Thought

[Incarnadine]

I enjoyed reading C.S. Lewis growing up, especially the Narnia series and the Silent Planet series.

The movies are a bit of a skew off the books, but that's to be expected.

In this most recent movie, based of the book The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, at the end, Caspian is given the choice to see if his father is in Aslan's country, representative of heaven.

Caspian:  Is my father in your country?
Aslan: You can only find that out for yourself, my son.  But you should know that if you continue, there is no return.

Caspian then approaches the wall of water separating the world and Aslan's country, reaches his hand out to touch the water, then withdraws it.  He turns, and even if you're watching the movie in poor lighting, you can see the redness in his eyes.

Edmund:  You're not going?
Caspian:  I can't imagine that my father would be very proud if I gave up what he died for.  I've spent too long wanting what was taken from me and not what was given.  I was given a kingdom...people...

He turns to Aslan...

Caspian:  I promise to be a better king.
Aslan:  You already are.

Oh boy.  I can imagine myself having this conversation with Aslan, and as a type of Jesus Christ, I can imagine putting Jesus Christ in this conversation.

I would ask all those 1,000,000 questions I have about what I am, what I'm supposed to do, what I'm allowed to do, etc.  Yes - the only way to find out for certain if I'd be happier, more fulfilled, more complete, more obedient, may very well be to pursue transition. 

But Caspian's response has me befuddled.  As many of us do, I feel like I missed what I was supposed to be - what I could have been, could have enjoyed while growing up to become a woman.  I want to chase, to take back what I feel has been taken from me!

But was it taken from me for a purpose?  As Job lost everything but his life and a whiny wife - all for God's purpose - what if what can be accomplished with my suffering is what Jesus Christ needs accomplished in His Church? 

If I spend all this time wanting and seeking what was taken from me, I will miss what I've been given.  A beautiful wife, beautiful children, a church family that loves God, that loves each other honestly and deeply, an opportunity to influence the lives of others, to influence the city our church is in.

As much as it hurts to stay as I am, can I really be so selfish as to give up what I've been given to chase a dream - a dream that I do not know whether or not it will bring me happiness - enough happiness to overcome the pain of the loss of what I've been given?

[Shawn Sunshine]

Interesting thoughts, I like something else I found from C.S. Lewis

In Lewis's view, gender is more than just male and female, and much more than sexuality. He gives his view through both the narrator and Ransom, the chief character in Perelandra. As Ransom relates his having seen the Oyarsa or ruling angels of Malacandra (Mars) and Perelandra (Venus), the language becomes rhapsodic in describing Masculine and Feminine as the larger reality of which male and female sexuality are a small part:

What Ransom saw at that moment was the real meaning of gender. Everyone must sometimes have wondered why in nearly all tongues certain inanimate objects are masculine and others feminine. What is masculine about a mountain or feminine about certain trees? Ransom has cured me of believing that this is a purely morphological phenomenon, depending on the form of the word. Still less is gender an imaginative extension of sex. Our ancestors did not make mountains masculine because they projected male characteristics into them. The real process is the reverse. Gender is a reality, and a more fundamental reality than sex. Sex is, in fact, merely the organic adaptation to organic life of a fundamental polarity which divides all created beings. Female sex is simply one of the things that have feminine gender; there are many others, and Masculine and Feminine meet us on planes of reality where male and female would be simply meaningless. Masculine is not attenuated male, nor feminine attenuated female. On the contrary, the male and female of organic creatures are rather faint and blurred reflections of masculine and feminine. Their reproductive functions, their differences in strength and size, partly exhibit, but partly also confuse and misrepresent, the real polarity.



Read more: http://www.touchstonemag.com/archives/article.php?id=04-01-005-f#ixzz2K3B6RP9y

[Incarnadine]

Interesting thoughts, I like something else I found from C.S. Lewis

An excellent perspective on the dangers of opening the doors to calling God a "Father-Mother God"!  To start addressing God by female pronouns is to deny the masculine words chosen for the Revelation. 

While not the primary thought behind my post, I appreciate Shawn bringing this up. 

Edit: changed the wording to make it sound less condemning.  Not trying to start a fight.

2nd Edit: Doesn't have much (if anything) to do with trans issues, so I removed most of my reply.  Sometimes I feel like I've been trained to pick fights.  Maybe it's just an expression of my own personal frustration with myself?

[spacial]

As much as it hurts to stay as I am, can I really be so selfish as to give up what I've been given to chase a dream - a dream that I do not know whether or not it will bring me happiness - enough happiness to overcome the pain of the loss of what I've been given?

It really depends upon how you tie in your current dilemma with the story.

Form where I am, what you are giving up is what has been given, in Caspian's place, it would be to abandon his people his family, his traditions and his faith, to pursue revenge for what he lost.

Kinda a big price to pay for somethings that's ultimately worthless.

[Incarnadine]

Kinda a big price to pay for somethings that's ultimately worthless.

To make sure I'm not misreading your post (which happens sometimes when I read your posts), are you suggesting that my personal transition is ultimately worthless in the grand scheme of my life?  Please don't take that wrong - I don't ask that question accusingly!

If your observation is that changing my body is, in the long run, worth much less than the hearts and lives of the people I'd be sacrificing, that's a valid and perhaps truthful observation. 

When you think about it, what I have in my family and current social network is what so many people long for.  I'd be throwing away opportunities just for the sake of my own personal balance.

[spacial]

(which happens sometimes when I read your posts),

I want that quote written on my tomb! 

Anyway, Caspian is give an opportunity. Something for his immediate pleasure, to see his father again. But the price is to abandon his responsibilities, to his traditions, his people, his responsibilities his father, himself.

He chooses his responsibilities, over his immediate pleasure.

What he gained was his own moral, spiritual and personal growth, as a man. When he eventually meets his father, as we all eventually will have to, he will stand before him as a man, not as a frigntened child. He has made his contribution. He has given back. He has earned his reward.

When he makes the decision to stay, he says he will try to be a better king, (a better man). Aslan replies, you already are!

And he is.