Materiality as god and the question of hospitality, a view from a stranger in the midst

But no stranger had to spend the night in the street, for my door was always open to the traveler

                                                                                                             -       Job 31:32

I had been working at a job where I would visit literally hundreds of people a day.  Most of these people were rich and well to do, living in mansions and small estates.  They had big cars and houses, seemingly living the successful life as defined by U.S. American culture and society.   They appeared to have everything, the blessings of materiality, good families, good credit and plenty of money in the bank.  Yet my experience of this community, particularly as a stranger, is one of fear, of loathing and a fear of loss to the point of refusing conversation, both women and men, young and old hiding behind multiple doors, and gates.   My impression after experiencing the life of the well to do and wealthy is that hospitality becomes an opportunity of risk as their god; materiality, dictates their engagement of the stranger.  Now to be clear times are hard, suspicious and cynical as forms of hospitality become properties of the familiar, and this appears logical and sensible, yet the unfortunate realities of oppression even of the so called rich should not dissuade from a sense of Godliness as it relates to an interaction with the stranger.  So I am compelled to ask, what of hospitality, more importantly what of the stranger? 

Job 31:32 reads, “but no stranger had to spend the night in the street, for my door was always open.”  The implications of this text are significant as images of God’s people who happen to be homeless, come to mind, and the unfortunate situations that occur because of homelessness.  Further, the text intimates that hospitality is the responsibility of the person; i.e. you and me, and not some government system or social safety net.  Each person is responsible for the hospitality of the community.  It is not some responsibility to vote away for party and country no matter your faith or political leaning.  Hospitality presents the question “is God the stranger at the door?   For me this becomes the underlying reason for the importance of hospitality, that God is at the door seeking to pour divine grace and mercy on your behalf and this a call not to harden your heart.

             This is a hard thing as materiality rules our day as no one wants to be in need.  Yes, my beloved our need to protect what we have worked so hard for has become our god at the expense of our humanity and this of our heart.  In that our hearts have become hard and callous and this no different than the Pharaohs of Egypt.      

Experience as Ultimate Truth, Thoughts on the Cosmic Spirit and John Coltrane

The sojourner's experiences speak loudly the truth that is their life, and this is the ultimate truth as everything else is a matter learning someone else's experience and the hearsay associated.  The sojourner's life and their experience is their ultimate truth.  In this, love moves through and through yielding the hope and strength needed so desperately by the sojourner.   And this my beloved becomes a dynamic faith, full of colorful grace and mercy, at times, yielding intense emotion.  Experience as the ultimate truth of the sojourner makes their faith tenacious as an appeal towards  the circumstances and situations of this life.  Truth then lies in the sojourner and this in oneness with the cosmic spirit.   This becomes as the pyramid of old, of ancient knowledge of an endless of cosmic universal truth, that the sojourner is the truth of the cosmic spirit, they are the very evidence of supreme cosmic spiritual knowledge.  The said the sojourner moves each moment of their day as the embodiment of universal energy. 
      So it is that they move in their energy and in their truth and no other.  Rising with the morning sun I see an image of a flower, yes, a yellow follower as it blooms in the bright spring day.  It is here a living form of cosmic energy, it is alive and therefore true and without variable.  Truth resides with the flower and this is ultimate truth. And this is what Jesus, Gandhi, Buddha and Muhammad and other teachers knew, that liberation emerges as the sojourner recognizes themselves as the truth of an evidentiary thought of the cosmic spirit and this as a matter of supreme love.  As I write this post I am listening to John Coltrane make beautiful music, it is jazz at its best, a most enlightened act.  Yes, and for me jazz is that enlightened act of provocation that reveals melodies reflective of the sojourner's oneness with the cosmic spirit.  And this is Coltrane's greatest contribution to Jazz.  He is a particular embodiment of cosmic energy and his Jazz is reflective of his liberation, his style and his movement in oneness with the cosmic spirit as he acknowledges that he is the provocative act of supreme love.  Jazz then, as lived out by the sojourner is a holistic act of truth rooted in a provocation indicative of supreme love.
     The sojourner recognizing themselves and their experiences as ultimate truth is cognizant then of the vital importance of liberation and the intense need to overcome oppressions which are not the ultimate truth but an illusion, and a myth.  Beloved once we see ourselves and our experiences as the ultimate truth, oppressions which are embodiments of  illusion and myths become unsustainable.
    
Monica Joy Cross copyright June 2013

The Chruch as a sacred space of transcendence; towards an ideology of grace, and the challenge to follow the path of Jesus Christ

The Church is called to be that sacred space where transcendence becomes the language of the pew and the pulpit, where an ideology of grace overpowers and overcomes the vestiges of hatred.  A space where the Christ is present toward the souls of all people.

Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
                                                                                                                 Matthew 5:10

But Zacchaeus stood up and said to the Lord, “Look, Lord! Here and now I give half of my possessions to the poor, and if I have cheated anybody out of anything, I will pay back four times the amount.”⁹ Jesus said to him, “Today,  salvation has come to this house, because this man, too, is a son of Abraham. ¹⁰ For the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost.”
                                                                                                                   Luke 19:8-10
 Now I write this post out of a love for my American Church.  Her place in the community, the great work she is called to do for the poor, the weak, the sick and the lame whether they are homeless or rich and powerful.  She must transcend the human condition.  The following words, while they don't completely present my argument in a way that expresses my heartfelt intention,  and I doubt any words could, I am yet drawn to them as I seek to articulate my position, and as such my heart on the matter of my beloved Church.   I proclaim here that the power of the American Church is not in its allegiance to some cultural or social ideological norm or even to some materialism that parades as a blessing of God.  Its allegiance is not to even the powerful or to the weak as it relates to the human condition but its allegiance is and must always be to the one true and supreme God.  In this the Church is the advocate as well as the argument of Christ to a world of polarizations.  In this the Church as the manifestation of Jesus' imagination must at some point live in the Christ reality, taking hold of God's grace and mercy, God's deep abiding love and embrace that emerges from the Holy Spirit.  The power of the American Church rests then in the Holy Spirit as the Church stands as the provocative, the profane even the grotesque on Christ behalf.  It is here where the power of the Church as a manifestation of Jesus Christ must be experienced as no other place.   The Church is called to be, and must be the fearless advocate of Christ and his reality.  Yet there are two things that hinder the power of the American Church.  I write here of two particular concerns, that reflect the path of Jesus.  The first is, suffering for righteousness sake and the second is being the sacrificial church.

      I ask here, "can the church be courageous, can she be the cradle of the Christ reality in the 21^st century with these challenges?  As I listened to commencement addresses I listened to the call of mysticism, disruptiveness, to open the doors of the Church to all yet no call to be courageous, no call to live Christ, No call to the Christ reality, to really study Jesus, and to really come to grips, even to come to terms with Jesus and what it actually means to follow the path of Jesus.  I ask, “Does the Church seek to follow the path of Jesus?”  I think a pivotal question emerging from the aforementioned is, "Can she divorce herself from the world and its desires long enough to seek the path of Jesus?"  This has not always been the case as the Church was formally the central sacred space for the care of souls yet today I experience the Church as a vessel which has abdicated her place of care for humanity in American society in favor of government programs and politics.  I guess this posting is a call for the Church to regain her place in society, to be the Christ argument in the town square once again.  To be the Church that suffers for righteousness, to be the sacrificial Church and therefore to be the grace of God for all people.
     The American Church is called to be a cradle of God’s work.  It must be that sacred space for all as it follows in the footsteps of Jesus Christ.
Rev. Monica Joy

A little bit of God's Love and Joy left the Earth that Day, The Death of a Young African American Transgender Woman

One more transgender woman has been murdered.  It happened in Cleveland, OH.  They caught the murderer.  That is good.  I do pray that a day will come when all people can walk and be and live in their authenticity without being hated, harmed or for that matter murdered.  This transgender woman was in her early twenties, living her life.  Of course there will be some who say she shouldn't have been out in that situation, that if she was going to be and live as a women she should have adopted the fears of bio-women.  Frankly this misses the point.  No one, man or woman, however they identify should live in fear.  Each of us as children of God must live free.   I think, as a transgender woman myself, freedom to live, move and breath as God has made me requires a lot of faith, this faith producing the courage to be, no matter the risk and a strong dose of reality.  In some respects this transgender woman's death is a present day Civil Rights issue.  Now I know that Civil Rights is the sacred purview of some in the African American community, especially, since some in the African American community consider a transgender woman to be unrighteous, men in women's attire, yet the reality of ignorance should not detract from the very real cause of Civil Rights.  Just as African American's were lynched and butchered out of hatred and ignorance, does not mean that they are or were any less of a human being.  So I guess I am arguing here for the same respect that all people deserve.  That said, her life was God's life, her challenge, her troubles and her gifts were God's.  A little bit of God's joy and love left the earth that day and we are less for it.  Her tragic death must not be in vain as we pray and push forward hate crimes legislation.  So my beloved, as a comprehensive hate crimes bill goes forward I pray that this hate filled crime becomes the fuel towards the passage of hate crimes legislation into law.

Rev. Monica Joy Cross

Queering Gender, a little more than Gender Trouble

 

Gender emerges out of the colonial regime of white patriarchal supremacy as the critical ground of inter-sectional discourse. It necessarily becomes a bulwark of capitalism and the political framework.  It empowers the rhetoric, the dialog and the relationship between the human and systems. Out of this predicament come definitions and images of a people who move not in their own agency or authenticity but in that which has been bestowed upon them by the colonial complex and its interlocking oppressions.

                                                                                                              Monica Joy Cross

The above statement emerges as a response to reading Judith Butler's thoughtful book,  Gender Trouble.  Butler's intelligent and insightful engagement of gender has made me ever more cognizant of gender, at least in the U.S. context as a means of production and a facilitator of oppression on behalf of church, state and various elements of the American plutocracy.  Butler writes, "Although the unproblematic unity of "women" is often invoked to construct a solidarity of identity, a split is introduced in the feminist subject by the distinction between sex and gender.  Originally intended to dispute the biology is destiny formulation, the distinction between sex and gender serves the argument that whatever biological intractability sex appears to have, gender is culturally constructed: hence, gender is neither the causal result of sex nor as seemingly fixed as sex.  The unity of the subject is thus already potentially contested by the distinction that permits of gender as a multiple interpretation of sex." (Gender Trouble, pg 8) Based on Butler's writings I find that that the construct of gender as an intersectional identifier, meaning that it is where the constructs of race, economics, religion, politics, and education are grounded and intersect, is a radical, even, violent intervention upon human states of being.  This is important because in the U.S. context gender is a root cause of systemic oppression in the social and cultural life of the citizen.  Why do I make this statement?  Considering that the U.S. was founded as an exclusive means of patriarchal economic domination with race as a structure to apprehend that domination it stands to reason that gender is at the very core of this project of systemic oppression fueled as a pseudo-sacred mission of "divine" import.  From this perspective all other discourses emerge.  That said the construct of gender and its associated discourses must be transformed and/or liberated as a matter of human freedom.  I argue here for a different imagination of relationship with human states of being.  According to Webster's gender is defined as a subclass within a grammatical class (as noun, pronoun, adjective, or verb) of a language that is partly arbitrary but also partly based on distinguishable characteristics (as shape, social rank, manner of existence, or sex) and that determines agreement with and selection of other words or grammatical forms. 
         Now I, for one, long for a different linguistic narrative.  I believe that language is a critical tool towards transforming states of consciousness.  If, say, the word gender would be evacuated from the common vernacular in favor of "a state of being" or some other words that liberate the human condition from modes of production it would contribute immensely to the extinction of certain oppressions.  With this post I am seeking a restructuring of religious, sociocultural, even scientific believes and systems.   Recently I attended a conference at UC Berkeley on Cancer knowledge and trans/social medial and the communicability of presence.  One of the topics discussed was modes of self care and the absence of LGBTQ curriculum in medical schools and how to network in the midst of this lack.  Based on these discussions I must say that shifting the linguistics to a more humane orientation contributes to the health and well being of the LGBTQ and S communities.  It is a beginning! 

About Respecting Ignorance. . . .

Now I write this post out of my own experience as a transgendered person who  lives in the "in between" that is between both genders; female or male, in the U.S. context.  More so I consider myself to be both the feminine and masculine, choosing to present signifiers as needed.  Living this way has not been the easiest, it is  just plain tiring, but not based on my presentation but on the fact of living in relationship(s) and communities that are not friendly to the transgendered person, and this not even toward the "in between".  And since I am an African American and Black I deal with certain conservative leanings of some of my Black people who either don't like me as a transgender person, only liking the masculine presence, using their understanding of the bible to witness to me or to somehow show how wrong I am out of Paul's commentary on Rome of all things, even out of their own limitations or certain Black women (not all) who are seemingly fearful that I, parading as a Transgender women of African descent, would somehow seek to usurp their positions as Black women, using my male privilege, that somehow because their oppression is so great, that I would somehow want to "take off my dress" and take their place in the unemployment line.  I consider both positions fear based and ludicrous.  Yet in this circumstance these two positions scream for respect.  Yes respect.  That I must respect these two positions as societal and intimate sensibilities.  So I ask does anyone who embraces these positions respect me and my sensibilities?  Yea, what about me?  I long for the day when who I am and who I identify as would be respected as my reality and not disrespected as not being a space of critical importance.  The same respect I give to you and your sensibilities should be returned.  If you can't do this then we don't need to talk.  So respect goes both ways.  But as I look and listen to the media I am clear that respect only goes the way of ignorance.  The statement "meet them where they are" sounds good but I consider it a linguistic signifier to respect ignorance.  Ignorance demands to be respected.  Ignorance must be allowed to exist in and of its self because somehow ignorance is that pseudo-sacred space of comfort for those who like their little world and their little god.  In the face of transformation then ignorance screams loud, articulating its displeasure or distaste through rhetorical and/or physical violence.  Ignorance demands its way.  That God's grace is imbedded in transformation calls for ignorance to change yet the evil embodied in ignorance denies a vision beyond ignorance and its comfort.

Much work to do!!

Beginnings and thoughts of a Transgender Manifesto of Liberation

The work towards the liberation of gender has many different facets that require the committed soul to engage as a matter of justice. I think that to the extent possible as I experience my own liberation moving gender to a different space of discourse can be disconcerting yet rarely is liberation not disconcerting. My thoughts here go beyond notions that merely cause gender trouble to use Judith Butler's term. I am calling for the liberation of gender from the binary construction that it has been historically grounded in. I am calling for a radical movement towards a different imagination of human existence and interaction of the body, mind and soul.