I am left handed. I
always have been. Someday when I was 3
or perhaps 4 years old, a box of crayons was put in front of me and I was
invited to draw a picture. I reached out
and grabbed a crayon with my left hand.
Most people in this first experience reached out with their
right hand. But not me. I am left handed.
When I went to school I noticed a few things. First, if I wanted to use my left hand to cut
paper, I had to find one of only one or two pairs of scissors with the title “lefty”
on them to do so. I learned to cut with
my right hand. It was easier to just accommodate. But I was still left handed.
I was shown how the proper way of writing consisted of
writing from the left to the right, and included an angle to my letters that
came quite naturally to right handed writers, but not to me. I learned how to make my letters stand up
straight instead of lean to the left, and I got used to not being able to see
what I had just written. I made it
work. Because I was left handed.
Later I had to deal with the fact that most desks in high
school and college were built to make it comfortable for a right handed person
to write on. Sometimes there were a
couple of lefty desks in a corner of the room.
But more often I had to just twist my body to the right.
As I grew into an adult I learned that left handers actually
have some pretty cool things that unite us.
A lot of leader type people are left handed. We can say “we are in our right mind” and be
correct. I learned that being left
handed made me different than the majority of people, sometimes made life a bit
complicated, but didn’t really hinder me from following my dreams or living my
life how I wanted to.
But what if?
What if I grew up going to church every week, and found a
few obscure passages in which the Biblical authors called left-handedness an
abomination? What if I discovered that
the Apostle Paul, a brilliant legal and theological mind, occasionally slipped
a condemnation of left-handedness into his writings? What if I heard sermons denouncing
left-handedness as sin?
What if, because of these writings, laws developed over the
centuries that left-handed people needed to either become right-handed, or
simply not write at all? What if I was
told that if I just prayed enough I could be healed of my left-handedness? What if I was subjected to people laying
hands on me and praying for me to be healed of my left-handedness?
What if I lived in a world where only right-handed people
were given the right to get married?
What if only right-handed people could enjoy certain tax benefits? What if, because I was left-handed, I was
denied the right to adopt children?
I might fake it. I
might really try to learn to write with my right hand. And I might successfully develop the skill of
writing with my right hand, to the point where I could pass as right
handed. But in moments by myself, I
would still pick up the pen with my left hand, and enjoy how much more natural
it felt. I would know I was still left
handed.
And at some point I would say, “I don’t think Paul was right
about me. I love God. I want to serve him. I believe Jesus is the Messiah for me and the
whole world. And I am left-handed.” At some point I would question the powers
that be, in the religious and political world, who were telling me I was broken
because I was not like the majority, the right-handed people. At some point I would begin banding together
with other left-handed people and protesting the injustices I faced as a
left-handed person.
I would look for and develop friendships with people who
were able to see beyond my left-handedness and could see that I was a
person. A person who was left-handed. I would learn to stand up for my rights and
to try to educate, as lovingly as I could, those who would judge me because of
my left-handedness. I might even march
in a parade where left-handed people wore a white glove on our left hands and
held pencils high over our head with our left hand.
I would find it difficult to go to church. I would grow tired of hearing religious
people say, “I love left-handed people but I hate their left-handed writing.” I would grow weary of people lumping
left-handed people like me in with murderers, child molesters, and drug
abusers.
But then someday, just maybe, I would find some religious
people who had the courage to accept me without forcing me to change into a
right-handed person or stop writing with my left hand. These folks would have the courage to see
that many other parts of the Apostle Paul’s writings had been discarded years
ago as only binding on his time and culture.
These folks would have the courage to see that over the centuries the
church had once supported as the only true Biblical idea things like monarchical
government, the belief in a flat earth, human slavery, and the subjugation of
women – and had abandoned those ideas in favor of newer ideas promoting a wider
sense of truth and justice. These
right-handed folks would have the courage to actually befriend, value, and accept
as equal left-handed people like me.
These right-handed folks would free me from my nagging sense of shame
over who I knew I was: a left handed person.
These right-handed folks would allow me to find my place in God’s
Kingdom, serving alongside them as I was gifted, and developing my gifts and
talents for use in loving God and loving others. When the government changed its laws to allow
me to adopt children and to actually marry the person I loved, these folks
would celebrate with me. When I found
these people I would be so happy.
Because I am left handed. I always have been. And I always will be.
