election

I’ll Be Homeless at 3pm Today

/ ME / Leave a comment

I know, that’s a weird headline for a blog post. No, I’m not losing my house. No, I’m not being evicted. I’m not homeless (anymore) and don’t have any reason to think I will be in the foreseeable future.

Because I’m white. And middle class. And straight. And Christian. And American. And the list goes on…

Months ago, my teenaged daughter texted me from school (that’s pretty typical, actually) in a panic. A good friend had had enough, and was struggling with the fact that he’d just realized a few weeks before that he was gay. She was urging him to tell his parents, if only so that he didn’t have to hide who he was and live a lie.

She was texting me the play-by-play as she tried to convince him that being honest and true to himself was the best way. I followed up with supportive texts, confirming what she was telling him. As a parent, I would be devastated to learn that my child harbored a secret that she thought she couldn’t tell me.

As he contemplated texting his mom to tell her–please, let that sink in…he was afraid to even text her–he looked at her at one point and said, “I could be homeless at 3pm today.”

Choke on that for a minute. Think about your child really believing that you would kick him out, that you would tell a fifteen-year-old who isn’t even old enough to drive a car that you don’t want him to step foot in your house again. Your own flesh and blood, sent away from your presence.

Would God do that to you? Is there ANYTHING you could do that Our Father would not forgive? That he would cast you out and say, “Don’t show your face again?” Anything that would keep him from gathering you in his arms and sending his angels to lift you up?

No. And you’re a putrid excuse for a human being if you think that’s even possible.

I texted my daughter immediately: “He is NOT homeless! If they don’t want him, he is to come to our house and stay with us! But he is NOT left out in the cold!”

Some of us felt the ground quake beneath us this week, realizing that hatred won out over love and over Jesus Christ. Don’t let that be the end of the story. Show your love everywhere you go, be the force for change and for good, and for God’s sake, open your hearts and your homes to those who are terrified right now. Shower the world with the love that Christ gave us. The Holy Spirit is in us, and it’s not there without reason.

When Satan Wins…

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Yes, this is a political post. No, I’m not affiliated with a church, so yes, I’m allowed to get political. I’m just a Christian who doesn’t understand why so many other Christians have never touched their Bibles and therefore don’t know what commandments were given.

Yesterday, the country voted for someone who espouses everything that Christians are not. He adores greed, extra-marital and underaged sex, division of the races, intolerance for other religions, and money. He is the walking embodiment of the “root of all evil.”

Yet, so many of the people who voted for him do so while professing to be Christians. They at least claim to love others (unless you’re black), welcome all into the fold (unless you’re gay), and want unity (unless you’re Muslim).

With so many people serving as keyboard commandos in the fight against evil, where was their action? Where was their literal movement to prevent this? It was nowhere to be found.

So here is a new commandment: get off your ass and do something to show the world how much you love others. Stop hiding behind hashtags and patting yourself on the back. Put a sign in your front yard that says, “You are safe here,” and open your doors to people in need. Stop whipping out your cellphone to video the violence against a black person and actually throw your body between the victim and the assailant…exactly the way Jesus would have done.

Now is not the time to share pathetic messages of love and unity and hope. Now is the time to stand up and say, “Mr. President, you work for me. I am your boss. I love all and welcome all, and that is what my country will do.”

And of course, it is always the time to pray. It is the single most effective thing we can do when we invoke the will of God, but please remember that it is not the ONLY thing we can do.

Separation of Church and Hate

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Get ready…we have our first official announcement of an intent to run for President in 2016. We’re still in the first quarter of 2015, but so what? Let the games begin.

There is so much wrong with the election process in America, starting with the fact that you have to be rich and have rich friends to even run for office. If you don’t meet those two criteria right there, you might as well not even bother running. You can’t become the proverbial dog catcher in your town without the funds to make all those yard signs, if nothing else.

But once we move into the upper echelon of elites who have the power and wealth to run for higher offices, the real problems begin, mostly in the fact that eager campaigners who haven’t darkened the doorsteps of any church in this country since their own wedding days are now going to claim to speak for Jesus in an effort to win voters. What am I rambling about?

All the “good Christians” who are going to make promises to hopeful voters about returning this country to God.

In God we trust, one nation under God, prayer in schools, Adam and Eve not Adam and Steve… you’re going to hear it all over the next year and a half of your life. Abortion is murder, homosexuality is an abomination, women don’t need equal pay because the Bible says they should be submissive unto their husbands… it’s all about to come pouring out, and God is going to get blamed for all of it.

The sad thing is, the “good Christians” who are both running and voting are going to blame God for what changes they think he wants in this country, and the atheists are going to blame God for every dumb-assed remark these campaigners say. As I sit here writing this, Phil Robertson’s most recent rant about raping and murdering atheists is making headlines all around the internet, as is video of the interview in which Senator Ted Cruz’s father supposedly said we should round up the atheists and put them in camps.

When did being a “good Christian” mean you had to act like a pompous moron and slander the name of God? Do you ever wonder if God is sitting there face-palming himself and thinking, “Senator, you just caused 4,000 people to turn their backs on ever knowing me?” When did knowing God stop being about love and start being about one-upmanship and campaign victories?

Folks, it’s so easy. It’s so incredibly easy to know and love God. Not only that, it’s so easy to PROVE you’re a good Christian. Just love people! That’s all it takes to prove it. Let every decision you make demonstrate and be based on this one fact: every single person you bump into is a child of God, made by God, loved and adored by God. If you act at all times as though you genuinely believe that, you won’t have to prove anything. The world will see it plain as day.