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[Image]Today is the last Sunday of 2013.   We are still as individuals and a community contemplating our lives, the year that is about to become part of our history books and how the rapidly approaching 2014 will shake out for us.

I've been in that contemplation mode since just before Christmas, which caused one of my friends to send a worried note to my mom expressing concerns that I was in the throes of holiday depression.   While I'll admit I wasn't in a chipper mood before Christmas Day arrived, it actually turned out okay.  It wasn't the best Christmas I'd ever had, but neither was it a disastrous one either. 
 
As we all tend to do as New Year's Day approaches,.we look back at our successes, analyze our failures and resolve to use the fresh start that the flip of the calendar page gives us to resolve to do better.

I'm also borrowing a paragraph that Pastor Lawrence T. Richardson wrote.a few months ago and having you commit that to memory for the 2K14.
My message to every trans and gender non-conforming person is this: "God is love and you were made in the image of perfect Love.  There is space for you in this world.  There is space at your church, in your desired career, in your family, on sports teams...and it is time to take your space.  Show up!  In large number or in small...your presence is valued and necessary.  So what, they stare or ask questions, answer them.   Look them in the eyes proudly with your beautiful, handsome, artsy, brilliant, capable, transgendered self.  Claim your space. Rearrange the seating to make room at the table.  Correct people when they use the wrong pronouns.  Hang up your own sign on the bathroom door.  Tell them who you are and who you are not. Be bold.  No one is going to understand what they cannot see, cannot hear or cannot know.    He's right.  The first part of us Owning Our Power, which is the mantra of NBJC's dynamic CEO/ED Sharon Lettman-Hicks, is showing up.  

And we definitely much continue on the path of boldly claim our space and our seats at whatever tables we choose to sit at.