So here's a news flash for you all - the world isn't ending yet, no matter how much it feels like it.
This morning I got up late for my walk. I went to bed with a headache last night and hadn't quite kicked it, so I hit the snooze button a few more times than I should have and eventually I made it out under the tempestuous skies. I was in my ninth lap around the track when it started raining, and as I rounded the far side of the soccer field, the end of a rainbow appeared, right over the back end of Zaisan hill. It literally stopped me in my tracks.
One reason why I like to be alone when I take my morning walks is that this is my time to talk to my Heavenly Father. This helps me to get my head and heart straight for the coming day, get the things that are bothering me off my chest, and renew my determination for the things I gotta do (like stop eating so many frickin' sweets). The state of the world in general has been weighing me down a lot lately, and specifically the events that are playing out in the US, and this is the subject I was warming up to as I was on my ninth lap.
Whether you're religious or not, you've gotta be asking yourself what on earth is up with this year, but if you're familiar with scripture at all, you should be trembling in your boots. Horde of locusts: check. Flood: check. Famine: in the forecast. Plague: checkity check-check. And last week left me feeling like civil war was on the horizon as well. This is a fucking scary, shitty ass year.* But there's this relatively obscure** doctrine of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, that in the year preceding The End there will be no rainbows. One of my many LDS Facebook friends made a joke sometime since this year started, asking if someone was keeping track of rainbows, and as I stood in the rain, watching the full arc of the rainbow shimmer into existence over the valley where I live, I thought, okay. So not this year. Not yet.
Since the world's apparently not going to end just yet, that brings me to point B. This goes out specifically to all of you who call yourselves after the name of Christ. I don't know any other religious group who is as intolerant and hypocritical as y'all are being right now. I've seen a lot of straight, white, cisgender people whose words and actions are not in line with the teachings of Christianity. I'm trying not to turn this into a rant, so I'll just remind my fellow believers that Christ himself said, "Inasmuch as ye have done it unto the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me." You may be thinking to yourself, "I've never ___ed*** anyone, and I'm not racist," but it's not enough just not to cause harm to each other. Specifically I'd like to ask my fellow Saints, for whom part of our baptismal covenants is to mourn with those that mourn, and comfort those that stand in need of comfort if they can say that their thoughts and actions are in line with this principle.
To be fair, I'm probably not the best person to write this post. I'm cranky and I kind of hate people - for the most part I've loved social isolation because there are far fewer people to annoy me. But the thing is, we have to take action. This morning I felt moved to start taking action by writing this post. If you're wondering what you can do, one colleague suggested donating to an organization that fights against injustice - he specifically linked the Southern Poverty Law Center. Another friend posted screenshots of a 2014 article about how to protest without going out. Whatever you can do, do it. My American readers, we come from a nation that rose from revolution. If you were educated in the American school system, chances are you learned about the Boston Tea Party, and how this act of destruction helped to forge our country. Remember that. And ask yourself if the last line of our pledge of allegiance - with liberty and justice for all - is a fact or a myth. Because the struggle toward that ideal is what has made our nation great, and the fight is still not won.
*I was going to write this without any obscenity because it's one of my rare churchy posts, but sometimes you just can't express things properly without swearing.
**That happens when you've had ongoing revelation for the past 200 years.
***Insert hurtful action here
This morning I got up late for my walk. I went to bed with a headache last night and hadn't quite kicked it, so I hit the snooze button a few more times than I should have and eventually I made it out under the tempestuous skies. I was in my ninth lap around the track when it started raining, and as I rounded the far side of the soccer field, the end of a rainbow appeared, right over the back end of Zaisan hill. It literally stopped me in my tracks.
One reason why I like to be alone when I take my morning walks is that this is my time to talk to my Heavenly Father. This helps me to get my head and heart straight for the coming day, get the things that are bothering me off my chest, and renew my determination for the things I gotta do (like stop eating so many frickin' sweets). The state of the world in general has been weighing me down a lot lately, and specifically the events that are playing out in the US, and this is the subject I was warming up to as I was on my ninth lap.
Whether you're religious or not, you've gotta be asking yourself what on earth is up with this year, but if you're familiar with scripture at all, you should be trembling in your boots. Horde of locusts: check. Flood: check. Famine: in the forecast. Plague: checkity check-check. And last week left me feeling like civil war was on the horizon as well. This is a fucking scary, shitty ass year.* But there's this relatively obscure** doctrine of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, that in the year preceding The End there will be no rainbows. One of my many LDS Facebook friends made a joke sometime since this year started, asking if someone was keeping track of rainbows, and as I stood in the rain, watching the full arc of the rainbow shimmer into existence over the valley where I live, I thought, okay. So not this year. Not yet.
Since the world's apparently not going to end just yet, that brings me to point B. This goes out specifically to all of you who call yourselves after the name of Christ. I don't know any other religious group who is as intolerant and hypocritical as y'all are being right now. I've seen a lot of straight, white, cisgender people whose words and actions are not in line with the teachings of Christianity. I'm trying not to turn this into a rant, so I'll just remind my fellow believers that Christ himself said, "Inasmuch as ye have done it unto the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me." You may be thinking to yourself, "I've never ___ed*** anyone, and I'm not racist," but it's not enough just not to cause harm to each other. Specifically I'd like to ask my fellow Saints, for whom part of our baptismal covenants is to mourn with those that mourn, and comfort those that stand in need of comfort if they can say that their thoughts and actions are in line with this principle.
*I was going to write this without any obscenity because it's one of my rare churchy posts, but sometimes you just can't express things properly without swearing.
**That happens when you've had ongoing revelation for the past 200 years.
***Insert hurtful action here
No comments:
Post a Comment