Peeling off the Blindfold!
"Sloughing Toward's Galilee"!
"Christians/ Catholic Workers Gone Bad!
"Peniel: Where Jacob Wrestled With God!
"Peeling Off Our Blindfolds!"
"The Cop In Our Head!"
""See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it? I am making a new way in the wilderness and streams in the wasteland (Isa. 43:10).
I Corinthians 12:13: "For we were all baptized by one Spirit so as to form one body--whether Jews or Gentiles, slave or free, male or female--and we were all given the one Spirit to drink."
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???? Goodbye Mr. Chips! is a book about an English professor who taught in a boys' school for over forty years. When he retired, he would sit on a bench at the edge of the school and recall his years and love for the boys he taught! Mr. Chips loved them all and had no regrets.
??? As I sit at a table in the window of Victor's Piazza and observe? Polk Street, I, too, like Mr. Chips, recall the days of Polk Street when I first arrived. The street was dingy, run-down, and full of young boys selling themselves. There were young transgenders who were terrorized because of who they were, misunderstood, not welcome, not accepted; as time progressed, I saw Polk become gentrified, and the people passing were a mixture, a rainbow of people. I see young and old transgenders, people in drag, young and old Punks, and everyday working people, a rainbow of colors.
??? As for me, I have slowed down. I? walk with a stick for support, my left arm is injured, and I have wounds from being shot and stabbed, and there is a fragment in my head of a small piece of needle headed towards my brain. And like Mr. Chips, I have no regrets. My life has been good, well lived, and well fulfilled; when death comes, I will welcome her with open arms and complete my walk to Calvary. And I am continuing to peel off the blindfolds!
??? Towards the end of my journey, I am troubled by the recent "decrees" of our leaders penalizing our transgender and sixty-seven other gender friends. These decrees are dehumanizing and killing. The president says we only have two ways of describing our gender expressions. However, through the years since 1964, in the evolving study of people, we have found 68 gender expressions. Gender is fluid!
??? Systems of power intentionally maintain themselves, not so much through external force but by teaching us to police ourselves and each other.
????Christofacism does not simply demand external compliance--it seeks to colonize consciousness, making its rigid hierarchies feel natural and divinely ordained. I am still struggling to disarm the "cop in my head", which at one time almost destroyed me.
??? Religious institutions instill an inadequate sense of perpetual morality while positioning themselves as the source of redemption. Gender norms are enforced through subtle social rewards and punishments long before we have words to describe them. Even our most intimate relationships become surveillance sites as we learn to perform acceptability of one another.
In one community where I served as a pastor, one young man was caught, at fifteen, having sex with his girlfriend, and he was brought before his church council and the congregation and made to confess; another was caught masturbating and the same.
????The "cop in my head" does not arrive fully formed but is carved ever so slowly through the years to see only straight, two genders, to see sex outside of marriage as a sin, and so on, with corrections and implied threats. Resistance feels like a sin. Resistance is tough, but slowly, the sin is peeled away that I can attest to! One is born anew!
??? Slowly, as we peel off the blindfolds, we see the resurrected Christ, who offers no words of judgment but acceptance and encouragement for our growth.
??? The way of transformation is through love, loving, and changing our hearts until we embrace the moment of caring for all, in particular, transgenders,? all sixty-seven other genders, all races, creeds, colors, and undocumented immigrants! We all are children of God!
??? St. Francis once took a brother walking with him through town. Along the way, he touched lepers and loved people. Arriving home, the brother asked, "When do we preach Christ?" Francis replied, "We did! Preach the Gospel at all times, only using words when necessary!"
??? So, this old sinner by the establishment will continue to preach like hell, not using words, but love against the oppression of transgenders, the LGBTQ, the undocumented, and our homeless brothers and sisters is freedom! I invite you to open your minds and hearts to all!
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Put me in jail, then. Throw me behind your religious bars since you have dubbed me a breaker of your law. I live my days in the courtroom of your criticism. I move unbothered under the gaze of your gavel. I have no interest in defending myself before your bench. Go on, clench your fists, raise your voice to make your point. Type the rebuke that you must make on my page. Who asked you to come through anyway? Is this rage your duty? We operate under a different set of obligations and get worked up to frustration for different reasons, even though we both claim fidelity to God. If you were interested, which I doubt, here is where my passion lies: feed the hungry, clothe the naked, heal the sick, defend the rights of the orphan, plead the widow’s cause, and woe to you who unjustly enforce God’s Law. Why spend your energy policing me when that same energy could be used to love, fiercely? Justice, mercy, and humility. Go learn what this means. Drew Jackson
Deo Gratias! Thanks be to God!
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Temenos Catholic Worker
P.O. Box 642656
San Francisco, CA 94164
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