As
I look upon the faces and read the names of the 14 people murdered during a
holiday party of colleagues serving the San Bernardino County Department of
Public Health, I am reminded of why I love the United States of America.
I
see men and women of diverse national and racial and ethnic ancestries: African, Hispanic, Vietnamese, Iranian, German,
English, Greek, Italian, Jewish, and more. I see Protestants and Catholics and
Jews and possibly those with no religious affiliation.
They
were charged with our public welfare as health officials, and some worked with
the most vulnerable Americans, those with disabilities, including the partnered
gay man who managed the coffee shop in the building and trained people with
developmental disabilities.
I love that the United
States is home to such diversity. Other nations are increasingly diverse and
some are more welcoming than we, but I believe that our nation’s pride and
strength comes from our multi-racial, multi-ethnic, multi-cultural, and
multi-faith citizenry.
I
hate that some would try to make us feel ashamed of our diversity, that some
would try to make us fearful of the integrity that is the fruit of our unity,
that some would try to prompt us to a “this is mine, not yours” mentality, that
some would be divisive in pursuit of their political careers, that some would
remove the welcome mat at the base of the Statue of Liberty. This is
un-American.
The
spiritually-impaired, the mentally-impaired, and the emotionally-impaired are
not the only ones who need background checks; we must examine our own
spiritual, mental, and emotional impairments. Almost any one of us can have a
crazy moment when an easily accessible weapon may tempt us to destruction,
whether a gun or the internet or a simple word of hate.
But there are those who
more grievously enable mass killings: those who profit from the weapon-congressional-political
complex*: the gun lobby and gun manufacturers, and the elected officials and
presidential candidates funded by them. They all profit from those who resist our
diversity with guns.
When
I lived in West Hollywood, California, I participated in a conference sponsored
in our community by the then-named National Conference of Christians &
Jews. Soviet Jews were pouring into our community, and some of the elderly
residents, often Jews themselves, felt threatened by their Russian “lifestyle”
of congregating late at night on street corners to socialize, often talking
loudly.
As
I heard them express their fears—with some legitimacy, given the vulnerability
felt by seniors—I couldn’t help but think they must have felt the same way
about gay people flocking into their neighborhood years before.
As for me, I loved the
fact that I could walk by a crowd of chatting people or go to a neighborhood
deli and not understand a word that was spoken.
Of
course some of this fearlessness was afforded me by both youthful
exceptionalism* and white male privilege. But look today at those expressing
the most anti-immigrant and racist sentiments, and they are predominantly white
or male or both.
In
his wryly-named book, Dirt, Greed, and
Sex, Episcopal priest and professor William Countryman wrote that those of
biblical times believed that they lived in a world of limited goods. Thus greed
was possibly the most grievous sin. To want or to have more than one’s share
was to take it away from somebody else, in effect, to steal.
The
Ten Commandments could largely be described as opposing forms of stealing: you
shall not take God’s image or name, you shall not take from the Sabbath’s
holiness or from your parents’ honor, you shall not take another’s life, you
shall not take another’s spouse, you shall not take another’s possession, you
shall not take another’s reputation by bearing false witness, you shall not
even yearn to have a neighbor’s house or anything belonging to the neighbor.
We
too sometimes think we live in a world of limited goods, and environmentally
and globally, there is some evidence of that.
But
there should be no shortage of things that make a people truly great:
diversity, equality, justice, mercy, compassion, and hospitality.
*These are phrases I’ve coined for this post.
Next week’s post will explain “youthful exceptionalism.”
A reading for Advent: Why Must Politics Intrude on Our Faith?
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Copyright © 2015 by Chris R. Glaser.
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