All right. So enough people (3, I think?) have suggested that I have a blog or a column or something, that I am giving in! This way, when I want to write something I’ve been thinking about and it happens to be controversial in nature 1) I can think about it for a few hours before posting and 2) anyone who doesn’t like what I have to say can just not click on the link!
This blog, which I started 6 years ago, was originally intended to be about my family and our experiences with a medically fragile, disabled son. I am sure I will write about that sometimes. But as life has rolled on I have begun to feel helpless and mute on the subject, as Cody’s physical life has deteriorated. Like what is happening is too big and too horrifying and too beautiful and too precious for me to comprehend, or for language to express. So my theme will have to change for now.
What will I write about? Well, mostly I guess it will be sharing the evolution of my thoughts on what life is supposed to be. I asked God once, “Please show me what You say life is to be. I don’t want to know what anyone else says.” That was about 14 years ago. And He immediately began to erase all my ingrained assumptions, about Himself in particular, and rewrite life for me. I don’t write because my thoughts are particularly profound, but I find myself in an extended place of intense change in my beliefs about the relationship between God and humankind, and the way the world was designed to work and the way it does work, and I want to share my struggles and wrestlings and revelations.
Today I met a cashier at Wegmans, who was wearing the hijab (is it “a hijab,” or “the hijab,” or just “hijab?). I said, “Can I ask you a weird question?” She answered, “OK . . . ,” looking a little nervous. “Has anyone given you any trouble about wearing the hijab?” Her face lit up and she said, “No! Not in Charlottesville. I am afraid to move to any other city because it has been so good here. On the day after the election, I even had some strangers walk up to me and hug me and tell me they were sorry and that they were glad I am here.”
Like an idiot I didn’t take note of her name. She is from Indonesia and has been here for twelve years. She has had/is having trouble with her immigration papers but will hopefully get them sorted out. She likes working at Wegmans because they encourage diversity.
As I have processed the conversation I have had many thoughts, one stacking on top of another:
First I thought how proud I am to live in Charlottesville (not that's perfect, mind you).
Then I thought about how beautiful she is. Really, the most beautiful, friendly, sparkling eyes. She seemed so happy to engage, so comfortable in her skin and so joyous. I will always go for her register when I get the chance.
And then I thought of how differently I was taught to perceive someone like her in the religion in which I was brought up. I believe I would have been afraid of her, not as a terrorist or anything like that, but as one of “them.” Not only a non-believer, but a believer in a false religion. Someone who was wrong. Someone who was dangerous. Someone with whom I should be on guard because she had gotten it all wrong and was a lost soul. I should tell her about Jesus, but I should be guarded about a relationship with her because she could drag me down. Someone I should see as worthless, because I was worthless before I found Jesus. But if she believed in Jesus, then we could be best friends. Then I could “disciple” her and lift her up to my level of knowledge and teach her how to be a “good Christian.”
WHAT THE WHAT!?! How did I ever read about and learn about and talk to Jesus and think that this was how He sees this beautiful, sparkling human being made in His image? Yes, we humans have lost our unity with Him, have separated ourselves and have tried to figure out our identity and how to “do life” apart from the Beautiful One who made us for the sole purpose of living in unity with Him, submersed in His Love, Joy, Peace . . . . And yes, that Aloneness makes us do and say terrible things, scrambling over one another, not caring who we step on to find our sense of acceptance and significance in this world. But though we may not percieve Him, He has never, ever left us.
“Where can I go to flee from Your Spirit?
Where can I flee from Your presence?
If I go up to the heavens, You are there;
if I make my bed in the depths, you are there.
If I rise on the wings of the dawn,
if I settle on the far side of the sea,
even there your hand will guide me,
your right hand will hold me fast.
If I say, ‘Surely the darkness will hide me
and the light become night around me,’
even the darkness will not be dark to You;
for darkness is as light to You.
For You created my inmost being;
You knit me together in my mother’s womb.
I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made.
Your works are wonderful, I know that full well.”
Psalm 139:7-14
Christian, we are free! We need not be cautious and fearful and self-protective! We, who have believed in and accepted God’s freedom from the curse of separation with Him, we are free to love on and tell everyone else that they are included, too! To be friends and have relationships where we just delight in who they are! We need not fear that somehow we will be compromising ourselves or our faith, if we reach out a hand and tell our Muslim or (insert person of different belief) neighbor that they are beautiful and acceptable in our eyes, and in the eyes of God. I could dance and sing for joy in the relief of knowing that I was never worthless, and no one in this world is worthless. That I am free to see my Muslim friend as God sees her - as gorgeous and wonderful and worthwhile. There is so much joy in that! Confused, lost, separated as one might be, God has never really left the side of any one of His creations, and will never, ever stop pouring out His love and mercy on every human.
Can the nature of God be changed? We don’t have to believe Him. But He Himself says that He is Love.
