Forgiveness? What About You?

Not a lot about modern society (except perhaps its apparent impending demise) genuinely grieves me; a trend in responses to the Charleston Massacre has done that.  Every day I see people – Christians, Pastors, Academics, Intellectuals, and many who fit into none of the above categories – condemning the families of the Emmanuel Nine.  I’ve heard people call them names, say they were in denial, and say they hadn’t properly processed their grief.

I’m grateful to my friend, neighbor, and colaborer in Christ, Rev. Jose Humphries, for helping me find my voice on this.  As much as I love to write, there is much to be said for verbal exchange.   As we chatted today, we acknowledged that, thankfully, neither of us has ever been in the position of the families of those massacred.  We can’t know how we would behave.  I cannot find it in myself to begin to dictate, define, or describe what might be appropriate behavior in such a situation. 

Much is being made of their acts of forgiveness.  Somehow it seems these acts of forgiveness are being co-opted by the talking head du jour as some sort of symbolic statement on how people of color should respond to tragedy.  No mention is made of the fact that people of color have had to develop superhuman capacities for forgiveness and an otherworldly reliance on the Divine simply to endure their physical journey in an atmosphere of systemic oppression.  No, no mention is made of that. In my opinion, failure to acknowledge that fact is a reflection on the commentators and a reflection of the dominant culture.  It takes nothing away from the injured people’s need, ability, and spiritual desire to free themselves from the ravages of unforgiveness.

But somehow it seems those who would comment are conflating and/or equating the spiritual practices of those who would forgive with the transgressions of those who continue to inflict pain and cause havoc.  Maybe this is why the Bible tells us to first take the speck out of our own eyes.  A long time ago, a very wise man helped me understand that the only things I can control are my own attitudes and behaviors.  Consequently, I don’t care much about nor pay much attention to what the dominant culture says or thinks about me (although I will admit to being pissed off when I can’t be scruffy on a Saturday and go into a department store without being followed around; I’ve finally learned to use that to my advantage, though – now I just hover around the register and amaze people at how quickly I get serviced!). 

But it seems that the dominant culture, the media, the talking heads du jour – whomever one chooses to name – it seems there is this inclination to point to these people in their grief, who are responding to spiritual savagery visited upon them by invoking the spiritual principles that have always undergirded them – it seems there is an inclination to point to these particular people in this particular situation and say “See, Black folk, THAT’S how you ought to respond when people visit atrocities upon you.”

And that thought, of course, is complete bullshit.  Remember above when I said the only things I can control are my attitudes and my behaviors?  That’s true.  It’s true for me,  it’s true for you, and it's true for every member of the dominant culture.  It’s just not appropriate and it doesn’t work for someone to point to anyone else and tell them how to forgive.  Forgiveness is noble and laudable, that is true.  But one cannot morally speak to people of color or any oppressed people about the moral superiority of forgiveness without acknowledging the systems created that caused many among them to have a  predilection towards and nearly superhuman capacity for, forgiveness. And one certainly can’t speak to oppressed people in America about the virtue of forgiveness without also speaking about the virtues of freedom, justice, and equality.  You cannot morally speak to me about my need to forgive without first addressing your need to let justice roll down like a river or righteousness like an ever-flowing stream.   

As I said, I’m not responsible for your attitudes or your behaviors.  Thankfully, I’m not in a place where I have to forgive people who massacred my loved ones.  But I do know that as long as you have a log of systemic racism, or a tree trunk of inequality in your eyes, and as long as you live in a forest of privilege-fueled oppression – as long as those conditions exist, they morally disqualify you from speaking about the speck of violence that occurs in my community after other atrocities are visited upon it.  And if you still choose to speak, know that I will neither listen nor be able to hear you.  The logs in your eyes and the forest you live in will render your words as but noisy gongs or clanging cymbals.

And yes, for that and other transgressions,  you will still be forgiven.  You’ll be forgiven because in order to live in the hellish environment you’ve created, all I could do was to take on the mantle of Christ and His teachings.  I have to forgive, no matter for what, and no matter how many times.  I do that for my own wellbeing, not for yours.  I forgive you because I’m responsible for my attitudes and my behaviors, and forgiveness is what I know, believe, and have been taught is right.

That's my attitude and prayerfully that will be my behavior.  But what about you?

Grace, Hatred, and Racism

Reared in a Methodist tradition, I believe that God’s Grace is available to everyone.  God’s Prevenient Grace is all around us and available to anyone who will have it. It is a gift from God, readily available, and has absolutely nothing to do with us. As we accept that Gift of Grace,  God’s Justifying Grace begins to work on us, bringing us in line with God’s Divine Will for us, making us completely new creatures within the Will of God.   God’s Sanctifying Grace then continues to change us and empower us to walk more closely in the Will of God.

Grace is always there; the question is whether or not we will latch on to it and if we do, whether we will surrender ourselves to it so it can change us.

As I listen to the news reports being spun to paint a homegrown terrorist as some sort of victim, and as I watch the majority of my white friends remain painfully silent on this massacre, this racially charged American act of terrorism against Americans of African descent -- as I listen, it occurs to me that grace, hatred and racism share some characteristics.  In the American spirit, psyche, and ethos,  all abound, and all are available to anyone who will latch on to them.  Once we reach out and grab onto them, whether we grab on to Grace, hatred, or racism, -- whatever we grab onto begins to work on us.  Grace will begin to bring us in line with God’s Divine Will for us, hatred will bring us in line with scorn and disdain for things not pleasing to us, and racism will bring us in line with an ideology that people who share some of our genetic characteristics are somehow superior to other humans.  As we continue on, whether walking in Grace, in hatred, or in racism, we begin to change and to conform to its power over us – Sanctifying Grace will empower us to walk in the will of God, while Horrifying Hatred or Reprehensible Racism will distort and deform one’s human nature to fit the will of the demonic forces in which they have their genesis.

Let's be clear.  This terrorist is not a victim.  The nine saints who welcomed him into Bible study and were killed because of their kindness -- those are the only victims.  At the end of the day, the homegrown terrorist had a choice.  He CHOSE to embrace hatred and racism, he CHOSE the resulting deformity of spirit, and he CHOSE to act from that distorted and deformed place, rather than to seek wholeness.  At the end of the day, the young white terrorist lived in an environment where hatred and racism freely abound.  He lived in an environment where the “confederate flag” is still flown, and where a legacy of enslaving human beings is somehow conflated with and glorified as history.  Again, as a point of clarity, what's being highlighted is a history of slavery and abuse, and there's nothing to be glorified about that.   While there may be some valid discussion over the original intent of this flag, the reality remains that “The Stars and Bars,” in whatever its present iteration may be, has always been a symbol of the pro-slavery, anti-abolitionist, secessionist, Confederate States of America.  In the debate over what the flag in SC means and whether the state of South Carolina has the right to fly it, no one mentions the fact that “The Stars and Bars” experienced a resurgence in popularity during the Civil Rights struggles of the 1960s and became an unofficial emblem of the segregationist movement.  FOR THAT REASON ALONE, the State of South Carolina needs to take the first step and remove the flag from its official buildings. This would be a show of respect to its African American citizens murdered by a terrorist bent on starting a race war, and it would, I believe, send a message that the atmosphere of hatred and racism is no longer to be tolerated.

Like Grace, Hatred and Racism have no intrinsic physical form. You can see their effects, you can sense their presence, but you can’t reach out and touch them.  This may be why those who are not people of color often believe that “too much is made of the race issue,” or think it’s nonexistent because “we have a black President.”

Which is sort of like saying “I prayed to Jesus last year, and I was really sincere.  So today I’m gonna give my son a gun to kill your mother, but it’s ok, because I prayed last year.”  God’s Grace is given to the humble, and is shown to be sufficient for us when it is made perfect in weakness.  It’s a gift from God, clearly not something to be claimed or appropriated by humans.  It’s not something with or about which we can boast; it is, if you will, an inside job.  But Hatred and Racism – these are humanly (or demonically) sourced qualities, and they will flourish where they are neither destroyed nor, at the very least, corrected.  They, like sin and all things with an evil genesis, must be resisted – they are things for which we must always be on guard.

And we’re not anymore. We’ve grown complacent, we’ve fallen asleep, and just like those dear people innocently let a madman into their midst, we have allowed hatred and racism to come sit and sup with us.  We may not recognize them, or we may think they look a little off but be reluctant to say anything about them.  But we have to learn, folks.  We have to learn that injustice anywhere is still a threat to justice everywhere. We have to believe Jesus was sincere when He said that whatever we did to the least of these, we did to Him. 

So what’s it gonna be?  Are we going to choose to be filled with God's grace, quietly but resolutely empowered to do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly with our God?  Can we see "the least of these" not only as poor people in far off lands, but as those who are marginalized and abused by our very own political and social systems?  Or are we going to succumb to the cancer of hatred and the lie of racism?  Are we willing to expose and eradicate the latter two so the former might grow within us?

Or are we just gonna lay low and act like none of this has any meaning?  They’re all there:  Grace, Hatred, and Racism, and they all have the power to make us and mold us and change us into something new.  Like the terrorist who murdered the Emmanuel 9, we get to choose what we grasp and hold onto.

Nah, it's Not Just Mental Illness

This morning I stopped in a convenience store.  A man was seated there,  his deep chocolate skin accentuated by an accumulation of street dust and dirt.  He was disheveled, apparently both homeless and mentally ill.  For a moment I wondered what Jesus would do in NYC, how He would deal with the scores and scores of people in need.  I focused on Jesus the man, forgetting that the Divine person of Jesus could and probably would choose to restore them to wholeness.

My thoughts were interrupted by the shouts of the store manager yelling at the man to leave and threatening to call the police.  True, that is his right, but the guy, though dirty and half-dressed, wasn’t smelly, the store wasn’t crowded, and he wasn’t disruptive like the entitled white guy who was in there arguing the day before.  This brother was just trying to sit down in the cool for a minute.

I was left wondering why mental illness is used as an explanation/quasi defense when considering someone who commits an act of premeditated terrorism with the goal of starting a race war, but why that same condition of mental illness is completely ignored when considering someone who simply needs help to survive. 

Seems like there’s more than mental illness going on here.

Praying Because I Still Have Hope

The murders of nine Black people at Bible study is heartbreaking and horrific. Sadly, it’s not the worst part of the story.

As the news broke, a NYC businessman announced his run for the Presidency of the United States.  He did so while showing an embarrassing dearth of knowledge regarding international trade.  Instead of bothering to educate himself, his platform appeared to be based on xenophobia and character assassination, referring to “people with accents” answering call lines, and calling US Government officials “weak” and “stupid.”   In the week or so leading up to the murders, we saw the Twitterverse explode over some woman who appeared confused (or deliberately deceptive) about her racial identity; we saw a popular US vacation destination begin the systematic deportation and denial of rights of people who “look like” they are of African descent, we saw some people in an uproar over a person who decided they were in an inappropriately gendered body, and we saw, over and over again, attacks upon people of color – for being in swimming pools, for shopping, and for any number of real or imagined offenses. 

Like many (of my friends of color, anyway), I’m heartbroken over what I see.  I’m no longer looking at the violence of the acts; living in a city where a man killed his girlfriend and made her into soup which he then served to the homeless has shown me that human depravity and its accompanying physical violence can sink to unimaginable depths.  What concerns me more than the physical violence is the psychic and spiritual violence we continuously wreak upon each other and upon the world.  That, IMHO, is an even worse part of the story.

They say charity starts at home, so I’mma go there first.  We Americans are incredibly self-absorbed.  Get a group of us together and chances are you’ll find us sitting and peering down into our electronic devices rather than interacting with each other.  If we do find someone we like, the first thing we do is trade email addresses or figure out how to facebook each other.  Our norm for social interaction seems to have shifted from the personal to the electronic.  The unfortunate byproduct of this phenomenon is that, as Americans, we always want to do more.  We have access to more people and more information and so we go for quantity over quality.  In the process, it seems our intellectual capacities for critical thinking and our spiritual capacities for discernment have been significantly diminished.  Take any preposterous assertion, put it on the internet, and within 24 hours, someone will be running around repeating it as if it’s real.  Use popular music to create an image of African Americans as drug-using, gun-toting thugs, and abandon all empirical evidence to the contrary, and an alarming number of people become willing to believe it's real.  Religion is too hard or doesn’t make sense?  Don’t try to understand it; don’t try to change or grow spiritually – no.  Just abandon religion, make up your own, or simply embrace your spirituality, without ever bothering to check it or yourself or even to consider that maybe, just maybe, there is something outside the box you see.  

I’m rambling now because not only am I heartbroken, I’m incredibly pissed off.  The point I'm trying to make is that psychic violence is the result of our collective self-obsession to the exclusion of all else.  We sit back and celebrate this quasi-hedonistic culture we’ve created, then feign – surprise? Dismay? Disapproval? when someone selfishly takes it to a level we'd never imagined.  But isn't that the natural product of our culture?  Bigger, Better, More? 

If we have created  a culture in which people are not able to think critically, a culture in which people have neither spiritual discernment nor spiritual grounding, a culture in which the ultimate arbiter is not “how does this impact our world,” but “how does this make me feel?” then WHY are we surprised that some loser redneck decides to murder the black people they see as the source of their problems??  Have we not seen harbingers of this with the lunatic burning Qu’rans in Florida, the knuckleheads praying for the death of our President (and more recently, of Caitlyn Jenner) in Arizona?  When there is no public outcry over shootings of Sikhs at their temples, when we don't shut down the bikers who blasphemed Muslims at their temple on their Sabbath day, when we pay more attention to the color of a dress than we do to the fact that a popular vacation spot has begun to "ethnically cleanse" its country based on the colors of people's skin -- if we are overwhelmingly silent on those matters, then why are we now surprised that yet another crazy white terrorist has taken it upon themselves to eradicate the people of color he perceives as the source of his problems? This is how culture generates psychic, spiritual, and then physical violence.

We have SO much potential.  We humans are very diverse, and that can be quite beautiful.  Even though we have natural tendencies to group ourselves along real or imagined lines of demarcation, I believe human nature is to cooperate with and celebrate one another.  But somewhere along the way, we’ve learned to make enemies.  We’ve learned to assign values to physical characteristics, and to judge and group each other according to those values.  We’ve created so many gods that we’re unwilling or unable to recognize the Universal Divine God dwelling in all of us.

My prayer now is that we might begin to celebrate the God in all of us.  My prayer is that those of us who are people of faith will continue to pray to the God of our understanding, a God Who will allow our hearts, minds, and spirits to be opened to God’s Divine Presence.  It’s only within God’s Divine Presence that we can begin to heal our wounds, to respect our differences, and to truly love one another.   I pray that God's Divine Presence will comfort those who mourn, will calm those who are angered, and will heal those who are wounded in body, mind, and spirit.  I pray because recent events reveal the brutal reality that when we fail to turn back to God, our course leads to destruction.  There’s no other way, at least that I can see.  We’re too diverse, we have too many competing agendas – we can’t rank them or decide one is better than another; we have to learn to coexist lovingly and peacefully.

Despite all I see around me, despite recent events, I still have hope.  As long as Jesus is Alive, I will have hope.  While I’m Christian, I recognize that many people are not.  I also recognize that, since the beginning of time,  every major grouping of humans has had some form of the Golden Rule, some principle that says, as Jesus did, that we should love and treat our neighbors as we’d want to be treated.  My prayer is that we could all begin to come together on that one point, and then to lift up the good in one another.  Is that going to solve our problems?  No, of course not.  But it might begin to calm us down to a point where we can begin to work together towards preserving our planet and our human race.

If I were a better or more profound writer, or it my emotions were not engaged, I’d wrap this up with some memorable ending, but that ain’t in me right now.  I'm heartbroken, but I still have hope.  Right now, though,  all I can do is pray we will learn to live and act in love for one another.  Our lives and our planet depend on it.

Hold On Just a Little While Longer, Everything's Gonna Be Alright!!

Hold on Just a Little While Longer.  Everything is Gonna be Alright!!!

If I shut up and turn my brain off for long enough, I can hear God confirming those words to me.  Problem is, I seldom shut up and turn my brain off for long enough.   My day job is executive director of a nonprofit.  It’s in one of the poorest congressional districts in the country, and we serve people who have a fairly tenuous grip on that social safety net.  While initially the position of “executive director” was a good boost to my ego (though, sadly,  not to my pocketbook.  Did I mention that this is a nonprofit?), the reality is that this role has driven me to my knees and increased my faith in more ways than I ever thought possible.  It often seems the organization is held together with nothing but dental floss, duct tape, and effectual, fervent prayer.  So I’m often busy petitioning God or, like this morning, thanking God and singing God’s praises.  But I don’t spend nearly enough time shutting up, turning my brain off, and listening to and for God.

So there I was celebrating this morning – yesterday I was talking about how I have to get through my audits so I can move towards mission-oriented development; this morning I hear the auditor may FINALLY be able to start writing his report.  Then I turned the corner and ran into someone who has a similar mission and complementary resources who wants to do some development. My response was to Thank God and sing God’s praises, not to shut up and listen to God.

Today, like most days, was an endless flurry of regulatory compliance, personnel issues, simultaneous community relations/drug interventions/building inspections, and fiscal oversight.  All this is laid atop a plate of capacity building, board development, and organizational mission/vision work. And all of THAT, of course, was interspersed with today’s internet banality, which seems to have shifted from the person born male who’s decided to live out her identity as a female to the person born white who’s decided to live out her identity as a black person.  None of which has any relevance to or bearing upon my present situation nor to that of my clients or employees.   As a very practical guide,  I need to be able to pay bills for 30 days and see payroll for two pay periods in the future, and that wasn’t the case today.  In the midst of deciding where to slice and dice, and whether to hold off on paying insurance or security, I stopped and realized the Ram in the Bush. I didn’t listen for the voice of God, but once I decided to hold on a little while longer, it became apparent that everything was, indeed, gonna be alright.

That would have been enough, but I was sitting at my desk, working on some APRs and accepting the fact that I wasn’t going to make my evening exercise class.  My exercise classes are my "me" time, and I don't usually miss them except to attend the professional ball games for which I have season tickets.  Working out gets rid of my stress, then the swim afterwards relaxes and isolates (or insulates!) me.  My exercise times are an integral part of my day, and I hate to miss them.  So as I'm sitting here realizing I'm going to miss tonight's class, I get a text from a friend.  He’s an old college bud, someone with whom I often share dinners and holidays.  Earlier this week I was thinking of him and how we needed to touch base, but did nothing more than think on it.

So he texted me this evening.  Yes, of course it’s time for us to get together, but sometimes we go several months without seeing each other and sometimes we see each other every weekend.  I don’t believe it’s coincidence that he texted me just as I thought about him, I took that text as another sign from God that "yes, Babygirl, you CAN do this. You can do this because I've got you."  This time I’m listening.  I think I may go home and turn my brain off, continuing to listen.  I have certainly heard God say  “Hold on just a little while longer.  Everything’s gonna be alright!!!”

Not Caitlyn; it's all about Him!

Yesterday Vanity Fair preleased its cover with Caitlyn Jenner. In case you have a real life, are not in the US, or are in the US but have been living under a rock for the last few months, Caitlyn Jenner is the female who, as the male-born-Bruce Jenner, not only won a gold medal for the Decathlon in the 1976 Olympics, but set a new world record in that event.  The winner of the Decathlon is traditionally known as “the world’s greatest athlete.” 

There had been rumors of a sex change for years, and perhaps there was a TV interview regarding her gender dysphoria.  It didn’t interest me so I didn’t pay a lot of attention.  I was shocked when I saw the cover of Vanity Fair, though – she looks incredibly good!

Of course, my Facebook timeline is lit up.  While the vast majority of people support Caitlyn, there are always the “saints” who condemn her as “attempting to change what God made,” and the ones who simply refuse to acknowledge this transformation.  I'm amazed.  Caitlyn Jenner was once more man and is now more woman than most of us will ever be.  All judgement aside, that right there is remarkable.

I don’t pretend to understand trans people;  a score of years ago in an early seminary class, I wrote something to that effect and the professor suggested I make an attempt to understand.  As a female who fits almost none of the traditional markers of “femininity,” but who has always felt quite comfortable with herself and in her body (aside from the flab), I’ve come to understand that our concepts of “masculine” and “feminine” are social constructs.  I’ve also come to understand that, at least in America, our thinking around gender, sexuality, sexual orientation, and, indeed, all things having even a vague sexual connotation -- they all boil down to our thinking about sexual intercourse.  Everything else is laid atop that, as if the net sum of human sexuality rests inside specific sexual acts.  If we then put the prefix homo- or hetero- or trans- or poly- or pan- or a- in front of the word sexual, we come up with something that we inherently consider related to sexual acts.  And with the exception of hetero-, and possibly a-, we tend to consider those sexual acts as "other."

Or something like that.  I am no expert on human sexuality. As I said, I don’t really understand gender dysphoria, largely because it’s never impacted me personally (despite what y’all say).   But what I can sort of understand is the amount of pain one must experience to consider gender reassignment a viable option.  So there are a couple of things that stand out for me: 

1) No matter whether we consider that pain as pathological or not, why aren’t we addressing it? Why am I seeing so many people who disagree with Caitlyn’s transformation expressing condemnation of her rather than acknowledging the pain she must have felt (Think what you want.  As a male, Bruce Jenner became known as "the world's greatest athlete."  Who would possibly cast all that aside if they weren't really going through?), and attempting to meet her to offer some way to ease that pain?  Even if, as some have suggested,  this transformation and gender dysphoria are manifestations of mental illness, why is it met with condemnation instead of compassion?

2) As I posted somewhere, I wonder why we view sexual reassignment surgery as inherently different than shaving our bodies or using deodorant or straightening or perming our hair or having liposuction or rhinoplasty or using makeup or any of the stuff we do to alter the vessels we were given?  If we assert that “God doesn’t make mistakes," then why do we automatically have surgeries for children born with cleft lips or palates, or with any number of physical aberrations for which surgeries are routinely performed (pinning the ears, straightening limbs, amputating extra fingers and vestigial tails)?   Oh, but those are minor and this is major?  Why is there no outcry or reliance on God's Omniscience when conjoined twins are separated?  That is routinely celebrated, and considered to be physically and emotionally healthier for all involved.   I don’t understand why our collective focus right now is on the physical vessel occupied by Caitlyn and not on the spirit inhabiting that vessel.

Sometimes I wonder if we who call ourselves Christians have lost our ability for spiritual discernment, for critical thinking, or both.  For many of us (and I certainly include myself here), our first inclination is to look at the external situation, and then to slap it into some spiritual box of our choosing.  I’ve watched with interest, and more than a bit of consternation, the hubbub surrounding one pastor’s request for a $65MM jet.  Again, many of my friends have very strong opinions (as do I), and I've chosen to forego alliteration in the title and not mention the person’s name.  It doesn’t matter whether it’s a $65MM jet, a million dollar home, a hundred thousand dollar car, or some other material extravagance;  it doesn’t matter whether we parade around in theologically incongruous vestments, make indefensible financial appeals, or demand cult-like obedience from those seeking Jesus ---  none of this foolishness could be perpetrated upon the flocks without their permission. Sadly, we as a Body long ago ceded that permission.

Early on in the Christian tradition, those who called themselves Christians routinely prayed several times a day, continually seeking both physical and spiritual union with God through subjugation of the flesh.  After a few hundred years, we had relegated most of the daily prayers and many of those ascetic practices to monasteries, to which we offered material support. This arrangement began to backfire (or implode) by the 12^th century and, for those of us in the Protestant tradition, came to an end in the 15^th  and 16^th centuries.  Slowly traditions emphasizing personal piety and holiness re-emerged and spread throughout much of the world. 

But something’s happened along the way.  These traditions of piety and holiness often arose not purely for spiritual reasons but also as a backlash or counterpoint to an intellectualized, rational, "enlightened," or scientific worldview.  For many, this tension resulted in a fairly significant gap between and faith and reason.  Sadly, that gap remains today, as does the outdated idea that to love Christ with all one’s heart and soul and strength implies not loving Christ with all one’s mind. 

So we see nothing wrong with accepting the Bible as the True, Inerrant Word of God when it comes to things that don’t immediately concern us, like (for many people) homosexuality or abortion.  But if we look at other issues (sexually,  fornication and adultery come to mind; socially,  the role of women and of slaves comes to mind), we agree that times have changed and somehow the words that are written in the Bible don’t apply in those circumstances.  And we are quick to justify our beliefs.  But before we become defensive and venerate the positions that appeal to us, we need to be able to see that a disconnect actually exists.  Sometimes we consider the Word True and Inerrant, and sometimes we want to interpret it.  For the vast majority of us, that interpretation is not at all systematic (that would be too rational); instead, it ebbs and flows and changes "as the spirit leads us."  But (and this is where spiritual discernment comes in) how many of us realize that every spirit is not a Holy Spirit?

We are people who want to be like Jesus, the same Jesus who stated that animals had homes but He had no place to call home – we want to be like Him, but we see nothing wrong with subsidizing one person's extravagant lifestyle while stepping over the hungry and the homeless.  We want to follow Jesus, the One who decried the excesses of wealth, we want to follow Him, led by troubadors singing songs of a mythical "Prosperity Gospel."

For the record, I don’t think the issue is with Caitlyn.  I don’t think the issue is with the jet guy.  I think the issue is with we who would call ourselves Christian.  We look at this thing called Christianity as if it’s some sort of cosmic test or exercise, at the end of which we all hope to get some reward, or at least to avoid eternal punishment.  We lose sight of the fact that the Same Eternal God who placed us here stands in Time and Eternity and could have, had God chosen, placed us at any point in either one. If we dare to use our minds, we might conclude that we are here  -- in this time and in this place  -- for a Divinely ordained purpose.  Is that purpose to criticize those in pain?  Is that purpose to participate in or subsidize lavish lifestyles?  Or is that purpose to honor the precious Gift we’ve been given and – in whatever way we’ve been blessed to do it – to share it with the rest of the world?  How long til we Christians understand that it ain’t about Caitlyn or the jet guy -- it's not about any of them – it’s All About HIM!