Feminine Images for God: What Does the Bible Say?

Posted on August 22, 2014 by charissagrace

Constance, I am so thrilled with this discovery! While I was aware of these ideas, and as you know, I love Lady Grace, “my Mama” the Holy Spirit, and openly refer to Her as She…I mean think about it…besides the overall biblical evidence that this is not only not heretical it is accurate, ask yourself the real question:

Why is referring to someone, God or created being, as She demeaning…diminishing? Hmmm?

What does that tell you about how being female is viewed in our culture, in our world?

Riiiiigggghhhht…now you begin to get a flavour for the kind of hostility I face daily and the reason why: I am leaving behind my assignment as a biological male and all its attenant power and privilege, and receiving fully the truth about how amazing and fearfully wonderful I am made as a woman in all aspects and facets except my body.

Listen: God is the source of gender, and thus Transcends it!

This article shows how wonderfully God reveals Themself female and thus affirms and sanctifies half the human race that has been attacked, demeaned, and ultimately under demonic assault in so many ways, ever since God told satan that the Deliverer would come from a woman, and that Deliverer would crush satan’s head.

Let your mind flex, and your heart open, and truth be a beacon comforting and stark.

Love, Charissa Grace

I am Charissa Grace for a reason…

Posted on August 19, 2014 by charissagrace

Good morning Constance…rather than excerpt, I am reposting this article in its entirety…some of the ads that were on the site where it was had potential to be offensive to some? So, Ima just make it easy to read here. If you want the original link, I will provide it to you.

I will add one thing: I have a more robust view of grace than most. One of the greek word for Grace’s meanings is Power (the word is Charis…the root of my chosen name! 🙂 ). Allow me to relate a small vision?

In the vision, Jesus held out a silver coin to me and bade me receive it, which I did. His image was graven into the top or heads of it…like a founding father of spiritual money! giggle!! But on the bottom, was graven the cross and the dove…signifying His powerful act of sacrificial deliverance, and the release of Lady Grace into creation as a result.

Jesus then told me that I could buy whatever I wanted with this coin…I could spend it in banks, one of two! If I decided, I could spend it in the bank of overcoming…temptation, despair, fear, anxiety, gluttony, (fill in the blank)…simply picture the lil bank (mine are in the shape of a loaf of bread with a slot in the center) and slide the coin in! Talk to Him while you do it, and then walk away. Period. And if 5 minutes later, fear is back knocking, or that ice cream calls your name, spend another coin!

You can have as many as you will receive!! Literally!

However…let’s say you decide to not spend that coin, you hold onto it, and end up failing in your desire to overcome. What does one do then? ‘Cus now, I am not only failed, but also ashamed of that failure! Jesus told me just take the coin to that other bank…the bank of forgiveness, and drop it in…and then walk away, ready to receive another coin to spend as I chose, as my faith measured…

Each side of the coin represents power: power over sin, and power to forgive. Each one needs to be spent, regularly!

But the best part is that it is all right there, within your simple and direct choice to either over come or be forgiven.

Grace: The gift of power to do that which God requires, a gift given free and on the merit that you have asked. Period.

And that is why I call myself Charissa Grace: double grace…grace to be forgiven, and grace to over come.

May I be a kajillionaire in each one, and not a miser!

Love, Charissa Grace

TG and The Church

MegganRenee | Aug 18, 2014 |

I have a news flash for you. The Christian church is made up of flawed humans. Big surprise right? I know. I am stating the obvious. But when it comes to understanding the issues that separate the Christian church and the transgender community, this is something that is forgotten on each side of the divide.

The church is often quick to close ranks and the doors to many in the trans community. Many within the church refuse to even sit down and listen to a new point of view and they fall back on human interpretations of age old scriptures.

The hurt that the church, as a whole, has caused the trans community is not something I need to rehash. I’m sure that many of us have wounds that run deep and many may not have yet healed. But how are we to react to the prejudice and close minded attitudes that we perceive within the church? That is the greater question.

We flawed humans like to point fingers, assess blame and often place unkind labels on others. When we do, we live counter to the lives God has called us to live. God does not access blame or hold a grudge. God gave us grace by dying on the cross and loving each and everyone of us — not for who we are, but in spite of who we are. He has given us something not one person on this earth ever deserved.

Grace is all to often a forgotten aspect of living life true to what God has intended for us. Grace is a conscious act. It is an unmerited act of kindness, giving someone a gift that is undeserved.

Grace certainly doesn’t come naturally. We humans like to hold on to the hurt, the wrongs against us and dwell on the negative. By doing so, the constant rehashing of the pain only gets in the way of showing grace to those that we may not agree with or those that have hurt us. Grace goes beyond just forgiving.

Grace is not just what God has given us, but through the Holy Spirit we can show a form of grace to all those around us. Grace is an act of kindness or clemency we show not only to our friends that occasionally wronged us, but also to all those that speak out against us.

I understand completely what it feels like and what it does to your soul when a group of people turns against you when they are supposed to embody the love of Christ. I understand the emotions that run through you when people turn their backs on you.

Forgiving prejudice and all the acts that go along with it is difficult. Forgiveness alone can be difficult enough, but when someone speaks or acts against your very being, sometimes forgiveness is just too unthinkable, too difficult for us humans to comprehend.

But by living a life of grace; forgiveness and showing love to those that hurt you becomes easier. By living a life true to God’s plan, not society’s or the church’s, we can live as an example of Christ to those around us.

For far too long now the church has become known for only what it is against. It’s time to stop the hurt. It is time to bridge the gap. It is time to stand up and be the light in a darkness. Instead of creating outcasts, the church should be a place of open doors.

We can complain and point fingers all we want and accuse the church of prejudice, discrimination and outright transmisogyny. But complaining about a problem is not a solution. It only adds to the divide. We are the answer.

If the Church will not show grace to us, then we are called to be the examples of grace to the church. We are to live our lives visibly and openly, true to the voice of the Holy Spirit in us.

Mama’s Clothes

Posted on August 12, 2014 by charissagrace

Mama’s clothes are alive, like meadows over dirt,
like dew over meadows, like sun kissing dew,
like sky holding sun, like night holding stars,
and then there She is, outside the inside and
with me too.

Mama’s clothes move, like wind thru the trees,
like waves on the sea, like swans in the air,
like fish thru the water, like boats on a voyage,
like banners in the wind, like mercy over sin,
like gratitude in me.

Mama’s clothes rustle, swirl, and make my way
to snuggle close, tussle that soft edge to my face,
curl, close and hear the breath She takes, the
breath She gives, the song She croons, as She
sings over me.

Mama’s clothes glow, like rainbows in sun,
like silver in the clouds, like diamonds in my eyes,
like peacocks in their glory, like a single color story,
Refracted in Her eyes and a living quick surprise
to delight me.

Mama’s clothes, my refuge in the storm,
my anchor to the norm, my banquet in the fear,
invitation to draw near, so I do, I snuggle closer,
inhale Her strength, Her Kindness, Her Grace that
pours over me.

Mama. Strong…Soft…There, not “there”.
Deep, serene, intent, inquisitive, powerful
Grace Incarnate. Wisdom manifested,
Means of Creation, Healer and Nurturer of
Her daughter, me.

Mama. Charissa Grace.
A match made in heaven, designed from
the beginning, a leap within Her Heart to
spark in me and bloom, alive and growing free
my Mama and me.

Mama, can I wear Your clothes?
I wanna be
just like You.

Haunted by a Lovely God

Posted on July 23, 2014 by charissagrace

(NOTE: If you wish, you can click here and be taken to a page where I emboldened certain words to try to convey the rhythm and meter of this poem, which is literally essential to it. But: if you wish to just wade in, first time thru and let the rhythms and meters rise and fall, fade and disappear and then come back, well that is ideal because that is literally written into the work as its own “poem of rhythm”. In either case, I hope you are able to read thru it…the things in this poem literally happened to me, with me).

Okay.

I get it. I do…in spite of what you might think, maybe
several of you, maybe dozens of you, maybe
hundreds, or thousands or millions of you
have endured deserts and mirage oasises
vanished in life when it comes to the subject of God.

I hear your stories, the bitter rants of some, the tired futility
of many others, I have taken venom, been covered in acid,
as I lead face first and I listen to tales of one
thing held in desolate common.

“God’s not here”.
“God wasn’t there”.
“God isn’t real”.
“God doesn’t care”.

I bleed when you cry in anguish, and weep as I
hear your recitals, and then in dark rage, and then
finally in grief, that pools on the dark other
side of the desert, in that null empty kingdom of
Ozymandias the great ruler of Vanity.

You might think I weep sanctimonious, sorrowful
supplicant of righteous standing, who’s crying for
those destitute and benighted, the distant, the stranger and
other, from my tower of ignorant pie in the sky…

You’d be wrong.

I weep in guilt.

Yeah…guilt.

For my tale of dark woe is so anti-tragic,
a Mysterium Tremendum, of a wretch so
shattered and shipwrecked in this desert island

…my body…

My story is different, and I feel so guilty,
confused as to why even in existential
despair I am still on the outside of
the common narrative swirling around me?

Contrary to you, in your longing and noble long
struggle to live, and to surmount desertion and
lost lonely silence by God in Their Heaven above…
I have always been

Haunted by a Lovely God.

When I was little and in my first dawning awareness,
and ageless, I recall that I always heard This Voice,
and at first I thought it outside me, I thought the wind had a
voice, or perhaps it was Trees, but it
never was dirt under my feet, no,
dirt is a tongue-tied dull mute.

As I grew I realized that the voice was inside me…in my heart, and I came to
treasure its company and the glad beauty of thoughts, and of musings. Then
I told my parents what it had told me, and,
flabbergasted, they asked where did I hear that?
And I told them “God. God told me”
(for that is Who the voice told me They were
and …Jesus like a Shepherd led me).

They laughed! LAUGHED! And while they were
not mocking, they merely thought
I was mistaken, had fantasized wonders.
So I cried then, and thought that
maybe my parents were right.

And then came the break, the thirsty sword stroke
that cut me to ribbons, my soft girly heart left in shreds…
then the slavery started with harsh words resounding, those
prison door words…and God was still there, holding
me in my tears, wrapped
around my hurt heart…and I longed for death, wanted to
jump in the river from that tall steel bridge I crossed
over each day but God asked me “please”, and…

well…

who can say no to God when They ask “Please?”

Then They would give me a joy for that day…and They
gave me a dog! Oh! How she and I bonded!
But you have already heard some of the tales of Millie…”Good Old Dog!” No…
this is the story of me being Haunted…

Haunted By a Lovely God.

One time, I was alone outside our house

(the one in the Pear Orchards down
near the cold creek where my Millie and me chased those
skimmer bugs and slippery pollywogs all live-long day…)

and it was warm in the soft early evening and dusky and glowing ethereal gloaming,
the good dusk…and wind softly rustling thru fruit trees so
heavy with life and the sounds of the living earth echoed around me…

…and then all was silent…

Suddenly, and it caught all my attention immediately! Slowly I
walked to the pear trees and stood, just to listen…and I heard it…something!
The call of a Mourning Dove

(or is it Morning Dove? I can’t distinguish the
One from the other, it seems to shift
back and forth always and ever).

It cooed and it called, and it seemed to me as if it spoke to me,
saying…”Come out to Me, Baby… Come out to Me. Come home to Me.”

(Lady Grace, She calls me Baby now, here today)

I was so skert! I thought it was a ghost! And this ghost it was longing for
my tender spirit and if I went out there, it would get inside me and
I would belong to it, always and be its flesh, its living body for
it to inhabit, its dwelling place then and forever.

I wasn’t far from the truth… I look back, I think it was Her, Lady Grace,
Dove come down, Her Voice was calling me, claiming me even then as Her own…
I wonder what would have happened, my life had I heeded Her,
gone to Her, run to Her heedlessly on that first day?

It’s not coincidence that our trees now, all around our house are filled with
Morning Doves (Mourning Doves too), calling, cooing…and pestering people in
our neighborhood, but so comforting to me as totems and emblems,
reminders of Mama’s first call to my hurt lonely soul and my soft tender heart.

Then: it was Veteran’s Day, fall, 1969.
We went to town several miles from home for the parade…I insisted that
Millie come with us, and after the music and marching had ended, we
went to the movies: “The Love Bug”. But Millie was left in our Volkswagen van.

(the one that was faded red
with canvas roll back top
and that relentless bamboo pole that
Dad used to poke us and hit us with
when we were clear in the
back and too rowdy and rude.)

and when we came back to the van…
she was gone.

I cannot tell you what that was like. I nearly fainted. I ran in the
street screaming her name, as cars screeched stop and Dad chased
me hollering “Get Back Here!”

We drove the streets hours and hours, me, head out the window, her name become
my tongue protruding and flapping and desperate in the cold wind.
I screamed that name loud, again and again until I was hoarse, and I kept
screaming, my grief-expiation for killing my dog with my stubborn insistence that she come along.

I tried to bargain with Them…in the sibilant cold and the darkness, I lifted my face:

“I will scream her name until I pass out and can never talk ever again, and then
You will receive my burnt offerings of me and give me what I earned with
desperate grief, what I bought with my service…my heart, Millie come back safe home.”

They remained silent, aloof (and I wonder if this is where They were in your tale of sorrow…).
Finally Dad said “she’s gone”…so we had to go home, in that cold rainy dark night of loss
on that day that we remember and honor the valor of
those who faced their fears and endured for me.

I threw up. I do that when I get distraught…I always have done…I cried, and
cried and I cried, and when I had no tears I groaned and keened, inconsolably moaning…
crying til dust poured from my eyes in place of the tears long drained empty by
grief so stark it was a terror strong, threatening to crush me forever.

My folks were hurting for me, so they used what they always had carved me with,
thought was the best for me, raw in my towering emotions and gaugeless deep passions…
words, stern and cruel, words so full of dark violence, and those words’ incarnated beast,
gawd…the spanking…well…yeah, the Red Raving and Hungry Beast.

I was forced to eat my dinner, and I threw it up…on the table, on all the food
laid there for others to eat. Then I got spanked and sent straight up to bed…
where God was silent and no where to be found… but hey, Ima talker, right?
So I cried out to Them into the darkness thick…

(now get this, and understand that I’d been thru the
wringer of Sunday School, Hellfire Sermons,
Damnation Devotions, and I knew enough to be good or the
devil would get me. I once was told: “I will not spank you…
I’m just gonna let satan get you”…and I roamed behind my mom
hours, and wailed agonizing in fear and stark terror, and
begged her to spank me, deliver me from evil on the cross
of my butt, and her hard paddle the hungry
propitiation for my sins and my wrongs…and
I knew that so many times I had done things,
hell-things like say “shit” or steal cookies, or
sneak out the window to sleep with my Millie and
her wriggly puppies though I was forbidden to,
or watch cartoons on a Saturday morning so
early and low before anyone woke up and caught me at it…and I’d
never been sent to hell…God had not bothered to notice or
even to thunder at me, or make trouble over me, and I
knew lots of people thought God was a fairy tale, which, frankly,
mystified me cus They talked to me so much when I was so little.)

That nite…I cried in a jagged blood whisper, my voice bleeding raw, and the
words, still they linger there, seared deep in me to this very day, now, here with you.

(and now, in this moment… I feel so damn guilty!
Why me??? Why did They talk to me of all people?)

I cried out “God…if You’re really there, real…bring my doggie home…PLEASE!” Then…
somewhere, somehow, I moved past bargains, and buy-offs and bribes…I had cried my way
thru the stark castle of filthy rags and entered into the place of no exit, the
inner sanctorums of grace, where there’s nothing to buy there with money, and
there is no bargaining, no supplicating, no pleas, there is just the
beginnings of Mercy Free…

and crying out the word please in that dark night, eyes
gummed shut with sorrow and tacky tears I at last faded off into sleep
dreamless as I grieved and wished I was dead, like I did every night, and at
last I knew nothing, released and insensate and absent within the lost
shoals of sleep’s gift of respite from my agony, sorrow and grief.

Until I woke, instant and on point, into an electrical dark of night
black glowing bright-black that cast light and filled the still air with a
presence, thick, substantive knowing, and threatening to
rend plain reality like the quick ripping of shrouds in the
hands of the dread faced and tall grim deliverers….

…and I heard scritching, and

(oh oh oh)

her whine (that lil ki-yiy-yiy she always used to call me heart to heart)
and I jumped from the top bunk with a thunderous thud loud enough to wake
even the dead and I got up and ran thru our house in that miracle moment:
“GOD BROUGHT BACK MY DOG!”
“GOD BROUGHT BACK MY DOG!!”

Babbling over and over again like a babe, Bartimaeus had nothing on me!
Shattering slumbering sundering darkness and giving voice
to that One Thing that I am:

Haunted by a Lovely God

Fumbling feverishly I rolled the gravestone away in my heart and threw
open the back door where she called me eagerly whining in joyous returning at sunrise…
she’d jumped a 6 foot fence out of obedience so she could come in thru the
Eye of the Needle: the back yard garage door. She limped and jumped on me
and I went down to the ground, I was crying and kissing her and she was
kissing me too and I ran my hands over her, scarcely believing that she was real,
she was returned, she was home and alive, and my heart was restored unto me.

Then she rolled over, so I could scritch her tummy like she loved
and when I ran my hands over her precious side, my fingers slipped inside
her skin and I drew them back from her side which was pierced and torn open…

(I swear!
I know, the metaphor seems so damn cheesy, right? It really
happened this way! That’s the kind of thing I feel so
guilty for… it’s like They shouted it from the Bright Heavens that
I was not ever escaping Their Undying Love never ceasing and
new every morning. I’m telling you that I have always been
Haunted by a Lovely God).

She had torn open her side, and I’d thrust my hand in just like Thomas and drawn it back,
bloody and warm and changed and I collapsed,

(cus I can’t handle blood, even though it has
handled me, covered me, branded me,
marked and commanded me
forever Under the Mercy)

I murmured brokenly “God hear my prayers, God heard my prayers, God hear my prayers,
God heard my prayers”.

Later, my parents made sure I knew that this was highly unusual, God has more
pressing concerns than my dear dog, or listening to me scream and demand…
yeah, there are all kinds of other prayers over the years, that went up and bounced off…

you know the kind…yeah, those

…and life went on…went on…until

Puberty hit and then hell came home hard to stay…in hair and voice and a
horror-beard (and oh god oh god, oh god down there, oh god please no).
And life required again its cruel ransom, and I wanted, longed to lay me on the gears and cogs
that turned in schools and the church groups that seemed to me incomprehensible
strangers, in their innate knowing of how to move and how to laugh and to be… again
I longed, desired to do away with me…this gender-joke…absurd and ugly mistake, just an
ironic blight on “There” and “Here” because I was neither…here or there, just a null thing

…and then…

…I had another time, deep in the darkness of night and numb tears and dumb talking to Them…

…Them…

1973…14 and awkward and lonely and numb from the bashing I gave me to
un-know who I was and was not supposed to be, allowed to be, allowed…
On that nite, cold and alone in the darkness I told Them that I was not going to follow Them.
I was resigning from being a christian and that I was leaving Them once and for all.

“No offense”, I said. “It’s not you, it’s me”

(I’d yet to discover how this trope is used when we
want to abandon an unwanted suitor or
how its thrown out…to hurt and to wound a familiar dull
lover become coarse and rank and too shrill)

“You have done nothing wrong, You have not failed me, no it’s I who’ve failed You, and
what’s worse, I cannot BUT fail You…always, because I’m a

“horrible boy, I’m an
absent mute girl, I am
nothing, and I count for
nothing and I live on
nothing and I mean more
nothing, just more black
horrible, lost empty nothing.

“I am not going to church anymore,”

(for in those days I, like others around me, assumed that if
you went outside and climbed into the
chicken coop then such a fat happy bird you’d become.)

“…when school starts up again, I’m going to say yes instead of
no thanks when they offer me pot, and offer me drinking, and
offer me bodies and no clothes and company there in the darkness and then I’ll be
numb and feel wanted at least…

“I cannot do it, walk blameless and upright, for
I am a constant habitual wallower in my sin
all the time in my heart, in my mind as I fail ceaseless,
besides, I don’t even desire to be in on this world full of Leavenworth walls…

“I will not fake it! I refuse to be like them, sitting in their pews…

“with hallelujah on their lips and wanna screw ya in their hearts!

“I’ll stay alive, take my medicine straight and deserved and so bitter…and
maybe if I try I will even manage to conjure up a hearty yummy while
I drain the draughts of despair bone-dry…

“I know You’ll send me to hell…I deserve that, and even more so…I don’t
hold that against You, for You are and You always have been so Beautiful…
no, it is me, blight and curse, it’s just me, a disease in this world and pure poison.”

Fountains of sorrow again welled up, even as I wondered why they could
never be fountains of joy? And I cried and cried…softly so no one could hear me…
my brother sleeping…as always in these cut-off times…and

Millie was newly dead, gone to run free in the fields of her dreams, yet another cruel
tribute collected by Usurper death…that left me so empty,
so cold, so cut-off and bereft.

Until I heard it…the Voice!

Calling me gently (as always), so I held my breath, listened to be sure it was Them, then
I heard a soft quiet question asked so plaintively…

“What would it take?” (Ummm…whaaa? I didn’t get it)

“What would it take, Precious One? Child, what would it take for you to not check out,
not go away, but to come here and spend time with Us everyday?
Talk to Us, listen and just be for Us… just be Ours always,
just as your dog, Good Old Millie was your friend, and she belonged
only to you?”

This was a careful and startling question and it was quick,
coming at me curving sideways! So I had to really think!
Something absurd, something so damned unusual, that there was no way it
ever could happen, I mean, don’t get me wrong…I still wanted to be with Them,
wanted to share in Their sweet soft communion, cus I LOVED my Jesus, my Shepherd who
I always dreamed someday would leave the 99 and come to rescue me, I dreamed that
He was my Jester to make me laugh joyously, dreamed that He was my best Friend

…I just wasn’t…His best friend…and I couldn’t fake it. Nope.
So it was crucial I create conditions that even the Almighty God couldn’t meet

…you know…

God cannot make a rock so big that They cannot lift it, but They can do anything
so They can make this rock so big that even They cannot lift it…wait…

I was searching for that Rock that God couldn’t lift… right? So

I said to Them “If, when I wake this morning, and my dad says ‘Kids we are moving’…
if there’s a strange town so distant where nobody knows me, and no one has
seen me, and I can start over, start fresh and anew, then I’ll choose you forever and
give my heart freely…lock, stock, and barrel, completely to You… I’ll be Your Millie,
all of my days till I die and my sentence is over.”

Silence gave answer…then after a bit…I drifted away breathing
deeply again as my tears crooned soft lullabies
to my hot cheeks, they ran down in such ancient deep
canyons of sorrow…down my face, down my heart,
down my soul to end up glistening in sorrowful streamers.

When I got up the next morning, things didn’t sparkle or gleam, and I didn’t
remember the Voice, the Epiphany…I was just staring at breakfast my mom used to
“cook” me in those days…Shredded Wheat with skim milk…and feeling
…that gulf, that dark feeling. That feeling. Yeah… The relentless sharp
razor slash cutting inside my soul, forever aching and Constant.

I wasn’t list’ning, as Dad droned on talking of somethingorruther… until I heard
him say the word…“moving”…something about that word…
why did it stick out?

Then in a quicksilver windstorm of memory-shredded, each piece was
hitting me, sticking, unripping its way to become one
coherent experience, and I recalled my reply to Their inquiry…
so I turned quickly and asked my dear father what did he just say…and he
said it again! He confirmed it! Just as I’d laid forth, to a T!

Haunted by a Lovely God.

(I feel so guilty… why am I treated thus?
Why me? Why not the prayers of parents
whose children suffer and die in horrible pain for
nothing that they ever did?
Why not the prayers of wives for soldiers
Cain has already marked for death’s dark
gaping foul maw, prayers supplicating
deliverance, protection, but
they go unheeded and
Death eats again?)

And of course, we moved, and I did…commit myself to Them…
once all for always…yep, I was in…And I’ve hated it sometimes, and loved it at others.
I’ve grown and I’ve changed, seen Them change before my eyes as they were
opened and I could see other than my own idolatrous self and that
small god I fashioned, so stunted, blind, deaf and so mute in the
vanity of my self worship when my box, my image of Them I had
made was so gloriously broken!

I’ve sorrowed and railed… I’ve been outcast by mean so called
spiritual family, been stunned by the towering cruelty of those who should
know better, done blindly in the Most Wonderful Name of Them…

Lovely God to me, and so ugly and coarse, buffoonish in their mocking mouths.

I met my darling, and we had our babies…
she/they are amazing miracles…I watch the
lives of my college acquaintances shipwreck, their
marriages foundering on the black jagged rocks of their alluring
careers and blood money…and I watch the children of
hard working salts, such dear people around me, more worthy than I, better
people than I, quaff drugs like their hearts are on fire, and join themselves
numbly to anyone there in those earthquakes of loneliness,
wreckages strewn in their wake and their orphans tossed
careless like litter abandoned.

And I have prayed with these people, so passionate, supplications far more
suitable than my own bumbling tongue-tied petitions and tall ebenezers…
and seen them bounce off, with dust poofing, dry-cloudy in
dull drifting mockery…

…and I feel so guilty.

Such. Guilt.

Because They have haunted me… They’ve apprehended me… taken me…
They have not let me go, not let me drift… and I,
transgender woman held in such derision by
most of the offspring of the Blood of the Lamb…
The Holy Spirit has even shown me Her Name and Herself, Lady Grace,
and She’s drawn so near to me, to be ma Mère…my Mama, and teach me
my secret heart and my self, so young and emerging.

And yet still I ask myself why am I haunted?

I could go on, forever recounting the
stories of Their faithful presence and meddling hands…of

Yosemite Sacred, cathedrals where mountains became the
Triune God, and I fell asunder to claw at the dirt in despairing blood-guiltness and
crying for mercy… and wonder of wonders!
El Capitan: Papa…Half Dome, cut asunder became My Friend Jesus…
Yosemite Falls: my Lady Grace, flowing and washing forever until I am pure…
Bridal Veil Falls was me, shifting emotions and prevarications blown
lacey and wandring across rocky faces but always to Them…
rising up from the ground, clean and unsullied as
Waterdeep sang for me They have been nothing but
Good in my life!

Each time I hear someone’s tale of woe filled with despair or with cynical bitterness flowing,
or just fatigue and futility…I am worse than any teller, and merit less than the askers, more
toxic than anyone else whose had issue with God, or
issue with Their present absence, or make issue with Them because

“there is this construct God which has come
out of nowhere, seemingly and thus doesn’t exist
(unlike anything else which its knowing of testifies to its being)…”

I have not told you this tale to shame you… I who am shame incarnate for so long.
Nor to claim privilege or power, position… I do not have an iota of that.

…I have not told you to lobby, convince you… or
proselytize, or evangelize you. God No!
I have made my expiation to you, my confessors…
The sin I am guilty of? Of this I Charissa Grace stand blood guilty:

Being

Haunted by a Lovely God.

Today…

Posted on July 13, 2014 by charissagrace

Dear Constance…

So.

I have thought about it for a few days…what I would say this morning, if anything. After all, there are some things that a woman just never tells.

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But:

I am different than other women, both in that I am myself and unique, and also because I am myself and transgender…in each way I am set apart, and thus have a strong sense of both my freedom to do or not as I choose, but also my “obligation” to report, to chronicle, to make my best effort to inform anyone interested in what life is like inside the oppression of the wrong gender.

The metaphor is just too perfect: We are, all of us, trapped in a wrong place, in a wrong time, with the sense that things ought to be different, and will one day be restored to “happily ever after”.

So with that said…

55 years ago today, I was gripped and smushed and pushed and eventually pulled into the rough light and harsh noise and frighteningly huge space of this world we live in. I was born July 13th, 1959.

It’s been such a long journey, and yet 55 years is literally nil when considered in the light of the days that have gone before.

But to me, it has been all I have ever known, and so I had a history of being on the outside, being outcast and no one knows, and being condemned to persisting in keeping my heart beating and my chest heaving, and my fruit sweet in the midst of a land that had no air, and weighed a million bajillion tons and was the stark backdrop for growing cactus and joshua trees.

Last year was a year of finishes, and it nearly finished me…so much ended, so many things fell apart in my world, and only a few things remained. At the time, it was unbearable. I would go to the mountains on my bike, and scream myself hoarse. It was either that or die.

Jesus told a church back in the day to wake up, and strengthen the things that remain. See, they had invested in transient things, and ignored what lasted. He exhorted them to get a grip, assess priorities and focus on eternal things.

When we don’t listen to the exhortation, He simplifies our options by removing the transient things…and this happened to me last year, a year of sorrow, loss, and ultimately deliverance.

I am glad to see it end, and so happy as well for the way that Mama took me in hand the last 3 months of the year and rooted, grounded my feet and heart in a renewed understanding of my worth and value and significance to Them, to Her…She taught me to begin to love myself, and thus I can with a true heart truly love others.

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I have always associated the number 5 with Grace, for a variety of reasons.

So 55…this is gonna be the year of double grace…Grace upon grace! Charissa (which means grace) Grace.

Moses said to the Lord, in that famous encounter that began with the Lord testing Moses’ heart with the declaration that He was sick and tired of the stubborn nature of the people of Israel.

CLUE: He really wasn’t, but Moses was!! I have found that the Lord often times presents Themselves to me as if THEY are like the attitudes of my heart, in order to mirror to me who I am in that moment.

So here was Moses, pretending on the outside (even to himself) that he was not tired of them, fed up with the dullness and stubbornness, and so the Lord tells Moses that He is done with them, but that He will take Moses himself and raise him up into his own nation of great and awesome people, just like their Progenitor was! (Sarcasm intended btw…this is the same guy that tried to become the great deliverer if Israel by killing an Egyptian slave guard, and then ran into the desert to hide for 40 years!).

But…thank God that Moses had hung out with Them enough to know that when this sort of word came, it was a really good idea to listen with the heart of hearts and not the heart of desire…and so as he thought it over, it became manifestly obvious that it was better to have God Themself over merely Their blessing and protection.

So Moses says this: “Now therefore, I pray, if I have found grace in Your sight, show me now Your way, that I may know You and that I may find grace in Your sight.”

Did you catch that? Moses asks for grace to get grace!

Do you need grace in your life…undeserved favor unending, and the power to do whatever God requires? That is the biblical meaning of grace, by the way…it isn’t some cheap get outta jail free card fire insurance…

The lesson is that it starts with Them, it is by Their power and ability, and it ends in Them, while They in love loop us in to the joy and blessing of Their perfect fellowship.

They include us in Their family.

So…55 years…and new beginnings for Charissa Grace…me, this cursed child of loneliness who has been redeemed from the pit of emptiness, from death. I am walking in faith this year is going to be a year of grace upon grace. The wonderful undeserved unmerited Shalom They have extended over me, to me, in me, thru me, and the power to walk and be fruitful in the land of my afflictions.

I have gone forth sowing in tears. I shall return, harvesting in joy.

And this is the year it truly begins for me…and that is indeed a faith statement!!! It scares me, the gravity of 54 years pulls hard back to the pits of loneliness and despair, but the power of Their love and affection is a strong magnetic irresistible draw.

I cannot resist it.

I do not want to resist it.

So I surrender, and say Happy (yes…for the first time, Happy) Birthday (for I was in so many ways born last year too) Charissa

Happy Birthday, Charissa Grace, blest of God and most fortunate of beings

“

Suzanne Grossman Writes: “Why I Chose Grace as a Gay Christian”

Posted on July 12, 2014 by charissagrace

Suzanne Grossman

via Why I Chose Grace as a Gay Christian.

I love this young woman’s faith, courage, and orientation to grace!

Hang in there Suzanne…there are fellow believers who realize that Faith thru Grace in Love is the winning recipe for connection with Them!

Please…read the article, and then think if you had those obstacles in your faith journey, in addition to the common difficulties we face.

Grace and Peace…

Charissa

Grace and the Space Between (by Josh Gaines)

Posted on July 10, 2014 by charissagrace

This poem is by another friend from my spoken word group…I bought his book, and was reading along until I hit this poem like Thelma and Louise hit that cliff…over the edge I went and into the gulf of wonder regarding how someone could write a poem that was about me, but yet had not met me when the poem was written!

I read it over and over…and over again…and cried…yeah, huge surprise! Charissa is crying again! LOL

Seriously, I was soo amazed. So I wrote to Josh to tell him about how the poem was mine! 🙂 In the process of that, though, I recognized a poem in the email that I had composed, so I pried Prose’s fingers off Poetry’s slender ivory throat, and “Deaf Earth’s Denial“ was the result.

I give you now the genesis poem for that one…

Grace and the Space Between

Grace dreams in the shapes of clouds
Of the spaces between
Here and highways
Willing to wilt in the sun
On the thirsty river roots of cypress
Whose bows, living between her
And her dreams,
Decide to shade her anyway.

Grace dreams in the movement of dust
Climbing the sun that sneaks through curtain-covered windows
Swirling in ghosts
In dreams she twirls with them.
The mattress beneath her smells of second hand
Like salt-water, grass and motor oil.
Some dust settles over her heart
When it sees she has no blankets.

Grace allows form to the formless.
She calls out the names of shapes
Yet to be invented.
She remembers: Between every space
Is the note that binds spaces,

And behind every cloud is the shadow she casts on the sun
Carried up on sun dust song wings
When she sings.
When she sings.

Christianity and being Transgender – Why I won’t justify my transition

Posted on July 7, 2014 by charissagrace

Christianity and being Transgender – Why I won’t justify my transition.

Hi Constance. I was delighted to run across this article. It is a decent essay regarding relationship with God and being transgender. It speaks also of the pain and sorrow of the religious reflex which kicks in and then kicks us in the butt when the fearful and narrow-minded and deeds-based church culture people decide to be judge, jury, and executioner over other’s faith status.

I am posting it because I am hopeful that if you find yourself in this place, as a person of faith who is weirded out by a transgender person, or if you have always assumed that a transperson is mentally ill, trapped in sin and sexually perverted. Hopefully you will see Meggan’s heart, hear her voice, and realize that she has a life lived in the Redemptive Arms of Love.

Me? If you really want to know? As far as being judged by other christians, I don’t give it a second thought. The presence of the Lord is simply too “there” everyday for me to even entertain the notion that They do not like me. They draw near, each morning and the conversations of our hearts is edifying and encouraging. Sometimes They are silent…and Their world sings to my heart of Their beauty and truth and love.

Besides…I have already been judged soo often in the past by people over basically everything you can think of! Sometimes on the same Sunday morning I would be judged for the very same thing by people who saw it from the opposite stand point! Sometimes my sermons were too full of scripture! Sometimes my sermons were not full enough!!

I got to know Abe Lincoln’s famous saying about pleasing people very well…

The last straw for me, the one that set me free, was when we were in the midst of a vicious power struggle as leaders with a spiritually abusive pastor who was far far FAR past his “pull date”, and knew it…but just…couldn’t…let…go…and I was one of the very few who refused to back down in the face of his rage and anger and horrible ways of making people pay. Many times the wrath would flow…the congregation was about 85% solid on moving on with our new leadership team (leading by plurality), but about 15% were the old guard…didn’t like the new fangled ways like playing guitar and singing choruses and raising hands and waving flags…yunno, really evil things like that.

So…during this time, my father suffered and died from frontal lobe dementia, a rather nasty variant on a nasty phenomenon.

It was so trying, so painful for me. I loved him so, and still do.

And…after he died, someone sidled up to me in order to “comfort me”, but managed to tell me that he was certain that the Lord would not have killed my father if I had not been in rebellion against the old pastor!!!!!

Yeah…that is why I really could give a rip whatever people think…except for God, and my family, and my friends, and those I serve everyday. Haters gonna hate…and show their black hearts like simpering socialites at the Cannes film festival.

Just remember…unkind words are never ok, for any reason…especially from those called to speak in the Name of Love Himself.

Love, Charissa Grace

The Crucible of Disappointment

Posted on June 11, 2014 by charissagrace

Constance…have you ever been disappointed?

“Yeah, riiiiggghhhht, ‘Rissa!” you are prolly thinking! “Who hasn’t!!?”

And that leads me to my topic. See…lately I have been experiencing a lot of disappointment…plans made with loved ones and deeply anticipated, only to find that they have changed so the loved one can serve someone else…understandable…but disappointing.

Or trying hard to nail down an appointment, only to get no reply regarding which of a number of dates would be best…and then worse, feeling like I am making a pest of myself in seeking to simply get this thing scheduled…wondering if I am being avoided, if I have been intrusive or over-bearing…and yeah, disappointment.

We all experience it, but here is a secret: disappointment can be a crucial and pivotal agent of transformation in your life…or rather, the way that you handle it will lead to radical transformation.

I think the most crucial thing to grasp is this: Disappointment is divinely planned to result in death. Think about it…frequently when we are disappointed, something inside us dies–a dream, a desire, a hope, a plan…but as has so often been the case for me, the death of those things opens the gateways for the resurrection of those things in some far more pure and properly motivated form.

It is a tool that is similar to a surgeon’s blade. It is wielded with great skill by the Ones who love us best. But there is a team aspect to passing thru the death of disappointment and int the realms of resurrection! Like so many things, what is most crucial is not what happened, but rather how we choose to respond. The power to choose is what separates the Mandala’s from the Mansons!

Generally, we tend to deal with disappointment in one of two ways:
#1: Fear. I know that I am guilty a lot of being so confused when I get disappointed, and then to think, and react in fear…fear that I am being rejected, fear that I am unloved, fear that I have driven someone away with a careless word or mis-timed joke, fear of pain or sorrow.

#2. Faith. Faith that love bears all things, and never fails, and Joy will always find a way. When we are able to faithfully continue to the person we wish to be, to keep our eyes on the vision and keep them off ourselves, it is miraculous how disappointment becomes the catalyst for the transformation we so deeply desire.

I am struck by a series of contrasts in the lives of several Bible characters, and please, remember that the things in the Bible contain truths that we are privileged to suss out in our day and age. It is possible to learn from the truth of the stories without necessarily subscribing to a specifically Christian position or theology.

I see a vast difference in the lives of 2 men, who at one time were very close, who both were destined to rule as king, who both endured disappointment and sorrow…and yet one of these men we have heard nothing from or about other than the things recorded about in in the Bible, and the other of the men wrote poetry and prayers that are still to this day echoing in the highways and byways of the human heart and soul! I am talking about Saul, and David…one walked with fear, and one walked with faith.

Saul is said to have encountered a big disappointment when the prophet Samuel did not show up when Saul had planned for him to. Samuel told him to wait…wait until Samuel arrived! But Samuel delayed several days…and then the people began to grumble, began to demand that their king take action…and Saul’s disappointment became infected by fear, and he began to move and think and decide from a basis of fear.

In the midst of the crucible of disappointment, Saul fearfully decided that he could not rely on or trust anyone else, so he chose to embrace self-reliance, in a twisted way. And within a few chapters he is in the grip of self-deception, which bore the bitter fruits of despair and ultimately destruction…and we see this cycle of disappointment/deception/despair/destruction repeated in Saul’s life over and over again.

By the end of his days, Saul is alone and finds himself in the house of a witch, seeking dark and sinister remedies for disappointment. A few days later, Saul commits suicide, and the life of a talented and promising human being came to a tragic and futile end.

David, on the other hand, found himself in the crucible of disappointment over and over again just like Saul…but instead of responding with fear, he responded with faith. He made a choice, to delight himself in whatsoever was true, good, noble and worthy. He spoke of his choices to do this, to trust, to have faith. He wrote about them, and about the Ones with the power to deliver him according to Their riches and mercies. David declared over and over again that even in the midst of disappointment, God is good.

And ultimately, David experienced deliverance from that crucible and resurrection into a more yielded and humble vessel.

Disappointment met in fear=> deception=>despair=>destruction=>death. The root force behind this whole path is self-reliance, in its unbalanced and unhealthy form. The soundtrack to this path is the song “What about me? Me, me, meeee!!” Tragically, death here is the ultimate and final end.

Disappointment met in faith=>delight in what’s right=>declaring what’s true=>deliverance=>resurrection and life! The root force behind this whole path is a yielded spirit. The soundtrack to this path is the song “I Surrender All”. Miraculously, death here is the gateway to life, and is just a new beginning!

There are many other contrasts available for your examination…consider the man of fear (Samson) vs the man of faith (Samuel), and how each one dealt with disappointment, how each one walked a road that was determined by their choice of fear/faith, and the fruit that came from their lives by the end…

…or consider Judas and Peter (who aren’t that much different! After all, both men betrayed the Lord in His hour of travail!). Judas encountered such disappointment that the Messiah was not setting up a physical kingdom in which he would be an important governor, but was instead setting up a kingdom that was not made from wealth and fame, but from love and sacrifice and kindness…and so he stole things (out of fear), and justified it to himself to betray Jesus (deception), and then when he saw that every attempt he made to force Jesus to show His power physically and save Himself had failed, he wept bitterly (despair), and then hung himself.

Peter, on the other hand, entered into the same crucible, and was guilty of the same things, having taken up a sword and cut off the ear of another person (it took the touch of Jesus to heal that person!)

And as an aside, have you ever noticed that before? When Peter got militant and angry and attempted to bring the Kingdom in by human strength, he effectively rendered another person incapable of hearing! Ask yourself: how many times have YOU with the best of intentions but firmly ensconced in your own strength and agenda taken your sword and hurt someone, deafened them to the very message you so deeply wish to communicate? I think we need to take a hard look at ourselves, and consider hard the lesson Peter learned here!

So when Peter did this, he was rebuked by the Lord, and got disappointed, and even more so when Jesus allowed Himself to be taken away…and then he walked in fear, which led to deception that he would be safe from harm if he just kept quiet…which led to his denial of Jesus vehemently…which led to his despair as he saw His friend and Lord taken and tortured…

…but Peter then found the space and the grace to hold on, and a few days later, the Risen Lord appeared on the shores of the sea and called to Peter who in faith took action! He dove into the sea and swam to the Lord, and there in faith he let disappointment be turned into resurrection as he found his way through delighting in the Lord, declaring Who He is, and thus being delivered into new life.

Constance…I encourage you to take a ramble thru these stories. Whether you have a Bible or just use aan online tool like Bible Gateway…whether you consider the Bible authoritative in your life, or a collection of wise spiritual stories…do not lose the opportunity to glean some wisdom and a skill set to assist you in dealing with a very common assailant in our lives here in this time and place.

The contrasts between the two ways of dealing with disappointment are stark and meaningfully salient:

Fear seeks to escape…Faith seeks to embrace.

If you have chosen a lifestyle that is fear based, this is sort of attempting to save yourself by yourself, and essentially that is tantamount to spiritual suicide eventually. Ultimately, none of us is big enough to bear all our burdens all by ourselves! We need each other, and in my own world view, we need They who love us utterly and completely!

But if you choose to take the risk of responding in faith to disappointment, and to embrace your life rather than attempt to flee, then you will find the peace and relief in laying down your life into Their loving hands…trusting Them that you can be who you really are with Them, and that They will be who They really are with you!. You take your eyes off of the fires, off of the hurts, and you fix your eyes on the promised prize waiting on the other side…waiting thru the crucible of disappointment.

Disappointment: it brings us to the crossroads…and we can travel to that cross, and then thru that cross and into new life and deeper peace and joy.

Thank you so much for reading, and may you be blessed this day with oodles of grace, and boodles of joy, and blankets of peace.

Love,

Charissa Grace

‘Neath Marvel Skies

Posted on June 3, 2014 by charissagrace

I sit, quiet in morning, in a fuzzy gold dawn of…yet another.
This day, like them all, like none before, stretches out horizontally
(my cramped and sleepy legs), stretches out vertically
(my free unfurling soul), hums with eternity’s pulsing center
and calls my name with its wafting breezy mouth.

My heart pulls, rises with the sleepy sun and warms
to its task of pulling me up to the easy estate of becoming.
Flowers send fragrant potions in answer to beckoning
gestures from cloudy gentle giants floating in graceful skies
bluing up for warmer dances coming when the sun opens its eyes.

There is a space for you here…beside me on this soft and leafy bench.
But you must turn a quarter turn, and step three times to your left and hop,
and fall up out of that dreamy safe sameness and routine slumber.
You must say the words and rub that dull and tinny lamp
that stands beside your desk, your bed, your chair, and then…come here.

The air shimmers, blades and branches sense your approach, your desire.
They lean, beckoning, they sing and lark in this breezy vibrant dawn.
There is quiet at the heart of this singing day, but deeper, within that quiet
burns an ever-flaming core of wonder-song, facets flashing, gleaming, fiery
like some magic carpet woven from Auroras and last night’s wild starry strays…

I wait in the quiet, I wait in the core, I wait ‘neath these plush and pearly-gold skies
swimming before a broadening emboldened sun. I wait for you…
I feel you turn, your first, second, third step, your hop…
I see rose air displace and bulge and nearly tear,
I hear that lamp purring ‘neath your eager hand!
And I join the flowers, blades, branches,
birds to herald your arrival, here ‘neath marvel skies!

He Cares (Song from Isaiah 43, 1988)

Posted on May 28, 2014 by charissagrace

In 1985 I got very sick with a kidney disease called Nephritis. There was no cause that could be found, but there was a prognosis of immediate dialysis, followed by transplant at the first available organ.

For 9 months before this manifested on October the 4th, 1985, I had been getting a specific biblical reference virtually every morning during my prayer time. It was Lamentations chapter 3. This is a famous passage where the prophet Jeremiah is vicariously repenting to the Lord on behalf of the nation of Israel, and also lamenting his own personal hardship. The verses that stood out, as if in flames to me, were 12-13…

“He has bent His bow and set me up as a target for the arrow.He has caused the arrows of His quiver to pierce my kidneys…”

Of course they were a huge puzzle for me, and I delved into the chapter, and had fruitful study for months, but could not for the life of me figure out what was so significant about those fiery words…

So there I was, in the doctor’s office while they laid out my future for me, and by then, I knew the meaning of those words, in all their dread. I knew that this was some sort of trial/discipline/classroom/reproach/something that was from God, and only God would be able to help me. I had a deep certainty that I was going to survive this (and I was not very happy about that, to be frank. It was during this time that I tasted gun oil on a barrel, if you get my drift), and I decided before things got too far, that I was going to seek Them and beseech Them for mercy and see what happened…why it happened…what was happening.

I refused the options they laid out. The doctors told me I was crazy…but I didn’t care. When they asked me what I was planning, I simply told them the verses, what God had been putting in me for 9 months, and that this was something divine that had to be dealt with on that level. Of course they ridiculed me, sought to belittle and demean me for my stupidity.

It was rough to take. I knew how it looked…Jesus Freak outta yer mind etc etc.

But I was firm in my understanding, and knew that anything else they did would be futile, so instead I sought help through natural means and prayer and repentance. I did intense research and found several herbs that had verifiable healing qualities for kidneys. I prayed a ton.

And I had to work during this time. I had no time off available, and my new wife and baby needed to eat, right? So I went out to my very physical job picking up trash in our town, and I slogged zombie-like through the days. I had a constant 101 degree fever. My muscles constantly ached like the worst flu you have had. I felt so sick, so full of toxins, and so absolutely alone.

Imagine the silence, after virtually everyday for 9 months there had been active voice in my spirit from Them.

Imagine the horror and lonely realization that I was literally dying, and I had chosen to either live or die by Their intervention, and They were not talking.

It was bleak…for real.

But in a few weeks, I began to hear stirrings, and eventually They established dialogue again with me, and then came weeks of gentle revelation to me of my own carnal dependence on religion, theology, and the word itself. They showed me that I basically worshiped the Bible instead of Them. I could quote the word 9 ways to Sunday, but I didn’t properly care for Their down-trodden and weak and lost sheep. I was self-righteous, boasting in my credentials, my position as a life-long christian, and my status as a “good person”. They showed me my dependence on my own abilities and gifts (which THEY gave me, btw), and finally, how I had put my trust in an ethic of law and right behaviour, instead of trusting Them in relationship, with an ethic coming from righteousness equaling right relationship with Them.

These revelations were in some ways more painful than the physical issues I was dealing with. OOooohhh my pride was sooo stinky and offended! But They were right…They always are.

There was no immediate relief, no instant healing after I got the message and began to pursue repentance…repentance: simply a changing of the mind resulting in traveling the opposite way you were traveling. Metanoia. But there was a coming along side, an empowering while I was so weak, to complete each day, everyday, and slowly but surely embrace the fellowship of His sufferings (sanctification and death to self)…until finally…the day this song was born.

I was working in a neighborhood in our town, and as I was picking up trash, I saw a young woman in her mid twenties come out of her house, and walk to her car. She had been weeping, and was bruised (literally). She was smoking a cigarette, and was somewhat unkempt. And above all, underneath the veneer of hurt, pain, sorrow, and slow hardening of her heart, I saw that she was incredibly beautiful. Now…I think what happened is that They gave me eyes to see her as They see her! And in that moment, the lyrics to the song came into my heart, and the melody out of my mouth, and basically I got the song in about 5 minutes. I quickly pulled around the block and jotted down the words, finished the day, and went straight home to the guitar and firmed it up.

I went back to that house a few days later. I intended to sing that song to that woman…but the house was empty. Whatever violence that had occurred had flowered into its bitter and deadly fruit and no one was there any longer. I went back to my car and sat…and cried. I cried for her, for whoever hit her, for the sin and brokenness we were hemmed in by, and I prayed loud and without thought for how I appeared to others or what words I used or how spiritual I sounded or looked…and I begged Them to watch over her, draw her to Themselves, and other things as well.

The tears finally stopped, and I was ready to leave…and I heard Lady Grace speak to me, and She said that what I had just experienced was why They had pierced my kidneys with Their arrows…Their discipline had at last resulted in the good fruit They desired. She basically told me it was the first time I had ever prayed for someone else with a whole heart aware only of the person, and not of my own role as the spiritual champion, warrior, super-christian, etc. etc. And that I was incapable of hearing that song from Them previous to Their scouring and wounding stripes.

I will never, ever forget that…and the lesson of Their Faithfulness. “For I am confident of this very thing: that He who began a good work in you shall be faithful to complete it until the day of Jesus Christ!”

In light of my posts taking a very sharp prophetic stance against misogyny, I think it is timely that I found this song today in the annals of my past…“He Cares” (it is in waltz time in a country gospel style)… tumblr_n64n4yXMxA1qbc8lko1_1280

Don’t let the world steal your beauty.
Don’t let the world take your joy.
When you’re too hurt to cry, and your spirit is so dry,
oh don’t let the world steal your beauty.

When you pass thru ferocious deep rivers,
when the water is chilly and cold,
Though the floods be so grey, you will not be swept away,
when you pass thru ferocious deep rivers.

Chorus:
Cause He cares, He cares.
Jesus cares for you.
He will gently lift you up. He will fill your empty cup,
Jesus cares for you.

Don’t let the world steal your victory.
Don’t be defeated by the pain.
When you’re wounded in the fight, when you can’t see any light,
oh don’t let the world steal your victory.

When you walk thru the lonely hot fires,
and dark flames of despair lick your soul.
Do not be concerned, for you will not be burned,
when you walk thru the lonely hot fires.

Chorus:

Bridge:
Do not call to mind what has happened before,
don’t ponder the things of the past.
I will make a broad roadway in the wilderness,
and rivers of life in your deserts.

What My hands hold, none can snatch away.
What I do, none can undo.
By My Blood and My Name, you are fee from all shame,
Oh! I LOVE you, come to Me!

Chorus:
Cause I care, I care!
My people, I care for you!
I will gently lift you up, I will fill your empty cup.
Oh My people I care for you!

Don’t let the world steal your beauty.
Don’t let the world take your joy.
He will gently lift you up…He will fill your empty cup,
So don’t let the world steal your beauty.

This Desperate Prisoner Song from Psalm 69 July 1992

Posted on May 26, 2014 by charissagrace

I remember the season that I wrote this…one of the worst of my life. A parent of 4 marvelous children, married to an amazing and wonderful woman, successful, respected…and absolutely terrified constantly inside, haunted by feelings of suicide and alienation, and carrying the deep shame that I was not really a man at all. And what I was I had not been allowed to think of since I was 6 years old.

The pressure would build, to almost intolerable levels, and then somehow They would give me grace, carry me, and another period would pass where I could tolerate the pain and sorrow.

I didn’t think I was gonna make it thru this one. I thought for sure that I was gonna lose heart and kill myself, and there was no one to talk to about it, for I was ashamed that I was not “strong enough!” And then I ran into Psalm 69, and this song was born.

Looking at it now, I can hear that I, Charissa, was beginning to shout…I was the desperate prisoner. In many ways, we are all that desperate prisoner…and He is always the Liberator…for I was set free, and never have I known such peace and contentment.

Thank You Father…thank You Jesus…thank You my Mama Lady Grace.

I love You all!

Save me oh God, the flood o’er whelms my broken heart, my throat is parched!
I’m weary, Lord, from crying, my burning eyes fail while I wait for Thee!

Oh God You see my every folly, and all my wrongs are know to Thee.
May they who seek Thee be not dishonoured, because of me, because of me!

Reproach has broken me, and I am sick and shame covers my face.
I look for sympathy, but there’s no comfort there, no life for me.

Answer me Lord, and have compassion, and do not hide Your face from me!
Deliver me from the deep waters, draw near to me, please draw near to me!

O ransom me, my God, set me on high and I will sing Your song.
Zeal for Thy House consumes my soul and I will ever seek Your face.

The humble see, and they are filled with gladness, and those who seek Him, He will revive.
For Jesus sees our every trouble, and sets the desperate prisoner free…
Oh Set This Desperate Prisoner Free!

Open My Heart (October 1997, a song of desperation)

Posted on May 26, 2014 by charissagrace

(Often I mistook the existential agony I was in due to feeling null, as a sinful and hard heart. I have always wanted God from my earliest memories…and have always felt so puny and wanting in His sight. Now, I have learned that what I was feeling mostly was the horror of dysphoria, and “not belonging” in either gender. But those feelings drove me to Them…I mean, when it gets down to it, where else was there for me to go??

Anyway, I am thankful for Their love, Their unending compassion and tender mercies…and above all for Their unending grace. They brought me thru the fires and floods)

Open my heart dear Lord,
Open my heart dear Lord.
For I am hungry Lord
for Your living Word.

But my heart is hard, oh Lord!
Tattered and Scarred, oh Lord!
Spirit please soften me,
let Your Love set me free, to love You in purity.

Capture my heart, dear Lord!
Capture my heart, dear Lord!
So when my race is run,
my heart would be found in Your Son!

Just one thing I desire,
the baptism of Your Fire!
Come set my heart aflame!
With passion for Jesus’ Name, forever Amen.

Judge Me Not

Posted on May 24, 2014 by charissagrace

This poem (or is it more just verse?) is attempting to say that if you ever find yourself looking at the outward actions of someone and coming to a conclusion about their motive or heart, it is a dead giveaway that you have unconsciously or consciously begun to trust in your own self as the source of righteousness and goodness, and have poised yourself as the standard of measure…otherwise how would you come to such a conclusion about the person’s heart??

A wise man told me once, “We judge others by their actions, but we judge ourselves by our intentions.”

Wow. So true, right? No, instead, when you are filled with the wonder and majesty of the glorious work Jesus FINISHED when He became our sacrifice and ransom, and when you truly grasp that when you say Yes to Them it is no longer you who live, but Christ in you, and that ALL old things are passed away and you are a brand new never have been creature that is a human being incarnating Very God…well, then…you are free, to simply be Their Ambassador of Love and Mercy and Kindness.

Love Mercy

Do Justly

Walk Humbly.

Love, Charissa Grace

Judge me not by the deeds I do, e’en if they tower tall
Or if they glower and echo failure and show all the ways that I fall
Judge me not by my actions, for actions only tell a part,
Judge instead the Deeds of Them whose works show the True Heart.

The True Heart gives, in lavish ways, compassion, joy, and grace,
It knows our frame, that we are dust, and knows we lost our face,
It responsibility takes for every step astray
And makes a way for us lost sheep to run from night to day.

tumblr_n5ut1fDRHc1qmr38bo1_1280

When actions you look only at, you show the god you trust,
Your own soul’s will and naming good, your own judgement…your lust
To at the core be your own captain, commanding your own soul
And God’s Name becomes vanity as you crash on ego’s shoals.

So judge me not, for I will fall beneath your scrutiny
But look instead at Lady Grace, at Jesus, at the sea
Of Love unceasing, perfect and fulfilling all the law
Indwelling life in me…judge Them…and then kneel down in awe.

Declaration

Posted on May 21, 2014 by charissagrace

In the midst of pain, lonely ache and terror,
in the midst of the grasping clingy gloom and
thistley despair raining in cold fire around me,

I choose to lift my eyes up, lift up my heart,
lift my lips up and again resolve to sing and give my
pearls of praise in offerings of trust…and faith…and standing.

Resolved: to stand, weeping though I may be, but not to turn back,
not to be silent, stand and wait. Wait. wait.
For the Goodness of the Lord to rise again, and again.

I recall the old song:

“We’ve come this far by faith! Leaning on the Lord, trusting in His Holy Word,
He hasn’t failed us yet! Oh, we won’t turn back, we’ve come this far by faith!”

This is my boast…that They are faithful, and will work and will and do
in me to Their Good Pleasure, and I shall not be left bereft
come what may.

Amen.

We Return To You (song, 1992)

Posted on May 14, 2014 by charissagrace

This song is revealing now…I see the cycle, as I would swing down into the trough and the horror of dysphoria would rage in me like a flood. And then the manifestations of Their comfort, Their mercy, and the wholeness that They would bestow, and my heart would be restored.

In the trough, I wrote songs of repentance and cries for mercy…I thought that I was displeasing Them, or failing Them, or not numbering my days wisely. While that likely happened some, it is far more the case that I was dis-integrating and desperate. And on the peak, I was carried by Them, as They healed me and got me ready for the next battle, the next workout and time of war… so I wrote songs of devotion, celebration, exuberance…and lots of songs about the Bride and Bridegroom (a topic I was obsessed with! More on that later).

This is a trough song.

(Oh…and PS: the wording is almost straight from the OT, thus the words about His anger, wrath, and the “Thou”s and “Thee”s!)

From everlasting to everlasting, Thou art God.
Days pass like flowers fading in darkness but You remain.

Your Holiness unchanging, Your purging fire consuming all our ways,
because our fading flowers are countless wasted hours cast away.

Chorus:

We’ve been consumed by Thine anger!
We’ve been dismayed by Thy wrath!
Our secret sin is revealed in Thy Presence,
we have worshipped the works of our hands!

Oh Lord, we cry out to You for forgiveness!
Oh Lord, we cry out to You for Your grace.
Oh Lord, we ask that You would show us Your mercy!
Return to us, as we return to You.

Teach us to number each day You give us to worship Thee,
That we can give You hearts full of wisdom, and Your ways.

Restore us in the morning and let Your Loving-Kindness be our bread!
Let mercy fall upon us like dew from heaven’s storehouse…make us glad!

Chorus

Wasted For You (worship chorus 1995)

Posted on May 6, 2014 by charissagrace

(Back in 1995, I was a full time worship leader for the body of believers that I was attending…the place where I taught, led, and tried best I could to serve. This is a chorus I wrote in those days, to try to indicate a total resolve to follow Jesus where He led, regardless of the cost or place.

Little did I know that the journey would lead here!! Honestly, back then if someone had told me the road would lead to a discovery that I was a transgender person, I would have thought they were crazy! See, I was like most people…I thought that being transgender meant being sexually interested in dressing as a woman and having homosexual activity with another man.

I was totally ignorant, but in my own “righteousness” and view of anyone different, I automatically assumed that A: they were “weird” and B: they were sinful. Oh, and of course I “loved” them…Hah!

SO much has changed, and Jesus and Grace did indeed take me up on my bold words. I never knew how much pain and wrenching would be involved in such a revelation as They brought…and I also could not even imagine the liberty and healing that has resulted.

The good fruits in me are wonderful, and they in essence build my trust, to issue another bold proclamation to surrender even more…and that is scary, because the last one was so difficult, that the thought of something else like that makes me quail!

But here is the truth: I would rather die running towards Them instead of running away.

I hope that the next phase involves opportunities to tell people about the real People I know…the real Father and Jesus and Mama…the tender and loving and humorous and creative and accepting and teaching and transforming Beings that They have been for me.

Constance…please, if you are not used to reading about God, or talking about who they are, or if you have past wounds, bad experiences or pollutions from people who took Their Name in vain, give what I have to say about Them a chance.

I assure you: if They accept the likes of me, they will accept anybody!!)

There’s a cry in my spirit, an unquenchable flame.
I’ve been captured by Jesus, and I will never be the same!
I’ve been branded forever. I’ve been cut to the core.
By the Lion of Judah, shaken by His Mighty Roar!

So I will spend every moment, and I will waste all my wealth,
Jesus, come break me open, and pour me out for Yourself.
For I have burned all my bridges. I’m past the point of no return…
Jesus, let me be, yielded totally, and wasted for You.

Descant: I want to be wasted for you Lord (repeat) tumblr_myrya9xwTw1sv2qqoo1_500

The “Ditz” Factor: Loving Liberty

Posted on May 5, 2014 by charissagrace

I am a huge ditz these days…and loving it! I mean, the last several weeks has been nearly a laugh a minute for my baby and me as I forget things, or fail to see an obvious joke or factor, and then repeat it…you know what I mean, don’t you?

The ditz factor

What I used to tease her over, and she is not a ditz very often, just once in awhile.

She thinks payback is sweet, and she is right! Because this is something that never. could. happen. before.

Nope…never a ditz. Why?

Vigilance.

Self check, 60 times a minute, 60 minutes an hour, and 24 hours a day.

I had no idea how deeply and firmly I had me by the throat, choking down everything that might get me in trouble, that might get me called names again that scarred my memory forever like burns…I had developed these elaborate means by which to censor myself, and do it all unseen or “unknown”.

Except my baby knew…because I was not happy at the core, and I was not full at the core, and I wanted to not be without any good reason at all. It is only because of the Love of the Father, and Jesus and Lady Grace that I am here at all, and that is a pure fact. I find myself well within the 41% of all transgender people who consider suicide strongly, and yet by Their grace alone, not in the larger statistic of those who follow through.

So now? My estradiol works a wonder war on my poverty of soul, as it connects my body and my soul/mind/heart.

At last my brain is finding congruence and affirmation (slowly) whenever it talks to my body in their own talky language…they don’t fight and argue and separate anymore.

So I don’t check. Double check. Triple think. And the ditz factor climbs…I do theorize that the estradiol snickers as it runs around and lights the “ditz onboard” lamps in my soul. My baby says she laughs more now than in all the years combined (and I did make her laugh lots then, cus I figured that it was the least I could do for her, and it covered the sorrow in my core).

And the love keeps flowing, the light keeps growing, and my heart keeps knowing that

I am Charissa Grace, and I am under the Mercy and I’m okay.

“Do not despise your past, Charissa”

Posted on May 4, 2014 by charissagrace

These words have been echoing thru my heart for the last several days. Mama has been digging, turning over ground long gone fallow. She has taken me back…over old sermon notes, thru old class outlines and conference messages and topics. I am remembering so many things, and most of all…

…I am remembering the songs.

Yeah. I was a songwriter. Big surprise to you all over here, right???? LOLOL!

I would imagine I have written well over a thousand songs, or more, if you include worship choruses and what not.

I only have a few dozen laying around now, and so many forgotten, gone into the history of my walk of devotion along with the yesterdays and yesteryears. They are all part of the “us” that They and I are now, in the same way that the food you ate when you were 5, and 15, is still a part of you.

But I sense a purpose in all this:

Mama does not like Her daughter to be divided, has never liked the dissociation that I was forced to adopt. And now that I am set free, She is bound and determined to bring all those things that were good materials and lay them in a work basket…and teach me to weave. She and I will weave them into our relationship. She says She will strip away my shame, my self loathing, and my sorrow and despair.

So for a while there will be appearances here in the blog of old simple songs…old funny songs…strange things…outlines of talks and homilies…whatever I think is still of value to anyone other than myself. I think that sometimes I might try to turn them into poems…who knows?

One thing is for certain: you are gonna get a glimpse into a heart…a heart that They chose to be involved with, and one that in its towering imperfection loves them as my only true light, life and hope…a hope certain and sure, and not merely wishful wistful thinking.

Love, Charissa 248852_10150212535558180_823713179_7141081_5708839_n

Spitting Bones

Posted on April 29, 2014 by charissagrace

I remember the bones…smooth
with the thick patina of reverence and religion.
Pushed thru the bars of my crib, one by one,
proffered by priests and priestesses
frantic in the grip of their god.
Their god of two faces, only two…
and bones, always endless bones.
I cried fearful and turned away from
the face their god thrust into mine,
wrathful and hungry to eat me,
and spit me out as bones.

I remember the birth of days, endless continuum
of spitting bones (they fed) forced into my heart
by fingers of dread and violation.
Their food was wormwood, was fungal,
was necrotic and charnel charcuterie,
it was bones thrown, divining that
never-never-land, that future of failure
and folly-laced affliction offered
as communion that roundabout me
all partook of, eating the body and drinking the blood
of a god breaking them all for itself!
Wretch that I was, east of Eden and hungry,
alone and spitting bones.

But the days when my cradle concealed
only an ash heap desolate and bleak in the wind,
and the nights where my bars branded themselves
into my soul to make me their always-prisoner,
began to be cracked by winds, by tremors, by thunders
and by storms, always storms railing,
leaving me soaked to my bones
and raw from my bars,
but slick and wet, ready for birth.

And even as I had spit the bones of that god
bitter from my velvet mouth, I reached,
and gripped hard, and wrenched in desperate anguish
until at last those sharp teeth
(that hungry god’s unwisdom teeth)…
those brands burnt sizzling into my heart tore loose!
Bloody and gore spattered, glistening
with dread power draining, diminishing.
I welled up my outrage, my despair,
my affliction and conjured from them
alchemal ancient power and found my niche,
found my mission spitting bones!

And now?
I sit on downy green mounds,
on high hills become mountains!
I forage in fields of gold, omnivore
and gleaning food from gods forgotten,
gods ignored, from Grace Herself
Who is bounty and variegated victory!
And I eat, freely, with no fear or terror
of the old god who died and cannot rise again!
I draw strength from the meat of complicated cuts
that must be cured and marinated and braised off
until they loose their grip on gore and their poison is annulled.
For all my days, I will be one who can consume all things
and grow to grace others and thrive,

eating the food… and spitting bones. Luna

Charissa is a sloppy happy teary mess o’ praise after watching Hezekiah Walker New Video “Every Praise” – YouTube

Posted on April 26, 2014 by charissagrace

Constance…when I hear my blessed Mama living in the music of Her children as they sing, I burst into tears…literally every time. When Precious Jesus is inhabiting the praise of His peoples, I cannot help the tears of joy that simply jump out of my heart and stream tangible baptisms of gratitude, and flowing fountains of inexpressible and unutterable thankfulness that The Lord has had mercy on me, this broken and alienated stranger in a strange land.

Even as a small child, this happened to me…and then I was ashamed, because boys don’t cry. I always cried!!

Oh, it just feels sooo good to let my heart overflow and offer Him my own soul’s inner waters out from my eyes.

It doesn’t happen to me everytime I hear a worship song, or every time I hear a hymn, or sing even…but there are those times…if you were lucky enough to be in a church that wasn’t so freaking oppressive that Mama simply looked on from a distance, silently, Her incredible generous and compassionate essence quenched by the soul-stealing stench of pride and haughtiness…then you know that moment I am talking about. Something just…changes! The ceilings are gone…the floors are gone…horizons expand, and suddenly you know…you. know. That God is alive, and love. That you are alive and loved.

As a small child, as a teen, and as a young adult, these times would happen, and I would hide myself away in Them, snuggled down my tearful face buried deep in Their side, and I would breathe my thankful utterances that in this awful and desolate land that I was sentenced to dwell in until I died, through no request or doing of my own was I born and then born a prisoner…I would tell them…Oh Lovely Lovely Shepherd (for that is who I talked to then, to Jesus the Good Shepherd who left the 99 and came to get me…Jesus the compassionate who had mercy on the prostitute caught in the act of adultery…Jesus the Healer who felt the touch of faith’s heart at the hem of His garment in the throng of thousands of grabby greedy desperate hands)…Oh Wondrous Shepherd of my soul…if I can have my sentence of life in prison punctuated and pierced by these moments of furlough and reprieve, however brief…then I will follow You always. I promise and do so choose forever, come what may.

And then I would often weep all night long…literally…draining out the sorrow, the self-loathing and the shame and despite for my awful awful self…I would pour out my thankfulness that even to a wretch like me They would draw nigh and commune with me…even humble Themselves to TOUCH me!

And They were faithful to be there…

And They were faithful to continually work over me, labor over me, in the womb of my imprisonment and dysphoria to ready me for birth…and when labor began They went silent, for the pangs and contractions had to be strong, had to be ultimate, had to take me past my limits. Well, they did that, and I came home finally, came out finally to live and be born…

and the moments resumed, commenced once again.

Now? Oh. My. God. Mama took me under Her wing, and has been teaching me, Her tongue a good Theme.

So I would ask you to give the vid a shot, for at minimum you can hear the soundtrack that played while I bawled in utter thankfulness and total gratitude for life, for Life.

And at the maximum? Have some tissues on the by!

Love and Grace be unto you in the richest most lavish extreme…

Charissa Grace the Grateful Girl forever tumblr_n4mf72qUM41rk1cbbo1_1280

Hezekiah Walker New Video “Every Praise” – YouTube.

On Notice!

Posted on April 23, 2014 by charissagrace

Let the powers know
that I am being found,
am finding myself
and I am glad, and scared,
and soaring to depths, heights
hawking my way
through chasms and
slamming into depths and crevasses and
then piercing velvet dark
frosty air, rising, rising,
an eagle golden and free.

Let the Tetrarch know
that I will step forward
in grace and upon grace
a wounded-healer to be. 57dcca2a25c7abbce57b0b42f3e53cd9 And let the Prideful Patrons and
Practitioneers of Patriarchy
be put on notice:
If the sword of the healing-wounder
should ever bless my grasp
with its blue-bejewelled hilt and
silver redemptive sharp blade,
I will wield it with
remorseless pity, and soft relentlessness!
I will the rivers and seas follow,
to overcome by giving way. tumblr_n3004aNe8v1qllucco1_1280

And let the humble hear,
let the lost perk up to the echoes
of turtledoves and
the heralds of hummingbirds
and the buzzing of many drowzy
busy bees that Mama has
opened Her hives, and
honey pours once again
to all those
famished and forlorn. Von

Infection Crucinfection (Easter 1980)

Posted on April 22, 2014 by charissagrace

{I have been contemplative over the difference of this Easter compared to any other one in my entire life. It has me looking back, at old poems, old journals, etc. Thus the spate of poems 3 decades old.

I have changed a lot, and I think that is good. I think my poems are better now, too…Terraces, right??

This poem was the first poem about Easter for me.}

He sat in the straw
mute as a rock
crudely undone.

Ranker than swine
coarse to our nails
we swung to our job.

Infected with Truth
He hung in the dust
Drenched to His Skin,
Bleached to His Bones.

Then He went
all the way
coming to
common terms
with loss as
Blind as Wind.

Veils and Terraces

Posted on April 22, 2014 by charissagrace

I put up veils that day…in the midst of the screaming panicked anger.
In the grip of vile and hateful words (they hit me like icicles and melted).
I put up veils, to cover landslide avalanches words started inside me.

I was small, 6. I was alone, now, lost amidst the melting mountain of self
that cascades like Mississippis of mud, of dirt, of noisy horror and
buzzard squawks in my fevered mind.

On that precipice I teetered, feeling the depths draw and mock me
feeling the pressure of the wind and heat from adults lashing and railing
(in the name of love).

I fled dimly, frenzy-fueled and fearful (forever, I thought)
and hastily found in the lonely nothing my shame, my self-loathing
and my razor thoughts, and wove veils.

Concealing the rift, the chasm. Covering the evidence
that I was a monster, deviant, and worse…
covering the life of pretense…

Imagine my shock, these days, as veils are torn asunder by laughter
as coverings are ripped away by joyous contentment, revealing
where there were only chasms, there are now terraces!

I am far larger than I ever was, and veiled only in terraces.

Thank You in the Pain (December, 1979)

Posted on April 21, 2014 by charissagrace

O Boundless One, in Whom Wisdom doth dwell
You calmly exercise Your purging blade.
One cut, and I scream Cease! This pain is hell,
But You heed not this reckless renegade.

Strife finds the wounded sparrow of my soul,
and stalks it without quarter through the heat,
in dark-fire trials of purgation patrol
strife captures its cut quarry in deceit.

And then You demand thanks in all the hurt!
With that command my sparrow falls from flight!
Yet only in its fall am I alert
to the reasons for praising Your foresight.

Thank You for the pain’s sweet overthrow,
a sparrow cannot fall and you not know.

Gifts you give yourself

Posted on April 11, 2014 by charissagrace

Forgiveness, towery and meritorius
when viewed from the lowly valleys and dales
of hard hurt and wounded ways
stands, stentorian and stark and stately.
To approach such lofty heights from there
seems tough, seems stubbornly sacrificial,
and requires a great provisioning
of the heart’s overflow into Mercy’s Rivers.

Acceptance twins from the next ridge over,
and it seems to wounded eyes
that these noble and lofty houses
aspire to heaven,
aspire to grandiose airy grounds
to weed out the weak-willed and shuffling supplicants,
the plodding and pitiful pilgrims
who failed to fully count the cost.

And yet if one but persists and never lets go
their grip on the Garment’s Hem
they will themselves be drawn up and sunder,
like doves mounting up in the velvet dawn
And discover comely cottage, cozy cabin,
home at last and free,
And finally receiving
the gifts you give yourself.

Through the Broken Window

Posted on April 10, 2014 by charissagrace

And yet,
through that shattered pane
there whispered a Presence…
an echo of days long dead
and left behind.
A time when the sun glowed gold,
the moon kissed all benighted
with her mellow silver lips,
and the wind sang instead of snored.

In the crucible of destruction,
Joy flits at the edges
like a quick-silver bird
and takes
residence in the ruins.
In her nesting
I find peace and
come to terms
with promise.

Her Mercy Womb

Posted on April 3, 2014 by charissagrace

All the relentless blows,
the pains, the wounds.
All the mummy-wrap wadded and
shoved roughshod down my throat
and through my heart…
The searing letdowns,
the cold denials of
heaving and wrenching begging.
Burdens allowed to pile up,
build up, bury me
in desperation and despair.
And silences…towering,
looming, lurking, leering,
mocking, unlistening…
All of these things
were horror to me…
But to Mama,
they were the womb that She wove
to carry me full,
carry me careful,
pregnant with me,
Her Daughter,
Her Offspring of Grace

Charissa

Piled, Pierced, and at Peace

Posted on March 31, 2014 by charissagrace

See her, here.

Broken tops and
edges gathered softly and
ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ
with gentle timing.
Rubble, rubbish,
ruin and remains

racked up,
rock
on
rock
just so…just so.

Holes and wounds gaping,
whistling and singing in
every flickering breeze,
and light running
full and free
wherever She sends,
wherever She leads.

I am Her Tor,
Her Tribute,
Her Trophy
and my heart
is Her Altar
Spilling Grace
Always

Ode to Self-Righteousness

Posted on March 15, 2014 by charissagrace

They lurked,
in lurid shadows, hurt,
angry inflamed
by evil righteousness
steeped in self
then drunk like
Dr Jekyll’s elixir.

The music,
light and beauteous
favor become sound
drifted, threaded
in and out and around to
remind them,
tantalize them,
sadly to torture them
with the dreary ugliness
of their inner bed o nails.

“Kill! Destroy them!
Our Lord demands it!”
they shrieked
imagining they were
christian soldiers following
a wrathful righteous
incensed king returned.
But they didn’t know
they had stapled
His Wondrous Face
onto the caustic and rotten
golem of their own design,
they couldn’t see through
the veils of fear

That the Joyous One
was swirling, dancing,
and laughing with
gracious glance in the midst
of those lost, those abandoned,
those wounded…
…those forever finally found
and running free.

Grace Ain’t Easy

Posted on March 15, 2014 by charissagrace

To look upon the gaping gash and see
not filthy dressing posed as fancy dress
but sour disease soaked rags to hide such shame
that noble queens and kings forget their name.

To touch adroitly, tenderly, yet firm
resolved to bring a medicine that heals
and then adorns in precious stones and gold
and then withdraw lest secret shame be told.

A costly way of life, hidden alone
committed to the coming bright Someday
enduring sorrow, betrayal, no sleep
cuz grace ain’t easy, grace is never cheap.

Though none come with, still pressing on for always
to heal, before…to kill, left far behind
the short death chosen now with Love’s embrace
Will yield forever beauty, Joy, and Grace.

Standing in the Rain

Posted on March 1, 2014 by charissagrace

My umbrella of fear
got blown inside out.
Her-ricanses cleansing and
Grace-Gales grasping, mending,
knitting.

Can you imagine stark rendings,
scouring removal of years,
assumptions imposed,
paradigms of creaky and stale
rheumy simpleness?
They sucked! But they were
something present,
(Stockholm is more than a city!)

And the rain falls,
drives and pelts down
and on and in…
soaking, clammy, draining

But my umbrella is now moot, and
I (with ships and song) am
standing in the rain.

Roses out of Ruins

Posted on February 14, 2014 by charissagrace

She walked, head held high
like a servant who pilfered a sweetcake
from the grouchy old cook
(who ruled her kingdom with iron,
a slave who fancied herself sovereign).

She took their glances,
their sneers, their horror
and fashioned it with cake and hope,
and bullheaded faith

To make flower out of flour,
and freedom out of fashion,
and roses out of ruins.

Flawless Trans Women Carmen Carrera and Laverne Cox Respond Flawlessly To Katie Couric’s Invasive Questions | Autostraddle

Posted on January 9, 2014 by charissagrace

I am sharing this post, and hope that you would click thru to see the story and video. It is a fabulous example first of all of how easily and literally without awareness it is for cis-gendered people to do things to transgender people which they would never ever even think to do to cis-gendered people.

Secondly, it is also a great example of how to handle things with Grace and Kindness…far too often I find that we are so very sensitive and hyper aware of any slight, no matter how small. It seems in our culture today that regardless of gender, sexuality, political persuasion, or religion we are by and large eager to take offense and cannot wait to grab those arrows of offense and stab our own selves with them! It is is if we want to be infected with that poison, and then we turn around and start trying to infect others

No wonder that zombie movies and shows are so popular now…they are a metaphor for a process in our time by which it seems that we make ourselves and one another into spiritual zombies, rampaging about biting and devouring one another.

Let’s all just stop! Step back. Take a breath…and then simply

be kind…be merciful…be full of grace.

Imagine…no not a world where there is no heaven, or religion, or any of the drivel that John Lennon sang about, for that very philosophy was already tried by the communists of Russia and Stalin’s regime, to the tune of nearly 100,000,000 deaths…that same philosophy was adhered to by the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia…

No…imagine a world where each person actively sought to just be kind…to just show mercy…to just be full of grace…

What is required? Do justly, love mercy, walk humbly, and love your neighbor as yourself.

See these two amazing human beings, and glean…maybe you too will be inspired as was I to strive to be a kinder and more gentle person.

Blessings,

Charissa

Flawless Trans Women Carmen Carrera and Laverne Cox Respond Flawlessly To Katie Couric’s Invasive Questions | Autostraddle.

Windows and Pathways

Posted on December 12, 2013 by charissagrace

Altars within.
What lies inside leads Outside.
Windows and pathways, like sunrise
Faithful and free.

I sip, slow, as spectrums
Bloom and what was fullness
drains, swirls, and I see beyond
Wavelengths.

There is a forgetting that is born of folly,
There is amnesia kissed by Grace
How to remember and forget in this
stoppered Lonely Place?

Oh Creation, be my window, be my pathway,
Be my temple to stretch out and
Fill with GloryGrace.,
And toast That Which is Beyond
And They Who are Within

Windows and Pathways.

Posted on December 4, 2013 by charissagrace

“And it has been
one hell
of a year.
I have worn
the seasons
under my sleeves,
on my thighs,
running down my cheeks.
This is what
surviving
looks like, my dear.”

—	Michelle K, It Has Been One Hell of a Year

Bleeding Light and Memory (without images for page structure in the poem)

Posted on November 20, 2013 by charissagrace

When light struck my soul and I blazed
fierce and exultant into awareness,
I bled radiant joy like the horizon
bleeds the sun at dawn.
And when I gazed into the glass of exultation
(seeing darkly thru that glass)
I knew myself and was
glad and wonder-full.

Until it rained
titters tinkling,
then rebukes raging, lashing at my roof
and thrumming drumming until
I saw no more darkly and thru a glass,
but thru the storm and eerie green glow
of radioactive remarks and careless cerulean (cruelean) comment,
alas. I came to know what I was not,
and I was awful (dropped an e I did).

Into days long and same,
passing people of 2 kinds that
belong and never see beyond,
never see within.

But still I pluck
throbbing buds, thorn
blood price cheap,
and hold them out
on my side of the glowing glass
(dark, through)
and wet with stormy tears
and the washy rivers of assumed presence.

But flowers fade and grass withers…
wheat words last forever
dying and reborn
to die and be born again,
as life and glacier glances grind
and move without mercy
till I am caught
between that frozen moving flow
and the dark rocks.

Bones strewn around me
in pick-up sticks of
careless hands and players
who tired of children’s games
(forgetting they must become a child)
until at last long
awareness bursts yet again
from heights dizzy and brilliant
and bleeds over me in fullness
and in terror tinklings,
thrumming and cold and stark
and cold blue clarity.
And I remember who I am,
and know what I am.
A lass.

Will you find the mercy today?
Will you find the care?
Will you go gently into our long night
and rage, rage
together with us to bless
the living of the light?
You too are dual natured,
all ye who sing sanctifications’
sweet and austere song

(old and new in one fighting)
(dead and alive in one struggle)
(corrupt and incorruption deadly dueling)

You….are US.
and we are you…but
without arms,
without eyes,
without mouths
we scream loud
and cry for release…cry out for
midwives of mercy to meet us,
make us beautiful for situation
and delivered of our awful charge.

OPEN YOUR EYES AND EARS FOR US.

See us…
hear us…
do not fear yourself,
to stare down your stormy floods,
but see, glean and grow glad.

Oh Pharaoh’s Daughters, reach down
and lift up from the reeds and mud.

Light strikes in blacksmith blows again
and soul sparks chip off and away
As She sings and joys over me
(and you).

And on this day
I intention and remember,
remember the radiant flood
and bleeding light
of day’s eternal promise,
remember the rolling thunder
and frowning floods of painful
gushing gouts and waterspouts
in the long years walked in
the country of lost men
(and despair),

remember
the pangs,
the waves,
the start of labor as I,
pregnant with my own mystery
and full of knowing
began to emerge
and break forth, touched,
warded by Grace,
and kept from the pit
which has tripped so many
and eaten them
like Goya’s devourer
chews and rends

(let their fate haunt you and give you holy hush and silence).

They too are
Eve’s sons,
Adam’s daughters,
trapped
and
yet aware…
who fell by dreadful hands
and eyes of no symmetry.

Dare. Look. Feel.

I will too, and somewhere
we will fight off the things
that so easily entangle and be
free again to fly and
Bleed Radiant Light.

Charissa's Grace Notes

Tag Archives: Grace

Feminine Images for God: What Does the Bible Say?

I am Charissa Grace for a reason…

TG and The Church

Mama’s Clothes

Haunted by a Lovely God

Today…

Suzanne Grossman Writes: “Why I Chose Grace as a Gay Christian”

Grace and the Space Between (by Josh Gaines)

Grace and the Space Between

Christianity and being Transgender – Why I won’t justify my transition

The Crucible of Disappointment

‘Neath Marvel Skies

He Cares (Song from Isaiah 43, 1988)

This Desperate Prisoner Song from Psalm 69 July 1992

Open My Heart (October 1997, a song of desperation)

Judge Me Not

Declaration

We Return To You (song, 1992)

Wasted For You (worship chorus 1995)

The “Ditz” Factor: Loving Liberty

“Do not despise your past, Charissa”

Spitting Bones

Charissa is a sloppy happy teary mess o’ praise after watching Hezekiah Walker New Video “Every Praise” – YouTube

On Notice!

Infection Crucinfection (Easter 1980)

Veils and Terraces

Thank You in the Pain (December, 1979)

Gifts you give yourself

Through the Broken Window

Her Mercy Womb

Piled, Pierced, and at Peace

Ode to Self-Righteousness

Grace Ain’t Easy

Standing in the Rain

Roses out of Ruins

Flawless Trans Women Carmen Carrera and Laverne Cox Respond Flawlessly To Katie Couric’s Invasive Questions | Autostraddle

Windows and Pathways

Bleeding Light and Memory (without images for page structure in the poem)

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