Imagine

I consider myself a person who is aware of their emotions, but I did not realize how much something was bothering me, until of a dream I had last night. In the dream, I was the Vice President of the United States. After going about my official duties for part of the day and meeting with the American people, I became disheartened. I saw how angry and hateful people were, people who claimed to be otherwise, and I decided to resign my position. The crux of the issue was race. The dream seemed set in the future, but we were dealing with the civil rights issues of the twentieth century. My decision to resign was done without consulting anyone. I told a reporter to get a crew together, and as I paced back and forth thinking over my presentation, I woke up.

As I lay in bed, it was immediate what was bothering me: North Carolina’s decision to define marriage as between a man and a woman.

As a citizen of the Commonweal of G*d, I am grief stricken at the systematic hate of the Body of Christ. As an American citizen, I am appalled at the violation of civil rights and the institutionalized bigotry that we are perpetrating here in the U.S.

In the United States we all but decimated tens of millions of people in the name of “our” rights to live how “we” thought proper. We then enslaved millions of another race to support the economics of that society. We have mentally and physically abused our women, because “our” society was for the pleasure of the white male. Later, we “allowed” our slaves to be separate, but equal – shutting them away in dilapidated housing with substandard education, as we kept them bound in the invisible chains of poverty and fear. We have done all of this with biblical support.

Today, we still have a portion of our society that is trying to define equal rights for everyone, but then they make people less than human so “everyone” comes to mean “some people.” Rights are hard to get in the land of the free. At first, a person had to be a white, land-owning male. Women and other races were out. Slaves were 3/5 of a person. Then, blacks became people by law, but not by culture. It would be even longer before women could vote. Today, if you are queer in America, you do not have the same rights under the constitution as everyone else. If you are queer and in love, you do not have the right to get married like that man and woman next door who is getting a divorce. This same segment is touting how this is the voice of the people, because it was voted on. Yes, and so was segregation.

Imagine a world where Christians are defined by their love of G*d and neighbor, rather than living up to “biblical principles” that make people feel not good enough to kiss the shoe that is walking out of a church on Sunday afternoon. Imagine a world where Christians did not rally in anger and frustration against the creation of G*d, but out of compassion and earnestness for humanity. Imagine a world where Christians united to feed the widow and orphan, who put on the ballot equal pay for women, who marched on the steps of Washington to end wars, who wanted all people to have affordable access to dental and medical care, and who worked to make the word “Ghetto” an out-of-date term that our grandchildren would have to read about in history books. Imagine.

My heart hurts. My soul is crushed. I am repelled by the G*d that so many Christians worship. I have no desire to know their Jesus.

There is a G*d who is love. There is a Jesus who taught us the way. We are to love G*d and our neighbors as ourselves. We are not to judge those same neighbors. We are to embrace the outcasts of the religious and social elite. We are to let go of the possessions that are holding onto us and follow. We are to love. Imagine.