An Easter message

Why do I feel the need to be 'good'? Plus a piece of writing about how my dad is Jesus (YES REALLY. I'M NOT DELUDED.)

How I felt this morning is completely different to how I feel now. I felt.... Jangely. You know when it's as if your cells are quivering under your skin? Like even the smallest of comments could set you off crying... And it would be a struggle to explain exactly where the tears had come from? That's how I felt.

I've been trying to analyze it. But isn't it exhausting analyzing our feelings all the time? Trying to seek self improvement and 'what can I do to ensure I don't feel this way again' all the time? Sometimes we just feel. I felt one way at 8am. I feel differently now at 8pm.  That's fine.

But I did begin to realise that I often feel this way around Easter. Jangely. And in my short allowed period of analysis (a bus ride) I realised it's all the religion in the air. If you're Christian please don't feel this as a slight, as there's so much more to this shaky unrest within me than just Jesus and his cross. The expectations placed on women, who and what we should be, play their part. That and (this is where grief comes in) a tendency to compare myself to family dynamics that I’ll never have. 

I carry a strange desire to be considered 'good'. To be a part of a large family that goes to church and eats triangle sandwiches in the garden. A woman with clean knees.

I'm not that woman. I never will be.

The majority of the time I feel OK with this. But Easter, particularly with its focus on family and children, can cause me to question things. This is hard to admit, as someone who has recently made the decision to remain child-free.

I’ve been told I’ll regret this, that my life will be missing a part… This rhetoric can make me want to keep silent about shaky, jangely moments. I don’t want people to use a wobble as confirmation that they’re right. As I’m not unhappy. I don’t feel I’ve made the wrong decision. But, all our lives, we are taught what makes a person 'good' and what makes a person 'bad'. And so much of that is based on what religion tells us is good and bad. On the 2.4 family model. Those who stray from that can end up feeling coated in sin. Sin they can't quite understand, a dirt that seeps into them despite them knowing it's entirely unfair.

The ridiculous thing is, as outsiders go, I'm hardly alienated. It's why I mostly wanted to use today's newsletter, on Easter, to highlight the wonderful work of my dad who has travelled the world with her show Jesus Queen Of Heaven. The show imagines Jesus coming back to earth in the present day as a trans woman, she tells her stories and she shares bread and wine, spreading her message of love and inclusion. It was first performed in 2009 and she’s been performing it ever since, as well as it being translated into four languages. She also since adapted the play so that anyone can experience it, watching from home with friends and family. (you can read more about her, and the show, here. Or follow her Substack, here)

Image of dad in the show, photo by Aly Wight

I’ve seen it multiple times and each time I’m struck, watching the audience as much as I watch my dad, as to how her words seem to shake off this binary of ‘bad’ vs ‘good’ and how people leave feeling bolder, and more accepted, than they had when they walked into the theatre. I’ve included below an old piece (you could say I resurrected it for the day…) I wrote for the 10th Anniversary edition of the play, which explains more.

But first I’d like to apologise, this is a hastily written letter, after spending all of Easter Sunday drinking prosecco in the sunshine (BAD GIRL) it’s also now going out on Easter Monday. But I’d love to know how you felt this weekend, and are there any other occasions that can stir up the grief within you? And, if so, as I want this to be a place for community, how can I help? 

My Father’s Hands

Her hands look different now. They were once peppered with blue and purple varicose veins, raised just above her skin. I'd run my fingers down them, tracing these rivers with my own tiny hands. Rivers that connected directly to my dad's heart.

We used to play games. She'd hide a coin under one hand and I'd guess which by slapping quickly the hand I suspected. 

It was a silly game but it kept us occupied for hours - laughing together in the cafe long after lunch was served. 

When she transitioned the hands I knew - so well they could almost be my own - changed with her. The veins disappeared. The skin became smooth. The pale pink nails now painted maroon. 

One day I was holding them, marvelling at how soft they were, when I noticed something: two rough, red circles right in the centre of her palms. "What are those?" I whispered. "Stigmata," she whispered back. 

That was the moment I found out that my dad was Jesus. 

She'd evolved once more, her hands morphing with her. 

Some will say that it's just a part. An actor expertly playing a role. But those two red circles tell me otherwise. That she's  here to tell us something, to teach us. She knows so much about religion - she's the only person I know who has read the Bible, front to back. 

So she teaches it. To those who - at any given moment - don't feel as strong as she does. Those who see the world and its religious wars and take it as further signal that they are wrong. That they are the ones who don't belong. And my dad. Jesus. She tells them, as I sit shaking on a church pew, or perched on a red cushion in a theatre above Brighton Pier, that they are loved. Accepted. They aren't wrong at all. Together they sob. They learn their place in the world once more.

So you can tell me that it's just a play. Just a part. But you weren't there - when the stigmata began to itch on my father's hands.