Somewhere, in a transcendent reality, we are presently seated in the heavenly places at Christ’s side in proximity of the Father.   This is a profound mystery, but I believe I must take it somehow literally as well as allegorically. Close your eyes and consider the glorious reality of being seated, perfected in holiness, in brilliant glory next to Jesus,  essentially your twin in this context. (1 John 3:2) Then believe this is true, right now. How does that impact our self-perception? Would only I could more consistently live up to that quintessential reality—that I am somehow, somewhere, already perfected in Christ!

“There’s a grief that can’t be spoken.
There’s a pain goes on and on.
Empty chairs and empty tables
Now my friends are dead and gone.”

Those Les Misérables lyrics continue to haunt me and Side B elders. As December 1st approaches, most people in our community remain unaware of World AIDS Awareness Day. Perhaps, in some ways, that’s a mercy.

Flash back to New Year’s Eve, 1979. I was on the exclusive parquet dance floor of New York’s legendary Studio 54[…] In that electric moment, it felt as if we were living the promise of Fame: we would live forever, and we would all be stars. 

The reality though was stark: none of us were ready for the ’80s. With the arrival of one unnamed disease, the dream of living forever dissolved into something unreachable. Hope gave way to despair as fear of the unknown—and the very real possibility of dying in your twenties—cast a long shadow over our community.

The new decade ushered in an era of fear and paranoia.

I was shocked and heartbroken to realize that these were only a few of the lives lost that year, and that violence against LGBTQ+ people, and particularly against transgender people, was far more common than I had considered. This is the reality that makes a day like Transgender Day of Remembrance tragically necessary. Today, we honor the memory of transgender people whose lives are lost each year due to acts of hatred and violence. As a cisgender man, I write today to lament alongside my Trans and gender minority siblings, and to offer our community some spiritual reflections alongside our communal lament.

Dear Friends,

Revoice was created with a beautiful dream: to be a space where every person could experience the life-giving truths that they are fearfully and wonderfully made and that they have a place of unshakable belonging in God’s family. Yet we must also confess that we have not always exemplified these convictions for our gender minority siblings. 

Coming out—to myself, to my therapist, to my friend—was following God into the unknown, no longer living in denial about these patterns. Flash forward to the present: following Jesus is not so much about coming out to new people but is more about being honest with people I’m already out to, about the ways I’m experiencing my queerness.

The gospel invites us to something better: to make Christ, not our struggles, the center of our lives. When we turn our attention toward Him rather than toward managing or escaping from ourselves, we begin to experience the deep rest that comes from being defined by His love, not by our resistance or our desires.

Isn’t that often the case in our relationship with God?

We’ve seen and tasted His goodness, yet we often fail to recognize its source. And it’s not just Christians—the whole world experiences glimpses of God’s goodness without realizing where it comes from.

When I look at myself, I still see many moments of ungratefulness in my life. Now I understand why: for a long time, I believed I couldn’t bring my deepest desires to God because I assumed they were all sinful. Deep down, I began to doubt His goodness—not fearing rejection from people, but from God Himself.

It is comforting in the Song narrative that the Beloved quickly comes to her senses and gets up, then pursues the Lover at significant personal cost (5:7), reminding herself in the process of how beautiful and, yes, desirable, He is.  Happily, she is soon re-united with Him and bliss is resumed.

In Laodicea, we are left with a cliffhanger situation; will they let the Lord in or not? The major difference in this passage is that Jesus is disgusted with their complacent behavior and threatens discipline or even violent rejection if they don’t wake up (Rev. 3:16).  We are left to write the ending of that narrative in our own hearts, minds, and lives.  I’d rather identify with the Beloved than with the Laodiceans.