Wednesday, February 15, 2012

Courage

I'm having a silent argument with a woman I know primarily from Facebook.  I haven't seen her in over two years.  I didn't know her very well even then, but I didn't see the need to ignore her' friend request' when she sent it.  Now, I'm not sure I should have accepted it.  Lately, this woman has posted a few vitriolic rants against same-sex marriage on her Facebook page.  She compares gay marriage with murder, child-molestation, and drug use.  Really?  I haven't posted a single one of my replies, yet they swim in my head, begging to be let out.  There's something about confronting all of the sixty-eight of my various friends and telling them what they must believe, spiritually or politically, that abhors me.  That is my first unwritten reply to her as well as a reminder to myself to stay quiet.  Mike keeps telling me not to reply to her post.  Walking our dogs today, a good friend of mine told me the same thing.  But what about standing up for what is right?  Shouldn't I be doing that?  My second unwritten reply to this woman is that not everyone is a Christian so maybe she could respect that by imagining that others might have a different belief system.  My third response to her is that maybe she's right and I might not be a very good Christian, or maybe not a Christian at all, if I can't take up the same banner she's carrying.  Maybe I should tell her that I wouldn't want to be called a Christian if that's what it takes.  I also want to ask her why she cares or has any right to know what's happening in someone else's bedroom as long as the people in there are adults.  She wouldn't want anyone refereeing her time in the bedroom, now would she?  Oh, this kind of thing is so exhausting. 

See, here's my dilemma - I believe that I should stand up to bigotry in all of its forms, but in what forum?  If I see bigotry in a Facebook post, is it wrong of me to keep silent?  It's hard to keep silent.  It's hard to speak up.  Most of my Facebook posts are intended to entertain.  I see it primarily as fluff.  Oh, I put in some things about difficulties I'm having, but I don't use it as a political venue.  Why not?  Will I ever have the courage to stand up for what I believe is right? 

I don't know. 

So here is my attempt to stand up against social abuses that I see happening around me.

I believe people have the right to love whomever  they love as long as both partners are consenting adults.  Let love be.  I was shocked when I found out that my friends didn't dream colors or music. I have some friends that say they don't dream at all. What?  Is that wrong of them?  No.  They're just built differently, so why can't people's sexuality be built differently too?  So why can't we just relax and let people love the people they love?  And don't go throwing Bible verses at me.  Your Bible doesn't rule this country, not just yet. 

All national holidays and Presidential elections aside, I don't think our country is done with our issues regarding race relations.  Where I grew up, it isn't finished.  It's embarrassing to go back to visit and hear the casual comments about blacks or Hispanics, cruel comments intended to be funny.  I don't hear things like that where I live now, yet Nick's school is altogether too white.  Where is the diversity?   I have a friend from Mexico who's children go to school there and I can see the effects of discrimination on her.  Her children are ashamed of their mother tongue.  I asked them to help me learn more Spanish, to help Nick learn it, but they won't do it.  There is just too much condemnation of 'illegal aliens' even though my friends are legal.  I'm glad we don't live in Arizona where their papers could be searched at random.  That is bigotry, my friends, not a form of protecting our country.

Here's another one:  Just because a person has money and a corporate job, it doesn't make them more important than the barista who is serving them coffee.  One day, I was in a line waiting my turn for my decaf mocha.  (I can't even drink mochas any more because of the sugar.  That still makes me sad, sometimes.)  So anyway, this flat-chested, well-coiffed scrawny woman in a suit in the line ahead of me kept tapping her toe.  She didn't have her iPod plugged into her ears.  It was a rhythmless tapping.  Then she said, "If you're just about done hanging around, I'd really like you to make my coffee sometime this century."  Whew!  The barista had wild hair, a sheen of sweat on her upper lip, and about two cups of steaming coffee waiting on the bar in front of her.  She was moving.  There was a long line people she was managing quite well.  Plus, there was no call for that scrawny-suited-foot-tapper to be behaving this way.   I wasn't the only one who noticed this, thank God.  The woman behind me said, in a very loud voice, "Honey, I am not in a hurry today.  You can take your time making my coffee because I can very well see just how hard you are working and I believe you deserve a break and a big tip to boot."  I wished I'd had the courage to clap.  Barista Girl kept quiet until Scrawny Toe-Tapper was out the door in a huff, peeling out of the parking lot in her silver Porsche.  Then the poor girl burst into tears and ran into the back room.  I sat down at a table near my new hero with my mocha and book to see if any more of this story would play out.  It did.  In just a few minutes, Barista Girl came quietly out to my new hero's table and leaned over to her.  For a second, it looked like she was going to hug her, but she didn't.  In a quiet voice that I could barely overhear, she said, "My car just got rear-ended by another car on the way to work and I'm not feeling very well.  Thank you for being so nice to me."  Then my new hero stood up, gently hugged the girl and quietly told her she should go home, or better yet, go to the hospital to get checked out.  I have encountered that toe-tapping kind of rudeness to cashiers as well as baristas and I have tried to behave like my new hero.  It isn't always easy to stand up to Scrawny Toe-Tappers driving Porsches. 

And another:  I seriously dislike that our society has a problem with fat people being who they are.  If people can come in all colors, why can't they come in all shapes and sizes?  I ran across these photographs of Olympic-level athletes and I loved that my eyes kept checking the place where their feet met the floor to see if some of them hadn't been put into the background to be made to look smaller.  I loved looking at the differences in proportion even among people who were the same height. It was lovely to see in a photograph.  I forget to look for that in public.  When I'm feeling a certain way, I look for beauty.  Try it some time.  If you walk through a store, you can find something beautiful in every single person there.  There is always something, hands, eyes, hair, skin tone, even a look of kindness or curiosity.  I really like this way of looking at people.  Now I'm going to have to look for those differences in proportion too.  When did I stop looking at people?

Oh, I'm tired.  I'm tired of having to fight the fight.  I wish I had a good story to tell you, one that shows you where I am, one that spins a pretty glow over my life, one that entertains you.  It's complicated here, but I'm generally happy with my life.  So maybe it's time for me to start having some courage, to be the change I want to see, to stand up for what is right. 

Now, don't you wish you were one of the sixty-eight people reading my Facebook page to see if I find that courage?

Thank you for listening, jb 

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