My in-laws visited for a few days recently. They are snowbirds. That is, they spend several winter months in Florida in their motorhome and then return to Vermont for the remainder of the year. So they were visiting on their way back north. My mother-in-law (LightMIL) recently marked her 70th birthday, so we had a celebration with her while they were here.
We did this by taking her on a lunch cruise of the Potomac River to see the cherry blossoms.
The boat docks at a pier in southwest DC. There’s only a very tiny little bit of DC that is southwest and this pier is in it. So is Fort McNair … the location of the National War College. It takes about an hour to get there from here, no matter how you cut it. We spent a fair portion of that hour in some heavy traffic going and coming. I entertain myself by reading bumperstickers and vanity plates when I’m in traffic. Especially here in the DC area, where I’m familiar with the surroundings (i.e. there’s not much interesting to look at).
I saw the usual number of intolerant bumper stickers. Things like “You can’t be both Catholic and Pro-life.” “Put the Christ back in Christmas.” “Man’s way leads to a hopeless end! God’s way leads to an endless hope!” I reflected, as I often do when I see these bumper stickers, with no little resentment and aggravation, what do the drivers of such cars hope to gain by bearing these stickers? To me (and it is possible that I’m wrong) these stickers seem arrogant, harsh, and hubristic. I don’t mean to pick on the Catholic stance on abortion in this instance, because there are many anti-abortion stickers out there. But all of them suppose that the bearer has thought through the issue most thoroughly, and you, dear reader of the bumper, have not. If you would simply accept the veracity of the sound-bite on the bumper you will be issued into a new level of truth and righteousness.
They also make me think of the nearly constant refrain that this is a “Christian nation.” Keep “under God,” in the Pledge of Allegiance … it’s very important. We must institute or keep prayer in our public schools; letting it go has been the downfall of our whole way of life. Or has it? Are we really a Christian nation? What would that really look like? Who would decide which brand of Christianity we would follow as a so-called Christian nation?
I think about those things. Because some versions of Christianity have a lot of rules. Some have much fewer. Who would decide? Typically the many rules version of a religion is the one that takes charge in a country, when there is a country ruled by religion. There was a time (back when I was in college studying anthropology) when I could tell you the reason for this. Now, I simply understand that it happens and grieve it. I was thinking about this as well the other night as I read toward the end of A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khalid Hosseini. (warning … spoiler alert)
A main character has killed her abusive husband. He had raped her, beaten her, withheld food and water, thrown her around like a rag doll and treated her worse than most of us treat our household pets for nearly 20 years. She killed him as he throttled her best and only friend. Killing her husband was an act in defense of another human being’s life, albeit a woman. What follows here is her sentencing by a Taliban court in Kabul:
“It does not frighten me to leave this life that my only son left five years ago, this life that insists we bear sorrow upon sorrow long after we can bear no more. No, I believe I shall gladly take my leave when the time comes.”
“What frightens me, hamshira, is the day God summons me before Him and asks, Why did you not do as I said, Mullah? Why did you not obey my laws? How shall I explain to Him, hamshira? What will be my defense for not heeding His commands? All I can do all any of us can do, in the time we are granted, is to go on abiding by the lsaws He has set for us. The clearer I see my end, hamshira, nearer I am to my day of reckoning, the more determined I grow to carry out His word. However painful it may prove.”
He shifted on his cushion and winced.
“I believe you when you say that your husband was a man of disagreeable temperament,” he resumed, fixing Mariam with his bespectacled eyes, his gaze both stern and compassionate. “But I cannot help but be disturbed by the brutality of your action, hamshira. I am troubled by what you have done; I am troubled that his little boy was crying for him upstairs when you did it.
“I am tired and dying, and I want to be merciful. I want to forgive you. But when God summons me and says, But it wasn’t for you to forgive, Mullah, what shall I say?”
His companions [2 other judges] nodded and looked at him with admiration.
“Something tells me you are not a wicked woman, hamshira. But you have done a wicked thing. And you must pay for this thing you have done. Shari’a is not vague on this matter. It says I must send you where I will soon join you myself.
“Do you understand, hamshira?”
Mariam looked down at her hands. She said she did.
I know a lot of people will read this and think things like well … that’s the Muslims … we Christians aren’t like that. We have grace, after all. Do we? How do you think this situation might have played out in a Christian court? I’m not certain it would have looked any different.
I ‘m glad we don’t live in a “Christian nation” but one that is guided by our First Amendment. A nation where Jews and Christians and Muslims and Hindus and Flying Spaghetti Monsters are all equal under the law. The idea of becoming a Christian nation frightens me, quite frankly. While I want to know that those who lead us have thought through their personal issues of faith, I also want them to be open and welcoming to members of other faiths. Thinking that one has all the answers to questions that haven’t been asked has no place in the government of an empire.
