From Bishop Monnot: God is Weeping

Yesterday, on Ash Wednesday, the Christian Church throughout the world marked the beginning of the holy season of Lent; a time of repentance, self-examination, and prayer. It is deeply disappointing that our state legislature began this season of Lent by writing discrimination into our state laws as they passed a bill that bans transgender athletes from participating in school sports. When we are baptized, we promise to respect the dignity and worth of every human being, and this law violates that promise and denies the full humanity of transgender children of God.

Today, God is weeping for transgender children in the state of Iowa.

Today, let us repent for the times and places where we have failed to be a conduit for God’s love and justice and, as individuals and as a society, failed to fully protect all of God’s transgender children.

Today, let us examine our hearts and our lives and ask God to show us more clearly our deep connectedness with each other and with all of God’s children.

And let us pray God’s blessing and strength upon all of our children, transgender and cisgender, that they may know that they are made in God’s image and are loved beyond measure, just the way they are.

— The Rt. Rev. Betsey Monnot, Bishop of the Diocese of Iowa