No disposable people

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I felt as if I still mattered to God, and I needed to know that … Anne Frank mattered to him, too.  I needed to know that every person behind every pair of shoes recovered from every concentration camp mattered, that God had not forgotten them, that he loved them, and that he knew each of their names.  I needed to know that God does not make disposable people.

          Rachel Held Evans

 

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.

          Declaration of Independence,  July 4, 1776

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Do I matter to God?

Does this aging, somewhat beat-up

Increasingly impatient

Soul

 

Who has done good things,

And terrible things

Who is kind, cruel, intelligent, and incredibly stupid (at times)

Impatient and cranky.

Who is opinionated and yet probably has gotten a lot wrong

 

Do I matter?

Do you?

 

Who matters to God?

 

Do some matter more than others?

Do those who have muttered some formula about Jesus

Matter more than those who haven’t?

 

Do those who are cis matter more than those who are queer?

Do white people matter more than brown people, black people,

Than those who are olive-skinned?

 

Do males matter more than women?

 

Do the beautiful matter more than the common,

The rich more than the poor?

 

On this Fourth of July, hundreds of men

Bedecked with khaki pants, blue shirts, tan caps, white face coverings, and sunglasses

Carrying the flags of domination and racism

Marched

 

Declaring

We matter more

People of color matter less

 

At Mt Rushmore, a man obsessed with power

And full of hubris

Declared that all who oppose him, all who are not like him,

All who do not worship him

Do not matter

At all

 

They are enemies

Dumcrats

Communists (I am not sure he knows what that means)

Enemies

They do not count, they must be excluded, controlled, destroyed

 

I matter, you don’t

That is the creed of Empire.

 

But God says,

Come, all

Come to the table

Come to the table of grace

 

Come, stranger and friend

Come, Jew and Gentile

Come, people from all along the gender spectrum

Come trans children

 

There are no distinctions.

 

You are all children of God.

You are all loved

You are all precious and valuable.

 

So come

From north and south

East and west

Come from Somalia and Haiti

From Syria and Sudan

 

Come

Human creatures may sow and nourish hate and fear

They may attempt to use prejudice

As a way to grab power

They may attempt to detain and deport

To commit ethnic cleansing

Even genocide

 

None of that is from God

At all

At all

 

God does not make disposable people.

 

So come

God loves you, God has not forgotten you

God has called you by name

You belong in this country

You belong at the table

You belong

 

And your presence is something to celebrate