Transwoman Jo Clifford stars in a one-woman performance called “Jesus: Queen of Heaven.” A synopsis of the performance reads:
“Jesus is a transsexual woman. And it is now she walks the earth. This is a play with music that presents her sayings, her miracles, and her testimony. And she does not condemn the gays or the queers or the trans women or the trans men, and no, not the straight women nor the straight men neither. Because she is the Daughter of God, most certainly, and almost as certainly the son also. And God’s child condemns nobody. She can only love...”
In 2000, a couple days after I first identified as female, I went into a ten-hour meditation during which Rose Mary Pillowwater emerged through my body. At one point during the meditation I heard “heavenly people” calling to me, “The Queen is here!” This was before I had a sense of who or what a “Queen of Heaven” might be. But later it was plain that they meant the Queen of Heaven; the post-apocalyptic vessel of Sophia, the wisdom of Christ’s inner-woman, through whom Christ must first be reborn if he is ever to be reborn in the flesh as he lived in the flesh as Jesus.
The Queen of Heaven is the essence of receptivity, life-force and balance in every man, accentuated dramatically in those who change sex.
Predictably, “Jesus: Queen of Heaven” has met controversy, about which The Independent wrote: “Protesters lit candles, sang hymns and brandished placards saying: ‘Jesus, King of Kings, Not Queen of Heaven,’ and ‘God: My Son Is Not A Pervert.’
The Sunday after reading about the play, Coyote Marie & I went to church – my first time for a Sunday service in nearly 30 years. Poignantly, the sermon was based on Matthew 7: 1–5:
“Do not judge, or you too will be judged. For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you.
“Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother's eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye? How can you say to your brother, 'Let me take the speck out of your eye,' when all the time there is a plank in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother's eye.”
Our Sunday morning, churchgoing preparations were remarkably similar to those of my youth: angst, strife and hurt feelings (not between CM & I). I wondered if Sunday morning could ever be any different while spirituality remains alien to everyday life.
In preparation, a scab got torn off my right shin and blood soaked through my white tights. Hot chocolate and lipstick stained the bottom of my white blouse – blood, chocolate and lipstick. It felt sacramental.
One reason we went is because we are planning a performance of our own, to be patterned after Mass; but rescuing Christ from it, revisioning him through the eye of Sophia.
The service was held at Wayfarers Chapel, pictured above; a wondrous place. One of the opening readings was from Thich Naht Hanh, about awareness, compassion, and being at peace in the wholeness of mind & body. This was followed by a silent meditation that lasted perhaps five minutes – long enough to really feel the silence. I thought of how in the Catholic church, moments of silence were short and perfunctory, tolerated impatiently without being received.
And there was man without shoes. I said to Coyote Marie, “How can you be barefoot in church?”
She replied, “This is California.”
It is – and here in Orange County, Christian conservativism is entrenched. A man two pews in front of us wore a t-shirt that read, “You know it. I know it: Rush runs America.” In God’s stead?
The minister was a young guy, just getting his bearings. Citing his youth, he read a collection of wise sayings from a 90-year-old, which may have appealed to Rush fans in culturally-condoned moments of humility. My least favorite was, “Don’t take yourself seriously. No one else does.”
Not taking oneself seriously is how one is able to cope without possession of one’s innate dignity.
Perhaps the axiom would be better stated: “Take others seriously, even if you cannot take yourself seriously.”
Afterward we went to a farmer’s market by a harbor, and bought dates, apples and spinach pie that we ate in the sun.
On Monday, Wednesday and Friday updates are posted to Amy George’s other blog Ask the Dream Queen, for which she interprets reader-submitted dreams.
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