I identify as Christian, and to me that means that I have to live according to the Golden Rule and the second half of the Great Commandment both of which essentially state that I have to treat other people in the exact same way I want to be treated.
Have I been doing this? No. Have I been trying? Yes. Have I been trying as hard as I should? Perhaps not.
But there was a moment in my rebaptism this past November that I felt changed me. It was when Rev. Dr. Penny Nixon asked me the following baptismal promise of myself:
QuoteIn this commitment will you do your best by GOD's abundant grace, to continue to walk in the ways of love, to follow the teachings of Jesus about inclusion and justice, and to keep your heart wide open as possible to all that is good in this world?
I had responded, "I will, with the help of GOD."
In answering that question in the way I did, I felt changed in a way I still can't fully describe yet.
There is a vast number of people who treat me with contempt for what I am: trans, queer, pre-op (possibly non-op), an ally to non-binary persons, Caucasian, assigned male at birth, Christian (but the wrong kind), Pagan (who doesn't heap contempt on Christianity or the other Abrahamic faiths), theist in general, liberal, feminist.
If I return that contempt, then I'm being contemptuous instead of loving. To me, for me, this is not the way I should be conducting my life.
How do I love those who hate me? I'm still working on that. But as a start, I try not to hate them in return.
As part of my discernment process I plan on talking with the trans and queer seminarians I know to ask how they approach their ministries when they are reviled in much the same ways I am.
