As the media stories, printed articles, and conversation swirl around Bruce Jenner’s transition to Caitlyn, I’ve continually thought long and hard about how I feel about the issue.  One writer expressed that although she didn’t “agree” or “approve” of the transition, she believed we should love Caitlyn.  This sounded right to me in some regard.  But I didn’t see how it is my job to “approve” of anything she (Jenner) was struggling with or “agree” with her choices in dealing with it.  Because I haven’t struggled with these specific feelings, I really don’t have a basis to determine how I would deal with them.  Other articles called that Jenner not receive the upcoming ESPY award and that it go to someone else.  This sentiment was mean-spirited in my opinion.  What Jenner is doing is an extreme act of bravery.  If the award is honoring bravery, no one can argue that to be so vulnerable in the face of the whole world is not extremely brave.  How many of us carry around secrets about ourselves, insecurities or broken parts of our character and try to hide them from the world? Everyone does, we all do.  To strip her of an award for being bravely transparent about her deepest and most painful life struggle seems to be an act of punishment or revenge.

Why do we feel the need as a society to punish those that represent something we don’t understand?  Being a transgendered human in this country is scary to those who haven’t struggled with this feeling.  It is very foreign to us.  So our first human response is to shun it.  If another of our brothers or sisters can struggle with this conflicted sense of self, is this something one of our loved ones could deal with? One of our children?  If we can’t totally conceptualize the idea of being transgendered, it’s a lot easier to simplify it and place it one of our mental boxes labeled “wrong”.  But the loving part of us can’t simply do that either.  When our brains battle with our heart, we are conflicted and fearful.

At the end of the day, I am a Christian.  I believe in Jesus and His teachings.  And this is the most solidified aspect of my belief system.  It trumps all else.  In the bible we read that Jesus’ greatest commandment is that we love God.  And the second great commandment is that we love others, as ourselves.  Jesus makes it a point to mention these, and only these two instructions to the people listening to him.  In fact, there were several Pharisees and Sadducees present in the crowd.  And throughout Christ’s teaching session, these two groups continued to try to tangle Him in His words and make Him contradict himself.  They wanted to complicate this simple commandment.  But Jesus would not relent and firmly stated that on these two commandments “hang all the law and the prophets.”

So if love for our fellow man is so important, in fact it is at the center of every law and prophet sent from God, why do we try to complicate this love for others, much like the Pharisees and Sadducees? Why do we make it contingent on people living lives that are familiar and comfortable to us? It is not our place to say that what Jenner is doing is bad, that she is a bad person, undeserving of accolades for bravery because of her choices.  The core of our piety should be love.  It has been commanded of us.  It is at the crux of our faith and should be the motivator behind all our actions.

Jenner has said that for her entire life, this was a struggle for her.  She felt conflicted and uncomfortable in her own skin.  I bet every tender and wonderful moment she experienced in her life thus far was tainted with the pain of this deep inner struggle.  What a cross to bear.  We all have them.  Why don’t we feel empathy and open our arms with love towards this fellow human? What she has gone through is foreign to most of us, yes.  But that isn’t an excuse for us to deny our love and further add to this person’s suffering.

I’m always confused at people’s staunch adherence to doctrine as an excuse to deny another person love.  Especially when it’s something they have almost no understanding of.  Why not hang those intellectual questions up on a proverbial hook until we can ask God himself for the answers? And then in the meantime, love and have compassion for those among us who are carrying huge burdens?  Any other bantering, debating, or strict adherence to some ethical code carved in stone is pointless.  It doesn’t matter what we “think” we know about this situation.  Her journey is her’s to own and isn’t contingent upon our agreement with her choices.  At the end of the day, if we haven’t walked even one inch in her shoes it’s not our job to judge, proclaim, or draw battle lines in the sand.  That’s the job of the Pharisees and Sadducees.  Our job is only to love.  And we can’t truly love someone when we hold any judgement or condemnation in our hearts for them.

It’s ok to say that we don’t understand an issue, that we don’t have all the answers, maybe that we’re a little fearful of the situation.  To love is easy.  We all have it in our hearts, it is where we came from, and what we are made of.  I believe that we want to love.  We can still love even if something is foreign to us.  Jesus simplified it for us and told us that’s all we have to do.  On it, hangs everything else.  And those are His words, not mine.