I thought how precarious a thing love is.

I thought of how it seems that we need to feel loved.

I thought of God. Of feelings. Facts. Reality.

I’m not sure about the truth of these thoughts. They are just thoughts mixed with feelings.

I remember a time when however I felt … whatever I thought … I believed I could talk to God about it.

I think that there’s a strange tension between reality and feelings.

I’ve talked to people who have felt extreme levels of depression and yet have known that the feelings don’t fit with the facts. At the time … whatever are the facts … it’s the feelings that matter.

I know also that at times all a person needs is someone that will listen. They don’t have to say anything. Just being there is what matters.

And so … I can see that whether God is real or not … a belief in God as someone that loves unconditionally … and listens … and cares … even when you feel no one else does … a belief in a God that is like that can make a big difference to a person.

These days I find it hard to believe that God is there.

But.

Well.

Sometimes.

I wish.

Weddings, Transvestites and Jesus

Last weekend was the occasion of the wedding of my niece … or one of them at any rate.

It was great to see family and friends … and the whole occasion was wonderful.

My rather long and shiny fingernails were commented upon.

During the evening Jan … a close friend of Sally’s sister and someone that we’ve known for many years … though not very closely said to me …

“Can I ask you a personal question?”

“Sure … go ahead.”

I’m not sure of the exact words that followed on from here. But Jan was interested in the state of my faith … relationship with Jesus.

We had first met Jan at church … and she and her husband are still actively involved in things … Jan’s husband is closely involved in a well known Christian organisation in the UK.

She was interested in how and why I had got to where I am.

I talked about my questions … my doubts. And Jan answered them in the way that I might have answered them a few years ago.

We sat hand in hand and talked and talked.

“Jan … I’m a transvestite.”

It was a simple statement.

We talked some more … about gender … marriage … sexuality.

Who do I think about having sex with? Am I gay?

Jan’s husband dropped by as well and we talked some more. Sitting hand in hand.

It’s still true that I don’t really understand transvestism. But I know that, for me at any rate, that it isn’t just a sexual thing. It’s an expression of who I am. Andrea isn’t just someone that I dress up as. Andrea is me.

Jan and her husband pointed me in the direction of Jesus. But they didn’t see Andrea as an abomination. They didn’t talk about being prayed over …. being healed … or being possessed.

I know though … from experience … that diplomatic Christians will sometimes say “talk to Jesus about it and see what He says” … as an encoded way of saying “read the Bible and you will find that it says you better change your ways or else!”.

I don’t know for sure if that is what they were saying. And it’s possible that they weren’t.

Just as I would have done in the past, though, they pointed towards Jesus rather than to the church. The church … just like people … is full of contradictions and flaws.

So … can Jesus accept Andrea? Is the question meaningful? If I decided that He can … how do I square that with the people that say He can’t because the Bible says that He couldn’t possibly.

I know that at the moment at least I couldn’t accept a Jesus … a God … a church … a religion that couldn’t accept Andrea. And even if I could it would make no difference because such a religion … church … God … Jesus would be incapable of accepting me.

You see, it’s not that Andrea is a fetish thing. When I talk with people about Andrea I’m talking about me. I think that’s why I was hand in hand with both Jan and her husband at times as we talked. It was personal.

I don’t know where the conversations and thoughts will lead.

But it’s good to be able to talk with other people … and to discover … again … that people cope surprisingly well with accepting me.

Punters, Halloween and Swans

Here’s the Pink Punters picture from 30th October:

The original is here.

Halloween, being in the last Sunday of the month, was a Surrey Swans evening.

Costume was optional … so I didn’t … but I had black hair for a change.

I won a bottle of wine in the raffle.

I couldn’t help but say how horny Billie was looking.

But I was one of the few that didn't say Fangs for the memory to Kathie.

 

And some ladies who dressed for the occasion:

How do I look with black hair?

With Laura:

Here’s Paula … a different Paula than the one at Pink Punters on Saturday:

Paula took this one:

And here’s Tina:

A very pleasant evening.

Pink Punters, Wonder Woman, Cat Woman and Police Woman’s Panties

The Pink Punters visit on Saturday 29th was, as ever, great.

I’m managing to fit everything I need for the night into just one suitcase … not an especially small one … but not huge.

Laura arrived at about 4:00 pm and we set off.

There’d been an accident on the M4, just before the M25 exit, so the trip took rather longer than usual.

Usual kind of start to the evening. Check in. Makeup. Dress. Dinner at the hotel. Change. Then across the road to Pink Punters.

I think we were the first in … at least our names ended up at the top of the first page in the list of visitors for the evening.

We spent a while chatting with each other and then with different people through the evening.

It being so close to Halloween, quite a few people were dressed for the occasion. We met Wonder Woman, for example, accompanied by Cat Woman. There were quite a few cheerleaders around.

Wonder Woman had needed to invest quite a lot of time in putting a red skin on her boots. I never knew you could get such a thing as boot skins.

On a visit to the ladies I was just on my way out when a girl said:

“I can’t see so well … can you tell me what that says?”

My specs are in my handbag … so I can’t see so well either.

But I look in the direction that she is pointing. Stoop down a little and start to read.

“Tonight I am your Police Woman.”

Round about this point I notice the location of the words that I’m reading.

A girl is leaning forwards with her hands resting on the wall … bottom pushed out a little. Jeans slid down enough to reveal the pattern on her panties which are decorated with the words that I’m reading.

My face just a few inches away.

Well … like I said … my specs were in my handbag.

We danced a little. And sat some more and chatted.

Here’s me with Laura:

And again … but I’m not quite sure who we are with:

The Pink Punter photographer did take a picture of us with Wonder Woman and Cat Woman … but it’s not made it to the web site yet.

Talked with a couple of girls at the bar and then later with Paula and Sally.

It was nice to compare some life experiences with Paula. She is a TS. Neither of us really understand “gender” really … but are happy enough just learning to be ourselves. Paula mentioned a work colleague who is also TS but married and usually still inhabits a male world at home … but a female one at work.

Time always passes quickly. At two am all of a sudden it is 1:00 am again.

Eventually … at round about 4:00 am we head back to the hotel. By about 5:00 the makeup is removed and it’s time to get some sleep.