2024.6.30 | Journey of a Two Spirit Disciple
Journey of a Two Spirit Disciple
A testimony by Ashley Wai'olu Moore 2024.6.30
Good morning! God is good (all the time), and all the time (God is good).
Happy Pride Sunday! It is good to be with you this morning and have this opportunity to share with you. During Eastertide here at Eden Church, we engaged in a wonderful series called “Resurrection Stories” and I was so inspired by them that I found myself wanting to share my own testimony with you. I thought it would be a great way for us to begin learning about one another. But I didn’t have an opportunity to preach until today. So since today is Pride Sunday, I thought I might finally share MY resurrection story with you
Now my life has been complicated and intense, sometimes tragic, at other times astonishing. There’s far too much to tell. And it’s always a challenge for me to try to put it into a simple narrative. But when I stop to reflect, I can scarcely believe the things that I have lived through! I mean I was there, I know they happened – I experienced those things, in those places - but I feel healed and removed from them now. While a few core things remain, I barely feel connected to that old life.
So what I am about to share with you is a testimony about the (continuing) healing journey of this Two-Spirit mystic and how the decision to embrace my truth, to “choose life,” would lead to a spiritual awakening and a sense of call that would slowly, steadily, utterly transform my life
For those who don’t know, “Two-Spirit” is an umbrella term used to unify different gender expressions and identities in Indigenous people. The term two-spirit does not refer to a specific gender, but it includes a great variety of people who do not conform to the classic gender binary.
Will you pray with me...
Now, there were three wonderful things that I discovered when I was four years old. Three things that would profoundly color my journey. The first was that I had a visceral awareness of God. The second was that I had a gift for music. The third was that I was supposed to be female.
When I was really young, I just believed that THAT was who I was and what I would grow up to be. In my innocence, I had no idea that what I felt was unusual and I was completely unaware that Religion had anything to say about it. As I began to grow older, I developed an increasing awareness that I was different, but the issue was soon obscured by other circumstances.
During the first five years of my life, my parents and their friends were hippies and musicians who were immersed in the Bay Area hippie culture. Music, poetry, and laughter floated on the air, infused with the scent of patchouli oil and incense, while the concepts of peace, love and equality felt so imminently tangible as if they were fruit ripening on the trees just before the harvest. I had been told the Prince of Peace was getting ready to return and I had absolute faith that Jesus loved me as well as everyone else. In my young mind, Jesus and Justice had already been indelibly linked.
But as the optimistic ideals and activism of the hippie culture gave way to pessimism and despondency, so did that of my parents. Their hope for change was slowly replaced by a sense of foreboding, empowerment replaced by frustration and faith by cynicism. And as the drug use began to take over, our family began a downward spiral into secrecy, misery and vicious beatings became routine.
As the hurt and paranoia became paramount, my parents became what my uncle has called "religious fanatics" and "doomsayers". They began to believe that the end of the world was at hand and, in preparation for the coming apocalypse, decided to move away from the cities and into the rural country where they would become “preppers”. They were determined to stockpile food, goods, and, to a lesser extent, guns - so that they might survive the wave of pestilence and desperation that they expected to arise in the aftermath of the coming nuclear war. They began to teach my brother and I about the harsh, jealous, and vengeful god who meted out judgement and punishment. And they taught us to protect ourselves from our neighbors by lying to them and hiding the details of our lives, our differences, our beliefs, and especially our food stores. It was also during this time that the abuse began to escalate.
The next fourteen years became a blur of domestic violence, substance abuse, fear, welfare programs, Child Protective Services and a never-ending parade of new cities, new schools and new people. During this time, I was beaten, kicked, thrown, burned, choked, cut, shot at, and told daily that I was a flawed, useless mistake that would never amount to anything. As a result of all this, I didn’t feel like I belonged ANYWHERE. I didn’t have a sense of home or of community or any close friends until I was 15.
But in the middle of all that, when I was about nine years old, my mother and I had a discussion that would change my entire outlook on life. It was what Oprah used to call a "defining moment"; an event that entered your consciousness with such power and significance that it changed the very core of who and what you thought you were. Now defining moments can be positive or negative or have aspects of both. One such moment that some of us have in common was the moment we became clear that we were queer, right? And no matter how that realization came about, whether it was quiet or dramatic, solitary or communal, terrifying or invigorating, it's fair to say that the course of your life was forever altered from that moment forward. It’s similar to how most people feel about the events of 9/11. We’ll never forget. And things will never be the same.
Well the defining moment I am talking about felt like a scene out of a roadrunner cartoon. You know, the moment when Wyle E. Coyote believes he is finally gonna get what he wants, only to have a split second of frozen clarity as realization spreads across his face - and then a steel anvil comes out of nowhere, falls on his head and carries him bounding off of the cliff into the abyss below?
In my case, I was sitting with my Mother in the emergency room with two broken fingers. As we were waiting to see a doctor, I remember that my Mother, who by this point in time had become a secretive, guarded and suspicious woman who kept most things to herself, seemed to be strangely calm and unusually talkative. I don't recall how the conversation started, but I clearly remember that I was surprised about how accessible and present she was. So I slowly began to ask her more pressing questions, hoping to at last get some answers to the burning questions I had about the mysterious events and upheaval that were taking place in our lives. I was amazed at how frank and forthright her responses to my questions were. Encouraged, I finally, cautiously asked the questions closest to my heart: Why did Dad get so angry? Why was he so explosive? Why had he chased us through the streets of Richmond California with a shotgun in his hands? Why had he tried to kill us?
Letting out a deep sigh, she told me that my Father was a "very sick" man - that he had been questioning his sexuality, his gender and even used to dress in women's clothes. That was why she said that she'd convinced him to commit himself to a mental institution. But they hadn't been able to help him and that he'd “escaped from” the facility and came after us. She went on to say that she planned to use all of this information against him in their divorce case because "we all know that type of behavior is an abomination in God's eyes." My heart was crushed. In my 10- year-old mind she had just told me that feeling gender conflicted was wrong, offensive, a sickness and a sin that was worthy of public humiliation and abandonment by loved ones. And that it was a destructive, evil impulse that would drive you to hurt yourself and the ones you love. In short, it would make you a monster.
Thus began twenty years of, self-hatred and a struggle to be loved by a God that I now believed would not accept my flawed nature.
By this time I was already well versed in hiding my pain and sadness and doing my best to fit in at school and not feel like a freak because of all that our little family had been through. But from that day on, I tried to find a way to suppress my feminine feelings and come to terms with what it meant for me to live as a male. I spent years trying to affect a more masculine exterior and kept searching for some elusive catalyst or talisman that would permanently change my inward identity. But nothing ever did.
By the time puberty began, I was already an emotional mess and as my body began to change, I felt betrayed even by my body. But as the issue of sexuality entered my awareness, I became even more confused. I had always been attracted to females but my relationships with them were becoming distressing. The girls would treat me as one of their best friends, which was fantastic. But the moment something romantic or sexual would happen, the energy between us would shift and polarize and I would find them placing masculine role expectations on me that would make me run away. I mean you know that amazing, warm, feeling of falling in love and feeling seen and connected to someone...it would change to feeling utterly invisible to that person overnight.
So where did all this leave me? A) I didn't feel like a boy, felt like a girl, B) wasn't attracted to males, but to females, C) cherished the rare occasion where I got to play dress up like other girls, but afterwards would spend weeks apologizing to God and begging his forgiveness for my transgression. I just didn't have an answer. Meanwhile my father's daily beratement of my value as a human being and constant reminders that I was a mistake only fueled this state of mind. By the time I was in high school, I had come to believe that these feelings were proof positive that my father was right. I used to plead with God to make me stop feeling this way, to make me normal and not to forsake me. And sometimes I would just beg Him to kill me.
As a result, I became a teenager who was lost and out of control. Before long I had an arrest record, ran away from home multiple times, sought solace in sex and illegal substances...in short, acting out...all the while filling books and tapes with my own songs about what I was going through. I was desperately depressed and struggling to find love and acceptance.
More than ever, music became my outlet - my instrument was the place where I could pour out my emotions and commune with God; and my songs were my personal journal. But as grew older, I discovered that my persona as a "musical artist" gave the people around me a way of accepting my "otherness". After all, I got to hang out with all the amazing misfit bandos & band nerds. This immersion in music would eventually lead me through Music College and, after many years, into a "successful" career as a record producer.
By the time I was thirty I had records all over the world, my own recording studio, a house, a wife, 2 cars, and a dog. In the eyes of others, I was achieving the American dream, but in my heart, I was utterly miserable. If it weren't for musical expression, I don't think I would have lasted even that long. But after my first “out” experience exploring my feminine side led to my being raped, I lost all hope and had a complete emotional shut down. I became an empty shell - a workaholic and an drinker who wrestled with the idea of suicide every day. I never felt farther from God.
It was at Berkeley’s old UC Theater in 1997 when a film called "Let Me Die A Woman" finally laid bare the truth of my life. But this defining moment was like a sharp pin against a plump balloon. All of my denial burst and irrevocably disappeared. I shakily walked back to my car in a state of shock. I sat there in the rain letting it all sink in. Within every fiber of my being I finally understood the truth - that I had been assigned the wrong gender at birth; that I am transgendered, what my indigenous ancestors called Two Spirit. The ramifications of that truth terrified me. Any hope I had of ever truly feeling loved died. I was devastated. I sat in my car and just wept. I knew my life would never be the same.
When I finally went home, I fell on my knees weeping and prayed - something I hadn't done in years - “Lord, you know I have been fighting this my whole life and I have begged you to make it stop. But Lord, if this is how I am supposed to be, then you will have to lead the way. I will trust in you to see me through.” And as I finally brought my whole being to God's altar, I felt the presence of the Holy Spirit surround and comfort me.
Very quickly I realized that I needed to get into specialized therapy. Once there, I embarked on a journey of self-discovery that helped me unravel the turmoil of my past. I was able to cover more ground in the first year than in the previous 7 years of therapy combined. (And I’ve been seeing her now for over 25 years.) I was able to forgive those who I felt had wronged me and come to terms with my own unhealthy choices. I endeavored to make amends for the ways in which I had hurt others, to heal the relationships I could heal and to let go of those that remained unhealthy for me. Once I found the courage to face that truth, my life began opening in many wonderful ways. I found self- acceptance, joy and an inner peace that I had never known before - the kind of peace I had given up hope of ever experiencing. The closer I came to a full transition, the more whole I felt and the brighter that hope burned in my heart.
Ironically, my gender transition also became a pilgrimage into my faith. Preparing to come out to my Mom, I read the Gospels for myself and came to realize that God in Christ was very different from the religion I had been taught. When I began to see myself through the lens of God's unconditional and everlasting love, it no longer mattered to me what the world thought I should do with my life. Once I saw that both the Hebrew and Christian texts affirmed Eunuchs, that ubiquitous third gender of the old world in its many forms, I felt the shackles that had bound me since I was a child fall away. Instead of feeling cursed, I began to feel blessed! And then when I learned that the word homosexual had not appeared in any bible until 1946 and that the scriptures used against queers are actually mistranslations of the original texts, I became determined to challenge these distortions and spread the truth so that others would not suffer as I had!
As I transitioned and became active in the Transgendered community, I began to hear others talk about what they were going through and express how they felt abandoned by God and judged by the Christians in their lives. When I had the courage to share my own story, I was amazed to find that it helped others to begin healing their own Church burns. Suddenly, I started finding myself called upon to share the love of God in some very unlikely places and I began to thank God for all that I had experienced in my life. I began to see how He could use both my suffering and my blessings as ministry. Now I never would have imagined that I would wind up in ministry, but in the summer of 2000, that is exactly where I felt I was being led. And because God had blessed me with the gift of music, I was certain it was to be a Music Ministry for the Transgender community. And as I began to seek clarity and confirmation of this, I was led to places where I could find answers. Then, in the spring of 2001, I launched the Transcendence Gospel Choir with the help of Yvonne Evans.
As it turned out, Transcendence was the first of its kind. The first transgender choir in the world. We sang praises and ministered to Trans people about God’s unconditional love. And Transgenders seem to be an acutely spiritual people. Perhaps this is because once you reach the point of saying that who you are transcends your physical form, then you are immediately aware of yourself as a spiritual being. Maybe this is why transgendered people throughout history have been closely associated with spiritual worship. Regardless, my goal was not to convert anyone to Christianity but rather to let those who have been driven from their faith know that God does love them for who they are not what they call themselves or what they choose to wear. Jesus said simply "whosoever believes in me shall have everlasting life."
Jesus said that faith the size of a mustard seed can move mountains and I am here to bear witness to how the faith of this group allowed God to use us in amazing ways! Yes, we had a lot of help and support from a great many people and I am eternally grateful to each of them. But I also recognized the hand of God moving within each and every act of kindness. I saw Her face in the face of all that so selflessly acted to help. And I have seen how She works all things together for the benefit of the faithful.
Let me share just a few of the things that I have witnessed. In 2003 we were invited to sing in the General Synod (the biennial meeting of the world body of the United Church of Christ). Not only did we make an unscheduled appearance singing "Bless Me (the Prayer of Jabez)" with Bishop Flunder before the thousands attending the opening worship service, but the following day we played a vital part in the UCC adopting the most affirming and positive transgender language of any Christian denomination in the world. Bishop Flunder wrote to us afterward "What you all have done has effected the lives of Trans people for years to come. God bless you for your ministry." It was something I never would have imagined that I would participate in - and it was an experience that I will never forget. A month later six of us went to Philadelphia to sing before the largest gathering of LGBT people of faith advocating justice and equality at the Witness Our Welcome Conference and were greeted with a standing ovation before we even sang. To this day, I still run into people who were touched by that event.
Then in 2004, we teamed up with the San Francisco Gay Men's Chorus, the grandfathers of the GLBT choral movement, and staged an entire concert of faith music in a public reclamation of everyone's right to sing praise! Both groups reprised this performance at the GALA International Choral festival later that summer in Montréal, Canada - a performance that I hear sent a shock wave through GALA Choruses that is still reverberating. And during that same festival, we joined forces with Dr. Kathleen McGuire to lead the first international, Mass GenderQueer chorus.
Early the next year our CD “Whosever Believes” won the 2005 award for Best choral album at the Out Music Awards (also known as the “Gay Grammies”). In the years that followed, an award winning documentary film was made about the choir and we traveled across the continent singing for thousands of people and we had even accepted an invitation to sing at the World Pride Celebration that was set to happen in Jerusalem in 2006 until the war with Lebanon broke out.
Now understand that I share these things with you not to say "see what a wonderful choir we were", for we were not the most talented group of singers in the world. We struggled at times, went through some things together and had to make some tough choices along the way. But I point to these things instead to say look how God can take a bunch of misfits and outcasts and use them to bring healing and restoration across formidable boundaries!
Each of these was a miracle in my eyes. But the greater miracle was seeing the way we touched people’s lives. Tears were shed, hugs exchanged, stories were shared, and people began to get free. I watched Spirit use us to bless and heal people. Witnessing the move of the Holy Spirit solidified my faith. I saw too many astounding things to ever doubt again. It made me want to completely turn my life over to God’s service. Learning to listen to Spirit and follow Her lead taught me how to rely on God and opened up a path into ministry, allowing me to serve in multiple faith communities. I found mentors who taught me and encouraged me to
attend seminary. I had professors who broadened my theological horizons and opened up the study of biblical scripture. Along the way, I got to serve and learn from amazing people, work with ecclesiastical leaders, feed people, offer spiritual care, do parish ministry, street ministry, serve as a spiritual leader, worship leader, band and choir leader, plan liturgies every week, preside over communion, serve as a chaplain, create and run hybrid ministry, serve on COM-A, COM-B and more. All while simultaneously going to school full time and serving as Minister of Music at FCCO.
I stand in awe of what God has done in my life. Just like what we heard in Mark 5: 21 -43, Jesus came and lifted me out of the pit of hell, brought me back to life and used my faith to heal me. Look what God has done! To go from a broken-spirited wretch on the brink of self-destruction to becoming an instrument of change and affirmation astounds me. Look what God has done! To have played a part affecting change in people’s lives and within the UCC utterly humbles me. Look what God has done! Don't be overcome by your pain, but let God use it to bring healing into the world. Look what God has done! For it IS my testimony that with God, all things are possible! I will continue to declare to ALL that God loves them and there’s nothing to be done about it. Nothing can separate any of us from the love of God, even though some people would have us believe otherwise. I hope to be an agent of healing for all such church burns.
God doesn't call on us to be perfect, only to do the best we can do in every moment we have. After all these years, I finally realize that it was only my belief that God could not love me that kept me from having a personal relationship with Her. God was always there with unconditional love. And today I have the peace of the living God in my heart so that even when life becomes challenging and stressful and my rational mind cannot see resolution, I feel the presence of the Spirit and I hear Her say "I am with you and I will keep you". I know that God's grace and love will see me through.
They say that happiness is not a destination, but a road by which you travel. That you have to make the choice to be happy in your life. For me, accepting the truth about myself was the beginning of that choice. Giving my life to Jesus and surrendering to His will was the choice that set me free! That was the Epiphany of Jesus in MY life!!! That is why I went to seminary and what led me to be here with you today.
Amen.