All are Welcome
One of the things I love about being on the outside of organized religion is that I no longer have to employ my church mental scanner to assess whether or not people I associate with will eventually fit into my group. Whether or not a person wants to watch RuPaul’s Drag Race, let their kids play video games, do a beach cleanup, or go to church with me, doesn’t matter.
I remember how disheartening it was to know that there was no longevity in friendships or even being acquaintances with anyone who wouldn’t convert and be just as interested and invested in my life-model as me. My church made it clear that we were not about casual church-going. This is not a country club, my pastor was fond of reminding us from the pulpit.
Social relations in my church were managed through the filter of evangelism. Evangelism necessitates making others like yourself, and if the evangelized doesn’t buy-in, then coexistence isn’t sustainable.
That’s a real bummer when it comes to unconditional love, acceptance, and general social cooperation. The tunnel-focused evangelizer is socially limited due to conversion requirements that make it impossible to welcome and accept the nonconforming.
Doing this blog has meant a return to social media for me. Social-Lite. I’m only on Facebook so far. I left social media five years ago when I could no longer hack the divisive and angry climate. Now that I’m back, not a lot has changed.
But here’s the thing, nothing changes until it changes.
And boy, do we have some change on our hands!
Now that we are engaged in a global science experiment in the Petri dish of COVID19, it’s interesting to observe how us humans are reacting inside this environment.
Some of us are reacting with panic, some with logic and pragmatism, some clinging more tightly than ever to their belief that their god will protect them and/or everyone else is getting what they deserve because this is the end-times, people!
No matter what, when we look at reality, we are all riding in this boat together. We can choose to go all Lord of the Flies, or we can cooperate. If we choose to cooperate, then we have to accept that what we individually hold to be true or not in our hearts and minds is not so important as taking physical action to help our fellow humans.
The choice I’m going to make, and that I hope all of us can make, is cooperation. Therefore, we must now ask ourselves: How can we be responsible, kind, and empathetic toward one another?
People who want to pray can do so. It makes the prayer-warrior feel better. In addition to those prayers, we can also offer to watch the neighbor’s kids so the parent can sustain the family. We can do grocery shopping for someone who might be high-risk to the virus. We can share our supplies. There are a lot of crafty Pinterest folks out there - what DIY ideas to you have for us?
Telecommuting and homeschooling are two things my family has been adopting for the last year so that ironically, we can board germy flying metal tubes and travel! We’re comfortable with that kind of lifestyle, but a lot of people aren’t.
I’ve been encouraged to see Facebook homeschooling friends offering ideas and resources to parents who suddenly find themselves wondering what the heck to do with their kids, and how will they keep learning?
Some of us are suddenly having to set up a full-on home office. Does anyone have extra tech gear they can loan, give, or sell for cheap? My husband needs an extra monitor, so we’re looking to community second-hand platforms to get what we need.
My point in all of this is to say that there’s something that a crisis does that forces us to set aside our disagreements and religious requirements to help each other out. We know this to be true. Wars, natural disasters, and economic crises have brought great resourcefulness, invention, and community cooperation.
I’m heartened to see the gorgeous flowers of care and empathy blooming amidst a brutal social media landscape. Clear-thinking people stepping up to do the thing that we all need the most: to help each other.
Being a human is our common denominator. Whether we have money or don’t, whether we have different philosophical or political beliefs, different skin color, religion, whether we’re legal or illegal immigrants, and all the other usual suspects that make us different from one another; we are all still human beings and the fact is, we need one another.
I’m going to see what I can do to help. It’s true that I need to think on it, I need to get resourceful, I need to make an effort. I’m in an incredibly privileged position during this time, but a good amount of my fellow humans aren’t.
My assumptions and beliefs about other people and their lives are not helpful right now.
From my former religious mindset, reaching out to people in the hopes to convert them would not be helpful. Conversion to a belief system would not bring groceries to the elderly neighbor’s door or take care of an acquaintance’s baby so the working parent can pay the bills. If conversion is the expected reward for helping out, then the bigger question is why allow a fellow human to suffer when simple untainted actions could alleviate their situation?
“Christian” outreach is not a requirement in our current situation. Pure and simple outreach will do.
Not having to relate to my fellow humans through the evangel filter is such a practical freedom and has the potential to result in beautifully honest experiences. Divisions can be repaired. Kindness derived from love, and not religion, with no ulterior motive, is the pureness of humans understanding each other and relating to one other with empathy.
All are welcome. Not just the ones we approve of or who accept our god. But all. It’s incredible to actually mean it. Let’s welcome each other into our worlds without imposing requirements other than unconditional kindness and cooperation.
At the time of this writing, March 16, 2020, it’s not an exaggeration to say our world is changing overnight. We have the chance to respond in a way that will see us all through and quite possibly bring us to working together to become better than we were before.
