It dawns on me, this might be appropriate:
Madonna - what it feels like [for a girl]
As 2012 finally admitted to being old and ridiculous, I stayed
in my apartment trying not to succumb to “that feeling” again. I wasn’t at the
home of friends [as was the plan]; I wasn’t pulling my crush aside and saying “hey,
I like you and… I think we should go out because… well because.”; and I certainly was not in
Church for the Old Year’s Night Service; a special night for the Heathens who,
maybe because of tradition or something more noble, flock to the pews so as to
start the New Year “right”. Right.
I shouldn’t say I wasn’t in Church. I was. I watched it
online. There I saw the following and it opened an interesting thought to my
mind:
A good man [an actual good – not sarcasticly good] gave a
testimony about his life. See, in times before, he practiced another Religion
but he soon felt that this wasn’t for him. He needed more. He needed to feel
whole. He converted to Christianity. But for a time, he couldn’t tell his
family who, were still practicing the religion of his birth. He said that for a
couple of months, he would change his clothes in his car – telling them he was
going some place else when REALLY, he was going to church. I believe, he eventually
told them. I don’t think it may have gone all too well but he is living his new
life, happy, as a Christian.
I can’t remember if it was rage I felt or sadness or just “well,
how ‘bout that” but I do know that I was struck by a new thought: how similar to
the gay experience, religion is. Shun. Run away from this post now. But if you
dare stay, look at it intelligently and you’ll see.
He had to hide who he was because his family… his world…
wouldn’t understand.
He had to change in his car – essentially sneak out – to go
where he belonged.
He did this because he believed in a better way and I’m
inferring that he did it because he wanted to be whole.
Funny. You would
think that a group who, has for years, endured religious persecution at the hands of the ignorant,
would not be the ones doling out social persecution on the world. To this day,
there are countries
[and not just the perceived back-water ones either] who burn, beat up and
utterly
humiliate those who
move from the normal/accepted societal religious belief system to another;
there are people who have held
mock funerals for loved ones who have moved from faith to Faith because now…
they are dead to
them. This is real. These things happen. ARE happening. I’m not even talking
strictly Christianity either.
For we [Christians] are well known for the Crusades and the Inquisition and
Galileo.We have oft time
been the loud speaker, using Biblical knowledge for our own ends – as many
other religious groups
do.
The dial goes
around the circle and here we are again – religious persecution is now social
persecution. But I guess that is fair as long as you know
what you are doing is “right”. Right. I know what your argument
may be but here mine: ignorance leads to war, empathy/understanding leads to
more knowledge. Understanding
does not mean you have to like it. It just means you get it. The same way, you get the pain
of the new convert who is now the outcast but has decided to stay on the path,
so that he may be happy
and free and whole.
Pax
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