A Stake in Saratoga: Coming Out of Isolation and Into Community After A Crisis, By Jeff Grant

Progressive Prison Project

Innocent Spouse & Children Project

Greenwich, Connecticut 

Aug. 29, 2013  

A Stake in Saratoga:

   Coming Out of Isolation and Into

Community After A Crisis

By Jeff Grant

This is my last day of a week visiting my sister in Saratoga Springs, New York – it is just beautiful here. And just what I needed.

Among the other wonderful things it has to offer, Saratoga has a rich and welcoming recovery community – something I became aware of and experienced in prior visits.  This is something I have leaned upon in the past, and something that I suspected I would need to rely upon again in the future.  Recently, the future became my present in suffering a personal crisis.

As a minister who ministers to families in crisis situations, I was well aware of the ironies and tensions - and opportunities for growth.

My years in recovery had given me a lot of tools on which I could rely.  First, I needed to tell the truth to ministers and friends who love and care about me and my family, and then follow their good orderly direction.  They reminded me that on an airplane, “you to put the oxygen mask on yourself before you attempt to help others.”  They were unanimous and emphatic that, once I attended to my family’s needs in Greenwich, that I get out of town for a while to work on my spiritual condition.  I followed this advice.  It was here in the Saratoga recovery community that I was able to attend a lot of meetings, attend church, engage in deep prayer, call other fellows, help and be helped by others - and mostly keep the focus on myself.  And I’ve been able to spend quality time with my sister too. What a gift to me and to my family.

I have learned that coming out of isolation and into community after a crisis takes more than just showing up (although even showing up is not always easy after a crisis) – it takes a lot of hard work, acceptance and surrender.  I am working on the acceptance part, but for me it is difficult.  The process of acceptance means that I am learning, yet again, to accept life on life’s terms in the here and now.   It seems to be an especially difficult thing to do when I’m reeling from the hurt of a recent personal crisis.  Surrender is even more difficult, especially for a guy like me who was raised as a fighter, and who spent most of his life as an Alpha male.  But the more I let go and let God, the better things seem to go.  It is certainly progress that counts, not perfection.

I’ve found welcoming recovery in all sorts of places when I’ve needed it – in big cities, in little towns all over this country, and behind the walls of prison.  But this week - when I needed it most - the Saratoga recovery community has been a Godsend.  I am profoundly grateful. 

________________

A Blessing
, by Quinn G. Caldwell, Pastor of Plymouth Congregational Church, Syracuse, New York: 
Jesus said, "You ought always to pray and not to faint."  Do not pray for easy lives; pray to be stronger women and men.  Do not pray for tasks equal to your powers, but for power equal to your tasks.  Then, the doing of your work will be no miracle - YOU will be the miracle, and every day you will wonder at yourself and the richness of life that has come to you by the grace of God.  Amen. (from The New Century Hymnal)

Rev. Jeff Grant, JD, M Div
Director, Progressive Prison Project/
Innocent Spouse & Children Project
Greenwich, Connecticut

Assoc. Minister/
Director of Prison Ministries
First Baptist Church of Bridgeport
126 Washington Avenue, 1st Fl.
Bridgeport, Connecticut 06604

(203) 339-5887
jgrant@progressiveprisonproject.org
jg3074@columbia.edu 

Prison, Trans* Issues & Orange Is The New Black, By Jami Yandle, M Div - Guest Blogger

Progressive Prison Project

Greenwich, Connecticut 

Prison, Trans* Issues & Orange Is The New Black, 

By Jami Yandle, M Div - Guest Blogger 

In early 2012, Jeff and I were classmates at Union Theological Seminary in NYC. We often found ourselves engrossed in deep theological discussion surrounding our theses based upon two respective new theologies that we had created - Jeff's Theology of Imprisonment and my GenderQueer Liberation Theology. We found so many similarities in our respective theologies, we knew the opportunity to collaborate was near.

Over the past month, Jeff and I have been trading emails about "Orange Is The New Black" - specifically about its groundbreaking treatment of women's and gender issues. When Jeff asked me to author a Guest Blog on Trans* issues on Orange Is The New Black for his wonderful blog site about his ministry, the Progressive Prison Project, I could not resist.

As a Trans* advocate and a person who identifies as GenderQueer, my thoughts about the Trans* character on the Netflix series Orange Is The New Black are mostly of relief. The series comes at a time that is most poignant for our country concerning Trans* rights. From hospital and healthcare to the educational system, Trans* folks are paving the way for important dialogue concerning the social construction of gender, sex, sexuality, and visibility therein.

In the gender variant communities there seems to be a spotlight on the white Trans* male experience. Their journeys are courageous. I’ve read memoir after heartbreaking memoir, seen and read countless blogs and interviews galore that highlight tragedy and pain of what it is like to be FtM. On the flip side, I have celebrated various Facebook status updates about money gained for testosterone shots or top surgery, times when these men are “passing” as male and therefore finally gaining emotional healing from all the  trauma incurred by larger society. All the while wondering, where are our Trans* women? Specifically, Trans* women of color.

I cannot help but notice that the same issues that pop up in mainstream society surrounding systematic issues of oppression and class largely stemming from white, heterosexual, male privilege are now hitting my community with force.

Some Trans* men who now live full-time as male adopt the dangerous misogynistic attitudes of their brothers, all too soon forgetting the trials and tribulations of what it was like to grow up in America as a little girl. Let’s not forget the opportunities afforded to them that paid for the surgery which now lends them the same joys and ease as their cisgender male brothers.

I cannot blame them- growing up female in this world while being GenderQueer has been an awful experience for me, at best. It was only through my faith, supportive family and friends, in addition to my own personal drive that I have learned to love my sexuality, my sex, and my gender identity, and my gender expression. I wish I had a character like Sophia Burset in my youth, the Trans* woman of color to look up to while growing up. I had two choices, dress like a man and be perceived as butch, or dress like a woman and try to fit into boxes I never liked nor wanted.

But Sophia, like many Trans* people (and arguably anyone who is human and does not fit the various prescribed cookie cutter boxes society as a whole doles out) is my heroine for paving her own way against all of the odds.

Sophia is good with style, witty, fierce, tender, and (gasp) quite spiritual. And it’s okay!! Finally, a series that not only reflects the back-story of a Trans* person but she has an entire emotional arc and gets similar character development as the rest of characters on the show. Additionally, she is a person of color and her experience is seen in its entirety and as a whole. Sophia is the leader in the facility for aesthetic prowess, appropriately.

Trans* women have processed being a woman on a level that cisgender women have not. Trans* women of color, more so. It is not a better or deeper process, just different. Trans* women are fighting for the right to be themselves, knowing all too well the marginalized place in society they are now privy to join. Their femininity runs so deep there is just no other way to exist in this world and herein lies the strength of their stories and struggles. And they are doing it well, with fewer resources, less support, and from a more vulnerable spot than the rest of us.

Jami Yandle, M Div is currently a Chaplain Resident the Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center.  You can read more about Jami, GenderQueer Liberation Theology and gender & trans* issues on Jami’s blog: Trans*it-Authority (http://thetomboyeffect.wordpress.com).

Rev. Jeff Grant, JD, M Div
Director, Progressive Prison Project/
Innocent Spouse & Children Project
Greenwich, Connecticut

Assoc. Minister/
Director of Prison Ministries
First Baptist Church of Bridgeport
126 Washington Avenue, 1st Fl.
Bridgeport, Connecticut 06604

(203) 339-5887
jgrant@progressiveprisonproject.org
jg3074@columbia.edu