I
remember coming out as transgender and somehow choosing the name the most felt
like me. As I think back I remember
giving it some thought, some reflection but clear that this was a religious/spiritual
experience. Since then, now over 15
years ago, I have come to appreciate the naming process as spirit filled and
spirit led. Each day, I am reminded that
joy doesn’t emerge out of temporal concerns, situations, or challenges but in
my relationship with the divine. These
are some tough days, looking for work, little money, a challenging transition
and various other issues and concerns.
So now, thinking upon my name, Monica Joy Cross, particularly my middle
name “Joy” provides a strange hope that compels me to hold my head high this
day.
Joy is about
endurance grounded in a peculiar faith rooted in the cross. It could be said that Joy is a response to the
deep intimate and cosmic love of God.
Joy is life, including the scars, bruises and upheavals, the challenges
and concerns. Joy, yes unspeakable joy
is not juvenile or dismissive but, like God’s love, it is powerful,
unflinching, and full of grace. Joy does
not bow to the circumstances or situations of life but overcomes the same
through what Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. termed divine intimacy. According to King Divine intimacy[1]
presents life as oneness with God.
Beyond yet inclusive of the philosophical it is a felt connection, it is
emotional and real, a Pentecost reality in the life of the sojourner.
That
said, Joy recognizes that the divine material life is evermore transitory,
fleeting, and must be approached with this knowledge. And, because it is transitory and fleeting
the sojourner is compelled by faith to affirm the complexity of divined material
life. In this context Joy becomes is an intersection
of the everlasting and the temporal and in this sense sacred and holy. Joy
does not divorce me from temporal life but
compels me to engage the complex intersections of life. Reflecting upon James 1:1-9 (NRSV); I am mindful
that trials, tribulations and temptations present divine material life as a plane
of the complex for the maturing of the soul with the end goal of a joy that is complete.
I am mindful
that I live in a world of systems and processes developed to protect me from
the elements, and as a society we spend a significant amount of blood and treasure
pursuing this end. The consequences of this narrative are, I
suggest, ongoing human conditions that, at times create more problems than it
actually solves. The current
humanitarian crisis on the U.S. Mexican border would be an example. Immigration, at one time a source of pride
and hospitality, even a joyous occasion is now a tool of rejection and sorrow meant
to keep America “safe” from people seeking to liberate themselves from a drug
war engineered and designed by a republican political regime seeking to support
the Iran-Contra Affair i.e. the Reagan Doctrine.
That said,
joy is fully experienced as we engage in real authentic hospitality. It seeks the fullness of divine interaction within
the complexity of the temporal and in this sense joy is a most inclusive endeavor. In other words joy embraces the oneness
embodied in the interaction of the divine and the temporal. In light of James 1:1-9 how do we engage
immigration? What does it mean,
particularly if you embrace the teaching of Jesus Christ? A further question that is raised is, “Shall
the politics be the enemy of hospitality?”
More to the point, “how do we create a politics that is welcoming to the
immigrant, to those who still see the United States as the last great hope for
the world?” Finally, shall grace be shed
on a people who deny the hope of so many longing for their day of jubilee? I submit to the reader that only Joy can
answer this question.
Monica at
Albany, California July 4, 2014
[1]
Steward Burns. To the Mountaintop,
Martin Luther King, Jr.’s Sacred Mission to Save America 1955-1968 (San
Francisco, CA, 2004) 48
No comments:
Post a Comment