I find this a fascinating discussion and so relevant to my life. This may take a while so please have some tea, and bear with me. Or feel free to ignore it completely as all things a temporary.
Back in 1980, I was a thirty year old man living in Ft.Lauderdale in relative poverty and trying without success to drink my troubles away. One night as the bar was closing I opened my eyes to see an angel standing in front of me. She was ten years younger than I and nubile to say the least. So at two o’clock in the morning we went back to my place, had a drink, then fell asleep.
The next day she took me-wearing a torn t shirt that proclaimed ‘Sworn to Fun, Loyal to None"- to meet her parents and return their borrowed car. That’s when I discovered that they were devout Bible lovin’ Pentecostals. And they discovered that I was an atheist. To their credit they were never outwardly critical of me. We were eventually married in an Assembly of God church by her Uncle Charles the preacher.
Fast forward thirty years-you may need more tea. It’s okay. I’ll wait. I had proceeded with SRS [sexual reassignment] and we had quit drinking. My wife had been going back to Florida while I languished at home in New Mexico. Preceding one of her visits a few years ago I had a talk with my sister in law with whom I had felt the most kinship.
She asked me why I had not been accompanying my wife, and I said plainly that was pretty sure that Transsexualism stood far outside the parameters of their belief system. She said “Yeah, but we still love you. Come with her.”
So I have for the last couple of years been accompanying her to Ft. Lauderdale. And while the subject of religion is generally avoided, and I bear silent witness to pre-meal prayers, we have mended some ragged corners of our past with much love and good will as can be done by such disparate approaches to life in general.
And if you have suffered this far through my monologue, perhaps you can share the joy I felt last month while bobbing on Atlantic Ocean waves with my born again Sister in Law who blessed me with the following exchange:
"So Rosie you’re really a Buddhist? "
“Yep”
“Well I don’t know anything about Buddha. Could you tell me a little about him like when did he live…what did he teach?”
So I explained about the Dhamma, the Four Noble Truths and the Eightfold Path while she actively listened. Then she blew me away with this simple yet profound observation:
“You know Rosie, Buddha and Christ sound very much alike”. And she continued “You know Rosie, I owe you an apology for all these years that I had avoided you out of fear of the unknown. And if I had listened to Christ, I would have loved and accepted you as a child of God. So I just wanted to tell you how sorry I am. I love you.”
Made me cry as it brings tears to my eyes now. What a powerful lesson. Love…Compassion combined with patience over time creates healing. The right view is occasionally obscure, but compassion in its own time creates the right outcome.
Thank you for your patience. This was a story I had to tell.
with Metta