A Savage and Beautiful Truth


My idea of faith was positional.
It would lift me above pain and madness,
self-absorption and sadness.

My idea of Church was a community of safety
and pleasantry; coffee time after the sermon,
and warm afternoons with like-minded souls.

My attachment to Benedictine spirituality
would shield me from this nervous world,
preempt its contagious neurosis.

My idea of God could be plotted on a balance sheet:
proper piety, amortized, would yield spiritual equity.

And a fixed-term assurance plan,
could have passed for my idea of Christ.

So how could I have understood that buried beneath
my attachments and ideas, was a savage and beautiful truth?
alive and burning; unless,
some soul-quake, some heart-rift, would cast off
the rotting cloak of my calculating mind;

to sit, empty of words and ideas, here

with my beautiful transgender son—whose years
of physical suffering are untenable and cruel
and loom, to make him an island.

And here, in this inconsolable afternoon
—that tempts me toward some form of numbness—
my child turns and reaches out to me.

And I, with my bitter charge of Why!,
my rolodex of resentments, my permafrost anger,
am dropped into a serenity, within agony,
a comprehension, without comprehending—
intimately entangled, held, crazily close
by an ever-present, suffering, Love—
through the eyes and in the arms of my own son.


23 Comments

  1. Stephen, I am deeply moved at your words of raw honesty that could seem incomprehensible to one who hasn’t lived what you describe, to hasn’t opened themselves (or maybe been pried open by Love.) I have read that some things can only be communicated by the poets among us, as you have done. You have brought us close to you and your son and to the Love that accompanies you both, even in the Mystery of the same. Thank you.

    1. Thank you Stephen for sharing and baring your soul so succinctly. I appreciate your transparency. Bless you, your son and your family.

  2. My heart reaches out to your son, to you and your family, and to whatever forces in the universe inspire your beautiful writing.

  3. Oh, Stephen—
    Thank you for your courage and commitment to travel with us on our shared journey, through the choice you make over and over to share the particularity of your own. And today for the searing gift of these words reminding us of the losses that rip our hearts out, and the invincibility of love that puts them back again.
    Holding you and your
    beautiful, brave trans child in that place where mercy grows—
    Elizabeth

  4. So true that tears are streaming down my face. Thank you for transport to that sacred space.

  5. Dear Stephen,
    the aching humility,
    that will have us
    cry out
    for answers
    to things unknown and seemingly
    unchangeable

    then once again
    completely dismantle all knowing
    surrounding us
    only
    in the great graces
    of
    love

    to you dear Stephen, your wife, family, your beautiful strong, courageous
    absolutely miraculous warrior son. May love and kindness continue to surround you and to sit quietly in you
    knowing
    this
    is all <3 -^-

  6. I came late to this one: I love the deconstruction of a passive Christianity in the face of suffering. I do enjoy the fellowship of that community, however….
    My trans-nephew holds a special place for me – the kind support he and Mateo showed when our son died, the enlightening conversation we had when we visited them in the hospital, and his social justice passion that remains vivid.

    1. Thank you Uncle Sam <3 You and Erika hold a special place in our hearts as well. I love your willingness to be challenged, your curiosity about others' experiences and your compassion for all.

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