In April of 2010, I witnessed firsthand the pain and sorrow that comes with losing your voice. John had been in treatment for throat cancer for about a month and the radiation treatment burned his mouth and throat gradually making it more and more painful to talk. As we'd been married for 22 years, we could could communicate most things by gestures and looks (all you long-married couples know what I'm talking about!). But on Easter Sunday, when the congregation stood and began to sing , John was silent. I sang the first verse along with the congregation, but the knowledge of why John was not singing, that he was silenced, hit me like a tsunami and I began to struggle to hold back the tears on what was supposed to be a joyful Christian celebration.
Cancer had rendered by husband's voice mute.
Since November, I too have been struggling to find my voice. My written voice. The sometimes funny, sometimes insightful, almost-always positive voice that I've used in this blog and in essays or other writings, has felt silenced. And before you think to yourself, that it's all because I'm not accepting the results of the election and you believe that's all I need to do and "get over it because you've had to deal with a President you didn't like or respect for the past eight years" (which is a sentiment that I've heard more than a few times) - I will say simply that the silence I feel is not about the fact that our President-elect is Mr. Trump but something else. I am shocked that he is our President elect and I believe that most people (even those that have been Republicans their entire lives) are also shocked. I even think that Lincoln, the father of the party, may have died again - this time of shock!
I have felt silenced by my fellow Christians and by those wanting to build walls. I have felt silenced by a cancer- an ugly disease threatening to kill the very foundations of our country and forever keep us fighting one another than for each other. Because, for me, that is really how it feels - we are no longer the united States of America, one nation under God.
I feel silenced because of what the election says about our country. I have felt silenced by a cancer I see growing in my country. This Pollyanna, thought we were better than we behaved on the way to election day and have been behaving since November 8. I thought our differences were what made us a great nation; we are a nation of people from many nations and it's something in which we had great pride. The inscription on the statue of Liberty that reads, in part:
“Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”
The poem by Emma Lazarus, 'New Colossus', has been read at many events celebrating our national heritage since it was put on the base of the statue in the late 1800s. But Trump's campaign rhetoric about building walls and denying refugees (especially Muslims) appeared to open the door to an ugly side of the country I did not know existed. It has sanctioned an "us vs. them" mentality that I find incredibly reminiscent of the hatred and discrimination of our nation at our worst times; slavery, the KuKluxKlan, the internment camps for Japanese Americans during WWII are a few that come to mind.
And this anti-immigrant mentality comes at the same time that hundreds of thousands are being bombed out of their homes in parts of Syria by the very government that is supposed to be protecting them. It comes at a time when there are people whose lives are at risk in the Congo, Nigeria, Mali, Sudan ...
Check out this site to put the suffering in perspective http://www.dw.com/en/the-worlds-10-worst-conflicts/g-17454987
Yet when this need for refuge is discussed, the fear mongers talk about the real threat of terrorists. I won't disagree that the threat is real, but the greater threat is not offering refuge to the hundreds of thousands of refugees who cannot go home because there is no home to go to or cannot come here because we fear doing what is right because of all that is wrong.
I also feel silenced because as a Christian, I do not see that we as a nation are acting much like Christians. I see many Christians these days acting more like the Pharisees that crucified Christ - ready to judge others instead of offering to love others. When many Christians and Christian organizations endorsed a candidate that has shown unChristian-like behaviors like lying, cheating, stealing, promiscuity and greed because of the future selection of Supreme Court Justices that can overturn Roe v. Wade, I am disgusted and ashamed. (I won't debate the abortion issue here) Really? Really? We often feel like Christianity is on trial by a culture that doesn't support our values - what does this endorsement of this candidate and his election say about our values now?
We talk about the world being at war with our faith - what ammunition did we give those worldly warriors?
I have signed the Matthew 25 pledge from Sojourners. It is a devotional to guide me to focusing on what Jesus wanted us to do in this world- to take care of its most vulnerable. By taking His lead, I hope to be a positive example of Christianity and to lead others to Him. Check it out:
Matthew 25
Just by writing this and publishing it (I've been writing and not publishing), I feel my voice coming back. Slowly, I will find the humor. I pray I find the humor. I need to find the humor.
Cancer had rendered by husband's voice mute.
Since November, I too have been struggling to find my voice. My written voice. The sometimes funny, sometimes insightful, almost-always positive voice that I've used in this blog and in essays or other writings, has felt silenced. And before you think to yourself, that it's all because I'm not accepting the results of the election and you believe that's all I need to do and "get over it because you've had to deal with a President you didn't like or respect for the past eight years" (which is a sentiment that I've heard more than a few times) - I will say simply that the silence I feel is not about the fact that our President-elect is Mr. Trump but something else. I am shocked that he is our President elect and I believe that most people (even those that have been Republicans their entire lives) are also shocked. I even think that Lincoln, the father of the party, may have died again - this time of shock!
I have felt silenced by my fellow Christians and by those wanting to build walls. I have felt silenced by a cancer- an ugly disease threatening to kill the very foundations of our country and forever keep us fighting one another than for each other. Because, for me, that is really how it feels - we are no longer the united States of America, one nation under God.
I feel silenced because of what the election says about our country. I have felt silenced by a cancer I see growing in my country. This Pollyanna, thought we were better than we behaved on the way to election day and have been behaving since November 8. I thought our differences were what made us a great nation; we are a nation of people from many nations and it's something in which we had great pride. The inscription on the statue of Liberty that reads, in part:
“Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”
The poem by Emma Lazarus, 'New Colossus', has been read at many events celebrating our national heritage since it was put on the base of the statue in the late 1800s. But Trump's campaign rhetoric about building walls and denying refugees (especially Muslims) appeared to open the door to an ugly side of the country I did not know existed. It has sanctioned an "us vs. them" mentality that I find incredibly reminiscent of the hatred and discrimination of our nation at our worst times; slavery, the KuKluxKlan, the internment camps for Japanese Americans during WWII are a few that come to mind.
And this anti-immigrant mentality comes at the same time that hundreds of thousands are being bombed out of their homes in parts of Syria by the very government that is supposed to be protecting them. It comes at a time when there are people whose lives are at risk in the Congo, Nigeria, Mali, Sudan ...
Check out this site to put the suffering in perspective http://www.dw.com/en/the-worlds-10-worst-conflicts/g-17454987
Yet when this need for refuge is discussed, the fear mongers talk about the real threat of terrorists. I won't disagree that the threat is real, but the greater threat is not offering refuge to the hundreds of thousands of refugees who cannot go home because there is no home to go to or cannot come here because we fear doing what is right because of all that is wrong.
I also feel silenced because as a Christian, I do not see that we as a nation are acting much like Christians. I see many Christians these days acting more like the Pharisees that crucified Christ - ready to judge others instead of offering to love others. When many Christians and Christian organizations endorsed a candidate that has shown unChristian-like behaviors like lying, cheating, stealing, promiscuity and greed because of the future selection of Supreme Court Justices that can overturn Roe v. Wade, I am disgusted and ashamed. (I won't debate the abortion issue here) Really? Really? We often feel like Christianity is on trial by a culture that doesn't support our values - what does this endorsement of this candidate and his election say about our values now?
We talk about the world being at war with our faith - what ammunition did we give those worldly warriors?
I have signed the Matthew 25 pledge from Sojourners. It is a devotional to guide me to focusing on what Jesus wanted us to do in this world- to take care of its most vulnerable. By taking His lead, I hope to be a positive example of Christianity and to lead others to Him. Check it out:
Matthew 25
Just by writing this and publishing it (I've been writing and not publishing), I feel my voice coming back. Slowly, I will find the humor. I pray I find the humor. I need to find the humor.
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