Gender-fluid Jesus

This is the Jesus for me. I'd like him even better if he were more racially fluid as well, but at least he covers all the gender bases. Because, really, that face and hair and outfit are all beautifully masculine and just as beautifully feminine. 

When I first saw this portrait hanging on the library wall of the United Parish of Bowie when James and I went in to practice a song for my father-in-law's memorial service, I thought, "Oh no, one of those smarmy whitebread Jesuses that make my Christian teeth hurt." But as it inserted itself in my line of sight over and over again as we sang "Hold On" by Tom Waits, I began to see the truth in the painting at least in its depiction of Jesus as gender-inclusive. "Christina!" I cried. And then I cried. 

Everything makes me cry these days. 

The death of my lover's father—whom I grew to love too over the last 20+ years, plus the darkening days of fall into winter, and tapering off a hell-to-come-off-of antidepressant in order to try a different and hopefully better one = the trifecta of constant tears. 

I can write poetry again, though. That was one of the things I really hated about the ex-antidepressant. It stole my poetry. My mission now is to find a way to be happy and a poet. I don't believe I have to choose between them. 

Jesus is both-and. 

I can be too.