I feel as though we are always trying to draw a line between right and wrong, black and white: With every situation, we have a clear calling to promote some people to being "in the right" while we punish others to being "in the wrong". We turn these boundaries into the boundary between those who deserve to be loved and those who don't. There are saints and sinners, despite the overarching love for everyone that Jesus preached.
I caught a couple making out within the first like month of school-a scene that even the teacher who has been there for nineteen years has never caught. (beginners luck, right?) I reported the incident and filled out my first discipline referral. I was pretty proud of myself because the new teacher was cracking the whip and that's what we are supposed to do, right? Just when I thought the process was done, the team was confronted by the principal in charge of discipline, begging for a black and white line. Apparently P.D.A isn't written up firmly in the handbook and so we needed a solid line that was crossed-where hands were, what other body parts were involved, position of each body and a lot more details than I had ever paid attention to. (clearly, I was thinking...EWWW, gross, runaway)
Now, that's a rather humorous take on black and white; moral and immoral; right and wrong, but we, as a nation, as Christians, are consumed with this concept and it honestly disgusts me.
We are absolutely obsessed with gay rights and whether or not they should be allowed. We are all called to love, why would we not allow people to do that? Sure, you could argue what the Bible says, but the Bible also says to not use God's name in vain, to grow angry, to commit adultery, to lie and a list of other common occurrences, but you don't see those flooding the news.We draw a line that homosexuals, even those who lovely deeply and truly don't deserve to be loved when heterosexuals, even those who abuse and cheat do deserve love.
As soon as there is an act of violence, we jump on the blaming train. We blame the person who was holding the weapon, the weapon itself, the surrounding people who froze instead of doing as they were trained. Don't get me wrong, I'm not trying to say that people responsible for violence are in the right, but their actions don't mean that they are not deserving of love...sometimes they are the very ones who are begging for more love. I've known both a brutal murderer and a young man who had a plan to end the school and I can hardly say that neither of these men deserve love while the bully who uses his words does.
Unfortunately, I came from a school cooperation that lost far too many students in just a few years. Students were lost for a variety of reasons-birth defects, disease, suicide, car accidents, drugs, alcohol and more. The sickening part is how people mourned these losses-the "innocent" deaths were swooned over while tears fell for days while those "guilty" deaths were judged and nudged away, rumored and moved on from. Each of these students were far too young to be dead, yet only a portion were nominated as such. We declared only some of the families to be worthy of being consoled and held and love while the others should be shunned and talked about like the deaths were somehow their faults.
I have a student whom I can't say much about other than they stole my heart with their story within the first couple of days of class. This student is known for discipline problems both in and out of the school building. So many people have written them off because of these outbursts and have thus sentenced them homeless and unlovable. What is to say that the student who can't focus on school because their basic needs aren't being met doesn't deserve to be loved beyond what we are required while the straight A, star athlete deserves all the praise in the world?
A dear friend of mine was recently put into jail for a crime that shocked me and a friend who is in a relationship that many would scorn. People would immediately jump on the bandwagon of right and wrong, loved and unlovable upon hearing these stories in depth and it infuriates me. These are two people whom I love and respect. We all sin and we all make mistakes; yet as soon as we hear of someone who has made slipped up in an area that we have nominated a BIG one, we jump to assumptions, we accuse, we stereotype and we decide that they are unworthy of love, yet use their actions to promote ourselves on the love latter.
This is definitely a scatter-brained post, judge me if you want, but it's the way I get when I get frustrated. I don't necessarily think in full thoughts and sentences...just ideas and I know the idea that is bugging me right now is we as Americans, as Christians, as Middle-Class Citizens, use everything we can to promote ourselves while demanding others be undeserving of love.
Please take this as a reminder and live in love...love for all people...not just whom you see as worthy of it because if we were honest, someone probably has you on their list as unlovable.
<3
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