I was playing at a retirement facility when I saw this poster on the elevator. I smiled at the humor used to help someone realize that they were being a bigot. Apparently that person took down a flyer promoting a pride parade. I can only guess that the person who did so, objected to the idea on religious grounds. I loved the fact that faith was being used to challenge that person's action. The person who took down the poster is intolerant of others.
By now, all of us are probably tired, tired, tired of those who are intolerant. That the person who runs the Department of Defense has reduced the chaplaincy of the military to certain Christian faiths is a clear example. The Supreme Court striking down the Voting Rights Act is another clear example. The Chief Justice believes we are now in a color-blind world. How wrong. We can see from the rabid gerrymandering the intolerance of black and brown voters. The small act by an individual on a retirement home elevator shows that intolerance is even more dangerous when coupled with arrogance.
The arrogance is simply that these people don't believe their actions have any consequence in this world or the next. It is a repudiation of true faith.
If one is a person of faith, one most likely believes that actions in this life will be brought up in the next. That is, if one believes in the next life, one believes that our actions on earth are to be judged.
What is clear to me is that these people do not think they will be judged. “Do Unto Others as You Would Have Them Do unto You” is not in their wheelhouse. It is self-idolatry, plain and simple.
Faith enables all of us to believe that if “love one another” we will have a fighting chance of entering the Kingdom of Heaven. But we are in an age when self-worship is a danger to us all. Such people are only intent on the here and now. We are all extras in their movie.
Resistance to such self-worship is not only important, but a moral obligation. Humanity has had to contend with it many times before, always popping up in one form or another. Intolerance, arrogance and self-worship are unmistakable in their aim to destroy decency, tolerance and that amazing gift of being able to see God in all of us.
People have had to die in order to maintain that gift. People are still dying due to those who do not wish to see God in all of us.
How we resist is through voting, living a life of love and tolerance, flooding darkness with joy through art and music and yes, reminding others that we believe there is accountability at the end of this life. That reminder is the resistance, and it can be achieved even with a little flyer on an elevator at a retirement home.
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