Saturday Snippets in a Transgressive Shade

I will likely develop some of these snippets into fuller blog posts later.  But since I want to capture several snapshots, and since my Saturday is getting out ahead of me, let me write in snippet form today.

--Why is my Saturday getting out ahead of me?  I did some collaging this morning--fun!  I'm still using too much glue and still not good with seams and making the picture look like it's one whole thing.  But I love the collection of images.  I'll try to get some good photos today and post later.

--I've been sorting through books.  I'm amazed at how many books I bought because I'd read them in the library, liked them, and then found them on the remainder table.  It's time to have an honest assessment:  am I really going to read these books again?

When I see a horizon of reading time approaching, I don't go to my bookshelf.  I go to the library to get something new.  And thus, many of these remaindered books will go to the library.

--I'm amazed at my collection and the topics that once interested me, but no longer do.  For example, I remember wrestling with weight issues and body acceptance, but my issues with my body are no longer the ones of my youth.  For the most part, I'm not trying to transform into some ballerina body I will never attain.  Now I'm working hard to maintain my health, strength, and flexibility, as I try to get ready for older midlife and older age.

--I'm also amazed at the older vision of gender in those books from the 80's and early 90's, which even at the time I suspected wasn't as simple as we were taught.  Two genders?  And we're supposed to fit neatly?  Really?  How quaint.

--If you wonder what on earth I'm talking about, take a look at this interview with Megan Rohrer, the first transgendered Lutheran pastor.

--I had dinner with a writer friend last night.  She said she thought I had missed my calling when I didn't become a pastor, that I would have been the kind of cool pastor that would have attracted a Jewish girl like her to my church.  She said, "If you had been pastor, I'd have gone to your church every single day."

--I could still be that pastor.  In fact, I'd be more likely to be that kind of pastor now than I would have been straight out of graduate school, during my fiercely feminist, angry 20's.

--Later last night, I wrote this e-mail to her: 

"I'll likely continue to ponder some of the things you said tonight about the kind of pastor you said I would have been. I love that vision! I wonder if God is speaking through you . . .


God appears to some people in burning shrubbery, and to others in the voice of a friend. Or maybe the story of Moses was not originally as dramatic, and the burning bush got added later.

How would that read? Over sushi, Samuel, friend of Moses, said, "You know, I've been thinking, someone needs to go to the Pharaoh to free our people. Moses, I think it should be you. The Pharaoh will listen to you."

If I'm being too transgressive with holy texts, I trust you will forgive me :)"

--Likewise dear blog readers, if I'm being too transgressive for your tastes, I trust that you will forgive me.  If you were not in a mood to forgive me, I feel certain you'd have stopped reading long ago.