I am left handed

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.