Posts Tagged ‘Christianity’
There are well-meaning good-hearted people on both sides of the Ground Zero Mosque issue. I believe that, I really do.
It’s just hard right now to see that, what with the way the people are carrying on. If I were Frank Peretti writing This Presence Darkness, I might imagine that demons are dancing, delighted by all the ugly ways in which we can hate on one another.
I blame media. Insipid talk radio, incendiary yammering on the 24-7 boob tube, and a blogosphere that considers fact-checking a click over to Wikipedia.
On a trip to Seattle last week I heard one of those talk show hosts jawing on and on about how he was the lone defender of freedom for Americans and how he and his organization had filed a lawsuit to stop the building of a mosque at Ground Zero.
Fact check error one: There is no mosque planned to be built at Ground Zero.
It’s two blocks away.
But it’s hard to make an argument stick if every time a talk show host, blogger or TV personality has to say, “The mosque planned to be built two blocks from Ground Zero” rather than “The mosque at Ground Zero.”
The radio host made sure to let his listeners know that he stands between them and that wrong-headed President who favors putting the mosque at Ground Zero.
Never mind that President Obama hasn’t taken a position one way or another on whether the mosque should be built. Fact check error two: What he did say is that this country’s founding principals allow for a mosque to be built two blocks from Ground Zero.
Listen. I understand memorials. I visit the Wall in DC twice every year — Memorial Day and Veterans Day. I get why people are so emotional about them. A few years ago I asked a man who was protesting the war in Iraq to please go stand elsewhere — I suggested the steps of Congress since that’s where the war really began — because his presence at the Wall was upsetting to many of us there that day. He didn’t leave but he did move back out of sight.
So I appreciate the emotion that has fueled this fray.
There was a time when I would have been out there holding up the placard, screaming like a banshee. Growing up I had loathed all things Vietnamese — the people, the country, the war. The way I saw it if it hadn’t been for them I would have had my father around.
Everything was so clearly defined in my “us” and “them” world. But it all got so messy that day I passed a Vietnamese Honor Guard standing in the rain at the Vietnam Memorial Wall. It was Veterans Day, 2002, my first trip to the Wall. I went with all my biases, misconceptions and hatefulness fully intact.
When I walked past that honor guard, all my clearly defined boundaries came crumbling down. I cried that entire day. I wept not so much for the loss of my father as I wept for the years I had carried the burden that is misunderstanding. In a matter of a few short hours, I’d left behind the world of “us” and “them.”
In March 2003 I boarded a plane at LAX and flew to the country where my father took his last breath. It was there at the marketplace in Hoi An that I met a Vietnamese fellow who said to me, “I am like you.”
“In what way?” I asked.
“I, too, lost my father to that war.”
Prior to that encounter, I had not allowed myself to think of the Vietnamese children and the sufferings they had endured. Afterwards, I have looked upon every Vietnamese person as my brother, my sister, my mother, my father, my friend.
I think of them first and foremost when I think of the war in which my father died. I think of how the bodies of their soldiers were piled in heaps alongside the roadways, too numerous to bury. I think of how their widows never received any government benefits for their husbands’ deaths. I think of how these women prostituted themselves just to be able to feed their sons and daughters. I think of the European and American businessmen who allowed these women and girls to be exploited that way.
I think of the field near Dragon Mountain where Vietnamese locals watched as I built a rock memorial to honor my father. They couldn’t understand the words I spoke but I hope they understood the grace that had led me there to them.
I pray for the families who lost loved ones at Ground Zero. I pray they come to understand what the Vietnamese taught me – that the best memorial we can build to our loved ones is not made out of concrete or stone but out of mercy and grace.
I can’t think of any better way to do that than to build a house of worship because there is no greater answer to the hatred that fueled 9-11 than the voices of people united in prayer and praise.
Don’t stop with the mosque, build a house of worship on every block near Ground Zero. Then the demons can sit back and watch the angels dance.
Relevant Mag picked up the Letter to Anne Rice. The discussion continues on their site. Click here to join in.
Dear Ms. Anne:
You don’t know me, so please excuse the intrusion. I hope you won’t think this too forward but I read about your recent remarks about quitting Christianity:
“For those who care, and I understand if you don’t: Today I quit being a Christian. I’m out. I remain committed to Christ as always but not to being “Christian” or to being part of Christianity. It’s simply impossible for me to “belong” to this quarrelsome, hostile, disputatious, and deservedly infamous group. For ten …years, I’ve tried. I’ve failed. I’m an outsider. My conscience will allow nothing else.”
I respect your decision. I can’t even count the number of times I’ve felt the exact same way, but I lacked the gumption to declare it as boldly as you have done. I simply went about muttering, wishing for everything that I belonged to a different clan. A more perfect community.
I thought about all that during this morning’s church service. I don’t attend a very large church, but it’s large enough that I don’t know everyone by name or by story. Take that lady passing out the programs at the door. I don’t know her at all. I don’t know if she’s married or lost the love of her life to a fiery plane crash during World War II. I don’t know what sufferings life has brought her way. For all I know hers could be one of the dozens of names listed weekly in the Prayer for those diagnosed with Cancer.
Sometimes, it’s a relief to not know people. It keeps a person from the obligation of sharing their sorrows or from the disappointment of discovering their failings.
That’s the thing about being in relationship with others. I don’t know about you Ms. Anne, but I’ve found that to be true whether you are in relationship with people who belong to the clan of Christianity or if they are the friends you made at the local Farmers’ Market. Hang with people long enough and you’re going to be disgusted by them. They’ll do something that hurts so badly you’ll wonder why in the world you ever considered them a friend to begin with.
You’ll feel as betrayed as Jesus. On some level you’ll know that’s ludicrous — there’s no way you can know the betrayal of the Cross. But you’ll still feel that you understand his pain the way he understands yours.
That’s how God designed us.
Desmond Tutu says we’re created for goodness. He says that’s why we feel so good when we do good things — because we are designed for it.
I believe that.
I also believe that God created us so that we are able to identify with each other. He created us to feel what others feel. That’s why when a person lacks the ability to be empathetic, we consider them a sociopath or narcissistic.
We are designed for relationship, created for community. The good and bad of it all.
I was thinking about all that today as the man three rows in front of me raised his hands in worship. You see for the past four weeks he’s been confined to a hospital bed at Oregon’s Health Science Center University Hospital. His poor body has withstood about all the suffering a person can withstand. I don’t know if it it’s the cancer that will take him finally or the treatment he receives for it.
And today I didn’t care about that. What I cared about was that he was on his feet, arms extended, praising the Christ whose blood has cleansed us all from the inside out. The Christ whose mercies are new every morning.
I stood next to a woman whose husband has been deployed so many times to Afghanistan and Iraq that he has missed his daughter’s entire high school career. Now that he’s home from those wars, he no longer has any fight left in him. He’s walked out on them. I hurt for that girl. I know what it’s like to lose a daddy to war — whether you do it through death or through trauma matters not. She’s going to have wrangle some demons for her faith one day. I pray that when that day comes, she’ll come to understand as I have, that God is faithful in ways that people never can be.
I hope she’ll find that he will never leave nor forsake her — no matter what. He’s not like us that way.
I have a friend in Alabama who found an orphaned dog. She named the dog Sticks because he never leaves her side. He sticks right beside her all the day long.
We serve the God Sticks.
Two rows in front of that young girl sat a woman who has endured a lung transplant. To be honest, when we were praying for her as a community, I figured they’d be wheeling her out of the hospital in a body bag. That’s how small my faith is sometimes. I’m a skeptic. A cynic. I’m ashamed of it but that’s the truth of it.
God proves me wrong all the time. I’m glad for that. I know people, Believers and Unbelievers, who care more about being right than they do about being redeemed.
Down the pew directly in front of me sat a young woman. Another single mom with another infant child to raise alone. I watched as a white-haired lady walked across the aisle during the singing and took that young mother’s face into her withered hands and spoke words of encouragement and love to her.
I stood there, weeping, because I belong to a flawed but courageous community. They have discovered ways to share in the sufferings and joys of one another, despite the disappointments.
The Polish have a blessing: May your soul be as strong as your people.
My soul is stronger because I’m able to witness the remarkable redeeming power of Christ through the community of Believers and Unbelievers, alike.
The thing about opting out of the clan of Christians, Ms. Anne, is that when we do that, we run the risk of missing the blessing God created us for.
I just wanted to share that with you.
Humbly,
Karen
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