there ain’t much ground to stand on
there’s not a lot of space
for all my lil toesies
for my skert lil face
to go before me in the world
and represent my heart
it takes balance and grace unfurled
my banner and my part
it looks like I must tiptoe
on post and on the wire
but actually I walk in joy
aflame with Mercy Fire
so disregard what you see
and look beneath the veil
see mercy balance justice
in Humility’s scale
“It bugs me when people are unnecessarily mean. Like, you didn’t have to make that comment.
You could have just kept your mouth shut and left that person not feeling bad about themselves.
What do you gain from making someone else feel like shit? Nothing of substance.
Maybe a fleeting moment of power but that’s gone as soon as it comes so why?There’s enough unhappiness in the world without you adding to it.”
These words are my offerings burnt
singed in fires of pain and hurt
written as gouts of bright blood spurt
from my contrite soul.
I take treasure from my heart
pleasures, pains, my every dart
burn them for a brand new start
the incense of my spirit.
I will rise, all clothed in red
from my tear-stained sodden bed
walk into dark woods instead
and scatter these lost dreams
to leave a path of grace behind
and light remaining there to find
a way thru hurt to Your Home kind
I sing a new song now.
This.
Gives me hope.
Always.
You do not delight in sacrifice, or I would bring it;
you do not take pleasure in burnt offerings.
The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit;
a broken and contrite heart,
O God, you will not despise.
Constance…
How I wish that you could know…know…the Love of God…the Presence of Them in your core essence.
God has been so polluted and trashed by the low things that oppose Them. God has been so misrepresented by complete morons who spin out of their corrupted souls a god made in their own image, and it is ugly, it is gross, it is cruel and it is crude…and most of all it is blind, dumb, and deaf, just like them.
God is Humble. They pounce thru every single crack in human perception that shows the least openness to Them, and They shine…oh how They shine.
They have loved me.
And that is a wonder that breaks me open again and again and again and again and…
Holy Spirit of God…Holy Spirit is Their Presence here in this creation. Jesus has ascended and is in heaven in this time and making all things ready. So Their presence is Holy Spirit…and oh the honor of Her drawing me near Her, opening the Word to me to see Her…
She is like one of my poems…layers, hints, indirection, inference, and sometimes subtle in its baldfaced straightforwardness…this is Her.
And She is altogether good, and I love Her.
***** ***** ***** ***** *****
Reader: I will never not love Her.
Never.
Your statements and judgments of Her are dust and lower than irrelevance.
Why do you fulminate and foam at the mouth because I love Her? If indeed She was just a myth, why would you even care? I love Her, and it is to Her that I have surrendered, and willingly laid down control.
| — | Haruki Murakami |
This asks us to do this…but it is a bit incomplete! It should read this way:
“Everywhere you go, you leave your heart print. Be sure the marks are kind.”
Under this full moon I am crashing
thru clouds of popcorn kernels
shedding their hard shells
and giving up their ghosts in gasps
of heated pleasure and anguish.
I am splashing into pools of people
faces upturned, hands upraised
giving up the ghosts of burdens
long ago swallowed and peaking now
in the heat and the oil of these times
and the cotton candy I ate tastes pink
and blue and orange and tells me
it is really Skittles in my heart
(I know the truth as I fall
down in a rush amidst the screamers
and the ecstasy of a ride certain and sure
in their hearts and minds but oh so
frightening and uncertain to me).
But this moon is full, and true
and makes room for me to rise
up up up faster than gravity
and flush with glory into the night
that hugs the earth like a fierce maiden aunt.
And I am learning to let go and enjoy
the ride under this full moon and high
above the carnival below.
a central point
lurking somewhere
between nothing
and all—
and infinitely far
from understanding
either…
blind to nothingness
from which
we flashed
at the call
of Fiery Lips
and numb
to the infinite
glories that engulf
and hold us.
this point unchangeable
this chameleon point
containing all contradiction
and inconsistency
(desire to be a friend
the bent to manipulate friends
the being of a neighbor good
the compulsion to walk away
cold hearted without helping)
this point,
this tipping point
has honour enough
to erect the head
of the poorest bum,
and shame enough
to bow the shoulders
of the greatest king.
that Point,
that Mediator
of Merciful Hope
(drying the tears of a broken world
reviving the Image of the Divine within
overcoming the enemies
of our Death and Sin)
Sure, grounded
obviating and containing
all contradictions
in this point
that point provides
the only grounding
and offers hope
for the contradictions
within, and more
than mere hope
for escape.
That point redeems the tension this point is.
We have born
the image of
the man of dust.
We also will
bear the Image
of the One
in Heaven
overflowing
with
thankfulness.
Your bellies drag the ground,
crouched and coiled and waiting,
unsprung and deadly potent,
filled with waters, poison, imbibed,
ingested, indulged,
you lurk and lay in waiting
to pounce on me defenseless,
beside dark pools malignant
with memories, dreams, reflections
that sit off kilter, cracked,
those springs of tales seductive
retold and twisted…clockwise
(remember that we used to live
anti-clock-wise? You recall?
Remember how that was?
Can you even do it now…
re-member?
Your tails lashing hazy air
your tales lashing me in here,
deep inside, they probe and seek
to replicate themselves,
like viruses, contagious
half-truths bitter, poisonous
in decade-long half-lives
hanging like a blade
of time left to be served
in a sentence undeserved.
But I swim rivers
pure and vital,
waters crashed on
clean stone, shattered
into liquid smithereens,
a million broken rainbow prisms
clinging to the air together
to speak of wholeness
in the broken
gath’ring of them
all together 
and I breathe air, drink
the water of life immune
to your off-kilter philter.
So if you see me
(if you even bother
to look) and I am sick?
It is your own infected myth
I drain so you could simply stop,
quit worshipping the twisted past,
old box of pain, and you can join me,
once again beneath the stars,
beneath the moon in the spring rain
in the spring rain beneath the moon
the moon and rain so clean and pure
and free from stagnant pools.
This. My goal when I create poetry.
“We want
to decipher skies
and paintings,
go behind these starry backgrounds
or these painted canvases and,
like kids
trying to find a gap
in a fence,
try to look through the cracks
in the world.”
— Georges Bataille
Constance…
You have read here of my evolution and growth, and the reduction as well over the last year and a half since I began writing Grace Notes.
Odds are you have also seen articles and notes that I have posted that are designed to educate you regarding how mindsets influence action…but actions affect heart-sets…and heart-sets inform mindsets.
As you think in your heart, this is how you are…maybe not manifested right away, but it is just a matter of time before that comes out.
Transitioning gender is such a difficult passage. I am crossing over gulfs that are deemed uncrossable by the patriarchal paradigm of our day, breaking the binary rules that rule minds…and thus offending hearts that have as their central focus and idol what feeds them, sustains them.
Some people simply are repulsed by my transition and write me off in some form or fashion…crazed, demon possessed, or some other judgment of similar ilk, and some people are intrigued enough to draw near with open hearts and minds, and end up at the very least knowing me in a fuller and richer way (and some would say that is a bad thing, those who have judged me as the worst human being on the planet and hold me accountable for every wrong thing in their lives).
But some people would be destroyed by the knowledge of my gender struggles and subsequent journey. They would hold themselves responsible for my being the way I am, or simply close their minds so completely as to just be caught up in a whirl of panic, fear, and conviction that I am hellbound. For the rest of their days, there would be a blight cast and a shadow of failure on them (in their minds not mine).
This is the matrix that I consider when I choose who and how I am going to be out. Now please don’t misunderstand: I am publicly out, but not ostentatiously so. I have not yet chosen to come out to my 2 closest immediate family members, or my one closest in-law. In the case of my in-law, the odds are very heavy that there are only a few more years left here at most, and this person has lived a happy, productive and kind life and is proud of who I am/was in their history and experience. In the case of my own family members I see each of them so rarely that the news of my transition seems to me to be an unnecessary burden upon them.
I could be wrong…in each case there might be a pleasant surprise of acceptance…but I am not sure about it, and the potential for damage is far greater than the potential for blessing…
…and so silent I remain.
Well…it has become clear that someone intends to out me to these individuals, and all in the name of their own supposed pain and violation, all in the name of “helping others” who grapple with the transition of a loved one.
And it is impossible for me to describe the internal state that this prospect puts me in.
First of all, one of the quickest ways to induce suicide in a transgender person is to rob them of agency regarding who and what they are by outing them. This is a historical fact and I have posted a lot about that. Think of the woman who killed herself after Grantland Magazine outed her, just as one very public example.
But second of all, it feels at the core like such a vindictive thing, and full of spite…and worse yet, if I were to protest, well then I would be accused of doing the very thing that this outing will do to me. I will be accused of being a hypocrite, wearing a mask, living a lie, curtailing the rights and freedom of someone to share their story…etc. etc.
Your right to tell your story ends at the beginning of violating someone else.
Well…Constance, if you go to the beginning post, and make your way thru Grace Notes, you can decide whether or not I am living a lie…
…what I am living is a tragedy.
What I am determined is to be an agent of Redemption, Grace, and Mercy.
Carefully consider how you live…and in all things, be kind.
In sorrow, in hope,
Charissa
more than my arms
more than my legs
more than my face
more than my back
more than my adams apple
more than my skin tag
more than my hair
(or what I lack there?)
I am
Charissa Grace
I am
I am terribly hard on myself.
Not just too hard.
Terrible.
Hard.
I took
a bunch of selfies.
I deleted them.
It was easy.
Too bad I can’t
just delete myself,
right?
Or…if
not myself
then those
things, each
of them, that
leer in me
lurk in me
rage in me
roar in me
hurt in me
haunt in me
fear in me
fall in me
scream in me
sigh in me
I could just
point, click, delete
and they would
be gone
But then again,
so would I.
Be Gone.
I told you
I am terribly
hard on myself.
Not just too hard.
Terrible.
Hard.
listen to me as one listens to the rain,
the years go by, the moments return,
do you hear the footsteps in the next room?
not here, not there: you hear them
in another time that is now,
listen to the footsteps of time,
inventor of places with no weight, nowhere,
listen to the rain running over the terrace,
the night is now more night in the grove,
lightning has nestled among the leaves,
a restless garden adrift-go in,
your shadow covers this page.
– the unspoken, the spirit, the soul.
”| — | Octavio Paz
The Other Voice: |
| — | Jim Palmer |
Sitting in the morning mist today
(it’s 2 AM. The battle started
early in whistle-shrieks of
incoming artillery shot
from fear’s cannons
and terror’s trenches.
They tore me out of dreams
into this nightmare waking and real).
It’s the day of memory, the day of the dead
(and the living who wish they were)
and the day of me, survivor
of this war on us,
waged from mile
3001.
The sound of sad owls
(like haunts) and elderberry blossoms
(fragrant in the dark) and me inside
a Dresden of memory and fire and sound
and the machine gun prattle of stories
twisting back on themselves in your hands
like snakes striking those wrists
so clumsily tattooed in crude ink and fantasy.
I heard the house creak and groan
(maybe it was just my heart’s hurt moan)
and I swore for a moment I thought
you were there, laying in bed and peace
while your chest rose and fell faithfully
and your face, wreathed in blond curls
that smell like Heaven’s very bakeries
still in sacred rest and repose…
I fought my way back
and across the years
to where you lay, then, there
to have but one whiff yet again
of those locks of gold and God
to sustain me in the midst
of this uncanny clumsy conflict,
this war of atrocious inattention
but your room was empty
(my mailbox is empty)
and it turned out the house
was just grieving for its loss,
the house is empty
and my heart is lonely
and the spray of sorrow begins
to anoint the roof from the skies
and soothes the ache of loss,
the lovelorn lack of presence
and the absence of any laughter.
I never dreamed that you were
the kind of person who just sashays in
and then waltzes right out
of my life while I am
making music in 4/4 time
but if I really think about it,
I remember the time you were
last here and as you left you
flashed your eyes dark at me,
filled with orange fire that smelled
like burnt chocolate and you spoke
silently with that glance
straight into my heart, a look that
was a blade slicing thru the music,
(that dissonant dance)
and you said in one glance
that you wished my mother had
had an abortion
instead of me…
In that moment, the tide turned
in this war on us, and I had
a flash of insight that would
make Lorenz so jealous:
I knew who the
Unknown Soldier was
and always would be.
I have become aware that there is some good traffic for older poems/posts.
I also have had the genuine blessing to cross paths with a true friend at distance, but close at heart, my friend Elli.
I have decided that I am going to be re-posting some of my personal favorite old poems, to make accessing them easier for the traffic…but the real reason?
Jus mostly for my friend, Elli…may you find blessing and peace in some of these, and may you always have the faith to await the sunrise, and the courage to lift up your eyes to the mountains…
Love, Charissa Grace
With that…here are two…
I didn’t even know there was this genre of music, and shortly after Mama did some miraculous things in my life, I heard about this concert of these dudes called “Lamb”…and I was like “what the heck, let’s go”.
Well, I started to cry about 2 minutes in and wept the entire time, just so moved by their down to earth love of God and love of humans.
If you put this on and let it play, I think you will be glad you did…
Constance…in spite of the betrayal, in spite of the abandonment, the lies and distortions…this.
Just. This.
This is how I feel, like I just learned how to fly.
I am Charissa Grace, and I finally got here. I really did.
and your arms were all about me
like spring clouds soft and grey
and fat with rain milked from
fountains of the morning dew.
I woke, and there was nothing,
nothing but you…you in my heart,
in my thoughts, you like tides
in my veins.
Here’s what clashes inside me,
like tides and beaches under skies,
clanging loud and clear against crags
midst thunder and silky lightening:
I used to have everything anyone said
was required to be happy and content and yet
I was in despair
for there was nothing of me inside and yet
somehow I was there,
a mute witness to the horror of myself and full
of one long interminable silent scream…
And now? Now I have lost it all
(except you, dearest one)
and yet gained myself within
and thus find joy unspeakable
midst this storm of tears,
clash of times and loss
of all (even my fears)
and utter failure…
Now I sit in deserts dry
(no oasis in this barren land,
that oasis is become me),
I sit still midst salt and sand
and snakes and smile, because I am
become a meadow here inside,
and poppies dance beneath the breeze
and sway in purple twilight ways,
in this velvet twilight, mmmmm
this twilight in lavender
| — | René Magritte, speaking about his piece, “The Son of Man” |
“And when the event, the big change in your life, is simply an insight—isn’t that a strange thing? That absolutely nothing changes except that you see things differently and you’re less fearful and less anxious and generally stronger as a result: isn’t it amazing that a completely invisible thing in your head can feel realer than anything you’ve experienced before?
“You see things more clearly and you know that you’re seeing them more clearly.
“And it comes to you that this is what it means to love life, this is all anybody who talks seriously about God is ever talking about. Moments like this.”
| — | Jonathan Franzen, The Corrections |
From the book of Job:
But He knows the way that I take;
When He has tested me, I shall come forth as gold.
I have seen some gawd-awful tattoos
Oh, it isn’t the theme so much…
it is the foolishness of letting
a needle that is marking permanence
and making marks that will last forever
be wielded by a clumsy hand,
a hand unloving, a hand unkind
worse, a hand that simply doesn’t care
or even know to care or have a clue
what Tender Mercy is
(on the wings of a snow white dove…)
I am thankful for Their Needle, Their Words,
Their Implacable Mercies that zing
again and again and again
to render marks eternal
indelible on my soul, forever
and rend my skin irrelevant
because They have become
Tattooed On My Heart
What am I supposed to do, stuck in this skin of some biological male creature that so many seem to have attached to, and now hate me because that creature has been revealed as who it was all along…and that revelation happening to me at the same time?
Do you have any idea how it feels to be othered so hard that certain people now act like I am dead? And when I am blessed enough to have communication it is of the harshest, cruelest and most dehumanizing form possible, stripping me of personhood, of being, and reducing me to a verb, or a mask, or a nothing?
I can never remember a time when I did not feel this way…never. Reading about these children, wow.
So I post this…for your thought. Likely there is not much we can do now about our own body image issues…but we darn sure can be kind to others now. We darn sure can touch our children with gentle words…and no matter what we can speak to other human beings cognizent always that they are stamped with Mama’s image, they are riddled with God’s Image, and are thus just a smidge lower than God and are as gods themselves.
In case you weren’t convinced that hating yourself is a learned behavior
Physical shame comes from parents, teachers, media, and peers. It’s not something you’re born with. You were born naked, wonderful, and gorgeous, and no one should make another being feel as if that wasn’t, and isn’t true.
Constance, I reject this notion that is going around these days, as it is stated in the graphic below:
…the part about forget the ones who don’t treat you right, and love the people who do?
Are you f-ing kidding me??
That stampede of people running the other way? That is the stampede of people taking the easy way, the low way, the lazy and unloving way, running away from those that they will forget because they “didn’t treat them right”…
Ah.
And who will stand for you? Because to you, your “bad day”, your “bitchy moment”, your “lashing out in anger to cover up your grief”…?? That is you…not treating other people right, and thus they run away.
Except this stampede is everyone running from everyone else, and so no one runs together…after all, they might not treat you right.
And then we come to the last part…the part about it not being easy…
What in the f-ing hell is so G Dam difficult about running away? That is the path of least resistance!!
All the world loves Gentle Jesus meek and mild, the kind teacher, the good man, platitudes about him unending…unless you really listen to His Lion Roar Word terrifying. I dare you to listen to them…right now…and then join me on the front lines in this war of Love on the war on love…oh, and I have heard it said that the only words in the Bible that are trustworthy are the words in Red…and here ya go, oh ye of such courage and fortitude that you will dwell in the strongholds of cold love, words in Red for your imbibing.
May you become drunk on Love, and reckless enough to find your courage once again.
But I say to you who hear: Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, and pray for those who spitefully use you. To him who strikes you on the one cheek, offer the other also.
And from him who takes away your cloak, do not withhold your tunic either. Give to everyone who asks of you. And from him who takes away your goods do not ask them back.
And just as you want men to do to you, you also do to them likewise.
But if you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? For even sinners love those who love them. And if you do good to those who do good to you, what credit is that to you? For even sinners do the same. And if you lend to those from whom you hope to receive back, what credit is that to you? For even sinners lend to sinners to receive as much back.
But love your enemies, do good, and lend, hoping for nothing in return; and your reward will be great, and you will be sons of the Most High.
For He is kind to the unthankful and evil. Therefore be merciful, just as your Father also is merciful.
Judge not, and you shall not be judged. Condemn not, and you shall not be condemned. Forgive, and you will be forgiven. Give, and it will be given to you: good measure, pressed down, shaken together, and running over will be put into your bosom. For with the same measure that you use, it will be measured back to you.
…Can the blind lead the blind? Will they not both fall into the ditch? A disciple is not above his teacher, but everyone who is perfectly trained will be like his teacher.
And why do you look at the speck in your brother’s eye, but do not perceive the plank in your own eye? Or how can you say to your brother, ‘Brother, let me remove the speck that is in your eye,’ when you yourself do not see the plank that is in your own eye?
Hypocrite! First remove the plank from your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck that is in your brother’s eye.
For a good tree does not bear bad fruit, nor does a bad tree bear good fruit. For every tree is known by its own fruit. For men do not gather figs from thorns, nor do they gather grapes from a bramble bush. A good man out of the good treasure of his heart brings forth good; and an evil man out of the evil treasure of his heart brings forth evil.
For out of the abundance of the heart his mouth speaks.
But why do you call Me ‘Lord, Lord,’ and not do the things which I say?
Whoever comes to Me, and hears My sayings and does them, I will show you whom he is like: He is like a man building a house, who dug deep and laid the foundation on the rock. And when the flood arose, the stream beat vehemently against that house, and could not shake it, for it was founded on the rock.
But he who heard and did nothing is like a man who built a house on the earth without a foundation, against which the stream beat vehemently; and immediately it fell.
And the ruin of that house was great.
I see you there, still
underneath your words
underneath your pain
underneath your masks
deep beneath the strain
of putting every thing that hurts
all that grew from choices made
all that sprung from things not done
all that you have fearful run
from and still found it there within
though the darkness haunt you long
I will hover in the song
that I have sung your whole life long
and love the you I see there, still
I see you still…underneath
Letters From Those Abused and Afraid | Disrupted Physician.
Dear Constance…I am blessed with such a plethora of amazing, wonderful followers.
That would be you…Constant Reader…Constance.
One of them is at the link I just posted, and he is a truth teller, more rare than gold dust as an amazing person commented over there.
“But why, Charissa? Why would you share such a topic as the one you chose?”
Because it is eerily reminiscent of the treatment of transgender people at the hands of…well…virtually everyone in our society. The double binds that are illuminated, the abuse, the policing and othering, the way the system protects itself and eliminates any possible threats to itself…
Yeah…this is the life of a transgender human being every single livelong day.
The system is a giant virus, and it has gathered to itself other virulent viruses and they all are completely sold out and committed to the mandate of one thing and one thing alone: survival and self-replication. And we, all of us, are in the belly of this beast.
Some of us are the pilot fish of privilege…circling the jaws, living off the shreds of flesh that trail off those teeth sharp and cruel. Some of us are between those jaws, ever consumed for the survival of the virus, and some live in the bowels, in the rot and excrement of everything that must take place in order for the thing to keep alive.
How are we to live?
The monolithic nature of this thing prohibits mass action, but what about individual action? Will you consider changing the way you interact with every single person you meet? Just think…if we all did that, loved our neighbor as ourselves, loved God (or if you believe you do not believe then loved being kind, being forgiving, being truthful and merciful), and refused to participate in injustice…
…there might be cracks, and then rents, and then in a rush a breaking down of the walls and the death of the virus.
Do Justice. Love Mercy. Walk Humbly.
Love, Charissa
They were laying there on the ground
of my heart, bloody and gore-flecked
and dully glowing with the sheen of life
blood and the thrill of cutting to ribbons
the tenderest places of my heart.
I wrapped them in the ribbons of heart
you left intact, attached at one end
by the tenuous tendrils of flesh that
you either missed, overlooked, or flat out
just didn’t care enough to slash.
I hung those wrapped razors
those razors bloody with me and fading
up on the wall where your picture
used to be, and I straightened them
so they hung just so, and straight…
my mementos remaining of you
and my hopes for a future with you
dripping onto the floor
and then drying out and becoming
a static reminder of a moment
in a dynamic river of our lives.
the way Mama fills the void with light
the way Mama inhabits the space in my friend
the way my friend inhabits the holes in me
the way of Love
I walk the gloaming path,
rain-drips fragrant whispering
to leaves, to rocks and kissing
moss with secret snikkle-nips
of spring flower nectar.
the night rises out
of dusky shadows
grown bold as the sun
shrinks first behind her
cloudy veil and then
sheltered behind hills
she drops her gown
to stand unclothed
hidden and revealed
solid and present (like me)
in the growing dark
and i think about you there
in boulevards of noise and neon
surrounded by staggering solitude,
aloneness in the conflaxity and klaxxon
streets of phony fire.
the ferns bend,
wave in winds
and breathe in
my loneliness
as I pass by,
sort of a
photosynthesis
of the heart, of soul,
of sorrow rebreathed
and transformed
into something
less than
and clean.
what was today?
what are these
days strange and
alien to me,
totally same and
labeled other?
totally different
and called
a mask?
but the path,
fresh and baptised
in the cleansing
of the sky
(become the river)
(become my tears)
(become my steps)
the path beckons
and mirth
tamped, banked
whispers from
under leaves
and rain
and wind
“follow, and be amazed.”
so I walk
in the rain,
in the growing
dark of fading day
and happy night
stars there
behind clouds
waiting to walk
the runways of
my hurty broken heart
gracing each jagged edge
with the light
behind the Rose
behind the sun.
i cry gentle
and I walk on
to the next rising.
i am burning
the insides, today…
for you i am
burning my cleansings
the insides of my veins
the insides of my organs
the hidden, the deepest,
the most secret
places i burn for you,
for your face
you are core inside core
inside me and the day
i chose to be
tattooed inside
by you inside
with you
was the day
my life was ever
set on high
and rendered ever
always
you see
you remember,
rags of past
times torn asunder
from their loom
where they were
so careful woven
to lay precious
ones under
well i have
made a fire of me
my insides (you)
and see the smoke,
how it cleanses
your self-recriminations
from your lungs
and replaces
them with us
my insides
which are you
pulsing thru me
coursing thru me
like wild horses
in spain
(see their flying manes)
under that rainy thunder sky
while torrents plunge
pelt pungent
onto the plains
so dry
and the smell
of hot rock
so dry
of heated flint
so dry
and flying dust
so dry
struck from sky
by fierce waters fallen
from on high
in our house
in us
we are made
clean in our love
forever.
the best decision
i ever made was you
in all your icy-fire ways
fiery-ice inside and me
ever entranced and held
ever committed to hold
both nurtured
i’d do it over again,
all again
longer than karma
(see her?
cruel imitation
with her puny wheel)
I saw this quote just now…and I want to comment on it afterwards. Read on:
“It annoys me so much when people take advantage of someone’s kindness.”
Please note: if a person is truly being kind, it is impossible to “take advantage”…you have already been given advantage. Any “taking” involved is just your mental gymnastics performed to justify something within yourself…the mere propping up of an ego-centered and self-oriented world view that fosters the idea that anything good must be taken.
The humiliation of receiving…it is a huge stumbling block for so many, and yet the privilege of being kind can overcome it.
Because kindness is only kindness if it is given with an open hand and a priori of any sort of reaction by the recipient.
How you respond to kindness given says nothing about me and everything about you.
Why not choose and act in kind?
I am sleeping easier these days
though haunted still by each day’s fading light
and dread foreboding in the dead of night
that clutched my bones and left me in a daze,
I’m detoxing from terror’s ghosty ways.
The fear of sleep walks hand in glove with death.
The fear of not being awake is like
that cloying fear, the fear of not-being…
and who can really ever fathom that!
Because to not-be is to not know breath
or fragrance of red roses on the wind
or deep contented sighs at journeys end
or hearts melded forever with a friend.
I used to lie awake at night,
too scared to go to sleep
for sleep was so indifferent,
and yet so sinister, so threatening
cus sleep seemed to be no different than death,
you know? You’re there, awake, aware
and then you’re gone…not there…
Not moving, not talking,
not thinking.
Not aware.
Not aware
(but there were nightmares in the air
and battles with the most horrific enemy
the world has ever known
as I lay there in my bed….
so still and so unable to move
while trying to fight death
and trying to wake up at last
for good)
Sleep is that disquieting reminder
of that which we try to deny each day.
For how much of our lives and livelihoods
aim at outrunning death’s finality?
We stock pile emails, push for more
make productivity our shield
against the wrinkles, against time itself,
against the aging
against dying
But now I know that sleep is the reminder
that we all need to remember our beauty
and revere life in its brief brevity…
Sleep can wake us up to what comes after
we fall fast into its steadfast grasp
and death uncoils and slithers like an asp
to sting us with its fearsome fang and clasp
us to its chilling breast and putrid rasp
of its reedy voice doing its duty…
and there, buried in slumber’s cotton arms
we wake forever more to heaven’s charms
and smell the fragrance precious in the air
of dreams more real than this harsh life’s cold cares
of riches more true than the wealth of worlds
and these magnificent words at death hurled:
“I Am the Resurrection and the Life
and all who trust in Me, believe in Me
shall live, though that bell toll for thee”
Someday I’ll sleep for my very last time
I’ll drift into the dark and dread unknowing
and be wrapped in the horror of not knowing
but from this slumber I will finally stir
and death will finally be forced to concur
that I am dancing, finally awake
and yes, the Good Lord came, my soul to take…
See…I am sleeping easier these days
Yes, I am sleeping easier these days.
I’m pretty sure that all of us have experienced sadness, but I really don’t know if all of us have experienced grief.
I’m talking about that helpless rage that is so great it is calm, so empty that you have never felt so full, and so sticky it seems you can never be expiated.
It comes from the loss of something or someone you were not designed to lose.
You do realise that, don’t you? Human beings were not designed to experience this sort of relational loss.
Loss is the result of something else that happened to creation due to the way free will was/is decided to be used.
But as with all forms of fracture, God is faithful to bring forth creative answers and counter-creations, in all Their faithful infiniteness…They always have a beauty that will come to you and weld with you and in you, and though the fracture is never “not have happened”, it is somehow made beautiful.
This.
This is the hope, and the glory of God. They are faithful, each and every time, if you will be patient, hold on, and keep your heart open.
I’m going to take this from you
but give this to you instead:
more space, cleansing tears,
better questions, compassion,
pathways to the center,
maps to deeper wells,
less distractions,
blankets of darkness,
little pools of light under your skin
where he touched you
but will never touch you again,
and holes in your heart
that nothing but pure love can fill.~ McCall Erickson
Dear Constance…
Transition is the most incredible, revealing, testing and purifying crucible I have ever been in. It has taken every single area and facet of my existence into its cruelly loving, True Arms. Spiritually, mentally, emotionally, and physically. It is revealing who I am and always have been, it is consuming who I was not and never was, and it is catalyzing all that I was/am/will be in that growth process that goes on throughout life.
The greatest gift it has given me, though, is the gift of being…and knowing that I am a co-author of this being, in ways that I previously had no arms and legs to embrace and carry. I also lacked a deeper awareness of just how little the leviathan gravity of the past chains me to itself, and how much that same past grounds me in my choice of who I am today, tomorrow, the next day, and the rest of my days…
I have received the gift of Purposive Grace. Let me explain.
So in the last 6 months, it has been shown to me very clearly that my experience of the last 31 years is totally divergent from that of other people in my life during this time. Words have been spoken to me, around me, about me that were/are very destructive, vitriolic, hateful, angry, cold, sarcastic, condescending, judgmental, derisive, and crushing.
Words from people that I think the world of and have endeavored with all of my might to love, sacrifice for, serve, and encourage. I had thought that in spite of imperfectness, I had done a faithful job in this…
…I have discovered that their experience was utterly other and that I am perceived as the most abusive, controlling, hateful, distant and absent person in their experience. I have been named things that hurt so deeply that I just went numb for a few days and then finally the indescribable pain was actually a relief because I knew that I wasn’t dead.
In short, it seems that I have been a complete and utter failure in every way and everything that I had as my guiding vision for how to live, and that is that, game over…see you, wouldn’t wanna be you.
Add in the other experiences come my way since I chose authenticity over mere existence, those wonderful accusations of being demon possessed, in rebellion towards God, back-slidden, a sexual deviant, etc. etc. and you have the sum total of the majority viewpoint of who and what I was and am.
But:
…my own experience of this time was very different than what I am hearing now, and it is in this disconnect that my sanity and my soul was truly tested and put into the fires of refinement.
I have asked myself: what is my mission in life, my own self-defined, self-desired one true and central throbbing purpose? Is that changed or different? The answer is no! I am still me, and I took the name Charissa Grace because of this vision/purpose/passion!!
Yielded vessel, yielding blessing.
Since I was a young child, I have had a 3-fold prayer that I have never stopped praying, though I have many times had reason to regret it due to the pain and suffering that have followed it in the preparation for its reality.
1. I freely chose to give up my free will as my one and only true gift of love to God…it is the only thing that I have that is mine and mine alone that no one can control or take, including God…so I reasoned that it was the most valuable thing I had to give Them in order to show Them my love and gratefulness. That has been since I was about 9 years old or so…
…the choice to have no choice but belonging to Them.
2. I asked Them to please let me be a real christian, and what that meant to me was that I wanted to live out the reality of being the most gracious and kind, most tender encouraging, gentle-hearted, faithful and patient person I could be. I wanted to truly live out loving my enemies, living a sacrificial life in joy (not that supercilious martyr-spirit sanctimony), being enthusiastic, being kind…always kind, and giving grace out as if it were as plentiful as the sands of the Sahara rather than so rare and precious as the most valuable pearls. I wanted to truly forgive everything and do so with the power to enable grace preeminent in a person’s life afterward.
“With the measure you use to measure out, so shall it be measured out to you.”
“You will be forgiven in the same manner that you yourself forgive.”
Those words haunted me then…and do so now as well. God knows how badly I screw up…everything.
*Sick, rueful chuckle*…God knows, and so do I, now…it seems that I have totally and completely utterly destroyed the lives of those whom I would die for without even a flinch…
…so you can see my deep awareness of the need to be forgiven, the utter necessity of grace for me…
…that is what my prayer to be a real christian meant/means.
3. I asked if I could know a true death to self and alive-ness to God. I took Philippians 3:8-14 as my life verses, understanding the “fellowship of His Suffering” to be that daily embrace of death to self, so that one day I could honestly say “it is no longer I who live, but Jesus who lives in me!”
So, all that…and now today, in the ashes of the reports about who and what I was, am and was thought to be…
Has anything changed, regarding my future?
Is there anything I can do to change the past?
Most important, do the experiences and judgments of others define me? Or do I retain the power to define myself and determine my own being in the midst of the future’s yet to be revealed manifestation?
The answer, of course, is that the words and deeds of others ultimately have no bearing on who I want to be.
Thus: there are 2 different possibilities:
A. I was completely guilty of every last accusation. I was an utter failure.
B. I was essentially who and what I thought I was, and given the fact that no one is without error and flaw I am not guilty of what I am indicted of.
I am confronted with a choice of what to do…how to respond, how to live, how to not respond and not live…and it is clear to me that my original 3-fold prayer and my current life mission statement are still viable and legitimate!
If “A” is true, then my daily quest is to learn from that bankrupt experience and use it as a platform to be a different person: to be
“the most gracious and kind, most tender encouraging, gentle hearted, faithful and patient person….truly live out loving my enemies, living a sacrificial life in joy (not that supercilious martyr-spirit sanctimony), being enthusiastic, being kind…always kind, and giving grace out as if it were as plentiful as the sands of the Sahara rather than so rare and precious as the most valuable pearls…truly forgive everything, and do so with power to make grace preeminent in a person’s life afterwards.”
If “A” is true, I have lost for the rest of my days in the earth the most important and truest treasures of my very marrow…and so that loss and pain shall become fuel to purpose to forever be better to others and give to them what I failed to give in spite of my highest and best efforts to my deepest hearts…that loss and pain shall make me tender and kind, and utterly forgiving of all wrongs, for God knows how deeply I stand in need of forgiveness.
If “B” is true, then I am dealing with the complex combination of intersecting vectors involved with the becoming of other people and their lives chosen and lived out daily…and I have the greatest opportunity any human being can be given: the power to disappear wrong and hurt and cold love! I have the chance to “bear all things, believe all things, hope all things, endure all things…”. The chance to discover a true love, and live out the fulfilment of my 3-fold prayer.
Constance, have you noticed anything yet?
In either case, the past is past and has no power to keep me from the future I choose for myself!!
There is nothing…nothing…that I can do to change, undo, redo, do the first time when it comes to the past!
But there is everything I can do in terms of going forward.
This is Purposive Grace. The things others think or say do not define who I am and want to be. I do.
And thus I chose to be…Charissa Grace.
May everyone who reads this understand this is the true meaning of my name: it is a promise of a hope and a future, and an undying commitment to choose God always, die to myself, and be a real christian who looks like Jesus.
My love always and ever, Heart, if you ever read here…ever.
Just know there is already forgiveness and welcoming heart, and utter commitment to giving what is in my power to give. Of course I am aware of your “aught against me” and I am utterly committed to taking responsibility for every wrong action, every action undone that should have been. But should it ever come to it, you never ever need to revisit any word spoken that you may later regret. It is already heard, received for what its heart cry was, sucked dry of all that is good and discarded into the seas of forgiveness for all that was other than good.
I love you always, and remain the one who treasures you for you and you alone, not anything you have done or did or not done or did.
Constance…how about you?
How do you choose to live? What hold will you allow the past on you? What vision will you grip and be gripped by? Please join me in this quest towards a life lived in Purposive Grace…ya never know: there could be miracles ahead!
Do justice. Love mercy. Walk humbly.
Charissa Grace
“dark is the forest and full of grace”
I read this line and it made me pause
as I recalled spanish moss lace
concealing all the oak tree’s flaws
and how the path did twist and flit
around the thickets dark and deep
to clearings where light does acquit
the night as my soul’s love will keep
you, in the brambles, in the brush
and lost in deepest forest glen
and blind to dusky quiet hush
or if not lost, well……wandering, then.
Full of grace…oh grace so sweet
and falling soft as snow on leaf
to wash and bless your tired feet
and lead you home healed of all grief,
this is the cry of my soft heart
cut from the velvet cloth of night
and covering every broken part
with grace like stars dancing so bright.
Constance, this quote below…just this.
All you have is your experience in this world. The good…the bad…the whole and broken…add to that the sorts of experiences that the quote speaks of.
I would add one thing: dysphoria is a real condition that exists, of utter dislocation that transcends understanding, acceptance, and action. It can be managed and worked around, even built into certain things? But it can never be thought away, prayed away, or believed away.
The brain and body of a person with gender dysphoria will never flow together
They are oil and vinegar.
As such, they can be a fabulous and tasty dressing…but they will not find the congruence that is present with a cis-gendered person.
So all the crap and stuff that all humans endure? Differently abled people endure all that with additional conditions placed on their lives…dysphoria is one of them.
That doesn’t give me or any dysphoric person a pass…because each human has conditions on them that are invisible to everyone else.
So be tender hearted…understanding…full of forgiveness…and above all be kind.
Lives depend on it.
Of all the things I keep trying to tell cis people, “don’t presume your child’s gender” is the one that they consistently, deliberately refuse to understand and it is so deeply telling.
You cannot truly understand the transgender experience, and cannot count yourself an ally, until you accept that the trauma of being transgender is not inherent, it is a product of being coerced into thinking that you had absolutely no choice but to be the gender you were assigned.
Not “born with”, not “biologically”, the gender you were assigned.
The problem is assignment. The problem is doctors and parents believing it is their place to dictate their child’s gender, starting before they can even conceptualize what a gender is, let alone have the mental development necessary to object to what they’re given. This defines a child’s entire life, cuts short countless possibilities. It etches itself into the fabric of our developing minds and it is a ticking psychological time bomb for those children who are given a gender assignment that they cannot or do not wish to live with. This culture of dictated identity must end if transgender people are ever to be regarding as whole and equal members of society.
Hush, Angel…
what? Oh, that…
yes, you are my angel
and always with that stardust
brushed on your heart’s eyelids
like Heaven’s mascara decorative and blessed.
I know you
built the walls
(you used my flesh
and blood as brick and
board and stone and mortar)
and your hands are covered in the stain and effort.
Never mind,
do not try to tear
it down, or dismantle
what you did not see you built.
I HAVE A PLAN! See, Ima grow
up and down and in my Lady’s Chambers
and cling
to divisive bricks
and cursing stones
and hangman boards
and bloody bones, in beauty
and covering all with fragrance
the fragrance of forgiveness
and love forevermore.
I will never not believe,
my dearest one, who, sitting there
in lashings out and shifting blames
and broken memory
and cursed names…
you hate me for most everything
and hate the things I hold most dear,
the only Things that kept me here,
for that you hate the most, I fear
for I did by Them to Life cling
and midst death’s horrors tune and sing.
There is nothing I can say
I have no avenue or road
though if I could I would,
and time thus slowed
to return to each and every time
to lay me down and pray the Lord
my soul to take in payment there
to give you wholeness now, my dear.
but to not believe? Never…
it’s not that I would not give you
the gift you think you need, I would
but I cannot, because They can
in “my life”, this dead woeful run.
No matter what is said or sung,
no matter every fist that shakes
or heated voice above the fray
I always wait for coming day
to shatter this long “marish night”
oh this is me, Childe of the Light
and I ever will believe
that Jesus will my pain relieve
and heal the wrongness of my hands
and gather all the scattered sands
and run them back into the glass
and help you regain memories
of glad joy, life, of you-and-me’s…
I will never not believe
I will ever just believe
while ravens pull my innards out
may this restore something in you
if there is anything called grace
may it give you back your face
and everything that got ripped off
restoring everything to you…
mostly I wish you had your history true
and shared together with us but
I will never not believe.
Never
Give me Ayin Tovah!
Please oh LORD!
I need that “good eye bright”
to see clearly in that glad light
the world and all that lives therein
more clearly than my dull blind sin!
I choose that which is most dear,
that which is higher than the rest,
that which is pregnant with the best of best,
OH! Give me river sight like waters
that rive out canyons deep and great
and beautiful in what has quick
been seen and then removed!
yeah, I admit it’s true, that siege
of heart and soul by warring sides
with all opinion to the south
and every thought discordant lurking
dead north in sly quick ambush!
But it’s okay, I’ll use this pain
to myself remind to keep my eyes
wide open, kind and wider still
than the mouth of Jonah’s whale
and my heart here open wider in this gale.
This is the key to our city on the dungheap
our city of ruins and all about is strewn
our cut off-ness from rich gold transcendence!
Because there is always persistence
of good, of beauty, and truth shines bright
and its pure light is all around us!
All I have to do is rest my naked eyes
on the most mundane things and not
blindly ignore that jarring exhibition
of our propensity for estrangement!
If I can manage to keep my eyes stripped
of fear and fig leaves, then I can manage
the gentle gifts and unveiled grace implied
in every true glimpse of beauty and wisdom!
“All human nature vigorously resists
grace because grace changes us
and the change is painful,”
wrote Flannery O’Connor, lost
in one of those times when God woos
slowly with beauty, grace, and grandeur, woes
like seeing evulsive rivers woe and woo
the earth, moving in a manner
that is missed so easily by busy lives
or critical lives so readily distracted
in a focused pointing elsewhere
(or any other where, for that matter).
In those mad times we are the mere
commuters between here and there
in Metro stations oblivious
to the works of Art before us, and
our estranged stony faces
miss the manifold displays
of a many-splendored God’s great graces
in such singular eternal entirety!
But other times, alas
it is we who find ourselves
moved nearly to blindness,
as we labor to take in
the glory of this God
in every startling moment,
like Moses or Isaiah lost
in deserts or in visions…
…Give me Ayin Tovah!
Please oh LORD!
I need that “good eye bright”
to see clearly in that glad light
the world and all that lives therein
more clearly than my dull blind sin!
and now, here in
these modern spaces
defined by “beholder’s eye”
and beauty tenuous and lost
somewhere in between
there and nowhere
we only feel the loss
of that ancient place,
that ancient ideal
equally abstract
but oh so much more real!
The place of Beauty
in a broken, breaking world,
how to recognize it
rather than define it,
those moments that stop us
dead in our fatal tracks.
Do you know beauty
is conducive to stillness?
It isn’t that which excites
or makes us want to replicate it.
No, it simply makes us exist,
makes us be, as though this being
is our deep quest and meaning
to exist for just this moment
and always just this moment
in longing, in fulfilment
in full participation
together with the aching
the longing for another taste
the needing just another glimpse…
another glimpse
of haunted, haunting
Beauty.
much deeper than what’s pleasant
far starker than the pretty,
the common ache of beauty!
the common wound of beauty!
It’s beauty that transforms us,
it’s beauty so divine, like God.
For God’s beauty is such a beauty
able to embrace life as well as coming death,
a beauty both heart-breakingly
entwined with our sad brokenness
and offering us something more
transforming, more ne’er broken.
My precious dear, draw close
and listen with your heart:
wounds are meant to heal us,
broken parts of life are not okay, no
wholeness is our stubborn longing
and a most profound brave calling.
We were made for wholeness, dear
and beauty with us, in us near
Oh Beauty, Precious Beauty.
You still look cold.
You should probably
come closer
to the fire before
it burns out.
I know you don’t remember,
no, you can’t remember,
can you?
But you love this
Never Ending Irish Rain
pouring down so green
and soft all cloaked around us
no matter where we are
in all of the whole earth
or time from the beginning blue…
you have jamais vu, my darling:
not remembering something
you always see each day, but
you forget as soon as
it is out of sight,
and then you turn your head
your beautiful estrangéd face
to the other side of midnight
and behold that silky rain
(as if for the first time)
that Never Ending Irish Rain
fell green across the golden waters
and washing down those greying sands,
quiet, themselves ablaze, a-falling
like stars straight thru the night
your eyes glow with delight
your heart goes green with grace
and all time is this moment
on your estrangéd face so wet
til you forget again
this sweet and spicy curtain
this velvet mist refreshing
…this cry of your true Celtic Heart…
Never Ending Irish Rain…
your Never Ending Irish Rain
Constance, I likely will not post an awful lot about the Jenner Transition Announcement until she gets further underway.
I totally, utterly get where she is at right now. She is thinking things about how she is not that worried about pronouns, and how she is willing to overlook the othering and policing that is going on right now, yadda yadda yadda…she feels a responsibility to other transgender people to effect a graceful transition with dignity.
But deep down inside…all those things are hurting her, affecting her, wounding her. She doesn’t need me adding to the cacophony of noise surrounding her (and all of that exacerbated because of the family dynamics she married into). Eventually, she will begin to find her bearings and her voice, or if she already has, she will begin to express it in her own unique ways.
But I will be commenting on things that orbit her transition, things that are revealed and illuminated as a result of her decision, and here is one of them:
On my Facebook page, a friend linked to an article about her transition. That article is here:
What was telling was in the comments on the Facebook post, all generally very supportive, but one stood out to me. It simply said “Who are we to judge…”
“Who are we to judge…”
Constance, do you see why that comment jumped out at me? Yes? Jot down your thoughts about it…or No? No you do not see anything odd about that comment in relation to gender identity?
Well, Cis-Constance, imagine yourself being introduced to someone, and them very kindly and sagely assessing you and then saying to you and everyone “Who are we to judge…” and then shrugging as if to say “to each their own”…
as if your gender identity is something that is up for judgement in the first place!
as if your gender identity is an article of clothing that you simply decided to wear that day.
as if your gender identity was a moral choice you made or make.
Gender orientation is put into the same classification as sexual orientation and then judged as a moral choice, and this is simply incorrect and unfair.
There is orientation that is a given…and then there are behaviors that descend from choices that we make as creatures who are moral creatures and subject to moral constraints as determined by God and current cultural climate (and those are rarely congruent, btw)…the behaviors themselves are what I choose to do…but the orientation is who I was born to be.
Orientation is not moral behavior. It is simply the given baseline.
You as a cis-gender person are never subjected to the statement “Oh…you say you are a (fill in your biological chromosomal state). I see. Well, who am I to judge?”
And that, Constance, is the very epitome of cis-gender privilege!
Don’t get me wrong…I love the compassion that is at root behind the commenter’s post…but gender orientation is not a matter subject to judgement any more than race is, or that there is a brain in a skull, or that there are arms and legs on a human.
The deep underlying ignorance that is being exposed in the light of gender-education right now is the notion that gender-variance is a moral issue! The deep presupposition fostered in our binary is that any person who is cross-gendered is by definition subject to moral assessment should they decide to authentically live out who they are in spite of the external casing they are housed in!!
Do you see this?
The commenter is correct: we are not the judge of one another and should not judge one another. But the issue that she applied this moral principle speaks volumes of how far we have to go yet as a culture, and why we transgender people are subject to such tremendous othering.
Even the way we are supported is often times OTHERING!
I have the same internal response when people say to me “Hey, whatever makes you happy makes me happy”…and they are sincerely “for” me in terms of their willingness to accept me.
But they have no idea just how deeply they sentenced me to more time in the gender penitentiary.
“Mr. & Mrs. Cis-Gender Constance: Tear down this wall!!“
| — | Steve Maraboli, Unapologetically You: Reflections on Life and the Human Experience
Keep this one in your back pocket for the next time someone acts like an ass and then tells you they’ve been through a lot of stuff. Respectful and yet still firmly keeping respect for yourself. |
Respect for myself…this is new to me, for I have not really ever been aware of a “self” to respect! The self I knew was more a naught than a presence. What I was not plus who I was not added up to me equalling naught, and thus I never respected myself.
I do now…and taking responsibility for shortcomings does not make me responsible for the distortions and poor choices of others in reaction to them. I can joyfully embrace my opportunity to express my true remorse in not being the perfect person I desired to be and not being “the best (fill in the blank)” I could be…
…but then letting someone add cruelty to this? Allowing them to dehumanize me, devalue me? Diminish me?
Nah, I don’t think so…not going there anymore. Respect for myself means that I own my behavior and let everything else go, and oddly, I think this sets other people free by placing them in accountability for their own choices in how to respond to my shortcomings and places a responsibility to respect themselves by acknowledging their own failures.
Hey, if Victor Frankl can overcome what he did, choose a proactive life in spite of those grave horrors? So can I…and so can you.
Do Justice. Love Mercy. Walk Humbly.
Charissa Grace
they’re visible, don’t worry, it’s now clear.
you’ve made them known to us, you’ve brought them near.
you’ve parted the black night to show their flurry
you’ve pierced the darkness with them, they are here
in front of me, swinging in violent sphere
and they connected judgement with rank fear.
those hard bones writhe, they crawl beneath your skin,
those bones now brittle with the pain within
and become sharp-edged, cutting thru the din
with angles, planes, indictments of old sin
imagined, perceived lurking deep within
and cloaked beneath your tattooed skin so thin…
and seeing those determined self wounds glare,
those prison house tattoos inflicted…where?
haha! where not is more the likely question!
those long years harboring the things you think
and living with that historical stink
to birth your athenaeum of hot ink.
I see them hanging, disconnected fists
I see the ritual mutilating notes
written on you, canvas once so soft
and now a record of your fists aloft
and shaking clenched, like Charon’s fated boats
attempting to defeat the smothering mists…
I beg you…let your hands let go of you
and let the ink run backwards up your arms
and let forgiveness work her healing charms
and let your face be wet with grace’s dew
whatever…regardless, I love you
Even in the midst of tears.
No.
Especially in the midst of tears, my Red Tailed Hawk so fierce!!
…I want to invite you to look back thru the months to dip into prior posts. There is a plethora of plenty there! Poetry, posts about a wide range of the issues faced in life that are poignantly illustrated by gender orientation, theological musings and spiritual experiences recounted.
You can discover who “Constance” is…and you are invited to join her if you wish.
You can definitely see growth and development in me, as I live and breathe in transition from a not-out but self-aware very dysphoric transgender woman who is perceived as a white male of power, position, and privilege to a more congruent and out transgender woman who is now regularly othered, policed, and yes occasionally even perceived as who I actually am and received in joy.
You will see the journey of nearly every transgender person who endures the loss of so many things, so many people, in the desperate quest to gain themselves. You will witness how this quest is defined by the defenders of the paradigm as selfish and self-centered…when it is far more about finding a fort of safety from suicidal ideation and death.
But above all…hopefully…you will find a person who is making the transition that every single human being must find a way to make: that transition from death to life…from works to grace…from self-centered ego-oriented pursuits to other-oriented sacrificial service.
And maybe, just maybe? That life motto of mine can at the end of it all be found true:
Yielded Vessel Yielding Blessing
Do Justice. Love Mercy. Walk Humbly.
Much Love,
Charissa Grace
PS: The best way to investigate the archives of Grace Notes is to use the calendar at the bottom of the blog page…or utilize the search function in the right hand margin.
Tonite the rain
seeps from the sky
in windy swells
and shower sighs,
oozing sideways
thru the grey
and slowly
watering this day
and watering me,
here, watching.
you, sitting there,
on that strange bus
going…where?
Oh why’d you ride
that carriage dark,
Ah, why’d you treat
it like a lark
to ride that sterile
Mystery Train
of darkling Truth,
forgetting lessons
learned in youth…
and me, stood there,
near, watching?
Your brother ran
that show, so full
of twisted fairy
tales for fools
who should know better,
don’t know worse
so they make sow’s ears
from silk purse,
intricate, smoke,
his modern show
of life and leisure,
ending bound up
in truth-mal-seizure
and me, in agony,
there,
watching.
But then you turned,
you saw me there
and your face crumpled
as you stared,
and understanding
bum-rushed you
and carried you
from Timbuktu
into the truth
of you and me
and what our hearts
had knit together,
free and flesh
of flesh, and bone
of bone, you saw
me, stood,
there crying.
and then your face
turned inside out
and I saw your heart
all heliotrope
and bloodstone it
did drain back towards
the skies and then
it pushed out of
your eyes, and violet
tears ran down
your cheeks as your soul
broke in both
our grief while I was
there,
there, waiting.
And you ran fast
towards the door
and it did open
then, what’s more
you knelt and fell
down to your knees
and wept so bitter
in your lees
and I ran to you,
there, crying.
and you on that step,
wracked with sobbing
to beat the band
and me on that
hot pavement sharp
and biting, crying
harmonic to
you sighing, and
your face covered
in tears of violet
flow somewhere
between red, blue,
purple, and grey,
like your eyes,
of velvet, violet
grey…
and then I woke
before we could speak
the words our hearts
broke to say
and never cease to say
and you were gone
midst tears…
midst tears of violet flow
and me left,
there, crying
Charissa's Grace Notes 
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