"Beauty confronts us with the requirement that we place ourselves among...the redeemers, the leaders in the protection of life. Once you have seen the bush on fire, you are not going to get out of the assignment unless you close your eyes to the beauty.... [You] either have to close your eyes or go back to Egypt and set the people free." - Rev. Dr. Rebecca Parker, "Rising to the Challenge of Our Times"
3 comments:
I know the way things turned out aren't right, but I think we need to be careful about making assumptions about people's motivations.
Today K mentioned that in EQ, someone was going on and on about why anyone wouldn't have supported prop. 8. K said he wanted to say something, but it didn't occur to him until he got home what exactly had bothered him.
He said if he was there again, he would have said that we need to be careful judging other people because we don't know what their experiences have been that have led them to make the choices they did.
I know of several LDS people who really struggled with it, but decided they needed to support prop 8. I disagree with their decision, but I recognize that they struggled as much as I did in getting there.
Love you Em.
Prop 8? This was just a post about an ecological phenomenon. Yep.
Ok, ok. I admit it wasn't very nice of me to imply a comparison between proponents of Prop. 8 and these poor little hamster-like creatures who are being harmed by global warming. Lemmings aren't really able to think about what they're doing before they all run off the cliff together.
I had a coupon for "One Free Snide Metaphor" and I just had to use it. In reality, I think there is so much to learn from this whole thing (and the general election as well) about how people are not really influenced by facts. It isn't their fault (or our fault, this applies to everyone), it's just how we're all wired. But it still sucks when the facts are on your side and 52.4% or so of the voting population still disregards them. Facts can be very tricky and easily distorted, I know, but I am in a position to look at this from both sides and I am confident that passage of the amendment was a very big, sad mistake that will be righted some day. All of us will need to account for our many, many mistakes at some point so it's not very wise or helpful to target other people's individual errors for blame or compare somebody's big mistake with your little one (or vice versa). I think I read a story about this somewhere...Nevertheless, there are consequences, and we're all mixed up together in the consequences of each other's choices whether we like it or not. My Zen teacher gave a talk on Wednesday which I will try to scan from the hardcopy he gave me and post here, but one thing he said was that you cannot truly deny somebody a blessing and continue to keep it for yourself. The sanctity of all marriage was hurt by Prop 8's passage.
When I think about that, I feel more compassion for everyone who supported it, and I will pray for all of us and our relationships with others to be healed of those fears that hinder us from experiencing all the love and happiness we possibly can. (Which is, like, really a lot, I think.) But I'm still really mad and disappointed.
I think you have every right to be mad and disappointed. (and I think you have several "free snide metaphors"- maybe a whole booklet.
I just felt like I needed to be consistent. If I'm going to tell my BIL that he shouldn't judge people's motives (he just sent in weekly email-journal to the family, and it's a bit over the top), I felt like I ought to say the same thing here.
Change comes slowly (except for maybe stem cell research and oil drilling once Obama takes over).
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