Dear God

I have been thinking about religion and church a lot lately. I have sort of had to because of events that have been occurring at my own little house of worship.

A person's spiritual beliefs are a funny, funny thing. While I deeply love talking politics, and frankly even religion (although I am so far from an expert I daily await God's intervention via lightening bolt), I do occasionally find myself longing for the days when it wasn't considered polite to discuss either. Of course, then I wouldn't be left with much to talk about. All things considered, some may welcome that silence as well.

But religion. I guess I should say that it is my belief that religion and spirituality are really two separate things. Having grown up Presbyterian, church was an assumption, something I put little thought or effort into. It also didn't exactly dictate much in my life short of where I might be on a Sunday morning. What little interest I had was easy to lose in my teens and during college. It helped that I went to a small, then-Southern Baptist affiliated school that liked to keep boys on one side of campus and girls on another. God forbid we mingle. THINGS might happen.

During these formative years, when my opinions began to blossom I came to more and more see religion as bad and spirituality as good. To this day, I can name more individuals that I consider to be in possession of a true sense of spirituality who probably haven't set foot in a church in years, then I can people who loudly and publicly promote their religion and worship every week.

Maybe this is the subconscious Presbyterian in me, but I strongly hold with the idea of good works. I want no part of a God that will overlook the lifetime 

I have spent, the good and bad I have done, for one last minute giving over of my soul, no matter how heartfelt it may be. I don't consider myself saved, nor do I aspire to be. Instead I hope that everyday I am doing something, no matter how small, that makes me a better person and does something good for someone else in some way.

I didn't mean for this to turn into Broad's personal path to God (but if you are interested, I can whip together some sort of kit for the nominal fee of $19.99). But what does puzzle me greatly is how so many people can tout their religion, their beliefs, their "what would Jesus do"-ness (by the way, that drives me over the brink, if even one tenth of the world REALLY did things the way Jesus would have, our planet would not be on the brink of disaster either physically or economically, women would not be beaten, children would not abandoned, etc. you get my drift) and yet act so callously toward one another.

Sometimes a church can feel like a bad day in high school all over again. One faction ganging up on another. One group with an agenda and many caught, unknowingly in the cross hairs. None of which are even remotely in the vein of "what Jesus would do."

I don't know what the answer is, but it makes me wonder if the people I know who are spiritual aren't on a better track than those who are religious.

Nature vs. Nurture

News items like the following make my day, especially because they shoot giant holes in the theories of fundamentalists and their ilk who are so opposed to things like gay marriage and gays being parents.

Two gay penguins in a zoo in China had been removed from the communal pen for stealing other penguins eggs and trying to hatch them. Visitors protested and the zoo keepers decided to give the pair eggs from an inexperienced penguin mother to hatch. Apparently the two male penguins have done a great job. For those of you who aren't aware, the male penguins are the ones in charge of caring for the eggs until they are hatched. Yeah for stay at home penguin dads!!

Now of course, I don't know how the zoo came to the conclusion the penguins were in fact gay, I can only assume it is because they weren't mingling with the ladies as they should be, wink, wink. Regardless, these two dudes still had the urge to follow their paternal duties though and guard a penguin egg.

But people choose to be gay, God didn't make them that way at all . . .

Holy Shit

Please tell me this scares everyone as much as it does me. My eyes are still bugging.

Huckabee has explained his support of Constitutional amendments banning abortion and same-sex marriage as being an easier change to make than changing "the word of the living God." He goes on to say that it is easier to amend the Constitution to reflect God's standards than it is to change God's standards.

Alrighty then. Listen, I do have my own personal, religious beliefs. But whether or not I believe in a higher power, be it God, Allah or the ancient Druid tree in my back yard, this is not what America was founded on. We were trying to ESCAPE religious persecution. Our founding fathers wanted to SEPARATE church and state.

Do we all need a refresher course on the Constitution? Perhaps a civics class needs to become required in school again?

I have actually had some slightly warm, somewhat fuzzy thoughts about Mike Huckabee, at least so far as I am capable of for a Republican. But this is scary, scary stuff. Americans need to think long and hard about what is important to them in terms of the future of our country. Do we want to live in a place where the government tells us how to live and what to do with our bodies, our free time and our lives? Or do we want to continue to have the self-determination that men like Jefferson and Madison believed would make our nation great (and has)?