Call to Worship for January 13, 2019

Call to Worship for January 13, 2019, at Mt. Diablo Unitarian Universalist Church

Welcome. 

Change. It’s something that we do all our lives. I’ve come to believe there are two different sorts of change. There is change that we engage in for self-improvement, to try and make ourselves or the world around us all better. Then there is the sort of change that doesn’t really help ourselves, but changes us to meet the expectations of others.

When I was a little girl I sometimes would do or say things that made others uncomfortable with me. The sort of friends that I had, the things I liked to play with, the other girls who were my friends, even the way I moved bothered other people.  Others wanted to change me, make me into something that I simply wasn’t.

You see, as a little girl I happened to have some male anatomy.  This sort of mismatch makes me what is now called a transgender person.

Eventually, pressure from my parents, my peers, and our religious leaders forced me to change.  They wanted me to be a boy, a young man, something that was far outside of what I could be.  I learned instead how to hide myself, and pretend to be a young man, suppressing parts of my expression and emotional life, exaggerating other bits, to become an unpleasant, emotionally distant, and angry person.  These changes were good enough, and I was declared to be a proper young man, cured.

This was that bad sort of change, changing myself into something I wasn’t.  It let me live, sort of.  I was in fear of slipping, of being discovered hiding behind that persona.  It turns out that over time, living in hiding, failing to live as ones authentic self, will corrode one’s soul.

After a half century, I cracked, then shattered.  That finally let the light in.

I’ve spent the past three years going through another change.  This was a change I wanted and needed to do.  It was change for myself, to improve myself and truly cure what had ailed me, a good sort of change.

I picked up the pieces.  I discarded the bits that didn’t fit, and rediscovered my emotionally complete self.  I let my core personality out to grow, and flourish.   I kept other, useful bits from that old persona.  I’m a woman who is not afraid to use this (shows tool), or work with this (shows equations).  I filled in the cracks with gold.

With this change, I feel that I have done something positive for myself.  I feel vastly better for this.

When we are faced with a need to change ourselves, we have to ask ourselves why.  Do we need to change to fulfill someone else’s needs or wants?  Or is this change something that we need to do, for ourselves?  Would we be changing to be accepted by others, or by ourselves? 

The First Principle: The inherent worth and dignity of every person.

That’s truly a wonderful thing.

We don’t have to change for others here to see our inherent worth and dignity as we gather today to worship together.

Thank you