I woke up this morning at 5:30, too early for me. And now I can’t go back to sleep. It’s amazing how the mind just gets rolling and can’t stop sometimes. I have no idea why, but I got thinking about emails and messages I have been receiving from people on my facebook and it stirred me up.
In the last two days I have received messages regarding petitions that have been made to rescind Morgantaler’s Order of Canada, and to rescind Obama’s status of President-Elect because of his alleged lack of proof of citizenship.
My first reaction was to sigh and roll my eyes. I was exasperated. And then I had to stop myself and ask why that my initial feeling. These are important issues to people. Especially since both of these men have something to answer for in terms of legalizing abortion. I fully believe that life is the most precious thing on earth and would never ever wish even for any life to be aborted. However, this was not the first thing that popped into my head.
I felt like this was just one more thing that Christians are up in arms about and flailing around. And I am tired of petitions! I feel the same way about the issue of gay marriage. I know this makes me a very liberal Christian but I just don’t care if gay people get married. I mean straight people aren’t staying married no one seems to be up in arms about that. Please hear me – I am not condoning a homosexual lifestyle nor do I condone abortion. And I’m not completely against petitions. It’s just not the real issue to me. The real issues begin long before laws are formed about these things.
We can be such a reactive people. Which speaks partly to our sense of justice: we see injustice and we stand up to defend the weak, which is good. Sometimes we defend an ideal, or just a tradition or a truly righteous way of living. But we have become known as a reactive people.
What if more of us banded together to be proactive? To create change before something becomes an issue of the day. In the issues I have already listed, I think the real problem is not the law, but it is our ability to love people and care for them through their hurts. If we took care of those who have been abused and walked out healing with them, we might have a lot less gay marriage to think about. If men in our world were Godly fathers who loved their children and respected women, would as many people turn to the same sex to fulfill what they have missed in the abuses of their childhoods? If we taught people that sex is about love and not a desperate desire to be wanted, if we made others feel a sense of belonging and worth from a young age, would we even have an issue of pre-marital sex? Can we walk through healing with a woman who has been raped? Are we willing to call people to a higher moral standard in their families and therefore prevent some of these things later in life? Or have we in the West become so individualistic that we fear confrontation of this kind?
Is it easier to sign a petition than to love our neighbor?
Not only that but instead of only making our voice known when we are angered at something, what if we started writing letters to our government leaders about what they are doing right? What if instead of (or as well as) a petition, we also wrote a thank you for our health care system, for our arts bursaries, for a police service that protects our homes and lives? Could this make us a more fair people? This plays out in all industries that we live in. I recently read a book called “Behind the Screen” about Christians in the film industry in Hollywood. I was strongly impacted by a paragraph in which they write:
“I sympathize with viewers who are disgusted with foul language and sexual content on many television shows…But viewers who never tune into NYPD Blue because of the controversy over its subject matter missed out on one of the most redemptive (and specifically Christian) story lines on TV. Think of the impact that could have been made if ABC and the producers of the show had received as many compliments for that story line as they did negative letters and threats of boycotts when the show first came on the air.”1
I want to make my voice known. Not only about injustice, but about justice. About what is going right in the world. I want the people in our government to know that I appreciate when they do something righteous and good. If they know that we wholeheartedly support some of the choices they make, then will they not continue to make choices in that same vein?
Maybe I could call it a “pro-tition”.
1. Behind the Screen: Hollywood Insiders on Faith, Film and Culture, Spencer Lewerenz and Barbara Nicolosi, Baker Books, 2005, p. 16
