To make the impossible possible, you have to imagine it as something possible
On Saturday, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America elevated the Rev. Megan Rohrer (photo above) to the role of bishop, making them the first transgender bishop of any major Christian denomination in the U.S. (via Slate)
As a Norwegian, I must admit I found the following quote especially interesting:
I was in Norway speaking at the St. Olav festival in 2018, and there was a misprint in the paper that said I was a bishop-a transgender bishop. And the trans pastors in Norway said, “We’re so glad that [mistake] happened because now all of Norway believes that this is possible.”
And I realized that I hadn’t believed that it was possible before that moment, so I did a pilgrimage to try to figure out why. One of my distant relatives is the patron saint of Switzerland, so I visited his hermitage and tried to imagine myself as part of the saintly bloodline. Then I went to Germany and walked some of the cobbled roads that Martin Luther had traveled. And just really started to believe it.
We are trapped in the ideas and “self-evident truths” of the culture surrounding us:
- Only white men are fit to rule.
- Women are too emotional and ignorant to be allowed to vote.
- Marriage is for men marrying women only, because that is the way it has always been.
- There will never be a Black American president.
- There are only two genders.
In order to break free from such mental lock-ins we have to use our imagination to create a world in which the impossible is possible. At that point, when you achieve a much broader view of the world, you can see that what people told you was “self-evident,” “ordained by God” or “determined by Nature” is not.
At that point you can change the world for the better.
Who knows, you might even become a transgender bishop!
Below find a photo of Norway’s first female bishop, Rosemarie Köhn. She became a bishop in 1993. And, you guessed it, that was considered impossible too.
Originally published at https://trans-express.lgbt.
