I understand that God shows no partiality but in every
nation, anyone who fears (is in awe of) God and does what is right is
acceptable to God.
Peter
… central to Christian life and mission is what we could
call subversive or transgressive friendship – friendship that crosses
boundaries of otherness and dares to offer and receive hospitality.
Brian
McLaren
When I knew only my own religion, I thought my savior was
the only child of God. When I learned from other religions, I realized every
sentient being is to be loved like a one and only child of our common source.
Jim
Rigby
___________________________________
She stands there,
The water of some river, any river
Dripping from her clothes
Clutching her child, afraid yet hopeful
He stands there
Head awash with voices and sounds
The demons in his head confusing,
Immobilizing
She lies in the darkness
the victim of incest
knowing that at 14 she carries her father’s child
She walks fearfully down the street.
Her color, her features,
Her hijab
Her accent
Making her a target of hate
They are out there,
They
Hindu, Jew, Buddhist, Muslim
Christian
They
But they are people
More than that, they are Sacred, Sacred children
Precious souls
Precious in God’s sight
When we fail to see them at all
fail to see them as children of God
We make a grave spiritual error
When we see them as less
We compound that error
When we cause others to see them as less
We multiply that error
I believe nothing hurts the heart of God more
Then hearing someone demonize others
That nothing is more abhorrent to the Sacred than hearing
Someone lie about people
Minimize and marginalize people
Out of hate or fear
Ego or ambition
And nothing makes God sadder
Then watching some of God’s children
Cheer
As someone tears apart and endangers
Other of God’s children
It is not an accident
That Jesus was only intolerant of one kind of person
The intolerant
The judger
The demonizer
The excluder
It is the paradox of tolerance that the one thing most
difficult to tolerate is intolerance
So what do we do?
As a political candidate tears apart people for his
benefit?
As he [yes he] makes some people hate and fear other
people
And some children of God wish other children of God harm
What do we do If we would follow the “friend of sinners”
Who welcomed all who would come
All who would come and sit down at table in peace and
friendship?
We know what to do with those who have always been
Other
The immigrant, the gay man, the transgender woman
The person who is poor, or mentally ill
Or damaged by the world
We love, accept, welcome, care!
But what do we do with the privileged?
The powerful
The rich
Who live and preach intolerance?
I know we don’t vote them into power!
But what do we do with them in our minds and hearts?
How do we pray for them?
We cannot pray against them.
We cannot join that parade (even though I sometimes do)
But we can pray FOR all those whom they endanger
Pray for safety, welcome and compassion to come their way
Pray that the forces that seek to destroy them
Be rendered harmless
And we can speak out for them for the voiceless ones.
We can point out the lies, and condemn the hate (not
so much the hater)
We can refuse to be drawn into the vortex of hate
Into the abyss of racism and prejudice
And seek as best we can to love
To see the spark of the divine in each person out there
And seek to help others see that spark too.
The paradox of tolerance will always remain
And hate will never destroy hate
So all we can do is work, however imperfectly, using the
power of acceptance and love
So that hate loses
And love wins
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