Sunday, August 18, 2013
A new age
I am clearing out my house. It is like a journey into a chaotic past.
In the chaos at the heart of the chests under my window sill I found this:
It is so beautiful I wanted to share it.
It’s my eldest daughter Rebecca in costume for the Masque of Rosslynn which was staged in the chapel there every year in the late eighties.
The photographer had picked her up and sat her on the altar and she is looking so solemn because for her the altar was an incredibly holy place and she didn’t think she should be sitting on it.
The dear love is grown up now, and with a child of her own.
She came round yesterday to help me, and gave her permission for the picture to be shown and...
Looking at it again has stirred up so many memories.
We lived in a cottage just down the road from the chapel for about 6 years. Just at the edge of the Roslin woods.
We used to go there to church most Sundays, because the chapel was so beautiful.
It was little known in those days. There was something intensely sacred about it.
The children even went to Sunday school. I was even on the church committee.
In those days I had told no-one about being trans, except my dear partner years before.
The secret gnawed at me. I was afraid that if I disclosed people would hate and despise me; my children would be bullied at school; and that we would all suffer.
I kept silent. My career prospered. But I was not a whole person.
I went to church again this morning.
Today was special because I said a prayer that I had written and, alongside Fiona Bennett, the minister, I spoke some of the beautiful words that are used to consecrate the bread and the wine.
I could not be more accepted there.
I cannot put in words how much this means to me. I can only record the journey.
Bear witness to it. Give thanks for it.
My daughter’s young son is almost a year old. In that miraculous transition from baby to toddler.
He looks around him with utter wonder.
As I still do. At the dark clouds passing across the blue sky.
At this world so full of fear and darkness.
And yet I know that my journey is not an isolated one. Something has happened in the collective consciousness to enable it to occur.
We don’t know what it is. We don’t understand.
But it is happening. Happening everywhere. Something new is being born.
Labels: Christianity, New Age
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