Hello again. I'm back. Glad you are too.
Last Sunday our pastor started a new series called "Love is...". He talked about what love is and what love is not. To sum it up, love is not mere words expressed, but actions that come from a heart full of a desire to do good for others. The bible says that if we have everything the world has to offer, but have not love, we are nothing. He shared a clip from the movie, The Help, where the maid and nanny, Aibileene Clark, is speaking love into the little girl whom she cares for. She looks the little girl right into her eyes and with love all over her face and voice tells her, "You is kind. You is smart. You is important." Where does love like that come from?
I've been thinking about this all week. Do you remember how the supposedly Christian people in the movie thought they were so right to impose such demeaning and demoralizing judgments and rules on the black maids that loved their babies, cleaned their homes, and cooked their meals? The nannies couldn't even use the bathroom inside their employers' homes. One "do-gooder" even decided it was her duty to help pass a law stating that the homeowners needed to build a separate bathroom for their black maids so as to keep their germs away from the white family.
Today we look back at that not-so-long-ago societal mindset and cringe in disbelief.
I wonder if one day soon we will look back in disbelief on how many of us feel about homosexuals and the efforts that we condone for the pupose of keeping them "in their place". Case in point: A Christian based organization called One Million Moms is currently on a rampage against J.C.Penney because of their recent selection of well-known and popular Ellen Degeneres as their new spokesperson. OMM is calling for J.C.Penney to remove Ellen immediately because she is a lesbian and, in OMM's mind, a terrible role model for families. They think that they are right and just to speak out this way. I wish they would show some biblical love instead of what they think is biblical righteousness.
Personally, I think Ellen very wonderfully models to the world that we must be REAL. We must be real about who we are even when others think, say, and believe derogatory and demoralizing things about us. In "The Help", we see people of color standing up for their dignity and their rights and we applaud it. We should do the same when homosexuals call, not only for equal rights, but for acceptance for who they are. Not only should we applaud it, but we should support it.
I also wonder how many of the so-called one million moms of OMM have children who will grow up thinking they are despicable sinners when they find themselves having same-sex attractions. The mothers of these children will have to decide whether to support their children or to support an organization who believes their children are abominations. My guess is that most of them will stick their head in the sand, but my hope would be that their eyes will be opened to REALity and their love for their children will win out.
I did not always think about homosexuals the way I do now. I do not believe they choose to be gay. Most, for much of their lives, hope against hope that their feelings would just disappear forever. But the feelings do not ever go away no matter how much hoping, praying, or hiding is done. Many feel that they must hide who they are from the rest of society just to be "normal"and accepted. One place some of them hide is in marriages with unsuspecting straight spouses. I don't believe their initial intent is to be harmfully deceptive or malicious because most of them truly think they can suppress their true orientation while married, thus living a life acceptable to family, friends, and society at large. BUT THIS IS SO WRONG, as I tried to show in my first blog, because deception is harmful and perpetual deception becomes malicious when the unsuspecting spouse suffers in a marriage to someone who cannot, in reality, love them in all the ways that matter most in marriage. These marriages are unREAL.
In the past, ignorance perpetuated a mindset that we now see as sickening and cruel. Let's not help perpetuate similar ignorance today.
Instead, let's be REAL and REALize that in REALity we all just want to be loved...for who we REALly are.
debbie
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