Monday, August 14, 2017

Guns and Torches are Not Love

I once had a homeless man offer me a sandwich. This man had nothing. He was living on a bench in the park. I had, in fact, given him the sandwich. He didn’t know this as I had provided it in a roundabout way. He thought me one in need myself and offered the little that he had. I smiled and thanked him but said I’d pass. Then I said a silent prayer to God. I thanked Him for men like this. I thanked Him for men with mismatched clothes and unruly hair, men in need of a shower and a shave, men living under trees in the city park, men willing to feed me when they could not feed themselves. Men who had my back when they barely had their own.

I had another - different day, different park - ask if he might shake my hand. I offered a hug instead. He asked me why I do the things I do, why I bring bags filled with peanut butter, jelly, and bread. “Can I just ask, ma’am, why you do this?” “I know what it’s like,” I said, “to need to eat and not have food. And now, in my life, I am fortunate to have food and others need to eat.” He offered me a God bless. I knew he meant it. They weren’t just words thrown into the air as they very often are. Truth be told, though, I gave him that line about knowing what it’s like because it was what I felt I could share. What I really wanted to say was this: It breaks my heart. You shouldn’t be here. No one should. Human beings should never be left alone and without love, left to beg a blanket from my car because the air is cold and the ground is hard, because women and babies get the beds, and the men are left outside. I wanted to tell him that there but for the grace of God go I. It very likely could have been me. Homeless, in my world, was just an unpaid bill away.

I knew a man. He used vile words to describe people whose skin was not like his. The hate was strong. His words often made me cringe. “I would never approve of a daughter of mine,” he would say, “coming home with a (fill in the blank with a derogatory term to describe any group that did not match his).” But this man taught me love. Ironic, right? He was a giving man, would give that which he did not have. He made certain the men living in the alley behind his house had a kind word and a filling snack, a cup of joe on an ice cold day. He taught me, too, how to take a risk, how to know that life half-lived is just a half-lived life and, if we’re being honest, not much a life at all. He gave me life, this man did. I only exist because of him. I feel deep gratitude for that.

Hate the sin, love the sinner. This is what I have been told. Seems, though, everyone’s definition of sin is not the same. It’s in the Bible. This is what they say. They point harsh white fingers at the page, shake the book up close in my face. I am reading the same story as you. How can we not see the same? Hate the sin, love the sinner? No. Hate the hate. Love.

This is where I check myself. Men walk into clubs filled with those who are gay. They shoot and kill human beings. Other men carry tiki torches on a university campus shouting, “We will not be replaced.” People die. Others are hurt. Sticks and stones. Guns and torches. How can I love those who fling such hate? Love everyone, right? That's what the Good Book says.

Here's the thing that irritates me about all of this. I see people posting and liking statuses saying "love each other." These are not people who love. These are people who love some and who, very conditionally, tolerate others. Tolerating is not the same as love. Tolerating is saying I disagree with who you are, I am afraid of you a little or a lot, I think my ideas on how to live life are more right than yours, but I am going to say I love you anyway because I am a nice person like that. No, you are not a nice person like that. Tolerating is not love. Tolerating is holding yourself above someone else. It is the definition of supremacist. How, for the love of God, did we get to this?

Friends, former colleagues and students, neighbors, and family:

Maybe you do not carry a tiki torch on a college campus, maybe you do not take guns into shopping malls and clubs with intent to kill, but you carry those guns and torches every day in your head. You carry them when your white son brings home a Hispanic girl and it takes you a minute to get used to the idea. You carry them when you pray for gay individuals, that they might be delivered of their sins. You carry them when you pass a black man in a hoodie, and you pull your purse a little closer to your side. You carry them when you get off a service call and complain how you couldn’t understand a word the employee had to say. You carry those guns and torches every time you look into another face and see anything other than your own.

1 comment:

  1. In my long life I have seen love and generosity from people of all colors, religious and sexual persuasions. I have also seen hatred from all the same. I have learned that people are people. Some love, some hate, some do neither. As for me, I choose to not hate- even those who hate. For if I hate them, how will they ever see a better way to live?

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