There are times when the thoughts expressed in an article I wrote several years ago about square pegs and round holes bubble to the surface. The idea behind that literary effort was an examination of the lives of the dual-gendered and how, at least for myself, life had been quite similar to trying to fit a square peg into a round hole.
What occurs to me now is that there’s another way of looking at it, which is to think in terms of any item on a store shelf. Virtually all of them come in a package of some kind. The item always fits very nicely into the package doesn’t it? Now do you suppose that someone came up with a package and then went looking for an object to put in it? No, that’s not the way it works. Someone invents, designs or creates an item to serve a particular purpose. That purpose may be for pleasure, necessity, speed, enhanced durability or any number of human needs, but whatever the purpose, the purpose precedes the design of the object. The design of the object determines the package it comes in. Even the design of that little workbench with the various shaped holes and pegs determined the shape of the box it came in. I think that in my case, if I were to be compared to a packaged item on a store shelf, I would be the one item on the shelf that was designed to fit the package.
Can you imagine what functional use something would be if the entire basis of its design were just to be sure that it fit in the previously designed package? Have you looked at the strange shapes of some of the packages on a store shelf lately? Have you ever tried putting an item back into one of those molded plastic packages? Excuse the masculine phrase but “Fat Chance Sweetie”. Can you imagine some nut turned loose with the package design before an inventor or engineer developed something with a purpose to fit the package? Well, I have often felt that I’ve been a package driven product.
Of course I don’t know this for certain, but the thought has occurred to me that God designed this body, this package, first. I think he started with the overall size. He created it just a little too small for the average guy and just a little too big for the average girl. Then, beginning at the ground level he designed the feet. I think he thought that this time he would try flat, narrow and on the small side. There he was definitely thinking feminine.
Next He did the legs and with these He was clearly thinking female. At this point in my life I am extremely grateful for that choice. When it came to my posterior and my hips I’m not quite sure what He was thinking so I will just let that “sit”. (Oh that was shameful wasn’t it?)
Next I believe He worked on my torso, waist first. When I was younger it was rather small but He seems to have designed a doughnut with late rising yeast to go around that youthful waist. I think He was just getting ready to go on a coffee break when He designed my chest because it’s just blah from both male and female outlooks.
The arms and shoulders have always been strong like a guy’s, but kind of delicate looking like a woman’s. He was certainly thinking feminine when he designed the hands.
As for the head and face He was surely thinking dual purpose and I kind of like it that way. The only thing that I haven’t quite figured out is the hair. On first thought it would appear that He was thinking “old guy” or “really old guy”. I haven’t had enough hair of my own to spit at for years. Of course God might have been thinking ” he’s going to be wearing wigs in Phoenix Arizona during the summer some day and that will be really hot with a full head of hair under there.”
There is one exception to the “Georgia Rule” about designing the product first and then the package. Alfalfa sprouts! They are grown and shipped to the store in those plastic boxes. As a result, the shape of the cluster of sprouts when you take it off of the shelf is exactly what the shape of the box is. And you will notice that there are a number of different shaped containers available from sprout producers. So in a way there are parts of this body that are like the package of alfalfa sprouts.
The basic package that I was delivered in, a male body had seeds of a personality in it. For most of my life, as the personality “sprouted” and developed it had to take the shape of the package, which was a male body, even though it had attributes of a female body. Just like the alfalfa sprouts, there was no choice as to how my personality had to grow, at least as long as the package remained closed. But what happens when the package is opened?
Well, of course the bundle of sprouts will maintain its shape for a time but, not indefinitely. They can be spread out and used on a sandwich or a salad. They can be left to dry out or spoil, in which case they are a total waste. Or they can be nurtured, placed in a little soil and eventually, if not soon, they will become full-fledged plants with extremely deep and strong roots that can live almost indefinitely if given the right care and attention.
And so it is with this second personality, upon the realization that the package it came in didn’t have to remain sealed. Once the awareness of the options was awakened the “package” no longer had to define the shape of the product. The body that we are born with simply does not have to be the defining expression of our lives. We just have to take the “sprout” of that femininity, or masculinity, whichever the case may be in our package, plant it in some soil, nourish it, care for it and watch it take root, grow and bloom into what The Master Designer had in mind for the package.