Private Time with God
I’m as sensitive as most to the issue of racism, but with all of the news that I digest every day, I’m increasingly impatient to the oft-flying charges that other people are being racist. Of course there is racism, but all too often the issue is something else, or otherwise overblown.
People discriminate for myriad reasons, some of them quite legitimate. For instance, they make an effort to keep some distance between themselves and loud, stupid, insistent people. On the other hand, there are people who object to fellow members of the species for specious – and often ugly – reasons like skin color and religion. That’s the nature of our civilization at this point.
Then there are cases in the middle, such as when I saw a photo of the alleged terrorist arrested in Massachusetts, I felt a pang of something. It had to do with his beard. I am not alone in being leery of men with hiding their faces with a full beard...especially these days with our reasoned concern about Taliban and Islamic fundamentalists.
Similarly, I don’t like women covering themselves all up in public. This came to a head when a woman in Florida refused to show her face for a driver’s license. Hey, lady, you want to drive, you show your face. That’s part of my definition of separation of church and state.
For that matter, I resent people wearing yarmulkes on their heads and crosses around their necks. If they insist on flaunting their religious beliefs in public, that says to me that they are trying to convince themselves, or the rest of us, that their god is more than an imaginary being.
I would think that any serious god would want the relationship to be personal. And anyone serious about themselves would act inward, not outward, on their beliefs. That, after all, is where any true dialogue is conducted.
©2010 SetonnoteS
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