The Things That Sustain Us

As I am settling more into the reality of making Sanctuary Collective a large part of my daily life, I'm finding it important to seek out things that sustain me.

One of those things that gives me a lot of energy and push is talking with other queer and trans folks about their experiences growing up in similar faith traditions, and their subsequent experiences processing and/or reclaiming that faith.

There's just something about sitting down over coffee and laughing about being afraid that the rapture had happened anytime I walked into an empty room as a child that is so therapeutic for me. After the conversations sometimes I find it difficult to even remember the details, I just walk away feeling tired and refreshed.

I remember the first person I talked to that I felt really Got It. His name is Angel, and he's now one of my good friends (and on the Sanctuary Collective Prayer Team!). When I first met him, honestly, I was a bit wary. I was a clean-cut Christian school kid, and he had lots of visible tattoos and piercings. I was silently struggling with my gender, and he was the first openly trans masculine person I'd ever met. I was nervous and skeptical. But when he opened his mouth, and I heard that all-too-familiar and comforting North Carolina accent (the northeast often feels a long way from home for me), and heard him talking about how much he loves Jesus, I was floored. I clung to that sense of sameness that I felt with him, and started myself down the long journey of figuring out what I wanted to do about my own gender identity.

The next person I felt that sense with was Peterson (who has written down some amazing and profound thoughts about Lazarus for us). I first met Peterson face to face at a training, but I was familiar with him before that through a documentary called Fish Can't Fly. The documentary was the first one I'd watched about LGBTQ Christians, and while I was watching it, I met other queer folks from Eastern for the very first time. So I was kind of starstruck, actually - Peterson was (and is!) A Big Deal in my world. I was in a really fragile place at the time - coming to terms with my identity was proving to be a long and arduous process - and when I heard Peterson speaking about his experiences with faith, I knew he Got It. The language he used and the ways he explained things were familiar and comforting to me, and something inside me exhaled for the very first time.

These experiences (and many more like them) are essentially why I do the work that I do, and why I do it in this way. I have these conversations because I need to have them. I share what I've gone through because it's an experience too many other people like me can relate to. I talk about how it's possible to keep your Christian faith and be excited about who God has created you to be because I need to be reminded.

And in the process, other people's tears and other people's laughter are validating to me. They give me permission to say that this has been hard and that this has been ridiculous. They sustain me.

What sustains you? How can you make sure you have that in your work and in your life? It's not a rhetorical question - I want to know! Share with me and each other in the comments if you'd like.