There's been a status update floating around Facebook lately. I would post it here, but I really, really don't want words like that associated with my blog. I just don't. Here's a link to Suebob's post on the same subject, if you truly want to read it (and a damn fine response, if you ask me). If you don't care to follow the link, in essence, the post I'm talking about, its a prayer to God about some of the famous folks who've died this year, followed by what is essentially a request for God to kill our president.
I've been stewing on it since the first time I saw it about a month ago on the status update of someone I have since unfriended. I saw it again a couple of days ago on the status update of a high school classmate. I set my Facebook to ignore that individual's feeds and have been struggling ever since with what I wanted to do. Unfriend? Continue to ignore? Un-ignore and try to understand why someone would think this is funny?
I'm not going to entertain the possibility that I might be too sensitive. I recall too well during the Bush years whn anyone, myself included, were called "traitors" and "Un-American" for voicing disagreement with our then-president and his policies. We were derided. We were told to leave America. We were called "disgraceful." And yet during all of those eight long years, as much as I detested what I saw happening in our government, as much as I disliked what was happening in the country that I love, like Suebob mentions in her most excellent post, did I ever consider praying to God for George W. Bush to die? I really don't think I did. In retrospect, I hope the hell NOT. Not even as a joke. I am reminded that on several occasions I may have asked God to please let us have someone else (so long as it wasn't Dick Cheney) be president instead. I think that there is sufficient evidence, however, that God isn't particularly interested in politics, because you know, not once did he answer those requests. Except for the big resounding "NO."
It is painful to me to see the violence and hatred being spewed out of people on the far ends of the political spectrum. Painful, sad, disheartening. Frightening. To some of those folks over there on the Red side of the divide, I'm not even a real person. I'm not a mother, I'm not an employee, I'm not a citizen or a cowgirl or a dog lover or a Christian. I'm just a LIBERAL. I am reduced to nothing more than a single word, a word that is often spat through clenched teeth, pursed lips, accompanied by involuntary spittle. And yet, it is not me personally who has that power, who carries that much weight. It is the picture created in the sayer's mind of what it is I am. I'm a liberal, therefore by definition I must:
- Hate America
- Hate God
- Love communism
- Hate babies and puppies
- Routinely sacrifice said babies and puppies on the altar of socialism
- Burn the flag
- Drive a Volvo
And yet none of those things are true. Though I wouldn't mind being able to AFFORD a Volvo.
I have a prayer of my own.
Dear God: I love my country. I love humanity. I love my children and I love my life. I am so grateful for every good thing, every opportunity, every blessing that You have given me. I am grateful for the technology that allows so many people's voices to be heard.
God, I pray for my friends and my neighbors and even my enemies, that You would remind them all that the words that they use can hurt. I ask that You help them to see me, to see people of other political persuasions, to see President Obama - to see us as PEOPLE and not as THINGS.
I ask that you would have them remember that the president they so cavalierly ask you to kill is a husband, a father, a person who loves this country too. I ask that you have them look at their spouses and children and imagine how they would feel if You took them away from their families, and ask them to consider how Michelle Obama and HER children might feel if their husband, their father were taken from them and to allow that feeling to engender within them compassion for others.
God, I wonder if you could tell me how You want me to respond when people tie Your name to messages of hate. I know that Jesus said to "turn the other cheek." I know that He commanded us to love You first, others second. I know that He preached a gospel of love and redemption and healing. God, can you help me to turn aside the bitterness and spite that I feel when I read things like this and help me to respond in a loving way, a way that does not denigrate or defend, but that lets only LOVE shine through?
God, I confess to you that I have been as guilty as anyone of judging people by their affiliations. Help me, God, to remove the plank from my own eye and to check my words and actions. Lead me away from the enormous temptations of hypocrisy and judgmentalism. Help me to desire to be right in my relationship with you instead of "right" in my opinions as expressed to others. Help me, and all of us, to create a change in our words and our actions, to step back from that precipice of hatred and anger and back to an attitude of love and humility.
And if you could also see your way clear to removing the calorie and fat load from chocolate, that would be great too.
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