Sometimes, I Just Wonder...

I have been grieved, saddened, and even embarrassed lately by things I’ve seen and heard from fellow Americans. 


For instance, telling Muslims not to build a mosque near Ground Zero. Aligning all of the Muslim faith with terrorism, is like branding all Christians as bad because of an abortion bombing, or the acts of Timothy McVeigh and his bombing of the federal building in Oklahoma City. Every religion, political leaning, and social agenda has its fringe following. The Bible (which I endeavor to use as my moral compass), speaks about judging things by the fruit they produce. It’s hard for me to argue that the mosque—which sports a community center as well as other cultural magnets—and it’s historically peaceful worshippers have the same agenda as the terrorists who slammed planes into national monuments.

It shames me to see such ignorance and intolerance. While some will argue free speech and the first amendment, I find it difficult to rationalize the bashing people of a different faith. I can’t help but think doing so is the polar antithesis to what this nation was founded upon.

Burning the Quran. I can only wonder, at some point in eternity when we are all judged for things we have done or not done, how are some folks going to feel when they learn that much of what is in the Quran—live well, be kind to others, love God, etc.—is mirrored in the Bible and other Judeo-Christian literature?  I have thought often of the Apostle Paul, a Pharisee-turned-devotee-to-Christ, and his writings where he harkens to the early followers of the Christian church to look to the things within us that speak to Christ, and not the outward appearances, differences in languages, etc. I believe even Christ himself would have broken bread among the Muslims, choosing to reach them in love, not in hate or violence.

This is the one that really got to me today. A license plate frame that said, “Question the Holocaust.” Seriously? As if the genocide of 6 million Jews, Gypsies, homosexuals, and others deemed socially undesirable didn’t happen?

It’s not that I think folks with these sorts of opinions should be censored. I just wish they had better personal filters. I remember a co-worker once getting a Chinese fortune with her lunch that said, “Not all things must be voiced.”

I sincerely believe that to be a wise word in our day and time.  If we want to see change in our nation and among our people, we need to consider whether our thoughts or our words are edifying, and whether they profit us, our neighbors, our communities, and our nation.  Sometimes I cringe at people who errantly throw around "God Bless America," as if our own patriotism is based merely on our ability to get a personal god to shine kindly upon us. 

Isn't it time that America blessed God, no matter whose you choose to believe?  Shouldn't we speak kindness to one another?  Tolerance?  In a manner that builds us up as a nation and as a people, as opposed to tearing us down?