Christlike transvestites

Happy 2011!

Christmas time was good … in a secular kind of way. The past few days we’ve been in Llanbedrog – a small village on the Lleyn peninsula in North Wales and 2011 was seen in at the Nefyn & District Golf Club just a few miles away.

A few days ago I stared reading the book A New Kind of Christianity by Brian D McLaren which was recommended to me by Dani a few weeks ago.

I’m at the end of chapter 19.

And I’m surprised.

Very surprised.

I had thought that there was no way for me back to any kind of faith.

And now I’m not so sure.

I’m not there yet. But I can almost see the possibility.

I’m not really going to write a book review here right now … maybe one day. But I want to capture some of the thoughts and feelings that it has evoked in me … and that requires some mention of what the book says … or at least what it is saying to me. I sense though that there will be some rambling around in this posting.

In my born again days I would have viewed Brian McLaren as a liberal kind of theologian … roughly translated it means I’d have classed him as not really being a Bible Believer.

There are quite a few reasons why my involvement with Christianity terminated. I think that really it began with personal kind of issues. One of these was pornography. I’ve mentioned this issue in previous postings. There was a time when a minister at the church that I attended took me along to a service at another church. Afterwards he asked me if I hadn’t felt inclined to step forward when everyone was invited to … for prayer and healing. I said that I hadn’t. And then he asked me about pornography … which my wife had mentioned to him … or perhaps it was to his wife for her to mention it to him so that he could mention it to me.

We prayed and he gave me a book to read. The book had an unbalanced view of pornography … the kind of thing that gave the impression that all users of porn become child molesters. You know … in the same way that everyone that owns a kitchen knife ends up stabbing naked ladies in showers.

In those days the porn was something I felt guilty about. In the same way that I felt guilty about lingerie.

But the prayers didn’t help that much really. Not for more than a few months.

There was never a real discussion – just an assumption that all pornography in all circumstances is always wrong. And other assumptions – it always degrades the people involved in it – always results in men seeing women as objects to own rather than as people – always exploits people … perverts people.

I’ve said this before … and no doubt will again if I get the chance … I know that porn can do all those things. But … you know … if your honest about it … some brands of Christianity and Islam do all of those things as well. Only its much worse when when you feel that it’s God that is involved because you have no right to complain about it.

Anyway … I’m mentioning this here now because it was a factor that made me feel uncomfortable in a church kind of environment.  And I was growing tired of the discomfort and the pretence that I felt obliged to make that everything was ok.

There were other things as well. I spent a while in secular counselling sessions … alone and also with Sally.

These provided an opportunity to talk about things that had only been secrets before. I think prior to that time I’d never really understood the value of counselling. But to be able to say what you think and feel without the risk of someone wanting to lay hands on you and cast out demons is somehow liberating. In all my years in church I’d never felt that. The dressing thing didn’t crop up. At the time I didn’t know that I was a transvestite … only that sometimes I likes to wear lingerie.

During this time I began to withdraw from church and began to think about what I believed and why I believed it.

I remember thinking things like:

• Did I really believe in a universe or a God where the vast majority of people that had ever lived were going to end up in hell?
• Did I believe in a God that sanctioned genocide .. I guess a holocaust … perpetrated by the Hebrews in the Old Testament against other groups of people in the middle east?
• Did I really believe in a God that disliked same sex relations so much that they were condemned to hell?

The problem was that I’d always been a Bible Believing Christian. And my understanding of the Bible led to those kinds of conclusions.

Mostly I think I’d glossed over them up to then … thinking that well … God is good and God loves people … and He’ll see that the right thing happens and maybe explain it all one day.

But I had reached a stage where these questions … and others … and my own experiences and feelings meant that I needed to discover a different kind of God.

But I couldn’t see any way of doing this without taking out the scissors and cutting out lots of verses from the Bible that I had, up to that point, believed.

And how do I decide which bits to cut out – or to re-interpret. If I just cut out the bits that I don’t approve of or that are inconvenient to me then don’t I end up with a God that I invented for myself?

So … in the end … I put the entire book away.

Of course … even most Bible Believing Christians re-interpret things in the Bible every so often. What once was bad is now ok. Some things that were once ok are now bad. And some bits are just ignored because … well … Jesus couldn’t actually have meant what he literally said could he … so he must have actually meant something else. If you’ve been to church you know what I mean.

Having said all of that … not everything that happens in Churches is bad. Not at all. I’ve tended here to simply focus on things that contributed to me leaving.

So … back to the book A New Kind of Christianity.

For a long time I’ve been pretty sure that I can never go back to the beliefs that I used to have. And I had thought that meant that there was no way back to Christianity.

The book that Dani recommended has changed the second part of my thinking.

Maybe there is a way back to Christianity … maybe what I had been experiencing previously hadn’t actually been the entire thing.

I know that some people (and I would once have been one of these people) will say that what I’m doing is attempting to re-invent God in a way that fits me. They will say that I have to accept God as God … and then do as I am told.

But really … even fundamentalists … pick and choose things. The KJV 1611 people that I corresponded with a while ago have picked a specific Bible version and decided that this is the one … the literal and absolutely only English language version of the Bible … that anyone should believe. But they still decide on how things should be interpreted and understood.

Emily Saliers (an Indigo Girl) penned the following, and I think she’s right:

And as we sat stuck
You could hear the trash truck
Making its way through the neighbourhood
Picking up the thrown out
Different from house to house
We get to decide what we think is no good
We're sculpted from youth
The chipping away makes me weary
And as for the truth
It seems like we just pick a theory
And it's the one that justifies
Our daily lives
And backs us with quiver and arrows
To protect openings
Cause when the warring begins
How quickly the wide open narrows

So … I know I am open to the criticism that I’m re-inventing God in an image that fits me.

Back to the book again.

Brian McLaren sets out to respond to 10 questions that he feels are important with respect to Christianity and people. He says he’s not offering answers to the questions … rather they are responses to them that represent the beginning of a dialog rather than the end of one.

One thing that struck me is that the doubts and questions I had about the do I really believe that God kind of things I mentioned earlier aren’t all that unusual. It’s just that people in Churches often don’t have a chance to air such doubts.

Another thing is the way that he presents Jesus within the context of the Bible. He feels that what you need to do is take the person of Jesus as described in the Gospels and then interpret the Bible through Jesus … rather than the other way round. So … in responding to the question Is God Violent? Brian McLaren starts with Jesus and then looks at some of the passages that seem to paint a violent picture of God … mainly in the Old Testament. The book doesn’t provide any “once and for all” answer or a set of proofs for this. Just the beginnings of a discussion. But the starting point of a definitely non-violent Jesus provides a totally different perspective on the whole question. And … it’s so obvious that this is the right starting point it left me wondering how come I hadn’t realised this before?

The third (and biggest and most important) thing for me is that in summing up what Christianity is all about he puts it very simply.

Being a Christian is about being Christlike.

Nothing more.

Nothing less.

It’s strange how sometimes the bleedin’ obvious gets buried beneath so much other stuff that when it gets re-stated it’s like a breath of fresh air and a revelation.

It’s not about church meetings … nor understanding theology nor having correct doctrine.

And … you know … even people who are not Christians can be Christlike.

And Christians … well … they can be non Christlike.

In a way I knew all of the above.

But in a way I never thought of what it means. A whole lot of what I believed has been turned upside down and inside out … and I’m amazed that it’s giving me a feeling that maybe there is a way back for me. Though really it’s not a way back … more of a way forwards.

I know that some people will say it’s not a way forwards at all. It’s heretical. It’s wrong. Blasphemous. Untrue. An abomination. And that I am headed for hell.

I know also that to some of these people … the concept of a transgendered Andrea is also an abomination.

But maybe some people with thoughts like these will try to see beyond the skirts and dresses that I wear.

I’m not sure yet … but I see possibilities where I previously saw none.

So … if I were to want to be Christlike … well … would Jesus have dressed as a girl? How can I be Christlike and also be a transvestite?

I think my response … and no .. it’s not my final answer … is that the question itself is perhaps missing the point.

Being Christlike isn’t about growing a beard and letting my hair grow longer (assuming that Jesus did these things). Or wearing a robe. Or being a man. Or being Jewish. Or being born of a virgin. Or not wearing a dress. Or avoiding lipstick and earrings. It’s not even about being what is conventionally called a Christian.

Being Christlike is about loving other people in the same kind of way that Jesus did.

It’s more about how I deal with people that are transvestites than whether or not I am a transvestite myself.

It’s not about whether I am heterosexual, bisexual or homosexual. It’s not about the colour of my skin. It’s about how I interact with other people.

Sally is keen that I pop along to a Contemplative Fire get together with her one day – she says it would be ok to appear there as Andrea. So perhaps that will happen at some point – she has asked before but I never saw the point before. It’ll make for a different experience than Pink Punters and Candy Girls, I expect.

I have a lot more to (re)discover.

As I mentioned earlier … I am very surprised.

Thank you Dani.

Funerals, Poems, Hymns, Jokes, Star Trek and Books

The funeral last week was a sad … moving time … but not without hope. At the beginning the 10cc song Rubber Bullets was played. The vicar is a lady … Sally knows her fairly well. Michael was well known for his love of animals … the first hymn was All things bright and beautiful. Louise, the vicar, read words from Michael’s dad, mum and sister. This was, for me, the most moving part of the day. In amongst the sadness, many happy memories were shared.
Louise spoke about Mary, Martha, Lazarus and Jesus. And especially of the words if only and Jesus wept. The futility of the if only and the specialness of the weeping. She even gave the outline of a Vicar of Dibley joke … just the outline because the whole thing wasn’t quite suited to the occasion … the one about the nun and the blind man. She said it was the only one she could remember … something that we have in common. It's really worth watching ... even if you've seen it before:

There was a poem … the text is is:

He is Gone
You can shed tears that he is gone,
Or you can smile because he lived,
You can close your eyes and pray that he will come back,
Or you can open your eyes and see all that he has left.

Your heart can be empty because you can't see him
Or you can be full of the love that you shared,
You can turn your back on tomorrow and live yesterday,
Or you can be happy for tomorrow because of yesterday.

You can remember him and only that he is gone
Or you can cherish his memory and let it live on,
You can cry and close your mind be empty and turn your back,
Or you can do what he would want: smile, open your eyes, love and go on.

I think that these words capture something special and positive that can be taken from death … by focusing more on life.
And the hymn Dear Lord and Father of Mankind … which is one that would make me cry at times - even on happy occasions. I remember the first time I heard it … in a music lesson at school when I was aged … perhaps 14 … selected by Janet Taylor as her favourite hymn when the music teacher was asking people for favourites. Janet Taylor, has, I think, had a previous mention elsewhere in this blog … she wore the shortest skirt in the class.
I still find the hymn very moving.

Dear Lord and Father of mankind,
Forgive our foolish ways.
Re-clothe us in our rightful mind,
In purer lives thy service find,
In deeper reverence praise.

In simple trust like theirs who heard,
Beside the Syrian sea,
The gracious calling of the Lord,
Let us, like them, without a word
Rise up and follow thee.

O Sabbath rest by Galilee!
O calm of hills above,
Where Jesus knelt to share with thee
The silence of eternity,
Interpreted by love.

Drop thy still dews of quietness,
Till all our strivings cease;
Take from our souls the strain and stress,
And let our ordered lives confess
The beauty of thy peace.

Breathe through the heats of our desire
Thy coolness and thy balm;
Let sense be dumb, let flesh retire;
Speak through the earthquake, wind, and fire,
O still small voice of calm.

There was also The Lord is my Shepherd.
At the end, The Eagles with Hotel California.
And then the drive to the crematorium. And back to the church for a while.
A few days ago I was watching an old episode of Star Trek – The Next Generation. It had to be an old one, I guess, since there aren’t any new ones. The title is The Bonding.and a big part of it is about coping with bereavement. This scene, in particular, is – to me at any rate – quite thought provoking:

The dialog between Data and Ryker is:

D: Excuse me sir, am I intruding?
R: No, sit down.
D: How well did you know Lieutenant Aster?
R: We spent some time together. Not very well. How well did you know her?
D: Why do you ask?
R: Well you just asked me.
D: But, why do you ask the question? Since her death I have been asked several times to define “How well” I knew Lieutenant Aster. And I heard you ask Wesley on the bridge “How well” he knew Jeremy. Does the question of familiarity have some bearing on death?
R: Do you remember how we all felt when Tasha died?
D: I do not sense the same feelings of absence that I associate with Lieutenant Yarr. Although I cannot say precisely why.
R: It’s just human nature, Data.
D: Human nature sir?
R: We feel a loss more intensely when it’s a friend
D: But should not the feelings run just as deep regardless of who has died?
R: Maybe they should, Data. Maybe if we felt any loss as keenly as we felt the death of one close to us human history would be a lot less bloody.

How right they are.
Today the book that Dani recommended arrived A New Kind of Christianity so I’m looking forwards to reading that over the coming days … though I think it might be a struggle to keep it away from Sally who has expressed an interest in reading it.

Pink Punters, Surrey Swans, TV Dinners, Ten Pin Bowling, Fingernails, Life, Death and Ecclesiastes

Since last writing things have been busy in a mostly nice kind of way.

Pink Punters on 4th December with Laura was a really nice evening. For a surprisingly long time we felt a little like the only TV’s in the village … but as the evening progressed more people arrived.

The photographer for the evening took these:

Laura and Andrea

And again …

 

The originals being here and here. And lots of the whole evening being here.

We talked a fair bit about life and the universe and things. Things that matter to us. Where we’ve come from. And the at peace kind of feeling that we have in being able to be ourselves.

It’s kind of interesting … we both see ourselves as transvestites and not transsexuals … and yet we bot feel that the girl in us is much nicer than the guy. Somehow there’s a sense of peace in Andrea that isn’t quite there in the masculine side of me.

There were no unusual incidents in the ladies.

On one trip to the dance floor a guy waved at me for some reason and we danced a little with a few of the girls there. A girl said she liked my dress a lot and asked where I’d got it … and we admired each others shoes.

A guy that had drunk rather a lot … or at least it seemed that way … came and sat beside Laura and started chatting. It wasn’t easy to make out what he was saying. After he put his hand on Laura’s leg a couple of times she explained to him he needed to keep his hands to himself. So he wandered off. No unpleasantness. And … well … Laura does have very nice legs.

We headed back to the hotel a little before 4:00 am so it was a relatively early night as nights at Pink Punters go.

The Sunday before that had been an evening at the Surrey Swans. Good to catch up a little with Billie and Kathie, Tina and Emma and others.

The Tuesday after (December 7th) was a Christmas TV dinner at Billie and Kathie’s. As always … excellent food and company. Nikki was there and had plenty to share about trips to all kinds of interesting places. It was great to see Laura, Julia, Tina and Katie as well as others. I was all red and white.. I’d borrowed a Christmas hat of Sally’s to wear so it was quite funny and sweet to see Laura wearing a very similar one. You know the kind … red with white fur trimmings and a white ball kinda thing hanging from the pointy bit. I think it was Nikki that said something about it being impolite to play with each others balls. We just smiled in an innocent girlie kind of way.

Last Saturday we were invited out to the Sunningdale Savoy Chorus Gilbert & Sullivan and Christmas Music evening by Anne and David. Two lovely people that Sally met quite a log time ago and I’ve known for quite a few years now as well. I occasionally help them out when they have computer problems and they are so sweet … they absolutely insist on making contributions to what Anne affectionately refers to as my “dresses fund”. The music was very good. The MC introduced one of the Christmas songs as being one of his favourites … In the Bleak Midwinter. This was also one of mine in days gone by. Especially the verses:

Our God, heaven cannot hold Him, nor earth sustain;
Heaven and earth shall flee away when He comes to reign.
In the bleak midwinter a stable place sufficed
The Lord God Almighty, Jesus Christ.

What can I give Him, poor as I am?
If I were a shepherd, I would bring a lamb;
If I were a Wise Man, I would do my part;
Yet what I can I give Him: give my heart.

These days I sit and listen to songs such as this … quietly wondering.

Towards the end of the evening we sat and drank and chatted a while. David and I wondered a little about where everything came from … big bangs … infinite universes … butterfly effects. And decided that really … we have no idea. Life is such a tenuous kind of thing.

Sally and I had some difficult words. I wish I was more Andrea more of the time. Not so much in a dressed up or made up kind of sense.

Yesterday the company night out was at a bowling alley in Slough. Ten pin bowling is not good for a girls fingernails … even when the girl is a guy. But … I scored a lifetime best … and top score of the evening. But … my poor nails. 

On Thursday is the funeral of Michael. His mum is staying with us tonight and tomorrow. There are no words to say. Perhaps there is a God that can help us all make sense of it someday. Over Christmas I’ll have a chance to read the book recommended by Dani that will, perhaps, help me make some kind of sense of it.

Life is such a mixture. It reminds me of a passage in the book of Ecclesiastes in the Bible:

To every thing there is a season,
and a time to every purpose under the heaven:
A time to be born, and a time to die; 
A time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted;
A time to kill, and a time to heal; 
A time to break down, and a time to build up;
A time to weep, and a time to laugh; 
A time to mourn, and a time to dance;
A time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together; 
A time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing;
A time to get, and a time to lose; 
A time to keep, and a time to cast away;
A time to rend, and a time to sew; 
A time to keep silence, and a time to speak;
A time to love, and a time to hate; 
A time of war, and a time of peace.

Or as it is here:

Somehow though, I think the thing is to try and work out some kind of way to have some kind of inner peace in all of this. But I don’t know how to do that.

Alone or together?

This afternoon I took a late lunch break and a walk.

It’s cold here at the moment … though the term “cold” is a relative kind of one. A friend in Norway told me that it was –15 degrees C there … making here seem quite warm.

Every so often when I’m walking I wonder about things. In a kind of random way, I guess.

I still kind of struggle with the concept of God. Some of the thoughts …

What’s the point of life? Where does it come from? Does it go anywhere?

How come Paul the apostle got to have a visit from Jesus on the Damascus road whilst most people have a whole lot less evidence to base eternity upon?

How could God be aware of everyone … everywhere … all at the same time … and be interested in them?

Last night I took a look at the King James Version website guest book to see what was new there.

People concerned about the possibility of losing their salvation. Of weather a lady is allowed to wear pants. Not a million miles away from me wondering if a guy is allowed to wear lipstick and a skirt.

These are all pretty basic questions that I used to have answers to. Kind of.

I have answers to less of them now. And the answers to some are different than they used to be.

Tonight when I got home my daughter Katie broke the news that the son of a friend had been found dead today. Sally was out at the boy’s grandmothers. No one knows details of the cause yet.

A lady that used to teach Sarah and Katie died of cancer just recently.

I guess I am in a sombre mood. Not depressed. But sombre.

Last Sunday, at the Surrey Swans I was chatting with Laura and mentioned the conversation I’d had with Jan and Jan’s husband at the wedding the other week.

Laura asked me if it was the fact that I’m a TV that causes me problems with the idea of God and / or the Church.

As my friend Dani mentioned to me recently, God is not the Church and the Church is not God.

As I said to Laura, it’s not just the TV thing. There are other things as well. I think they are associated more with the Church concept of God than necessarily with God. But in lots of ways they are problems with my own concept of God based on my own beliefs when I was involved with the Church. So it’s a little mixed up.

For example. These days I don’t think that all manifestations of pornography are bad. I know that some are. But so are some cups of coffee and pairs of trainers (sneakers) when they have been made by people that are oppressed. Neither do I think all people that work within the sex industry are bad people engaged in badness. Again, I know that some are, but my guess is that people involved in the arms trade do a lot more damage to people than the average person that works in the sex industry.

In my church days pornography was bad … even though I used it. I believed that God thought it was bad. So I felt very guilty about it.

So … these days I’m not able to easily get alongside the Church and the God that I once knew.

It’s curious in a way. Over the past few years, for the first time in my life I think, I’ve learned to be happy with who I am.

Yet I feel that the God that I used to believe in wouldn’t be happy at all.

And it’s not easy for me to conjure up a God that is ok with me as I am.

So … I’m a lost kind of Andrea.

But yet, I’m not unhappy. 

For the moment my purpose in life, I think, is to be myself and to live life in all of it’s fullness … which, actually, is almost a Biblical kind of thing.

Tonight though, at this moment, I feel a great sadness for Cathy and John and Phillipa.

Maybe one day it will make some kind of sense.

A song by Julie Matthews from the CD Hitting the Ground Running (Chris While and Julie Matthews) :

Somewhere I walk alone

by Julie Matthews

Somewhere east of here

There is a storm coming down

Oh the hatches battened down

In some sleepy town

Someone’s life is shattered

Into pieces on the ground

Oh somewhere east of here

There is a storm coming down

Somewhere west of here

There is a baby still born

Oh the mother is forlorn

How to carry on

Or fill her empty arms

When all she dreamed about is gone

Oh somewhere west of here

There is a baby is still born

I could be anyone or everyone

I could be anywhere or everywhere

In this lottery of life

With all the cards we draw

Somewhere I walk beside you

Somewhere I walk alone

Somewhere north and south

There are two strangers that will meet

Somewhere in between

Fated it would seem

Drawn together here by chance

Or pulled by destiny

Oh somewhere north and south

There are two strangers that will meet

I could be anyone or everyone

I could be anywhere or everywhere

In this lottery of life

With all the cards we draw

Somewhere I walk beside you

Somewhere I walk ...

I could be anyone or everyone

I could be anywhere or everywhere

In this lottery of life

With all the cards we draw

Somewhere I walk beside you

Somewhere I walk alone

It’s curious isn’t it. I just switched on the music system … it’s playing random selections from a USB stick with over 30 CD’s on it … and it just chose this song as I pasted the lyrics into this entry.

At the concert I was at last month Julie explained a bit of where this song came from.

It reminds me a little of the concept of infinite Andrea’s.

Just a few days ago on a different walk I thought of how the seemingly trivial and unimportant things we do and decisions that we make actually change the affect the whole of our history … future. The people we meet. Marriages. Children. A butterfly effect kind of thing.

Chance and destiny.

Calvinism and Arminianism.

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.