Shouting From the Rooftops

Passau, Germany

The one time in my life I could have literally climbed to the rooftops of every building in the whole wide world was the day son Mark, all those years ago, fell out of the car flying at 70 mph and ended up scraping only two of his precious little 2-year-old fingers.  I already told you that story.

It was a miracle, acclaimed by the doctor himself.  If you had said it wasn’t, I would have fought you to the end…and won.

Without thought to political grandstanding or stirring up murky religious or moral waters for some…please indulge me in saying what happened last week (Wednesday, June 26), with the striking down of DOMA, the Defense of Marriage Act, comes in a close second. 

It was a miracle I never expected to see in my lifetime, except for, perhaps, this last year as I’ve watched the marriage-equality ball around the world roll faster and faster, like a whirlwind.

   

It’s not a “done deal” by any stretch of the imagination but the first step is there:  as regards immigration law, I can now sponsor Astrid for green-card status in America by simple virtue of the fact we have a legal Dutch marriage.

With that comes access to over 1000 Federal marriage benefits related to taxes, health, pension, social security, etc., just as with so-called straight marriages.  Sounds like a huge YIPPEE.

However, the glitch happens at the state-by-state level as each grapples with YES or NO to the marriage-equality question.  Why that matters to me personally is because if we chose to live in Michigan (where my tribe lives) or Georgia (where my children and grandson live), we would not have state marriage benefits.  Those states do not yet support marriage equality.  Furthermore, they are not required to recognize same-sex marriages carried out in other states or countries.

Did you get that?  How is it possible to be married in America but not in Michigan or Georgia?  Does that make sense to you?

I’m not a prophet but the handwriting appears to be on the wall that, sooner than we all think, the whole ball of wax will be a “done deal.”  Even Scalia, the most conservative and dissenting of the Justices in this Opinion said as much after Wednesday’s ruling.  He all but threw up his hands in despair.  It’s just a matter of time.  “Argle-bargle,” he said.

When that day comes…in my lifetime, I believe…I will not only climb to all the rooftops again but will surely feel I’ve died and gone to heaven!

Speaking of heaven, it would have been Mom’s 97^th birthday last Wednesday.  I thought of her all day long, somehow sensing her presence.  In spite of being a conservative preacher’s wife, she was always a woman ahead of her time, questioning the status quo.  There was always something sensible about her…once she got all the facts.

So, this is for you, Mom.  This is for believing all things.  This is for love winning and shouting it from the rooftops.

This is also for all of you who stood by our side and cheered us on.  THANK YOU!

LOVE ALWAYS WINS.
Love is love.  Family is family.  Marriage is marriage.

Joy to the World

The first time I heard that the Jews, Christians and Muslims all share the same, foundational Holy Writ (the Torah, the 5 books of Moses in the Old Testament, and the Tawrat/Quran), was…I’m so ashamed to say…when I was in my 40s.  [How is that possible, coming from a preacher’s home?!]

Assuming Google is correct, ca. 33% of the world’s population are Christian (1 out of 3 people); 25% are Muslim (1 out of 4 people); and 0.2% are Jewish (1 out of 514 people).  Quick math:  ca. 58% of the world’s population share the same Holy Scripture.

The impact of this starts hitting home when you consider that most of the world apparently grew up with The Ten Commandments:  Thou shalt not kill, for starters. 

For those of us who are Christian, Jesus came early on the scene with his Sermon on the Mount, calling the peacemakers “blessed” and saying that those who are angry are as bad as those who kill.  He said, in essence, that the letter of the law has a spirit:  the law is fulfilled when we are peacemakers, not just when we don’t kill.

I’ve been thinking about this a lot since Astrid and I visited Antwerp’s Jewish neighborhood over the Thanksgiving weekend and found ourselves surrounded by Orthodox Jews leaving their synagogues on their Sabbath.  Wars and rumors of war between Israel and Palestine and potentially Iran, to say nothing of the entire Middle East, are rumbling in the brain’s recesses.  Just more of the same ol’ same ol’ on the CNN Int'l news I watch here in the Netherlands.  Including now what just happened in Newtown, CT, closer to home. 

Now, jump to this.

Remember when Jesus also said to love your neighbor as yourself…and how many of us grew up emphasizing the neighbor part but not the yourself part?!  How can you possibly love your neighbor if you don’t love yourself first, right?!  Yada yada yada.  [And when did we learn that in church?]

But.  If you don’t love yourself, how can you be a peacemaker?  If you aren’t a peacemaker, how can you have joy?  If you don’t love yourself how can you have joy!  If you’re angry, how can you love yourself and make peace and have joy?  And that’s not even 6 degrees of separation!

I often say “Let there be peace on earth and let it begin with me.”  How about also “Let there be love on earth and let it begin with me loving myself.”

And how about “Let there be JOY TO THE WORLD and let it begin with me in my own heart!”

Evil in the open is but evil from within that has been let out.
The main battlefield for good is not the open ground of the public arena
but the small clearing of each heart.
--Yann Martel, Life of Pi