Wisconsin Sikhs Attacked

If you've kept up with breaking news, you know that Sunday in Wisconsin, a gunman attacked worshipers at a Sikh temple. When things like this happen to Copts in Egypt, I prefer not to talk about it:

"He was oppressed and He was afflicted,
Yet He opened not His mouth;
He was led as a lamb to the slaughter,
And as a sheep before its shearers is silent,
So He opened not His mouth."
Isaiah 53:7

But when it happens to other faiths, especially here in the United States, a girl can't help but speak her mind.

I am grateful that I live in a nation where religious freedom is upheld as one of the highest ideals. Although we all know the old story about the pilgrims coming to this wilderness to escape persecution, we also know that they were highly intolerant of other faiths. This nation has always felt a little funny about newcomers, especially those who are brand new or look different. But the framers of the Constitution intended this to be a safe haven for all people.

Many people in this world live with attitudes of hatred or disgust, but it's rare for people to act on these feelings in large violent gestures. They might be rude to a Hispanic customer, make jokes about how the Chinese talk, or even try to rob the local foreigner-owned gas station, but to grab a gun and take away a life... that takes a kind of mental snap.

There is a cultural undercurrent, often directly related to patriotism, that loves to create an "other" and blame everything on it. In order to rally the team, we have to drag out some other mascot to boo. Thirty years ago it was the U.S.S.R, these days it's China. This is the butterfly effect. Storm force winds of hate crashing about began in childhood, in the home, when someone's mom or dad started whispering nasty things about "those people."

What about your home? What kind of example are you setting? What kinds of things do you say about people of other faiths, ethnicities, nationalities, races, etc.? When you see this in the news, don't say to yourself, "How could he?!"... Instead say, "How could I?"

What will you pass on to your children? Fear and hate? Jokes about "those people"? Put downs about women or about men or about "Red Brown Yellow Black & White" as the song goes? Why? You can't find patriotism and self-esteem in what you do right, instead of what others do "wrong"? (Yes, you can.)

"And the King will answer and say to them, 'Assuredly, I say to you, inasmuch as you did it to one of the least of these My brethren, you did it to Me.'" Matthew 25:40