“And while we’re talking about Easter, I didn’t like your blog much,” Mom tells me yesterday morning during the looonnnng drive into the city.
Why I’m not on the train is an even longer story, and I’ve bored all y’all enough lately.
“You’re picking on Christians again and I don’t like it,” she whined.
Yes, she whined. It’s true. I love her, but it was whining.
“Oh Jesus Christ! Did you read it? Did you really read it?” I yell in frustration. “Better yet, read my blog from Friday. It’s not about YOU. I wasn’t picking on Christians. I was pointing out that, if you really look at it, our country’s history isn’t all that Christian.”
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I pick on Christians. I pick on Jews. I pick on Muslims.
Religious hypocrisy is my all-time favorite topic – regardless of your flavor.
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“So what do you believe, really?” she asked later in the conversation. “I still don’t know what you believe.”
I believe everyone and everything is connected.
To me, that connection is sacred. It is a miracle that I experience every single day of my life.
It’s what most people refer to as God. But I’m more comfortable calling it the Universe because to me, this connection doesn’t have gender.
It’s not Out There. It’s In Here.
Star Wars fans call it The Force.
Because we’re all connected, we have an obligation to treat each other well. We have an obligation to do the right thing. Always.
But sometimes we don’t. The Universe is self-regulating in that regard and if we treat others badly – because we’re all connected – eventually bad things happen to us.
“But I’m not connected to that guy who killed his wife and chopped her up,” said Mom.
“Yes. Yes you are,” I say. “That’s the biggest challenge, and one that Jesus understood better than anyone: We’re all connected, no exceptions. It’s easy to feel connected to your family and your friends, but the challenge is to understand and feel that connection with people like that guy who killed his wife. People you don’t like. The people who are really different from you. That’s the hardest thing to do. To me, that’s the real miracle of someone like Jesus.”
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The guys who founded this country got it – they understood that concept. All men are created equal, blah blah.
If we had just followed through, followed what they said, THEN we’d be a Christian nation.
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I am listening to: People talking in the office kitchen
I am reading: An article about Einstein and faith in Time Magazine
And I am: Really sick of snow
6 months ago
2 comments:
Very interesting. I never looked at it that way. Makes sense though that's for certain.
I've got to go along with your Mom on the ax guy as an example of someone I'm not connected to. Yeah we're both part of the same species. As my friend Rick would say, "there's something bad wrong" with some people.
That as a society we have an obligation to do right by each other, doesn't lead to the conclusion that everyone doing wrong gets his or her just desserts, unless the heaven/hell turns out to be true.
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