Olympic Proportions (of Bigotry)

In a spoonful of soil there may be “10,000 different species of bacteria, many of which are new to science,” a “spadeful of rich garden soil contains more species of organisms than can be found above ground in the entire Amazon rain forest,” and for every “step in a mature Oregon forest, your foot is being supported on the backs of 16,000 invertebrates.” Healthy soil is living soil. When I emptied my compost bin by the side door, I was amazed at the nice rich dirt that has amassed in the compost container in the back yard.

Al Forsyth, in More Stars then Grains of Sand, also notes that the trunk of the General Sherman sequoia tree is 58 billion times heavier than a sequoia seed, each of which weighs about one 3,000th of an ounce. Talk about the impression that one tiny seed can make.

In The Titan’s Curse, by Rick Riordan, when Percy and team arrive in Cloudcroft, New Mexico, they are greeted with snow, cold, thin air, and dark shadows cast by tall pine trees. Percy shares with Grover how Apollo was sending them to seek out Nereus in San Francisco. Grover’s replies, “That’s good, I guess. But we’ve got to get there first.’”

That statement can be taken so metaphysically. We have lofty ideals. We have images of a better world, but sometimes all we can notice is how far away we are and how cold and dark our world is. It’s times like these when we have to have the courage to brave losing what little comfort that we have and find a way to get to where we need to be, where we can actually make a difference. It comes to taking the first step, and the one after that, and the thousand after those. And having a team of friends on the journey can help you think of ways to get there and have the companionship you need along they way.

In The Battle of the Labyrinth by Rick Riordan, Grover is given one more week to find Pan or lose his searcher’s license. It’s up to Annabelle to find Ariadne’s string, before Luke can find it and invade the half-blood camp. Tyson helps break a monster of the titan age out of Alcatraz, and Percy has to choose between an eternal paradise with a beautiful daughter of Chronos, or go back to help his friends save the camp from an attack. Percy arrives just in time to interrupt his own memorial service. The book also refers to the ancient Olympic sport of pankration, in which highly-skilled grapplers (or wrestlers) would often battle to the death.

The topic of church in the park was about what we leave behind, and exploring how we want to show up in the future. What is the imprint we leave behind? Cephalopods evolved to the point where in order to be invisible to predators, they were were virtually unfossilizable. The only proof of their existence can be found embedded in the impressions they left in the rock.

The impression that I want to leave behind is one of acceptance and support. It is one of listening and encouraging. It is one in which everyone feels they belong here and are truly lovable. My happy place is in the woods, preferably near water. I love the trees that surround my home, and I love the feeling of camping and being surrounded by nature. My second favorite place is in the water. Nature and water do not judge; they embrace and accept me for who I am.

The impression I don’t want to leave behind is one of non-acceptance and bigotry. It is frustrating that when France honored the history of the Olympic games with an artistic homage to a festival of the Olympian Gods, for which the games were named, that people who are quick to judge the trans community first saw a drag queen playing one of the gods as an evil act of anti-Christianity. It was done by cropping the image of the event so that it looked like the portrayal of The Last Supper, by Leonardo Da Vinci. In reality, it was not even close. The Greek God Dionysus was actually lying in a serving platter surrounded by grapes, while the actors playing the representations of the other Greek Olympian Gods were lined up on a runway.

The assumption that the Feast of Dionysus somehow was inspired by The Last Supper, is not only wrong, but the reverse is probably true. In earlier paintings of The Feast of Dionysus, satyrs and gods cavort around a table celebrating the bounty. The dining halls of the aristocracy in Renaissance and Medieval times often had the lord’s table elevated so that the nobility could watch the lesser nobility and commoners without having their back turned toward them. The lord of the manor, castle, or keep would sit in the center with their consort and their closest advisors closest to them by rank. The Last Supper actually resembles this scenario far more than it does a Passover dinner as Jesus and the disciples would have had. First, there would have been no tables and no chalices. The guests would lean on mats and share the Passover lamb that was sacrificed. They would potentially dip unleavened bread in wine in clay mugs, with the wine representing the Angel of Death passing over the homes when firstborn children died. The meal would proceed solemnly with the head of the household performing the liturgy. Quite a different picture than the one Leonardo Da Vinci painted.

The hate, however, did not stop with the opening ceremony. When a female boxer lost in a match to another female boxer and was heartbroken, the public on social media was quick to judge the victor as a trans woman, calling her a man and a bully, and declaring that she had no right to participate in women’s sports. The woman so derided was not trans, but discovered she had elevated levels of testosterone. She has been a woman her whole life. The way that she has been treated as a result has been horrible, and people should be ashamed of themselves. The only trans boxer is a trans man who is fighting cisgender men.

There are guidelines within the Olympics when it comes to trans athletes. They are usually screened to determine that their hormonal levels are in the areas typical for their target gender. Over time, usually three years or less, any residual hormonal advantage recedes. When trans athletes lose, nobody notices. No one notes the extra energy and effort that they must go through to be considered a peer. It is only when they somehow overcome the same barriers everyone else has in addition to their own that they are publicly shunned. Another example is the trans swimmer who lost many bouts to other women, but the moment she finally won, there was a public outcry to strip her of her medal. If there were an inherent advantage, then trans women would win every time. The fact that they are just as much challenged as other women, and yet are denied any right to a victory bears out the cruelty of the public’s judgement.

I remember reading that when Jesus approached a man who asked if eunuchs could enter the kingdom of heaven, he told him that there are three kinds of eunuchs. There are those who are born a eunuch (intersex or transgender), those who others make a eunuch (castration), and those who become a eunuch for God (transgender or celibate). Jesus told the man that all are welcome to heaven. It is not for us to judge. Jesus teaches that it is important to not judge someone else because of who they are or what they decide they need to do with their own body, but instead try to learn more about them and love them just as much as one loves one's own self.

Those people who are quick to judge the trans community need to first look inside themselves, because the Jesus they seem to fight for is not the Jesus I know. Jesus taught love, not hate; unity, not division; heterogeneity, not homogeneity. Jesus taught that we are to respect and honor the diversity that is in our lives. Jesus would certainly encourage them to educate themselves more fully. And the pain of it all, despite all that, Jesus would love them, too.