I woke from a dream this morning about my childhood church and my family, recurring themes which I’m realizing are becoming less frequent in my dream world. In this dream, I was tasked with making a banner with lettering and imagery of people of different ethnicities for Vacation Bible School. This is a callback to many, many summers where I was pulled into painting large backdrops for VBS in the summers, often taking charge with my sister and guiding peers (kids our age and younger) who volunteered to help. This was always free labor, never having a clue that it could be a way to make a living until I left the cult. We were always just following orders from the adults in leadership, called to do tasks based on our individual “spiritual gifts.” We were “God’s servants” and we were genuinely happy to be of service.
In my dream, I am my current age and taking orders from the same adults I used to look up to back then. The concept of the banner was given to me in advance and I created a stencil that could be easily traced and painted with a group. I when it came time to get started with painting, oddly I found myself in the sanctuary filled with children as if it was opening night. The adults had switched the plan unbeknownst to me and had a large banner printed with cartoonish people of color. I became angry because I had worked hard on my stencil and was proud of it. The familiar locked jaw kicked in - I was about to stay silent and accept the circumstances, but I remembered, I am an adult and I was given this task. So I stood up, stepped forward with spotlights on me pointing at the printed banner and I said, “This isn’t what we are going to use. This AI-whatever doesn’t do justice to what we’re doing here.” And then I stopped and looked around at all of the people in the room and realized the irony of making art to gloat inclusion of people of color while every single child and adult present was white. And I crumbled my stencil and realized I didn’t want to be a part of this.
In reality, every summer that I spent making backdrops and props for VBS, there was a theme. It was always about locating ourselves in a different part of the world to spread the “good news” to people who aren’t like us. It was always meant to train our young minds to think that we, white people, have something to offer to people who are “secular,” as we called it. We have Jesus and they don’t. We can save them, not the other way around.
Back to dreamworld, I entered a new scene with my dad and my sister. A new task was an assigned to me. The church needed me to sing The National Anthem at a baseball game. This I’ve never actually done, but here we were in my dream talking about how I’m expected any minute now to make this performance. I asked my dad, “Which one is The National Anthem?” He quoted a verse and I recognized it, then said, “I can’t sing this one, my voice has changed and I can’t hit those notes anymore.” I have found myself repeating this line in my waking life a lot, cause it’s true. I can no longer sing some of my go-to karaoke songs and I’m finding new ones to become my regulars. My dad said, “Oh, that makes sense, cause you got sick and that impacted your voice.” My sister, who was standing near us and part of the conversation jumped in to agree, “Yeah, getting sick changes your voice.” I paused and felt that locked jaw again. I almost didn’t say anything, but with my whole chest, I said, “No, guys, you know this. I’m taking testosterone and THAT is why my vocal range has changed.” They both looked at me with wide eyes as if I had surprised them with verbal insults. The awkward and frustrating silence that followed prompted me to walk out and I woke up.
This feels simple to interpret. In the past, I have been in positions of small-scale leadership. I have spoken in front of crowds. I have sang. But I always had a lump in my throat. A big part of me needed to stay unseen. Once that part of me started to break free, I became quieter. It was a balancing act of trying not to be cast out of what was normal and safe to me. So when I was finally publicly queer, I accepted a lot of mistreatment. I laughed along with the people who bullied me so I could still be in their spaces. I hardly challenged bigots. No longer found myself in leadership roles because I expected to be disrespected and I accepted my new placement. And now I’ve entered a stage in my life where I can look back and feel compassion for that version of me, I can acknowledge that I didn’t respect myself enough to remove myself from places where I am not welcome. And I do that with ease now because my inner parent and protector has a voice. I love who I am becoming and I am so stoked and curious to see how my past experiences of leading and speaking and singing will intertwine with new, deeper values.
All the while I am so cautious of my religious trauma giving me some sort of Moses complex because I see the parallels but I am NOT about to think myself bigger than I am. I want to be a part of a system that dismantles the powers that kill and cage people, children. I want to be visible so trans kids can see that we do get to grow old. Even if the impact is small, that’s all I want.
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