My dear church,
My name is Elijah, and I am a transgender student at the University of Notre Dame. I am writing because I need help. Although you don’t notice me, transgender people have been waiting for you, quietly and gently. We have been ghosts in your chapels, haunting your pews. Now there is a fire and I am asking you for refuge.
The fire is inside your walls. Smoke billows up through the floorboards and sucks out the air. I call out, trying to hold my breath until you notice the smell. But even with all the fire and smoke, how could I ever leave?
By staying here, I hold onto the hope, however dim, that I do, in fact, belong in my faith, at my college and in this world. Leaving you would be letting go of that hope. In this way, coping with being Catholic, no matter how suffocating it can feel, is ultimately an experience of hope.
On my worst day, Jesus was no longer visible through the smoke and fog. His voice was lost in the crackle of my clothes catching fire and the beams collapsing. I stumbled around your rooms, in a blinding haze, fumbling for his hand. Then, when I couldn’t hold my breath any longer, when the smoke finally came in, so did the fire. We both know the pain of burning from the inside.
Coping with being Catholic, no matter how suffocating it can feel, is ultimately an experience of hope.
Why can’t I abandon the church that has so often abandoned me? Why breathe smoke instead of air for a faith meant to give us life?
Some people smell the fire, and together, we can build windows to let in just enough air to keep the oxygen in my blood. People with spirits as beautiful as their hearts are heavy remind me that even when we find ourselves trapped by the fire, there is no building that Jesus can’t enter. When the church is like a burning building, with no air left to breathe, Jesus will blow his holy breath into my lungs and say, “Stay here with us.”
Even when I am trapped on the outside, Jesus is never trapped on the inside. I felt, and some days still feel, excluded and ostracized, by not being included in residential life at school. I know now that when I cry in my apartment because I feel alone, Jesus is not stuck inside the dorms but is in my apartment crying with me. Jesus is wherever I am when I’m alone.
Jesus is not stuck inside the dorms, but is in my apartment crying with me. Jesus is wherever I am when I’m alone.
I stay because I can’t help it. No matter the difficulties, God grants me the grace never to get fed up enough to give up on you. I love you, dear church, and though you may not know how to love me back, I will wait here until you do.
Right now, I am saying the Our Father with hands outstretched and blistered, waiting for you to take them. I will be here, arms growing heavy, palms turned towards heaven until you learn how to touch burnt skin. Then, when you finally reach for me, I will show you how gently you can rest your hands in mine, like snowflakes falling on your tongue.
Our faith has never depended on how much we understand God’s creation. If it did, how little faith would we have. If God can bring forth light from the darkness of nonexistence, then I believe he can make me transgender. I like to imagine that my identity is just another way God expresses a creativity that exceeds our ability to explain.
With God, what is possible goes far beyond my little life. I know this when I see sunsets, my friends or when I read about Jesus raising his friend Lazarus from the dead. Sometimes I smile when someone uses the name of a man who turned water into wine to explain why being transgender is unnatural. Our God is one of surprises and we are the surprise. Maybe God made me transgender to keep us on our toes so we never forget who he is.
Creation is a surprise that is always being revealed. The seasons pass, stars die and relationships shift. Conception is only the beginning of a life that will unfold. God takes his time; I am nothing if not willing to wait. God doesn’t tell us who we are all at once. We spend our whole lives becoming.
I have never met another transgender Catholic. But I know that when I do, they will have faith like the last sunflower on earth that uproots itself and chases the sun as the planet turns beneath it. They will have a heart more like fabric than flesh for all the times it’s been torn and then stitched up with thread.
Our God is one of surprises, and we are the surprise. Maybe God made me transgender to keep us on our toes so we never forget who He is.
They will hear a thousand voices telling them to leave you and respond to the one that says, “Stay.” They won’t have an easy or unexamined faith and wouldn’t want to. Their prayers will be like quiet heartbeats that never stop.
Do you have any unceasing prayers, too? Do they live inside you like stained-glass windows, always letting in God’s light? This is what being transgender is like. My whole journey has been a conversation, an endless prayer spoken through my body in which I love God and God loves me back.
Dear church, please tell me if my letter reaches you, wherever you are. I have to let you know how scared I am that my letter may get to you before I ever do. Should this be the case—that our meeting never comes to pass in this lifetime—know that I will spend every moment of it loving you.
I pray each day that one day you will look into my brown eyes, filled with tears, and see your own beautiful face staring back.
Peace be with you always, my dear friend,
Elijah
