"Itsy bitsy.........teeny weeny................little bitty............" GOD!!

Excuse me but whatever happened to "For God so loved the WORLD" and "love your neighbor as yourself" and "do unto (ALL) others as you would have them do unto you" and "what you did for the LEAST of these you did for ME!"? Huh?

These are big, bold, broad statements.  If you go through the Bible, Qu'ran, Torah, because I'm going to focus on the Big Three/One God theologies right now, this Divine Being is pretty huge and it created THE WHOLE UNIVERSE and EVERYTHING in it.  So why do people who follow these three doctrines work so hard to put this HOLY CREATOR into smaller and smaller boxes every day?

It hit me a couple of days ago when I read about pending legislation in Uganda to execute gays and lesbians.  It caused another thought to rise up in me that I had considered a few weeks back...there are still parts of this country where interracial marriage is illegal.  Although we've gotten a little less barbaric in the past fifty years it was not uncommon for one or both members of an interracial couple to be murdered for marrying the person they loved.  Heck, they would be beaten or killed just for walking down the street hand in hand.

The thought broadened to the resurgence of Neo-Nazism in this country.  Although the KKK seems to be "so last year", there are still way too many (any more than zero) hate groups in the U.S. who will not stop short of violence against Jews, queers, non-Caucasians, non-WASPs and the really alarming part is that they can justify this stuff with "Christian" scripture.  WHAT?

In the Old Testament we get those "10 Rules for healthy living"...all of us Judeo-Christian kids had them memorized by the time we were eight.  There is one in particular though that mankind seems to have this constant habit of adding an "if" or a "but" to...the "thou shall not kill" one.  Yeah, that one.  Now add to that this train of thought I'm on right now..."God", "Goddess", "Great Spirit", etc.- whatever you call that enormous Divine Universal Creating and Ruling Power is just that....HUUUUGE!!!  And it's benevolent.  It really wants us to "get it".  It loves us.  So sometimes it sends signs to show us the way.  We usually do a pretty good job of ignoring those signs....things like the Holocaust to remind us that hate is just not part of the plan.  "God" created each and every one of us so who are we to say that any race, religion, culture, sexuality or socio-economic status is any better or worse that the other?  I love how I hear "fundies" declaring how God is the one true judge and yet they are the first to start judging everyone that doesn't go to their church. hmmmm

Last night I read a lovely spew of hate in, of all places that bastion of intelligent journalism, The Wall Street Journal.  The author, Peggy Noonan, posted the question at the end of "Have we become a more vulgar country?".  Now to put this in context, the entire article (which you can read here if you have a strong constitution "The Adam Lambert problem" ) Ms. Noonan is trying to take the focus off the current economic problems in this country and place all of our woes on the shoulders of a 27 year old rising pop star based on an event that occured weeks ago.  I found myself at first enraged and then utterly  amused by the ignorance of this "journalist".  If we want to talk vulgar let's go back to those "kinder, gentler times of the 40's and 50's that she compares the present to.  Signs still hung in restaurants, pubic transporation and restrooms declaring "Whites Only".  Schools were still segragated.  Girls who got pregnant out of wedlock were disowned by their families resulting in runaways or worse...suicide.  Catholics where not allowed to run for the presidency.  Jews tended to keep to themselves and try to remain out of the public eye, still more than a little gunshy after the Holocaust. And women were shamed out of the workplace and back into the home "where they belonged" when the troops returned from the war.  But these things were not "vulgar"?  I beg to differ.

"Red and yellow, black and white.  They are precious in His sight.  Jesus love the little children of the world."  And he still loves us even when we are big, old, rich, poor, queer, Jew, Muslim, Buddhist, fat, skinny, boy or girl children.  I always loved that shirt that said "I'm OK.  God don't make junk!"  There are lots of people in this world that I don't like but I have to love them.  Sometimes that love means putting you in rehab, a mental institution or jail.  Sometimes that love means telling you "no" or "wait".  And sometimes that love means taking that extra $10 I just came into and buying a meal for a runaway teenager.  So people?  Quit trying to justify your hate, fear and anger by blaming it on The Divine...it just brings that Being down below your level and it's no longer a Sacred Creator but a little piss-ant under your shoe.  You can't put God in a box.  And you can't deny that He/She/It loves the Jew sitting next to you on the bus, the East Indian that sold you your last six-pack, the homeless kid that asked you for a buck or the gay man who does your hair nor can you say that any of these people have less of a right to walk this planet than you do.