A Question

A Question.

It seems simple. It seems harmless enough. But we see time and again that powerful people seek to prevent the asking of questions and to discredit, disarm and destroy those who ask questions. Galileo was persecuted by the Catholic Church for questioning the belief that the earth was the center of the universe. Cults and sects worldwide persecute and even murder those among them who question the tenents of the faith. In our own country people are harassed, fired and even jailed for questioning the government. This year several police officers working Border Patrol were fired for questioning the War on Drugs and policies of deporting illegal immigrants.

Why is this happening? It's happening because of the power of a questioning person. When a person asks a question, he may receive an answer. If he receives an answer, he may experience a revelation. If he experiences a revelation, he may spread the word of his epiphany to others and there may be a revolution. This is the power of questioning people. If there are enough people asking enough questions, demanding enough answers, there will be revelations of truth, of fact, of honesty like we have never seen before. And when these realities are exposed to the world there will be a revolution on a grand scale. We will no longer be naive enough to trust our leaders to make decisions in our best interests. We will no longer be content to accept as truth the interpretations of others in regards to our political documents, our religious systems or our social construct. We will cry out for freedom; true freedom that is not contained, not controlled, not contrived. We will demand to see the evidence for ourselves and to make our own decisions based on our findings. We will discover truths about our economy, about our religions, about our policies and about the rights that each of us, as a human being and a citizen of earth are owed. We will be outraged at the injustices that we have long accepted as facts of life, acts of God and out of our hands. We will discover the power that we hold as an army of questioners. We have the power to eliminate poverty, to end cruelty, to perpetuate liberty and freedom for all, regardless of creed or culture of way of life. All we have to do is resolve to take hold of this power and use it. And the way we take hold is to question.

So I question. I question everything. To those who would tell me that my questioning makes me unpatriotic, makes me ignorant, makes me faithless I say, 'No.' In fact, if a person or an institution seeks to shame me into silence for questioning, I believe it that one who is unpatriotic, for our nation was established in order to protect the rights of the individual from tyranny and unrepresented control. I believe that one is ignorant, for to accept a thing without devoting time and research into the evidence supporting that thing is the by far a greater example of ignorance than to "study to show thyself approved." And I believe that one is faithless, for no religion was fraught without battle. Someone questioned the traditions and led a band of other questioners out on a different path.

Ironically, those we herald as heroes in our world have been those unafraid to question the powerful ones. Those who worked against the forces of evil during holocausts, genocides, slave trades and killings. Those stood up and refused to be deemed less of a human because of their country of origin, the color of their skin, their religion or the love in their hearts. Even pioneers of medicine, humanitarians and technological gurus were faced with the choice to do what everyone else was doing or to try something different.

And here we are- you and me. We sit in front of this screen and we have a choice to make. Will we question? Will we refuse to be satisfied with pre-scripted answers that aren't really answers at all? Will we take a chance on the capacity of humanity to free their minds and find the power that we've had all along? Or will we continue to do what we've been doing, wishing things would get better, but taking comfort in knowing it's all out of our hands?

I will be a questioner. I will continue to ponder, to dream and to fight for things to be better than they are today. And this is my question to you:

Will you join me?

A Test of Tolerance

Tolerance is a word that gets thrown around an awful lot nowadays. Tolerance of other religions, other races, other lifestyles. Generally, if you are more liberal about life, you will associate tolerance with acceptance and equality. If you are less liberal, you might define tolerance as dealing with the fact that other opinions and other points of view exist, but not necessarily supporting or agreeing with them. In the eyes of the more liberal individual, the conservative definition of tolerance isn't very tolerant at all. And, furthermore, the lack of intolerance on the part of the conservative is, well, intolerable. Pretty much the only thing a liberal individual won't tolerate is intolerance. And all the while the conservative views the pressure to tolerate (AKA support) as discriminatory and unfair.

Of course, this isn't across the board. There are plenty of examples of tolerant and gleefully accepting conservatives and and intolerant and bigoted liberals. In Europe there are many political ideologies which fall into the category of "Liberal Conservatism" which currently refers to a culturally, socially liberal ideology combined with fiscal conservatism. And we've all heard the derisive and hateful slurs hurled by various liberal groups at anyone who opposes their agenda; labeling them homophobes, racists and regressives to shut them down and destroy any hope of civilized discussion of the issue at hand.

However, beyond the media, the pundits, the politicians and the activist groups, there are people- ordinary people- both liberal and conservative, as well as those, like myself, who are somewhere in the middle. And we all interact with each other, day in and day out. We generally keep our opinions to ourselves, upholding the tradition of not discussing religion or politics in mixed company. Those of us with more traditional manners, may go years without divulging our true feelings about a single political position, and we may never know where our friends stand on the issues either.

Enter, social media. With the advent of Myspace and Facebook, and more recently, Twitter, we can now disregard these vows of silence and proudly proclaim our love and hate for candidates, or support or disapproval of political issues and our take on religion at large across the Web. People who would otherwise never discuss politics might now feature a presidential logo as their profile picture or post articles covering the political fumbles of a politician they disagree with. And even if they aren't bold enough to do this, Facebook will now announce which articles a user has been reading. A daily dose of Fox news coverage or a dozen articles on marriage equality will give away even a politically silent poster.

But what about the real world? What about people, crossing paths daily? Casual acquaintances, coworkers, friends of friends, teachers, doctors? Now that we can know the politics and religion of every person we meet, how do we fare? How tolerant can you be when you discover that you are the lone Republican in your knitting group? How tolerant can you be as the only Democrat in the PTA? When you now know that everyone in your carpool voted yes on that proposition you adamantly opposed, how do you act?

For me, I feel a deep connection to my beliefs. I believe I'm right. To be honest, we all do. We would believe differently if that weren't the case. But when we now know that people whose company we had enjoyed hold "wrong" beliefs, does anything change?

My social media experiences have brought out the worst in me. I have felt attacked, wounded and betrayed by people simply because they've "come out" politically and I was surprised. Or maybe I wasn't, but the fact that it's now out in the open makes me think they are an activist. A casual liberal or conservative is one thing, but someone who posts antagonistic posts about politician I like, or demeaning blogs ranting about people who support positions I support? That feels personal. It turns out, I'm not all that tolerant. I have to step away from political posters on Facebook and unfollow certain people on Twitter when election season approaches or when a particularly controversial piece of legislature looms.

What about you? If you zeroed in on that one political adversary in your congregation, your classroom, your neighborhood. If they posted articles blasting your party, your position, your candidate. If you knew that they thought the absolute worst of your "kind" would you, could you be okay?