I was talking to Craig recently about the American flag, and that no matter how much I know it’s wrong, when I see you flying one, I assume certain things about you.
This makes my seven year old heart sad. That’s how old I was when I got to go to Betsy Ross’s house in Philly for a school trip. I LOVED that tiny house and her and the idea of her sitting there and sewing that first flag.
Symbols are more powerful than words, and right now, symbols can either send out the message that if you are different in any way, you are safe here or you are not safe.
It happens instantly.
I’ve always really disliked brightly colored rainbow stuff. I have always found it garish. But I understand now that it says “I’m with you,” and so I’ve started to embrace it in our distinctly diverse and beautiful neighborhood in this city that makes so many feel safer than the very small city I came from.
As a woman, I’ve for as long as I can remember struggled with Christianity. Let’s just say that and know that I could write BOOKS about this particular struggle.
But I also have a strongly Catholic heart… the best of it speaks to me in profound ways that nothing else can touch. Our Lady of Guadalupe. Mary’s yes. The work of mystics like Thomas Merton. St. Francis. A pope who SEEMS to understand compassion in a way we’ve not seen before. Smells and bells. Deep contemplation. Ritual. The Catholic Imagination, to use Fr. Greeley’s book title.
And yet… my GOD, the damage done, the lives hurt and lost, and now the twisted, demented, evil version of Christianity that the far right has latched onto and claimed.
It makes my heart hurt and my head feel like it could POP.
To say that the far right’s view of Christianity is antithetical to everything that Christ taught is not even close to the reality of what they have managed to do through their deformed messaging.
So when I’m reading books on this subject matter, let’s just say, if I’m out in public, I might hide their covers, lay them cover down, slide them into my bag upside down…
I don’t want anyone to feel unsafe around me. What a sad sentence that is … that I had to write that.
Gandhi looked to Christ as one of history’s greatest prophets of nonviolence, and here I am, rightfully afraid that someone will perceive violence toward them via my reading materials.
I needed to finally write about all of this because I was sitting on our front stoop today with a book about Clare of Assisi next to me. The sun was shining. I had on my “hex the patriarchy” tshirt (but the print is small…).
A young woman was stopped at my stoop by their dog, who insisted on visiting me. I laughed and told them it was fine. The dog was so pretty!
Then I realized as they walked away that they had been staring at my book and that their demeanor shifted in that moment.
It made me so sad.
That’s what all the hate in the world is doing even on a micro level.
It’s making us suspicious of one another’s very hearts.
I’m not saying we shouldn’t be. That hate is toxic and has proven itself deadly.
But I’m wondering how we can counter it with a love that is so much more powerful if we keep losing important symbols of love.
I want to take them back and recombine them with obvious symbols of love and openheartedness. I’ve seen it happening but we need MORE.