Putting Glasses on the Eyes of God

Putting Glasses on the Eyes of God

I am scribbling these thoughts as I sit waiting for my Life Line Screening checkup at the local UMC church. I see a trifold about the LGBTQ stuff, and am happy but not surprised that this is one of the majority of UMC churches who are in solidarity with the Christian principle that All means All--Even in Marriage.

Because I had to fast for my medical test earlier this morning, I had to find something to keep my mind off of breakfast, which I almost always eat. Of course, I immediately reached for the addicting FaceBook. Like many, I find myself wasting too much useless energy trying to convince friends of friends that our current president is not interested in hearing anybody's viewpoint but his own (unless he needs to backpedal in order to garner support from an almost equally-ignorant base). 

I finally put this behind me and start scrolling through piece after piece about Mauna Kea where the government is trying to put yet another telescope on top of the indigenous land, this one much more powerful than all the rest. They're violently forcing their own Hawaiian police force to stand up against their kapuna, their own auties, to say "I get it," and nonetheless beg these land protectors (their own people, their ancestors) to let them in so the DLNR can do their dirty deed. 

As a professor from University of Hawaii put it, "No one would think to put a pair of glasses on the eyes of God." But our country, the one who stole the Hawaiian lands in the first place, is trying to do just that. So as I scroll, I pray. I pray that the American people can learn from the wisdom of the wahine who are protecting the 'aina and the keiki. But as I pray, I also doubt. What does the American institution know about preservation of culture?

And then...Then I come across an old post about a good friend of my family's who I will call the Lehrers. My family has known them since my childhood half a century ago. Oh look. Here's an old post about Mr. Lehrer who was the father of this large multi-ethnic family of adopted and natural born kids. He came to our house to test out a geography game in its infancy that's still in circulation today. He fought for making interracial adoptions legal and was eventually successful. 

I cannot stress enough the positive influence this family had on my life and at least several other of my siblings. Now my very large family did not always agree with everything this other large family said and did. But we were friends. We went to the same church. Both their parents and our parents believed in kids, treating them well, and raising them. Both families valued music. We weren't afraid to talk politics, even when we disagreed. 

And I wonder...I wonder if I was growing up today with all my siblings, would my family even have taken the time and interest in getting to know this family? A family that was different from ours, who had kids with dark skin. A family whose kids had their own kids before they were even adults.

Instead of welcoming each other into our homes, maybe I would have been homeschooled and only exposed to pure, "prolife" families like my own. Maybe I would be at a MAGA rally being egged on by the president, yelling at the top of my lungs to tell those disgusting women (four public servants) to go back to where they came from. (Which, at least starting by age 12, is the same place where the president came from.) And then, guided by the president's unconscionable example, maybe I would be denying that what I said is really what I meant.

Dear religious friend, Let's rediscover together how to worship the Almighty God, not King Lord Trump. Dear agnostic or atheist friend, I am sorry. I am sorry that the occupant of the white house is playing God and his base is playing along.