“Do you think your mama thought when you were born you would grow up to be a pervert?” Fundamentalist protester near parade
“What do you say to those who ask how God could make you perfect but you want to change your gender and mess with what God created?” Honest question from the audience to a transgender panelist at a Pride Sunday church service
Behind both of these statements I find several misconceptions about God’s creation - the first being "perfection."
Many of us who grew up in Sunday School were taught that God, “made us in the womb.” Job 31:15. See also Isaiah 44:24, Jeremiah 1:5 Meant to comfort us with how much God cares about every hair on our heads, it resulted in oppressing us - "If a perfect God created me, how could I be so imperfect?" We come to believe that if there is some variation outside the norm then the person is broken, ill, or willfully damaging what God must have created "perfectly."
"Perfect" in context
Humans imagine ‘perfection’ in a human way. When see a beautiful piece of art glass we think, “it is perfect.” Perhaps we really mean, “it is flawless.” We are impressed if the skillful artisan created many identical works. Likewise, people want to think God creates humans flawlessly – not one molecule out of place.
However, we can watch a hundred sunsets calling them all beautiful and perfect, yet no two the same. If we think a few seconds, we might realize that the very things that makes the perfect sunset beautiful are the variations – cloud formations, degrees of moisture and dust in the air, the time of year, and the distance to the horizon.
I think God creates in this way: in the soup of matter and energy God dips strong Hands into the clay and molds Creation with infinite variation. Humans have not been made in a factory where everyone is exactly the same, with an owner’s manual and a warranty. Humans are not stamped from a mold but are sculpted based on a design which has infinite variations built in to it. The molecules and cells created by the synchronistic coupling of two sets of DNA are built wonderfully and fearfully, each element different from the next. Even identical twins are different after the first cell divides – each following the broad genetic outline in its own way.
In all that diversity there is certainly (and obviously) room for variations of gender and sexuality as much as hair color and height. Granted, in the bell curve of any sample of a randomized event there are attributes which are more common and others which are far less common. Measuring the number fingers children have at birth we find that 99.95% have ten. But there are rare occasions when they have more. This occurrence does not invalidate the child’s life and does not happen because of some sin committed by the parents. It is merely a fact, a variation in the ‘random pattern’ of God’s design. It does not mean anything beyond the specialness of the individual – as we are all wonderful in our own way.
"13.For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother's womb. 14.I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well." Psalms 139:14 NIV
If we wish to respect the scripture describing God’s figurative or literal creation in the womb, then perhaps we must recognize that we need to ‘fearfully’ honor and celebrate every variation as coming from God’s powerful hands.
©2009 David Loofbourrow All Rights Reserved
