I always take the day after Easter off, and this past Monday we went to Longwood Gardens, located near the PA border with Delaware. It is a place of beauty and past opulence, and we have been members there for a number of years. It was a chilly but sunny day, and as we walked around, we noticed the variety of people enjoying the day; families of all kinds taking in the diversity of nature. My first thought was that God is so good – all of nature is filled with diverse colors, shapes, and sizes. Every type of flower shows itself in different ways, just like people. There were people of different colors – Amish families – Hasidic Jewish families – people speaking different languages and dialects. It was the way we thought life should be; a beautiful setting filled with every kind of person you could imagine. Then, at almost the same time, my wife and I had the same thought – some of these people live with constant threats that we could not imagine. And it made both of us sad for them. It also made us appreciate their courage.
People are in danger in their homelands, like the people of Iran – people are facing rising hatred, like Jews and Muslims everywhere. People who don’t speak English in America are at risk of deportation – not looking or “seeming” heterosexual makes you a target of violence. It seems that there are too many people living in fear, and the wrongness of that is unsettling, or, at least, it should be. As a person with all the privilege in the world, I don’t even think about these kinds of constant threats; but if I was honest about it, I would also admit that I am at some risk too, because I speak out against things our government is doing that I believe are wrong. Wearing a collar at a public protest has become an act of rebellion. Too many of us have targets on our backs, and that feels perverse. Instead of feeling good about our freedoms, we are living in fear that they are slowly being taken away. Too many of us live with the constant threat of democracy in peril.
I want to live in a world where I can smile at a family who looks different from me and not be worried that they are afraid of me. I want to be able to go to a restaurant and not worry that they might be raided by ICE. None of us, in a free society, should be worried that our rights will be taken from us because we voice our dissent. None of us should live in constant threat because of the color of our skin or our religious practices. And yet, here we are, worried that what we say or wear or believe is being used against us. This is how democracy dies. This is how freedom is lost. We are better than that.
Prayer – O God, forgive us for allowing fear to control us – help us to find a way to lift up equality and freedom every day. Amen.
Today’s art is “I shall not live in fear” by Peter Terrin.