I am thankful for:

The simple things like food to eat, a place to live, and medical care.

The silly things like my friends making me laugh so hard I can’t breath.

The material things like have the luxury to own a camera, a computer, and not fear for money.

The spiritual things like living close enough to Walden Pond to be able to lose myself a few times a year and being able to engross myself in Sufi texts.

The intellectual things like my amazing professors and friends that challenge me.

The difficult things like getting sick or struggling with a class because they force me to try.

The sad things like the death of grandmother because life cannot be all joy and sometimes death is a mercy.

The happy things like going to the Ren Faire with my friends or talking to someone I lost contact with.

The crazy things like writing this huge paper that I don’t want to write but I have to!

Even the terrible things like fighting back against bigotry because I find new allies

I’m sure there is more but that’s enough for now. I have papers to write and dinners to plan. Best wishes to all of you other there in cyber-land!

There is always a “but”.

I chose to take this class at my school and I could have always filed out a large amount of paperwork, jumped through hoops, and maybe taken a similar class at a seminary an hour away that is geared for Unitarian Universalists. Since I chose not to do that then, more or less, I just have to accept that this is how this class is taught. Wait, what?

Did my professor just tell me, “love it or leave it”? I chose to stay in this school instead of going to a different school an hour away for one class so I have to just buck up and take it? Is she serious? I’m sure she is which is the part that worries me. I chose to take this class, yes, and I chose to take it at this school, yes (though I was told that getting a waiver to change core classes is almost unheard of), and I chose to sit quietly through abuse in said class, ye… wait NO.

The logic of this blows my mind. I chose to ride the subway everyday, does that I mean I also chose to be molested or mugged? No. If it happens I seek the authorities to have the problem addressed. If I work in a store and my manager spits in my face do I have to tolerate that? No. I go to his/her boss and report them. I don’t stop riding the subway or look for a new job (though these are options) just because something bad happens. I try to solve the problem!

I don’t say to myself, “well I got mugged. It’s my fault for riding the subway and not hiring a bodyguard”. I don’t say to myself, “my boss spit on me but I deserved that for working here.” Why then should I say, “my professor has slandered people close to me and expressed a belief in their lack of worth but that is what I get for taking this class here”? Why am I expected to avert my eyes?

Maybe I’m to sensitive. Maybe others are to insensitive. Either way I object to this logic, especially in a seminary. I am a minority, I know, but how often has the majority spoken up rightly? How often has the system of control ever acknowledged its problems? I go to a school that prides itself on it’s ethics and prophetic ministry yet when I dare say that we are narrow-minded when it comes to other religions I am hushed like a noisy child. They hold up their famous alumni, faculty, and whatnot with great relish, parading them around as exemplars of Christian morality and social reform.

Martin Luther King Jr! Howard Thurman! Anna Howard Shaw! We are proud of these reformers! They brought equality and justice to African-Americans and women and we should be proud of them but what would they say now? Is their justice and reform good because it was for Christians? Is that the only reason? Did MLK jr ever say he only wanted justice for those that agreed? Is that our new message at my school? I hope not but maybe it is.

Regardless I am not done. My school has to deal with me for another year and a half and I will continue to push back. I am not a Christian but I am not a bad person. My friends are not Christian and neither are they. My friends that are Christian are good people as well. We all are and until they stop telling me otherwise I will not hush and I will not be shushed. Christianity is torn between lifting up and tearing down.

So I would ask, Prof, do you want to help lift me up or try to hold me down?

Bigotry is amazing. It is profound and it is subtle. You can be blind to it even when you are immersed in it. In fact it is easiest to be blind when it is surrounding you because you simply stop looking for it. But why? Why do people stop looking? Stop worrying about it?

I spend a lot of time around Christians. I like Christians normally. (Hell I was one once.) But it has become apparent to me that there is great tolerance for what amounts to bigotry in even the highest of Christian communities. Today I had to listen a lecture that implied that a conversion from Christianity to paganism was a step-down. A falling away from “the truth” and something that is shameful. So bad is a conversion to paganism that it is a matter of shame for those given the duty of caring for that person’s religious upbringing.

Also today I had to sit through a reference to a Buddhist as “otherwise a good person”. Otherwise a good person? Buddhism is akin to what then? Being an alcoholic or some other disappointing habit? Having pre-marital sex? Or some other sin that could be changed to make them “completely” good?

This is nothing more than polite bigotry and it makes me furious. And yet I am forced to sit through it, day in and day out. I’m tired of it. I spoke up today and we’ll see how that works out. Who knows, maybe I’ll be punished for it maybe rewarded.

So maybe that rage was worth something. I suppose we’ll see.