The Other Brother

AMDG   I, a simple traveler resting in the shelter of Christmas, to you, my brothers and sisters. I wish y ou a restful and awe-filled celebration of the coming among us of our God.   Since the US presidential election, I have heard repeated th at p eople “just don’t understand” each other , nor do they demonstrate interest in understanding. I also hear a theme of reversal s: Biden reversed Trump’s policies, Trump will reverse Biden’s policies, and everyone is planning how to undo  each other’s hard-won victories in four  or eight m ore years. What wearies me , perhaps because my spirit recognizes it as the true leviathan of our tim e, is the dearth of love. It’s like we’ve lost the desire or intention to see one another as beloved brothers and sisters. Through the first three weeks of Advent, I was thinking about the pillars of Hope, Peace, and Joy. These brought questions and consol ations, but I was missing something. The fourth week brought clarity: Love...

 AMDG I, a follower of Christ Jesus, to you, fellow followers in all diversity of circumstances. The peace of Our Lord be with you. At a conference last year, I stopped at a booth for a religious community I had never heard of. I chatted briefly with the two representatives. I liked what I learned, and they were attentive and engaged. One of them was a vocations director, and he asked me if I had considered religious life. Yes, I would love to join religious life. However, I am transgender. Ah. Now he assured me that God is calling me to something. But not to life with his order. I would have to figure it out. The smile was still amiable, but the interest was gone. Here’s a pamphlet about their work in Chicago. Bye. Vocation comes up a lot in conversation. It’s my anchor into LGBTQ issues. It’s a perpetual topic of advertisement in the church. And it’s something I’m still actively figuring out – and maybe will be for the rest of my time on Earth. But a few things about these ...

I wrote this for a newsletter. AMDG I, a 30-odd year old Catholic, who aspires to religious brotherhood, who is transgender, to my brothers, sisters, and nonbinary brethren reading this newsletter… I wrote in June about a darkness I sense in the world, a pack of demons to whom I informally refer as the shadow of Mordor: distortion, despair, isolation, fear, defensiveness, and self-righteousness. What I wrote was a personal reflection on my struggle to live and pray through this, to see God above the waves and see light where the devil wants me—us—to find darkness. Today I write an exhortation of defiance. The Kingdom of Heaven is at hand. I believe that we live in a broken world. A world created by God, beautiful, reflecting God’s beauty, complexity, power, personality. But also a world subject to moral and physical disorder: Brother kills brother. Beast devours man and man slaughters beast. We unseat Love to make room for Pride, Power, and Wealth. I’m sure you can summon to mi...

 AMDG I, a man healed by the grace of God and yet found unclean, to you, my beloved brothers and sisters, especially any who I may not know. I write to you about two things. First, to share some of the thoughts emotions I’ve processed over the last two or three months. My purpose is only to share, so that those who do not share my vantage point may know something of what it is like to stand where I stand. Second, I want to call out the presence of the devil among us, and stand defiantly against it. This post may be a little darker than what I usually share… but it is honest. That is all, I suppose, I have to give. On April 8, 2024, the Vatican released a declaration called Dignitas Infinita . You can read it here . It reads like a commemorative address celebrating 50 years since the United Nations published the Universal Declaration of Human Rights , discussing the anthropology and concept of human dignity before going on to touch on 13 contemporary, “specific and grave violati...