July 11

Thank God for friends. Yeah, God, I guess. What is God though? Seems to me that none of the ‘religions’ really know. It is often true that wearing a green shirt or a funny hat on Thursday makes you a part of somebody’s idea of God.

I am made very sad by the way everyone disavows their religion and its precepts when it comes to whichever group their leaders decide to hate. Oh, yes. The leaders change up who to hate and how much over time. Once, Anabaptists were drowned in the canals in The Netherlands. They were drowned or burned at the stake because they didn’t believe or think as the church said they should. The church that said people should be drowned was itself considered renegade by the Pope.

Did the same Jesus that appears, that people hide behind, EVER say ‘Death to the others!’ Nah, I thought not. It isn’t in Torah, not in Quran, not in the bible. The folks in the far east didn’t get a chance to meet the man but their books and chants and incense don’t provide any roadmap for allowing us to kill each other, either. The folks who thump the lectern on Sunday or Saturday or demand that we kneel, turn east and pray fifty times a day are the ones — the guilty parties.

I wish it were true that the sandaled one was going to come back and slap some sense into us. We can hope. I say this as a member of that least loved group of folks (queer). The drumbeats are pounding again to get us all put off earth once and for all. Here in Canada, we have a loudmouth Conservative who is a buddy of J.D.Vance (the noted theological scholar) who is waking the dead corpse of Homo-Hatus again. Once more through the fire. For Christ’s sake. Leave your hatred on the sanctuary floor when you close your Sunday worship. Leave it there, behind you and pick it up again next week. During the rest of the week, let folks be and follow whichever commandments you trust. Those commandments are always the same:

don’t fuck with your neighbours

don’t kill folks

don’t leer at your neighbour’s spouse

don’t mix your recyclables…