Shannon TL Kearns Touches the Elephant

"Following the intuitive notion to transition saved my life. And my faith."

I am constantly pulling at the thread of who or what is God is. How does our perception of the divine affect our sense of ourselves and others? How does this influence our connection to our intuition and our creativity? What makes certain experiences feel sacred?

I’m curious about the way other people of all spiritual backgrounds perceive these things, and so I invite them to answer the Touching the Elephant Questionnaire. Perhaps the thing that most connects us as humans is our desire to share our thoughts about life’s great mysteries, even when we are stammering and speaking in riddles.

Here, priest, author, playwright, speaker and trans activist Shannon TL Kearns responds.

A former fundamentalist who became the first openly transgender man ordained to the Old Catholic priesthood, Shannon TL Kearns believes in the transformative power of story. As an ordained priest, a playwright, a theologian, and a writer all of his work revolves around making meaning through story. He is the co-founder of QueerTheology.com. His first book In the Margins: A Transgender Man’s Journey With Scripture is published Eerdmaan’s books. He has three books forthcoming: No One Taught Me How To Be A Man: What a trans man's experience reveals about masculinity (Broadleaf), Come and See: A Youth Devotional (Hodder Faith), Reading the Bible Through Queer Eyes (HarperOne, co-written with Brian G. Murphy).  

 
Shannon is a Humanitas New Voices Fellow for 2022 and was a recipient of the Playwrights’ Center Jerome Fellowship in 20/21 and he was a Lambda Literary Fellow for 2019 (in playwriting) and 2022 (in screenwriting) and a Finnovation Fellow for 2019/2020. He is a sought after speaker on transgender issues and religion as well as a skilled facilitator of a variety of workshops.  

His work with Brian G. Murphy at QueerTheology.com has reached more than a million people all over the world through videos, articles, and online courses and community. 

How has your perception of God evolved over time?  

My perception of God has changed drastically over time. I grew up in a fundamentalist evangelical world. In those days God was the Father who sat in Heaven. God was perfect and in his perfectness pretty punitive. I was always waiting for God to strike me down. I was trying to be as perfect as God, but almost everything was anchored in fear. Fear of Hell, fear of not "really" being saved, fear of God's wrath, fear of my church's wrath, fear of my parent's wrath. Couple all of that with a sense that I was different from the people around me (because of my queerness/transness even though I didn't have language for that at the time) and I was an anxious kid and young adult. Always believing God was out to get me. I also was taught that anything I really wanted was probably a temptation/ sin. So it made me feel like I was constantly at war with God and that God was playing games with me. If I wanted to use my talents, if I wanted something, if I felt an intuitive nudge ALL of that was to be questioned.

Needless to say I had a LOT of unlearning to do. As I left the high control religious spaces of my youth and young adulthood, and as I learned what other traditions believed about God I was able to unclench. I let go of fear. I let go of the ideas of the punitive God. I realized that so many of the conceptions I had grown up with about God weren't about God or the Bible; they were about the tradition. God was a reflection of their grasp for power, their fear, their need for control and punishment. So I left that God behind.

God became a God of love. Genderless, free of human constraints. God is a force. A working for justice in the world. God is reconciliation.

And it was in through finding this idea of Love, of Divine love, that I was also able to embrace my identity and lean into wholeness.

What language would you use to try to articulate who, or what God is now?  

I'm a writer. Words are my jam. And yet, I'm always aware of how our words shape how we perceive things which makes language about God tricky. It feels like language only gets us so far. I think words like Mystery, The Divine, The Universe, The Incomprehensible, The Great Love are the words the come closest for me.

God is a force moving in and through and with us for the reconciliation of all things.

Has your sense of yourself, or your identity, shifted with your changing perception of God? 

I am significantly less afraid. Less afraid to mess up, less afraid to stand up, less afraid of the future. Instead I feel called to wholeness; in myself and with others.

Buy Shannon’s Book Here

How has your relationship/responsibility to others been influenced by your perception of the Divine?

Growing up faith was about two things: being personally pure and converting as many other people as possible. It led to a permanent feeling of guilt, all the time. And every interaction with others was about this need to get them converted. Or if they were already converted to convince them of my purity.

So now that I understand the Divine as wholeness and reconciliation I'm a lot less navel-gazey. My job is to be whole. To seek integration. And then to be about the work of aiding others in their search for wholeness and integration. So I am called to working for justice, being a part of the reconciliation of all things, breaking down the systems that keep us separate from one another.

My faith now is MUCH more focused on relationships and responsibility to others.

Tell me about a time when you made an intuitive or creative decision that seemed to make little logical sense, but you felt compelled to act on it anyway. 

You know, because of how I grew up, paying attention to and honoring my intuition has been a long healing journey. I was taught that anything that came from inside was evil, and so I had to re-learn how to listen. Part of that learning has been really hard; times my body rebelled because I wasn't listening when it tried to tell me gently.

I think the biggest move for me, though, was deciding to transition. No one in my life wanted me to do it. I stood to lose pretty much everything. And yet I knew that if I didn't there was no future for me. So I transitioned. And I expected to have a better relationship with my body because of that (and I do) but what I didn't expect (and what has been the greatest gift) was that my transition gave me back a completely embodied spirituality. Because I was no longer trying to separate myself, I was able to be integrated for the first time. Following that intuitive notion to transition saved my life. And my faith.

What feels sacred to you right now? 

Deep conversations with friends. Intergenerational relationships. Hanging out at the local pub. Being transported by other people's words. Dreaming of better futures for all of us.

Shannon’s plays include: Son Of A Gun, The Stories We Tell At The End Of The World, Laughing, Flexing, Dying, Body+Blood, in a stand of dying trees, Twisted Deaths, and The Resistance of My Skin. Shannon’s television pilots include: The Family Unit, Transformed, and Freedom, Kansas. He and his plays have been: a finalist for the Equity Library Theatre of Chicago’s Reading Series, 2019 TransLab, and American Stages 2019 New Play Festival, semi-finalist for the New Works series at Garry Marshall Theatre. He was a semi-finalist for SPACE on Ryder farm in 2020.