Fumbling Towards Tolerance

It has been several days since my last entry. I have often thought of things to blog about, but seldom seemed to have the time to put my thoughts into words. Since Christmas, things here have been odd. I have had weeks of paranoia, followed by weeks of great joy, followed by weeks of utter disbelief. But these are normal for me, usually. In the end, the better days have won out. Partly, this is due to my return to an exercise regime. That always makes my mood much better. In fact, this afternoon I ran four miles and burned over 1000 calories. I am determined to lose the rest of the weight I need to lose. I am determined to be sexier at 36 than I was at 26 (which would not be difficult at all).

This weekend has been one of the most child-friendly weekends we have had in a while. Friday, we took the girls out of school early and drove to Destin to see the Hannah Montana movie. I was the only man there. I guess I love my girls more than most daddies. We had a good time, with one major exception. We did not change Madeline's diaper before we got out of the van in Destin (about an hour from home) and, unbeknownst to me, she had wet through her clothes and onto my shirt and dry-clean only jacket. She had a change of clothes. I was not so lucky. I had to go to the restroom, clean my shirt and jacket, and dry off using the hand dryer. Fun. But, all was made better since we stopped for dinner at P. F. Chang's in Sandestin on the way home.

Saturday, we made our weekly trip to Target. We are boring. Sunday, after church, and after my "run" we took the girls to the Lynn Haven park. We decided not to go to the part that has the very lifelike depictions of human anatomy on the playground equipment. It really is a nice park, it is a wonder they have not done something about the anatomy lesson.

While we were at the park, Emma got to play with one of her classmates, who just happens to be Muslim. Although we live in a fairly out of the way place, we have a large Muslim population here. Most of our doctors are Muslim, many from Pakistan. I don't really remember ever coming into direct contact with Muslims until I moved to Dallas when I was 22 and lived next door to a Muslim couple. We lived about a mile or so from the largest mosque in the Dallas area and could hear the call to prayer some of the time. Once we moved to Waxahachie, we never really saw any Muslims, not really. Then we moved to the boondocks of northwest Florida and they are everywhere.

I cannot say how good I feel that my daughter has befriended a girl who is "different." Although she does not wear one to school, she did have a head covering on today. But Emma did not seem to think anything of this. They played and had a good time being girls. Nothing else. I know that one day she will be much more tolerant than I ever was as a child (or am now) because she has come into contact with other cultures and is not afraid of them. I have talked about the struggles of multiculturalism, but when we do not know any different, the struggle seems to evaporate. And isn't it amazing how more fearful we become as we age? Children tend to look at the things that are similar (okay, maybe not at first, but they sure get there quicker than adults do), rather than spending too much time on the things that make us different.

Last week I saw another protest by fundamentalist Christians in front of a clinic that provides DNA service; not an abortion clinic, mind you, just a walk-in clinic. They had their hateful signs about people going to hell and all that good stuff. I must admit I get a surge of adrenaline when I see these people, but this is usually followed by such a strong sense of remorse. I won't labor over this, but I am glad that my children will never know that type of intolerance.

Tolerance gets a bad rap because evangelicals tend to think that tolerance is just another way to say we accept everything the "heatens" do. I think this is just a cop out for not trying to understand people of divergent beliefs or of no belief system. I think it is a way to say "I am so holy because I know the truth." But how often does knowing that truth seem to be enough? Just living "holy" and keeping ourselves from the "world" is considered living a godly life. I am willing to admit that I do not always live the faith out as I should, and maybe, that is worse than having a divergent belief system or only a moral system. I wonder who is the goat and who is the sheep?

I heard a professor talking about one class that she used to teach in which students had to choose a religion to discuss. She said that they always wanted to choose Islam, because they have five major beliefs and it is easy to explain. Christians always had a hard time putting their faith into easily digestible words. This is scary to me, but I have heard this much of my adult life. Evangelicals know what they don't believe in, but what they do believe is trickier. You know, the old "we don't drink and we don't chew and we don't go with those who do."

Maybe, we have distorted the message of Jesus so much that even the "chosen" don't really know what he said. I had a parishioner come into my office and say that they used to believe something very strongly, but then they started really studying it and reading what the Bible has to say about it and they realized that it was not true. And this was a lifelong believer, who was sincere in her faith.

I guess I just want to get back to the basics of what Jesus had to say and what the authors of the New Testament thought important enough to write about, and be done with it. Well, maybe not that part about women being silent in church, or being saved through childbirth, or slaves being submissive to their masters. I'm afraid some of these folks who wrote the Scriptures were people, and not very tolerant at that.