Child of God

Successful dehumanizing…. Creates a moral exclusion.  Groups targeted on their identity – gender, ideology, skin color, ethnicity, religion, age – are depicted as “less than” or criminal or even evil. The targeted group eventually falls out of the scope of who is naturally protected by our moral code….

When we engage in dehumanizing rhetoric or promote dehumanizing images we diminish our own humanity in the process… humiliation and dehumanizing are not accountability or social justice tools, they’re emotional offloading at best, emotional self-indulgence at worst.  And if our faith asks us to find the face of God in everyone we meet, that should include the politicians, media and strangers on Twitter with whom we most violently disagree.  When we desecrate their divinity, we desecrate our own and we betray our faith.

                                                                                          Brene Brown, Braving the Wildnerness

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There are times when I look in the mirror

And wonder how much is left of my humanity

After Facebook conflicts and Twitter wars

Where I have been assailed,

And where I have assailed others

There are those calm moments of introspection where I realize

That something has been lost

I have taken a bite of forbidden fruit

And have been driven out of Eden

And now I stand in the wasteland

Of hate and greed

Anger and retribution

How have we found ourselves in this dry and barren land?

Because we have stopped seeing the face of God in others

We have forgotten that each person is fundamentally homo divinus

Created in the image of the Sacred

Participating in that reality that is Sacred

What we see is an enemy

Someone we fear

Someone we can use (or even abuse)

Someone who, perhaps, makes us feel uncomfortable

And so an African American woman becomes a “dog”

And so does Mr. Trump

Immigrants are rapists and murders

The poor are lazy moochers

Young black men are all violent and angry

The police are cold hearted people who abuse their power

The face of God is long gone

And every time we say something,

Do something

To dehumanize another

We open the door to terror

Not seeing the other as fully human

We can do most anything to them

They simply do not count

The rules do not apply

In those moments when their humanity is gone

We drop nuclear bombs

We set off backpacks filled with nails

We walk through malls randomly shooting people

We tear families apart at the border, and put children in cages

We remove services from people in need

We name call and attack on Facebook and Twitter

And the ultimate tragedy is

That as we strip others of their humanity

We strip ourselves of our own

I am guilty

I suspect we are all guilty

There is not easy answer to this

Being connected to the Sacred, to that bigger than ourselves is hard work

Letting the sacred rock and roll in our souls feels dangerous

Seeing the face of God in Donald Trump, or a Muslim terrorist,

Or a predatory Christian minister

Is not easy

I think I need a mantra

Something that I say, over and over and over again

As I look at the picture of those I want to despise

As my hand hovers over my key board

As I work on my sermon

I think it needs to be

Simply

Child of God, Child of God, Child of God

Otherwise I diminish others

And I diminish myself