A Reminder To Myself

You have heard it was said, "You shall love you neighbor and hate your enemy." But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be children of your Father in heaven; for he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends the rain on the righteous and on the unrighteous. For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? (Matthew 5:43-46)

I have a bumper sticker on my car that reads “I’m for the separation of church and hate.” I don’t know, but that seems like a no-brainer to me. Sadly, more and more often I hear about pastors standing in the pulpits of their churches and preaching the theology of hate and control to their congregants instead of the theology of love. Lately, I have allowed myself to be taken over by a reactionary stance—if you hate me, I’m going to hate you right back. If your are going to judge me, then I am going to judge you right back. If you see me as being separate from God, clearly that is a sign that you are separate from God, and so on. The political season draws me into this space, this ideological banter does little more than generate fear. And fear is what I feel these days. I am terrified that John McCain and Sarah Palin will lead this country away from the path of progress that I had come to take for granted before the Bush years. I am terrified that I will lose my rights because I am a woman. I am terrified about the direction of healthcare and the economy and the state of education in this country and in the over-crowded, under-funded school that my children attend. So I fight back in the age old wisdomless way, throwing my own punches. I stick with the truth, but there isn’t love in my intention, only fear and anger these days. There is no end to this type of black and white kind of arguing in which I and my opponents engage. There is no end except to step outside of this type of thinking altogether and return to the scriptures, to the words of Jesus and other great beacons of light. I want to go back to a few months ago when I didn't have to work on the separation of me and hate.

In more than twenty world religions, dating back in written form to as early as 1970 BC, there has existed at the heart of faith and social governance a rule common to all—the Golden Rule. In Judaism we know it from Leviticus 19:18, “thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.” In Christianity we have this wonderful passage from the Gospel of Luke.

Just then a lawyer stood up to test Jesus. “Teacher,” he said, “what must I do to inherit eternal life?” He said to him, “What is written in the law? What do you read there?” He answered, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your strength, and with all your mind; and your neighbor as yourself.” And he said to him, “You have given the right answer; do this, and you will live.”

But the man is not satisfied. He needs definitions like the rest of us. Surely Jesus doesn’t mean that we have to treat all people the same. This is the passage where Jesus tells the famous story of the Good Samaritan. It is an odd story if you don’t know the history.

A man is assaulted and left along the roadside. A priest comes by and sees him. He walks to the other side of the road and passes. A Levite also comes by and does the same. So what? Who are these people anyway and what is the significance of their not stopping to help? Both the priest and the Levite are Jews of the priestly class, the highest class. They work in the temple and observe the strictest rules of purity. For this reason they are reluctant to help this battered man lying on the side of the road on the chance that they would be defiled by contact with blood or, worse, contact with a dead body. Here we have two men putting the lesser laws of purity above God’s greater law “love thy neighbor as thyself.” What happens next in the story most likely shocked his audience. Jesus says that another man, a Samaritan, happened along the road and saw the mugging victim. The Samaritan rushed to his aid, bandaged his wounds and provided his own transportation to the beaten man for the remainder of the eighteen mile journey into Jericho. Once they arrived in the town, the Samaritan took the man to an inn and told the host there to provide the man with care, and then he paid the innkeeper for his services to the man.

Now this is the good stuff. Who is the Samaritan, the hero of our story? And what does he have to do with the definition of neighbor? The Samaritans lived to the North of Jerusalem. When the Israelites were conquered the first time by the Babylonians only certain Jews, mostly those of the priestly class and those living around the Temple, were forced into exile. The Temple was destroyed and groups of foreigners were settled in the area amidst the remaining Jews. The Northern Kingdom Jews (the Samaritans) were permitted to stay. With the Jerusalem Temple destroyed, the Samaritans built a new temple on Mount Gerazim. They intermarried with their new neighbors and brought converts to Judaism. When the Babylonians were conquered by the Persians generations later, many of the families of the exiled Jews chose to return to Jerusalem. Very quickly, the descendents of the former priests began to rebuild the Temple in Jerusalem. When the Samaritans heard of this effort, they offered their assistance. They were rejected.

Here is the issue of purity and identity all over again. Before the Babylonian exile Jews had a very “casual” conversion process. Basically, if you showed up in the land, lived by the laws and participated in the local customs, you were a Jew. Once the priestly class was exiled, they had no homeland with which to bind up their identity. At that point, identity as a Jew became a matter of lineage. Since many of the Samaritans who remained in the homeland had intermarried with foreigners, their descendents were no longer considered pure Jews by the returning Jews. Because the Samaritans insisted on being able to sacrifice at Mt. Gerazim as they had during the period of exile and since they were not welcome to sacrifice in Jerusalem, they further cemented their new imposed identity as non-Jews worshipping a false god. (Doesn’t sound very fair, huh?) Thus developed the rift between the Samaritans and the returned Jews.

When Jesus brings a Samaritan to the aid of a Jew he is basically saying that the Samaritan saved the life of his arch enemy, a man who likely persecuted his people and rejected him spiritually. Jesus is telling us that in order to be saved—I believe both in this life and the next—that we have to love our neighbor and that our neighbor is any person we happen upon, even the person who persecutes us or steals from us or oppresses us. Who is this person for you? For me these days Republicans are my battered neighbors alongside the road. And even though I know that I am called by my faith to love them, I am having a hard time doing so. When I imagine the possibility of McCain and Palin as the leaders of this country, I see the future I have dreamt about giving my children disintegrate. I watch their rights as women slip away. And then I get angry. I get angry at everyone near and far who could support these two…who would with their vote deny millions of Americans access to healthcare, send industry packing to foreign countries, relegate me and my daughters to second class citizenship, tell a fourteen year old girl pregnant by her father that she has to carry his child.

This morning I awoke with these thoughts in my mind and with a deep knowing that this is the challenge that God is giving me today—to find a way to break through my anger and see my supposed enemies as the wounded children of God that they are and to love them.

Listening to Your Child, Listening to Your Gut

A girlfriend of mine just sent me an email the other day regarding some horrifying information she saw on Oprah. Oprah is the master at finding ways to make us feel less safe in our lives. Your husband might be secretly gay or dating online. The locks on your doors aren't enough to keep real criminals out. And on and on. We sort of know all the possibilities don't we? We have to filter out some of those thoughts in order to live our lives. Otherwise we would be in a constant adrenaline rush, never trusting anyone, never developing deep love relationships, never allowing our children to individuate for fear that they may get hurt or make the wrong choices. The filter exists to keep us healthy, to prevent neurosis. Instead of simply providing basic information, advice and skills to help us stay alert and prepared for the worst of it all, the Oprah show gives us nightmares, ruins our afternoons, has some women checking their husband's computers for evidence. This is highly uncool and its sensationalist. Maybe if they can scare us just enough we will be awake and prepared for everything.

The particular episode in question covered pedophiles that prey on infants. The details shared by my friend were graphic and horrifying and highly inappropriate for a network television audience. And what did it do to help parents? I doubt it did more than encourage parents to avoid date night. So I want to give you some pratical advice from experience and from the books I have read on the topic.

A few years back a close family friend of ours was arrested and jailed for pedophilia (prepubescent and pubescent boys that we know of). Long before this happened, we had left our baby daughter with that family for an evening while we went on a date. But something happened that night when I picked her up. I got a "feeling" and it stuck with me. It didn't feel like a block hitting me in the head, just a quiet little murmur of discontent. Something he said about changing her stinky diaper, I think, and the way he said it felt off. When my husband and I were trying to find a sitter a few months later, he suggested that family. I said immediately, "I don't want them to watch *our daughter* anymore." He asked why and I said, "I don't know, just a feeling. I'm not comfortable. I'd rather stay home." He was open to hearing that and we didn't go out that night. A few years later that friend was arrested and convicted in a case involving 5 boys, one unidentified who only existed in a picture.

A year later, our daughter was in a sunday school class with a male teacher. In the first few classes it became obvious that our outgoing little girl was sad to go and a bit withdrawn when leaving. When we asked her why, she told us that she didn't like the teacher, Brian. I had noticed that he was always picking her up, but I thought it was because she was having a hard time adjusting. We immediately took her out of the class and told the supervisor why we were moving her to the other class. He didn't come back as a teacher and I don't even see him at church anymore.

My point is that at as hard as these people are to detect in our society, we do get inklings and bits of info that feel "off". You have to FOLLOW YOUR GUT when it comes to your kids. Learn the difference between a gut feeling and your regular parental worry. And WHO CARES WHAT OTHER PEOPLE MIGHT THINK! Even if it is a family member. Your child gets only one childhood. Better to be safe and offend someone than sorry and still be friends with a pedophile. If there had not been another sunday school class to put her in, I would have taken her into church with me rather than risk her safety. Also, LISTEN TO YOUR CHILD. If your child is outgoing but becomes upset or withdrawn with certain people, that is a sure sign to move them out of contact with that person. The same goes for when they directly ask to avoid certain persons or circumstances. Doing this communicates to your child that you will listen to them when they are afraid and that, more importantly, YOU WILL TAKE ACTION on their behalf.

Empowering your child to tell you her feelings or to tell you when someone says "don't tell your mom or dad", being an obviously vigilent parent, being willing to offend when your gut tells you to do so--these all send messages to pedophiles that your child is not easy prey. And pedophiles always skip over the kids that might get them caught. This is the best advice I can give. Good luck.

Christianity and Abortion

In the time of Christ (and today amongst conservative Jews) a baby wasn't really a person or a member of the community until it was seven days old for males and even longer for females. That is why even to this day the bris (circumsion), which officially brings the baby boy into the community, takes place only after the seven days have passed. Women routinely managed their fertility in the Jewish culture of Jesus' time. In addition to various forms and methods of contraception, they used herbs to end unwanted pregnancies. Today, Jewish women are on the forefront of a woman's right to choose because they have always been in charge of their own bodies. It is a fanciful notion that there was a period in time when all pregnancies resulted in a child regardless of choice.

This has been a time of forgetting for women largely resulting from the efforts of the Roman Catholic Church. And somehow men (sorry to you fellows who don't feel this way) have felt as though they have a right to control a woman's body and to coopt her fertility. Perhaps it is the woman's power of creation, the aspect of her that is most like God, that makes men jealous. And so the only path open to the man who covets the power of creation is to try to control that power in women, though this will never make him a creator himself.

Jesus never spoke of abortion nor is it mentioned in the Bible. Why? Because pregnancy was under the domain of women, just like childbirth and childcare. One of my greatest wishes is that Christians who say they are going to live a Bible-based life take the time to read the Gospels and study the culture and history of Jesus. I wish they would lay off the writings of the Apostle Paul who, every bit prone to error and poor human judgement as the rest of us, tried with great success to position men above women in a spiritual hierarchy. But just because he said it, doesn't make it so. Read the story of Mary and Martha, The Gospel of Mary, The Gospel of Thomas or stories of the early dissemination of Christianity (it was a women's movement, gals!) Why do you think the Romans worked so hard to squash the Gnostic Christians which made up 60% of Christians at the time?

Wake up women! Remember who and what you are! Only those who can create know the implications of such an act. Only those who can create should decide when it is best to do so.

Vice President Sarah Palin?

What would Jesus do? I am really struggling to reconcile the two Sarah Palins that I have been presented with. Runs a campaign to finish the bridge to nowhere; wants to stop the bridge to nowhere (but still keep the federal money for the project!) Thinks pregnant teens should be denied abortions; refuses to fund transitional program for teen mothers. Runs with McCain on the 'Country First' platform; belongs to a seperatist movement calling for Alaska's independence. Says she wants to cut government spending; raised taxes, spending and debt while Mayor of Wasilla. Says she is a maverick shunning lobbyist and Washington insiders and fighting pork-barrel spending; hired a lobbyist to represent Wasilla in Washington to obtain earmarks for millions of dollars of unnecessary spending for Wasilla. Says she is a God-fearing Christian that supports abstinence-only education; see picture below. Would the real Sarah Palin please stand up?

There was a picture here, but I have removed it because there are questions as to it's veracity. Not only that though. The picture was a huge mistake. It detracted from my message and was placed there intially for shock value. (Ouch, I hate admitting that!) So instead of the picture I am amending my post to clarify the point of the above post.

The point of my blog post had nothing to do with the picture, which I regret using. My point is that Sarah Palin is a set of very disturbing contradictions. She doesn't add up. Plain and simple, she is not consistent and therefore untrustworthy.

If you add to that the fact that she believes the Iraq war is a holy war, that schools should teach creationism instead of (or even alongside) science, and that she does not believe women should have the right to choose even in cases of incest or rape, I can't come to any other conclusion than she is a religious whack job.

I don't think people should be restricted in their choice of religion or persecuted because of it. However, when it comes to policy, the religious beliefs of our representatives and executors should not interfere with the upholding of the constitution or our Declaration's preamble guaranteeing "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness." She has already been documented to have attempted to deny free speech via book banning. I am, myself, a very religious person. However, my religious beliefs are based on the life and works of Jesus and other great teachers. I read in the Bible that Christ sought to include as many as possible and promoted a type of redemption that was grounded in loving and caring for one another. At no time did he attempt to uphold the powers that be in their wickedness. He demonstrated that love and sacrifice, caring and forgiveness could overthrow the power of wickedness one person at time. Nor did he attempt to guarantee financial wealth to those who believed in his path. On the contrary he says that if you want to be like Him you have to give all of your possessions away and trust God to take care of you like he does the Lilies of the Field. But Sarah Palin and other 'fundamentalists' would have you believe that Jesus was all about making the rich more powerful, the poor even poorer, and the sick a hopeless lot--the exact opposite of Christ's own life and words.

As for her snipes regarding community organizers not having responsibilities or the ability to affect real change, tell that to Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Harriet Tubman, Susan B. Anthony, and all the men of the Boston Tea Party. Community organizers, the whole lot.

Matt Damon speaks about Sarah Palin

Matt Damon speaks out on the reality that Sarah Palin is an unknown and a fundamentalist. He says the thought of her becoming president is terrifying. I whole heartedly agree Matt!

A Promise of Hope by Autumn Stringam

This summer while the girls and I accompanied Steve on a trip to Montana, I ran into a group of four children that I had seen earlier in the day beside a large trailer at our KOA campground. As they walked by—three laughing, one on the verge of tears—I said to them, “Is that your trailer over there with the book cover on the back?” The oldest of the girls replied that it was. I continued, “Are you on a book tour?” The same sweet girl puffed up with pride and answered, “Yep, our mom is a writer. She wrote that book.” “Wow, that’s pretty cool!” I responded, caught up in her excitement and beginning to feel my own. Not too long before that day, I had mentioned to Steve how being on a book tour with a young family would be difficult. I don’t think I would want to leave my kids that long. Then here, in the campground that we chose virtually at random, was a woman who not only managed to write a book with four children bustling about, but who also managed to find a way to make a book tour into a family vacation!

The next day, as I was returning from the bathhouse, I met the same four children, this time with their mom. The kids all said ‘hi’ and then the oldest girl again took the lead, “This our mom!” We began an enthusiastic conversation about writing and parenthood and her book tour as we walked back toward her trailer. I was so impressed by Autumn. She was gentle and welcoming, with an infectious smile; AND she managed to write a book while raising kids--such a inspiration for me, a mom struggling to finish a novel. At the end of our conversation, she offered me a copy of her book. They would be returning home to Alberta, Canada the next day and she had only one remaining copy. I gladly accepted it and walked back to my site. I delightedly announced my new acquaintance to Steve and displayed the book.

About two weeks later, when I had finished reading the three books on my night stand, I curled up with A Promise of Hope.

A Promise of Hope is the largely autobiographical story of Autumn’s childhood and young adulthood facing the struggles of manic depression. The latter third of the book recounts how Autumn, her father, husband and friends fought to legalize a miraculous treatment that has allowed her to live a normal life. This may sound a little heavy for some of you, but I assure you A Promise of Hope is a gorgeous read, both inspirational and touching. Yes, some chapters made me weep, others made me irate, but still among this delicious sea of words there was no escaping the shear humanity of her story, that part that applies to all of our lives.

I am tempted to say that book is concisely written, but I believe it would be more accurate to say that nothing in it is extraneous. Every word brings with it some part of the overall truth. You will simply float along with her masterfully crafted mood and seamless rhythm. I cannot recommend this book more highly. Autumn Stringam is a truly gifted writer who has the added blessing of being the courageous and uncompromising teller of her own truth. This book is for the person who is or knows someone affected with a mental illness. This book is for men and women with depression or with a difficult parental relationship. This book is for anyone who loves to read. Enjoy this gorgeous gift of talent and spirit.

I have included a video clip of Autumn talking about the book and a link in my cool links section to amazon in Canada where the book is currently available.