A Place
for Tenderness
“Somewhere
between the sterile, absolute and empty formulae of reductionist,
totalitarian science, and the earnest, hostile, excessively certain
make-believe of religious fundamentalism, there is a beautiful place
for honesty. For tenderness. For fury. For wonder. For hope. For
mistakes. For paradox. For grace.”
Frank
Schaefer (Why I am an Atheist Who Believes in God: How to give love,
create beauty, and find peace.)
We didn't always live in
an either/or world. My memory of my childhood in the 1950's and 60's
was that all kinds of people of different religious affiliations
got along. There was no animosity between Baptists and Methodists,
Catholics and Protestants, Jews and Christians. We may not have
“believed” the same things, but we didn't fight about it. Today,
at least here in the deep South, there is a constant tension between
mainstream Christians and Evangelical Christians, while people of other religions are dismissed out of hand. It's not uncommon
for judgment to be passed by any side on any other. And now, there
is an added dimension of nationalism and militarism in the mix—so
that if you don't claim to be a born-again, fundamentalist Christian,
you cannot possibly call yourself a patriotic American. This stuff is simply
wrong.
The other division that
is corrosive to the fabric of this country is the creation of an
antagonistic relationship between science and religion. If you are a
true “believer” you must turn your back on science—you must
renounce evolution and climate change—and call it un-Christian.
This too is a false narrative designed to keep us ignorant and naive.
If we abandon science and the search for provable outcomes, we are
doomed to everlasting backwardness. Science has contributed
spectacularly to our understanding of, and our knowledge of, the world.
People who are ignorant are easier to control, and lose the ability
to think objectively. They are then susceptible to nefarious leaders.
But, beneath all this the
world goes on. In the words of Mary Oliver:
“...Meanwhile
the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving
across the landscapes,
over the
prairies and the deep trees,
the
mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile
the wild geese, high in the clean blue air
are
heading home again...”
There is grace and peace
in this world. There is kindness, and gentleness, and love—for one
another and for our home. I have seen it with my own eyes. Let us put
down our divisions today, and for all the days to come, and embrace
one another as the brothers and sisters we are.
In the Spirit,
Jane
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