Not Welcome

I have spent the last 7 hours perusing blogs. I had no idea how addictive this is. This is an excerpt from a post on Waiterrant.net. The man speaking is the author's grandfather, this is an address he gave at an antiabortion rally. “Did I ever tell you about the time my godfather spoke at an anti abortion rally?” I ask. “He was a priest wasn’t he?" “Yeah.” “What did he say?” Beth asks. “Well, it was an ecumenical rally and people were really whipped into a fire and brimstone frenzy,” I say, remembering. “You know, these loose women are sinners, they’re going to hell, etcetera.” “Man,” Beth breathes. “So it’s my godfather’s turn to speak…..” …..and shuffling into the pulpit, resplendent in his Byzantine vestments, my godfather looks over the top of his glasses upon the congregation. “I have heard many of you talking today about God’s punishment, His wrath. How you’re good Christians because you hate abortion. But, after listening to the people gathered here, I can’t help but notice that some of you harbor a vituperative attitude towards the very women you want to help.” People start shifting in their seats uncomfortably. “I know many of you, like me, are here because you want to defend the unborn. Some of you are motivated by the deepest conviction.” Another pause. “But some of you are here because you love to hate.” Shocked silence. “Are you here because you really want to help the unborn?” my godfather asks. “Have you taken an unwed mother into your home? Fed her? Cared for her baby? Or are you here because this is where your friends are? Are you here to indulge in a comforting sense of moral superiority? Smug in your certitude you’re not going to hell?” Everyone is listening now. “Let me tell you something about Hell,” my godfather says, “We know there’s a hell because Jesus said there’s one. But we don’t know if anyone’s actually in it.” My godfather lets that thought sink in. “What’s more,” he says, “Jesus never liked hypocrites. He once said, ‘They do not practice what they preach. They tie up heavy burdens and lay them on people’s shoulders, but will they lift a finger to move them? No! Every thing they do is done to attract attention!’” Now some of the congregants look angry. “Let me ask you something. Are you relieving these women of their burdens? Or are you adding to them with your self righteousness? Are you helping or hurting? Because if all of your fervor is directed towards feeling good about yourself, if it’s about getting attention, if its about how you’re better than someone else - YOU ARE WASTING GOD’S TIME!” A couple of people get up to leave. Undaunted my godfather continues. “The Lord has never been welcome in the house of the righteous and the certain. Instead He walks amidst the damaged and the confused. To Him, the one that is lost is a treasure beyond price. Who are we to judge these women? They are precious treasure. Love, not hatred, is what they need.” His words reverberate through the church. People are staring at the floor. Some shake their heads in disagreement. Others look thoughtful. “Remember, the mercy of God is radical and boundless,” my godfather says, “And I thank God everyday that He is more merciful than you or I will ever be.” My Godfather steps down from the pulpit. I don’t think he was invited back the next year... I can think of nothing more true than the statement, "The Lord has never been welcome in the house of the righteous and the certain. Instead He walks amidst the damaged and the confused." When I worked as a psych tech at the Utah State Hospital I worked on the youth unit with the teenage girls. Yeah, yeah, we all know adolescent girls are just plain crazy, anyway. These ones had some diagnoses attached. One of the more acute patients was a very sad little person. She was very psychotic and tried to kill me twice. I am not exaggerating. Once she ripped a picture frame out of it's bolts in the cinderblock and had an eight inch piece of wood from it in her hand before we got her down on the floor. I got up with a long red scrape along my throat and she earned some time in seclusion. About two weeks later, she managed to leave fingermarks on my neck for an hour after trying to prove that she was really truly feeling like choking someone to death and deserved to be punished. Nothing personal, I was just the closest neck. She also used to ask me to sing her Primary songs every night. And "Hero" by Mariah Carey. When she was behaving well I obliged. She liked "A Child's Prayer" a lot. I used to do it as a duet with one of the male techs. Her favorite was "I Heard Him Come". I always thought it was because of the line, "I wondered who would come into this place, where dead men walk, and where the dying talk of life before this curse upon them came." I didn't realize until after I quit that she wasn't LDS, and had only heard of those songs from the other girls and the church volunteers. I'm not really sure why she liked all the songs. I think she just liked to feel comfort after feeling all the horrific things her mind made up. I have a hard time with people hating other people for not being "righteous". I've seen it everywhere I've lived. I think that along with the "Families Are Forever" plaques and temple pictures that grace everyone's living rooms, there ought to be a posting of that quote. It ought to remind us of the true nature of God. It ought to make us find the courage to question things, to no be afraid to doubt and open ourselves up to the vulnerabilities of true faith. To become closer to Christ, we must admit that we are often among the damaged and confused. It seems to me that a lot of people feel that it is shameful to not posess a perfect knowledge of things. If you don't "Just Know", then you are obviously not working hard enough. People become afraid to admit that they don't know it all, and they aren't perfect. Out of that fear comes hate. We are deathly afraid to admit that we might have some of those same feelings as the "Sinners", that all our "knowledge" isn't really helping to change our little black thoughts. We cover up that fear with hatred for Those People. When God is so black and white that we feel we are 100% right all of the time, then we really have made our houses an unwelcome place for the Lord. Why would we need Him if we already know it all? Why would we need anything if we are RIGHT all the time? That patient's family was a little bit anti-Mormon because they felt that because they didn't believe in the Right things, people treated them like they were bad. That's why their kid was in a mental hospital, right? I don't know if anyone ever actually said that to their face, but I have to say that I've heard that sentiment expressed in so many words in my life. Fear is what drives it. It's hard to love other people without any fear, though. It's scary.