laurabethanybSomething I miss about my old life is the illusion of “knowing for sure.” While I still hold to the existence of absolute truths, the need for absolute certainty has vanished, or at least, diminished. There was always comfort in the illusion that answers were always available – even if by faith – and that answers were so reliable they warranted evangelism. The belief was that all others would be best served by accepting the conclusions I had been taught to accept. Somewhere along the way, answers became an addiction, black-and-white binaries became a crutch, and certainty was equated with godliness.
What shook that misperception of solid ground beneath my feet was the revelation that my biological gender was not all I had assumed it to be. The binary of “male” and “female” lies at the heart of many fundamental doctrines. It’s how Genesis claims humans were created. It’s the standard by which roles in the church, home, and community are established. For me and those around me, it wasn’t just a biological certainty; it was a social and spiritual necessity.
Until it couldn’t be anymore.
Hormone discrepancies led to the development of testicular cysts. Cysts led to the discovery of multiple hernias. The repair of the hernias revealed underdeveloped ovaries. What finally brought balance to my body and aided in the relief of chronic pain was estrogen therapy – the exact opposite hormone that had been assumed for my gender assigned at birth and a treatment that was controversial in my family and faith communities.
For nearly three decades, the truth of my body had been masked by the belief of doctors and church elders (and even myself) that biological sex was simple and that gender (a social construct) was certain. It wasn’t until I allowed for the ambiguity of biological sex that solutions began to emerge for treating my body. This is what it means to me to be a mystic: to embrace comfort in mystery.
I was taught in youth groups and summer camps that our hearts have a “Jesus-shaped hole that only God can fill.” I still find a fleck of truth in that – we are made in the image of the Divine and intended into be in relationship with the Divine. What I realized as my body started to fall together and my faith and life started to fall apart is that to fill the god-shaped hole in our hearts, we build god-shaped boxes in our heads. We create a god that fits the answers we can offer instead of allowing God to be as God is and accept the mysteries we can’t explain.
As mystery became more comfortable, I started looking at the spaces in between. Just as I was between male and female, as dawn and dusk are between day and night, God is best found in between all things of which we are certain. God is neither exclusively in time nor eternity, but exists as Creator equally in both. God is not just all loving nor pure justice but perfectly embodies both. God is, at once, everywhere and nowhere, though in our temporal, three-dimensional world, that makes no sense.
In making space for God to be as God is, I discovered more beauty, strength, grace, and freedom in myself than I had ever allowed. The stillness of my soul became a way of letting God move in and around me. Instead of holding to the belief that if I wasn’t moving forward I was moving backward, I learned – and am still learning – to be content with going nowhere. It’s where I experience the in-between and, apparently, where I’m supposed to be.