Richard Rohr's Daily Meditation

From the Center for Action and Contemplation

Week Twenty-Three: The Holiness of Human Sexuality

Beyond the Binaries

So in Christ Jesus you are all children of God through faith, for all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. (Galatians 3:26–28)

Regular contemplative practice allows us to maintain some measure of nondualism whenever we are asked to move beyond our comfortable binaries. It seems that everything we put in a neat and tidy package must eventually be allowed to come undone, including our understanding of our bodies, gender, and attraction. This awareness, too, is a part of God’s incarnation in Christ! In this passage, transgender and Christian author Austen Hartke dialogues with Lynn Young, who identifies as non-binary, Native American, and Christian, about the significance of this passage from Galatians.

One of the many ways I’ve tried to explain my gender journey to people who don’t get it is to say that, as I began to really dig into it and explore it and find the meaningful points for me, I felt like I was given this dirty floor and a toothbrush. As I started to scrub this floor I started seeing things, and as things were revealed, it turned out that this floor was an amazing mosaic, even though each piece by itself didn’t seem to be anything in particular. None of those pieces are unimportant because they all have to exist together to create the whole picture. So I’ve arrived at this place of knowing myself as a Two Spirit person, and that Two Spirit [1] is my gender. There’s a feminine part of me, and a masculine part of me, and there are also parts of me that are so intertwined that are both of those and then some, and they don’t have a name that fits within European gender constructs. . . .

We have all these shards of identity in us, whether it’s our sexuality, our gender, our faith, our age, our cultural identity, our personal trauma histories—all of those things that are part of who we are combine to create our whole identity. I’m not just one piece—I’m not just the Christian, or just the Native person, or just Two Spirit, or just the survivor, or just the grandma—that small piece isn’t me; only the whole reflects who I am. I am all of this.

Austen continues:

So what was Paul thinking about these different pieces of our identity when he penned Galatians 3:28? And what does this verse mean for our understanding of gender? Was Paul saying that gender was no longer important—that through our baptism in Christ our gender identities were all erased or irrelevant? I very much doubt it. What Paul said about gender in this verse was revolutionary in that it confirmed that there was no patriarchy or misogyny in God’s new kingdom; it broke down the barriers between genders and between people of different genders and God. . . .

[1] The term “Two Spirit” (also written two-spirit) was first coined by Native Americans and members of the First Nations tribes of Canada back in 1990 to create a cohesive English term for Native sexualities and gender identities that have existed in multiple tribes for centuries. Though it originally served as a Native-specific identifier for gay and lesbian individuals, it soon broadened to include Native transgender people and those with gender expressions that didn’t fit their cultural norms. From Hartke, 162.
 
Austen Hartke, Transforming: The Bible and the Lives of Transgender Christians (Westminster John Knox Press: 2018), 162, 163–164.

Image credit: Jenna Keiper, Impressions (detail), 2020, photograph, Bellingham.

Image inspiration: In its rainbow of colors, human sexuality can be many things: delicate, powerful, mysterious, beautiful. How might we foster a healthy relationship with the holy gift of sexuality?

Prayer For Our Community

Loving God, you fill all things with a fullness and hope that we can never comprehend. Thank you for leading us into a time where more of reality is being unveiled for us all to see. We pray that you will take away our natural temptation for cynicism, denial, fear and despair. Help us have the courage to awaken to greater truth, greater humility, and greater care for one another. May we place our hope in what matters and what lasts, trusting in your eternal presence and love. Listen to our hearts’ longings for the healing of our suffering world. Please add your own intentions . . . Knowing, good God, you are hearing us better than we are speaking, we offer these prayers in all the holy names of God. Amen.
Listen to Father Richard pray this prayer aloud.

Story From Our Community

Richard Rohr’s writings have helped me understand better the mystic I “sensed” in myself. Through Fr. Richard’s writings I have found parts of my religious heritage are worth maintaining, but parts are not. I think we have lingered far too long in excluding others—racism, anti-Semitism, anti-gay, anti-Muslim, anti-anything we don’t understand or like. God does not exclude, ever. “Be still and know....” Listen with open hearts, open minds, and the silence tunes out “noise.” Thank you, CAC.
—Anne T.
Share your own story with us.

News from the CAC

Love. Period: Explorations of Radical Love

Many of us long for an experience of Christianity that embraces who we are just as we are. Listen as Rev. Jacqui Lewis Ph.D., of New York's Middle Church, joins in conversations with activists and faith leaders like Wajahat Ali and Barbara Brown Taylor on the transformative potential—and urgent need—for radical love in our times. Listen to Love. Period on your favorite podcast platform or on our website.

The Divine Exchange:
An Online Course from Cynthia Bourgeault

Discover the holiness of exchange, learning to give and receive in a framework that embraces both our humanity and divinity. Cynthia Bourgeault leads you on a path of discovery in The Divine Exchange, a 14-week online course for intermediate and advanced students of the path.

Explore Richard Rohr's Daily Meditations archive at cac.org. 

The work of the Center for Action and Contemplation is possible only because of people like you! Learn more about how you can help support this work.

If you would like to change how you receive these emails you can update your preferences or unsubscribe from our list. Read our FAQ or privacy policy for more information.