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shadowkatDreary day. Spent much of it indoors, eating too much, reading the Barack Obama book, and watching tv - specifically my DVD of the BSG miniseries, the Torchwood episode entitled Adrift (we are three episodes behind in the States), and Mad Men, which is almost too deep for my overstressed brain to deal with at the moment but at the same oddly gripping. I find myself fascinated by Donald Draper, Peggy, and Vincent Karthesier's disenchanted ambitious married ad exec who can't figure out what it is he wants, jealous and resentful of what other's have.
At any rate, I read this passage in Audacity of Hope by Barack Obama this morning that I wanted to share, for reasons that should be apparent when you read it. Say what you will about Obama, he is certainly a thoughtful individual.
For many practicing Christians, the same inability to compromise [he was talking about abortion] may apply to gay marriage. I find such a position troublesome, particularly in a society in which Christian men and women have been known to engage in adultery or other violations of their faith without civil penalty. All too often I have sat in a church and heard a pastor use gay bashing as a cheap parlor trick - "IT was Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve!" he will shout, usually when a sermon is not going so well. I believe that American society can choose to carve out a special place for the union of a man and a woman as the unit of child rearing most common to every cultur. I am not willing to have the state deny American citizens a civil union that confers equivalent rights on such basic matters as hospital visitation or health insurance coverage simply because the people they love are of the same sex - nor am I willing to accept a reading of the Bible that considers an obscure line in Romans to be more defining of Christianity than the Sermon on the Mount.
Perhaps I am sensitive on this issue because I have seen the pain my own carelessness has caused. Before my election, in the middle of my debates with Mr. Keyes, I received a phone call from one of my strongest supporters. She was a small business owner, a mother, and a thoughtful, generous person. She was also a lesbian who had lived in a monogamous relationship with her partner for the last decade.
She knew when she decided to support me that I was opposed to same-sex marriage, and she had heard me argue that, in the absence of any meaningful consensus, the heightened focus of marriage was a distraction from other, attainable measures to prevent discrimination against gays and lesbians. Her phone message in this instance had been prompted by a radio interview she had heard in which I had referenced my religious traditions in explaining my position on the issue. She told me that she had been hurt by my remarks; she felt that by bringing her religion into the equation, I was suggesting that she, and others like her, were somehow bad people.
I felt bad, and told her so in a return call. As I spoke to her I was reminded that no matter how much Christians who oppose homsexuality may claim that they hate the sin but love the sinner, such a judgement inflicts pain on good people - people who are made in the image of God, and who are often truer to Christ's message than those who condemn them. And I was reminded that it is my obligation, not only as an elected official in a pluralistic society but also as a Christian, to remain open to the possibility that my unwillingness to support gay marriage is misguided, just as I cannot claim infallibility in my support of abortion rights. I must admit that I may have been infected with society's prejudices and predilections and attributed them to God; that Jesus' call to love one another might demand a different conclusion; and that in years hence I may be seen as someone who was on the wrong side of history. I don't believe such doubts make me a bad Christian. I believe they make me human, limited in my understandings of God's purpose and therefore prone to sin. When I read the Bible, I do so with the belief that it is not a static text but the Living Word and that I must continually be open to new revelations - whether they come from a lesbian friend or a doctor opposed to abortion.
This is not to say that I'm unanchored in my faith. There are some things that I'm absolutely sure about - the Golden Rule, the need to battle cruelty in all its forms, the value of love and charity, humility and grace.
He says more and I wish I could transcribe it all here. Things about religion that remind me of my own family. I am a lot like his mother - viewing religion much like a cultural anthropologist does, yet unlike his mother I do believe in god. It's religion that I struggle with. Even though I do crave the communal spirit and belonging that religion can convey.
What strikes me in this passage is that often those who use religion or God or the Bible as an argument against someone or something - have forgotten the point at the center of the Bible. The main focus of it. The Golden Rule. To love. Simply that. To love. To put love above all else. I was discussing this with my mother the other day, she'd gone to religious retreat and the speaker surprised here - instead of preaching dogma, he preached how God was both mother and father. That the bible had both inside of it. Yin and Yang. Sun and Moon.
I remember saying - yes. The old testament and many of the religions of the Middle East tend to be what I like to call religions of the sky. A harsh unyeilding god, much like the harsh unyeilding sun burning down on the desert far below. Rewarding those who sacrifice and forebear with warmth and punishing those who don't with a harsh sandstorm. While the new testament, much of which takes place in letters written from the country's of Greece and Turkey and Italy, is the testament of the earth or water or tides. Jesus is constantly in the water, walking or fishing from it. And the religions that blend into Christianity were the ones that worshipped the moon, the tides. But do also have their downside - the earth devours, the water can envelope and drown us. Yet at the same time, much like the story of the Runaway Bunny it can also be our home. We are always welcome. The waters wash us clean, baptize, and wipe away our thirst. When you combine the two religions - father sun and mother moon, make them one - you have the face of God. And at the root of both is love.
So much of this is matter of perspective. Sometimes you can see more from the valley than from the mountain peak. The perspective from the mountain peak is so different than the valley. God sees both. While we can only see one at a time. I don't believe humans have the capacity to understand the universe or God. I think it is beyond our capacity, our point of view is so limited. We are incapable of seeing much farther than our own nose most of the time. And as a result make very human mistakes. This is why I enjoy certain stories - stories that show how mistakes can be made with the best of intentions, how you believe it will go one way when it goes the opposite. Yet in hindsight realize, wait, I should have known it would go that way, why didn't I know?
I think that's partly what Obama is saying above. He is admitting he was wrong to condemn gay marriage, that it came from his own prejudices, and that he realizes that now having seen the issue from another perspective different from his own. I think the hardest thing in life is seeing a point of view that is alien to our own. I'm horrid at it. And don't much like doing it since - it can turn my world upside down, often making something I enjoyed - not so much something I enjoy anymore. But it also, I think, makes me grow as a person. And in some cases enriches things that I read, watch, and enjoy in my leisure time. Life is double-edged. It is both yin and yang. Pain and Comfort. You can't have one without the other. To be truly whole, you have to find a way of embracing both sides.
At any rate, I read this passage in Audacity of Hope by Barack Obama this morning that I wanted to share, for reasons that should be apparent when you read it. Say what you will about Obama, he is certainly a thoughtful individual.
For many practicing Christians, the same inability to compromise [he was talking about abortion] may apply to gay marriage. I find such a position troublesome, particularly in a society in which Christian men and women have been known to engage in adultery or other violations of their faith without civil penalty. All too often I have sat in a church and heard a pastor use gay bashing as a cheap parlor trick - "IT was Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve!" he will shout, usually when a sermon is not going so well. I believe that American society can choose to carve out a special place for the union of a man and a woman as the unit of child rearing most common to every cultur. I am not willing to have the state deny American citizens a civil union that confers equivalent rights on such basic matters as hospital visitation or health insurance coverage simply because the people they love are of the same sex - nor am I willing to accept a reading of the Bible that considers an obscure line in Romans to be more defining of Christianity than the Sermon on the Mount.
Perhaps I am sensitive on this issue because I have seen the pain my own carelessness has caused. Before my election, in the middle of my debates with Mr. Keyes, I received a phone call from one of my strongest supporters. She was a small business owner, a mother, and a thoughtful, generous person. She was also a lesbian who had lived in a monogamous relationship with her partner for the last decade.
She knew when she decided to support me that I was opposed to same-sex marriage, and she had heard me argue that, in the absence of any meaningful consensus, the heightened focus of marriage was a distraction from other, attainable measures to prevent discrimination against gays and lesbians. Her phone message in this instance had been prompted by a radio interview she had heard in which I had referenced my religious traditions in explaining my position on the issue. She told me that she had been hurt by my remarks; she felt that by bringing her religion into the equation, I was suggesting that she, and others like her, were somehow bad people.
I felt bad, and told her so in a return call. As I spoke to her I was reminded that no matter how much Christians who oppose homsexuality may claim that they hate the sin but love the sinner, such a judgement inflicts pain on good people - people who are made in the image of God, and who are often truer to Christ's message than those who condemn them. And I was reminded that it is my obligation, not only as an elected official in a pluralistic society but also as a Christian, to remain open to the possibility that my unwillingness to support gay marriage is misguided, just as I cannot claim infallibility in my support of abortion rights. I must admit that I may have been infected with society's prejudices and predilections and attributed them to God; that Jesus' call to love one another might demand a different conclusion; and that in years hence I may be seen as someone who was on the wrong side of history. I don't believe such doubts make me a bad Christian. I believe they make me human, limited in my understandings of God's purpose and therefore prone to sin. When I read the Bible, I do so with the belief that it is not a static text but the Living Word and that I must continually be open to new revelations - whether they come from a lesbian friend or a doctor opposed to abortion.
This is not to say that I'm unanchored in my faith. There are some things that I'm absolutely sure about - the Golden Rule, the need to battle cruelty in all its forms, the value of love and charity, humility and grace.
He says more and I wish I could transcribe it all here. Things about religion that remind me of my own family. I am a lot like his mother - viewing religion much like a cultural anthropologist does, yet unlike his mother I do believe in god. It's religion that I struggle with. Even though I do crave the communal spirit and belonging that religion can convey.
What strikes me in this passage is that often those who use religion or God or the Bible as an argument against someone or something - have forgotten the point at the center of the Bible. The main focus of it. The Golden Rule. To love. Simply that. To love. To put love above all else. I was discussing this with my mother the other day, she'd gone to religious retreat and the speaker surprised here - instead of preaching dogma, he preached how God was both mother and father. That the bible had both inside of it. Yin and Yang. Sun and Moon.
I remember saying - yes. The old testament and many of the religions of the Middle East tend to be what I like to call religions of the sky. A harsh unyeilding god, much like the harsh unyeilding sun burning down on the desert far below. Rewarding those who sacrifice and forebear with warmth and punishing those who don't with a harsh sandstorm. While the new testament, much of which takes place in letters written from the country's of Greece and Turkey and Italy, is the testament of the earth or water or tides. Jesus is constantly in the water, walking or fishing from it. And the religions that blend into Christianity were the ones that worshipped the moon, the tides. But do also have their downside - the earth devours, the water can envelope and drown us. Yet at the same time, much like the story of the Runaway Bunny it can also be our home. We are always welcome. The waters wash us clean, baptize, and wipe away our thirst. When you combine the two religions - father sun and mother moon, make them one - you have the face of God. And at the root of both is love.
So much of this is matter of perspective. Sometimes you can see more from the valley than from the mountain peak. The perspective from the mountain peak is so different than the valley. God sees both. While we can only see one at a time. I don't believe humans have the capacity to understand the universe or God. I think it is beyond our capacity, our point of view is so limited. We are incapable of seeing much farther than our own nose most of the time. And as a result make very human mistakes. This is why I enjoy certain stories - stories that show how mistakes can be made with the best of intentions, how you believe it will go one way when it goes the opposite. Yet in hindsight realize, wait, I should have known it would go that way, why didn't I know?
I think that's partly what Obama is saying above. He is admitting he was wrong to condemn gay marriage, that it came from his own prejudices, and that he realizes that now having seen the issue from another perspective different from his own. I think the hardest thing in life is seeing a point of view that is alien to our own. I'm horrid at it. And don't much like doing it since - it can turn my world upside down, often making something I enjoyed - not so much something I enjoy anymore. But it also, I think, makes me grow as a person. And in some cases enriches things that I read, watch, and enjoy in my leisure time. Life is double-edged. It is both yin and yang. Pain and Comfort. You can't have one without the other. To be truly whole, you have to find a way of embracing both sides.
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Here's a book for you.
Date: 2008-04-07 12:03 pm (UTC)Rufus