Titzy-Pritzel

Queer.

As much as I own the description of queer, I appreciate that some do not. I don't mean to conjure up awful memories when the term was used against someone in a derogatory way. I know how this feels, because I was accused of being a titzy-pritzel (a vulgar connotation of queer) when I was young and did all I could to escape and hide from that definition.

Titzy-Pritzel - I looked it up and found nothing on almighty Google.

Why then did this slang term haunt me in my childhood?

I mean I can't even type the words into my MacBook without apple programming the device to correct what I've written, because the term doesn't exist.

But it did.

I felt ashamed when I was called titsy-pritzel. I wasn't trying to cause any problems when I was a child, but found that when I tried to just be me, I was told that being a titzy-pritzel was not at all acceptable.

We all wear scars from our childhood - some deeper than others. I don't claim for a moment that my scars are deeper than any other. My parents weren't awful by any stretch. I know there are some, perhaps even you reading this, that had terrible childhoods. I am so sorry for that. I had childhood traumas, but nothing like some of the stories I have been told. Yet some of the stories from my past were painful for me.

My childhood was more of a recognition of events that shaped me and left more emotional scars than physical. Sure I got whipped by a belt, but what 4 year old didn't? Okay, that was snarky and a bit passive aggressive, because no 4 year old should be whipped. why? A 4 year old isn't capable of a capital crime to deserve such punishment.

Those aren't the scars I think about in my late 50s. It's the emotional scars that changed the trajectory of my life that have bubbled to the surface and exploded out of the depths of my soul like a trident missile being launched.

But to look at the grandiosity of a missile launched versus being torn down by a difficult name to hear are two different emotions. To be clear, being called a titsy-pritzel was far more damaging than being beaten with a belt.

We've all heard the concept "sticks and stones can break my bones, but words will never hurt me". That is such crap.

The proverb “sticks and stones may break my bones” can be traced back to 1844 where Alexander William used the term in his book, Kinglake’s. I couldn't find much research on the book, but in searching, I did learn that The Christian Recorder of March published it with commentary in 1862, where it was stated as; “sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never break me.”

I get that the author was trying to suggest that one should shrug off words of haters and evil-doers, but that person made the immeasurable mistake of not acknowledging or accepting how words deeply resonate within and can shape the lives of all people, but perhaps more so can shape the life of a child and the trajectory of their growth as a person.

A poem called penned by Ruby Redfort captures the proverb better:

“Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words can also hurt me.

Stones and sticks break only skin, while words are ghosts that haunt me.

Slant and curved the word-swords fall, it pierces and sticks inside me.

Bats and bricks may ache through bones, but words can mortify me.

Pain from words has left its’ scar, on mind and hear that’s tender.

Cuts and bruises have not healed, it’s words that I remember.”

It's the words that made an impression and cannot be forgotten five decades later.

Okay, why should words matter five decades later? That's a fair question. I think the answer lies somewhat within the cost of the words.

When I was young, I felt a penchant for girls things. I felt shamed into letting that go. 50+ years later, I haven't let go, have I? Therein lies the cost.

I'm a pastor. I love my LORD and Savior, Jesus Christ. For the longest time, I have believed in and preached the great commandments that Jesus gave us to "Love God with all my heart, soul and mind with the second being like it to love my neighbor as myself". I paraphrased that a bit, but I'm pretty sure the gist is in tact.

I love God with my whole being. I truly try to love my neighbor - whomever that neighbor may be. It is only recently when I think about what all of this love is based upon that I realized I was falling short.

We aren't called to love God with the whole of our being by just doing emulating how Jesus loved. I get how that might be taught, but stay with me. We aren't called to love our neighbor out of instruction trying to figure out how to do so. All of these commands are predicated on a true love of self. Let me share the actual text from the New Revised Standard Version of the bible in Matthew 22:36-40:

*36“Teacher, which commandment in the law is the greatest?” 37He said to him, “ ‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ 38This is the greatest and first commandment. 39And a second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ 40On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.”*

I am to love the Lord MY God with all that I am... heart, soul and mind. Now the catch that brings me to where I am today... "the second command is like it".

I don't take those words lightly. Commanding us to love God with our whole being - heart, soul and mind - is similar, alike, identical? to loving God?? Loving my neighbor as myself.

You see, it's the predication of how I am to love my neighbor that threw me. I didn't love self with the decades of shame and hatred to how I felt about myself. I felt wrong, because I wanted to be a girl and was shamed for thinking that way. I lived a lie in now living a life of full expression as to who I was and who God made me to be.

Keep in mind that someone my age don’t have to look too far back to remember when announcing your sexuality might have put you in jail or what I feared most, in a mental institution, or at the very least alienated you from family and friends. It's possible that remaining in a closet to my true authentic self was a form of self preservation, but how it feels decades later is costly. I have lived my life in a world of self-hatred and shame.

St. Francis of Assisi is credited with the saying "preach the gospel at all times; if necessary use words". I understand there is debate on whether St. Francis of Assisi ever actually said these words, but I came to know the phrase with his attribution, so I'll allow scholars to argue that elsewhere. As far as I am concerned, I desired to live out this thought and was using words of Jesus' two greatest commands that carried no meaning by how I was preaching them. I loved God and my neighbor, but did so with a hatred in my heart for my authentic self.

Preaching the gospel that I believe in calls me to examine my entire life and let go of what keeps me of living that life-altering and freeing gospel. I read the text now as if the entire existence of loving God and neighbor requires a first love of self and to love self is to love the truth that God made me and our loving God does not make mistakes.

So in order to truly love myself I'm convinced I need to love myself and therefore accept myself as God made me rather than loving the self that I created out of the construct of a disjointed world belief that humans with penis' should act like boys and not titsy pritsels.