Another unjustified trial. Who do we think we are?

So, as the mother of a toddler, I often find myself watching way too much Nick Jr. and Disney Jr. for any reasonably sane adult. Every once in a while, I try to sneak in some long lost DVRd grown up television. It's amazing how much like bliss one hour of grown up television can feel.

This week, I have been catching up on the TLC genealogy series "Who Do You Think You Are?" and I was taken aback by the episode tracing actor Scott Foley's roots. Aside from discovering that he had a relative who served in George Washington's equivalent of the Secret Service, he learned that another relative was accused, tried, and hanged for practicing witchcraft in Salem. Having visited the town, and been very moved by the real stories of Salem, I felt chills creep up when he sat down with a historian at the Witch House and learned of his ancestor's fate. 

As he learned about the accusations that were made against Samuel Wardwell, it was clear that Foley was listening incredulously. He had been accused of sticking pins in, striking and pinching girls. Witnesses also recounted several times in which he had told fortunes. The fear in the area was real. Wardwell initially confessed, then recanted his confession. Ultimately, he was found guilty, and was one of the last "witches" hanged. 

He may well have told some fortunes, and dabbled in the occult, but his only real crime was being in the wrong place at the wrong time, and under the gaze of a group of people who twisted the words and teachings of the Bible so tightly that they would have been unrecognizable. 

Nineteen people died because of these twistings, and this mania. Countless others lives were destroyed by the false accusations, and coerced confessions. All in the name of protecting the children, and purity of a community. 

Today, we see are watching a similar "hunt" play out in a land that professes to support and defend individual freedom as staunchly as religious freedom. But there is a group of people for whom those freedoms appear to be one-sided.

It's no secret that discrimination is ugly, and that it has cycled through our American history over and over. It often feels like civil dissatisfaction always leads to searching for an already demeaned and maligned set of individuals to persecute and punish. 

I am not a member of the LGBT community, but I have friends who are. For the most part, they are just like all of my heterosexual friends. The important distinction--most have fought through their lives, struggling to find self-acceptance, familial acceptance, and to be afforded the same basic rights most everyone else already has without question. I am not a Creationist. As someone who struggles with faith, I probably believe some hybrid version of the options available. I get the whole Big-Bang thing, but when I look at the beauty and ugliness of this gigantic universe, I cannot completely divorce myself from the idea that even the smallest particle of dust had to have some origin. 

So, I suppose if pinned down, I would say that origin is responsible for us all. If God(ess) created you and me, He/She created us all. And I suppose with that in mind, I believe the intention was an equal share of the world we all live in. 

There are lots of people cloaking discrimination against transgendered, lesbian and homosexual men with fear for the safety and innocence of "our women and children." As a survivor of sexual abuse, I know that this cloak does not fit. Everyone with half a brain, and any knowledge of sexual assault and abuse knows that abusers tend to be people we know and trust, and most often male--NOT transgendered, NOT lesbian, NOT. gay. 

But the people shaking their fists and passing laws tend to be like the Puritan communities of our early days as a nation. They ignore evidence. They ignore statistics. They ignore science. Instead, they embrace fear, hatred, and a cause.

When I watched Scott Foley visit the Salem Witch Trial Memorial--a place I have been to myself--he sat down on the bench where Samual Wardwell's name is engraved. It's a beautiful and peaceful place to reflect on a time of fear, zealotry and death. As he was leaving, he acknowledged that most visitors would reflect on the meaning of the place, walk away and carry on with their lives. Only those who were connected to the place by an ancestor would be forever changed. Only because I have been there, I know he is wrong. Some of us will carry that place with us forever, and it will always reflect back for us in times of strife and persecution. 

I don't know much about where, or even the whole truth of who I come from. I tried tracing it for a while, but you really have to have unlimited resources to follow all "the leaves" on your tree. I suppose at the end of the day, it's easiest to rule out what I am not. I am not black. I am not Japanese. I am not Jewish. I can only claim a spiritual relationship with the Irish. Without question, I am failing to mention countless other groups who have been unjustly persecuted and punished throughout our history. Sadly, there have been too many to list.

But while maybe I cannot fill out my sparse little family tree with confidence, I do know of one family to which I am related--the human one. So when a family member is wrongly accused of unthinkable acts, or when a family member faces discrimination when they are simply trying to live their life, it impacts me. 

Researchers very recently confirmed the site where the hangings took place near Salem. There is nothing to mark the spot. There are no graves. There is no place to visit an ancestor's final resting place. As ”witches," the bodies of these people were discarded without respect or peace. The memorial in town is all that exists for now. And while it is beautiful and peaceful, it is marked by empty seats. Those seats could be a representation of so many things. Children that never were. Community leaders who never achieved their potential. Ideas that never got the chance to bear fruit. Lives that were never lived to their natural completion. All because fear and misunderstanding gave a community permission to steal life from people who were different, but were still created from all the same stuff.

The show that got me thinking about Salem, and those nineteen beautiful, ugly, different people again, asks us about where and who we come from, but the title really strikes me in relation to the trials of three hundred years ago, and the trials that have played out since then. Who do you think you are? Who do you think you are to believe that because someone is different from you that they are wrong to be so? Who do you think you are to perpetuate discrimination, abuse and injustice in the name of love and Christ? Who do you think you are to feed fear and lies? 

In the grand scheme, nineteen people is not a large number, but any number of lives taken or harmed by false faith, hypocrisy and ignorance is too many. We are family. We are all somebody's child. We all deserve to live our truths without fear of hateful lies.

Doves cry, but Prince will never die.

So, one of my friends posed this question: "How does someone like Prince die?"

I think most of us are so stunned that we simply cannot wrap our heads around the concept of such an icon like this disappearing from the planet. Many of us have felt that several times over this year.

There probably is no real answer to such a question, and I know that no answer would really assuage the feelings of shock and grief that many of us experience with such a loss. The truth is that people like Prince don't really die. If you think about it, the majority of us never knew Prince Rogers Nelson. And, yet, without knowing him, he held an important place in our hearts and lives, and we care deeply about  his passing.

Someone like Prince isn't just an artist. Someone like Prince is so universally respected, revered, and recognized for his work and the influence he had, and will continue to have, on artists of all mediums that he is not so much human, but more like an element. 

Not everyone who loves music is a "fan." The word "fan" loses its significance when an icon like Prince picks up his guitar. It just doesn't explain how some of us feel about our favorite artists, or art in general. For some of us, certain artists have been, and are, life changing, or even life saving. 

When someone, or something takes a place of such high meaning to us, they never truly leave, even if they "die." People from multiple generations know who he was, and are familiar with his work. His importance will likely never be in dispute, and that importance will be validated a million times over. 

Few artists achieve the kind of broad appeal, and universal recognition that Prince had. And very few were the kind of virtuoso that he was. 

Some artists change the landscape around them by challenging convention, and creating something new. In some cases, that kind of power can tend to intimidate and challenge its intended audience. 

David Bowie, was, without question, another iconic and influential artist that we also have lost this year. He was challenging, intimidating, and he frequently turned pop culture on its head. He wasn't everyone's cup of tea. 

Prince, on the other hand, managed to impact culture and music in much the same way, but when he did it, a kind of magic happened. He was exotic, stunningly beautiful to look at, sexy, enigmatic, and dangerous. All of those traits drew us in--all of us. And we stayed. We stayed to find out what he would create next. We stayed to feel the charisma that permeated everything he did. We stayed to listen to the power of his art. And we stayed on the off chance he might flash us that shy Prince smile that could melt the polar ice cap faster than global warming. 

He was a fast red car, a purple storm, a sign, a super hero and a gem--all rolled into one. He was beyond human, and he couldn't simply die. Someone so surreally "other" than us was surely made of something that could not break. 

At least that is what those of us who loved him and his artistry believed. We lived our lives not thinking about it--the potential impact of such a loss. And that's why  it stunned us. 

In my own lifetime, I have seen some amazingly iconic figures break on through. Elvis, John Lennon, Michael Jackson, Princess Diana, Liz Taylor to name a handful. 

I am sure that I am forgetting others that people feel as strongly about. I wasn't impacted by all of them, but I can relate to those who were. Whether I cared for them or not, they are significant examples of how certain human beings become larger than life. They are too large to leave us behind. They are the songs that get stuck in our heads. They are the dance moves we can never seem to duplicate. They are the philosophers that inspire us to do more in our lives. They are an iconic shade of blue, and they are sometimes tragic. 

The truth is, they are as human as we are, and they are as mortal as we are. But they touch parts of us that we ever knew were there in a way that we never realized was possible. And that is why we find it so hard to believe and accept both their humanity, and mortality. 

It's a cliche to say that because of his artistic legacy, Prince will never die. It's a cliche, because it's true. But the reasons he will never truly be gone are unique to every single one of us.

Fear and loathing in the name of Jesus and Jefferson

So, as I was scrolling through Facebook today, I ran across a video about people who "are not religious, but spiritual." It was actually a comical short about people who pick and choose things from different religions or belief systems to create their own sense of spirituality. While I found it humorous, it also struck a little bit of a chord with me. I have always been fascinated with religion, and have found myself with various opportunities to learn about, and explore different faiths. You might say I dabble.

I am not a Christian, but quite honestly, I am a fan. And when I say that, I mean I don't know that I can accept the supernatural elements, but I am a fan of Jesus. I'm a fan of the way he is reported in the Gospels to have conducted himself, and encouraged others to do the same. He was the kind of guy who looked at the people on the fringes, and not only tolerated them, but cared for and advocated for them. He had this habit of treating people with kindness, generosity, dignity and compassion. He sought to protect the poor, maligned and disenfranchised. 

Those are ideas I can get behind. Most religions purport values I can get behind. But it seems to me that many--not all--people use their religious beliefs to justify behaviors that are completely disconnected from the beliefs they claim to hold so dear. In fact, it seems like many people hide behind  not only religion, but other high ideals as well. 

When I look around lately, it almost seems like our world is on fire. Everywhere I look, people are shunning each other, attacking each other, ganging up on each other, and killing and/or maiming each other--all in the name of whichever god or ideal in which they claim to believe.

And while I am not a person of faith, it still makes me angry. I think faith is a good thing. In your darkest hour, it can shed enough light to keep you from losing every bit of hope that you have. Sometimes people survive the unthinkable because of that tiny sliver of light. 

That's why I find it so abhorrent when people do real and true harm to others and shift responsibility for their actions to their faith. In my opinion, when you do that, you are spitting in the "face" of any higher power you represent.

We are afraid of people who do not look like us, act like us, and believe like us. Pure and simple. The witch hunts in Europe. The witch trials of Salem, Massachusetts. The Holocaust. These are just a few examples of this fear. If you look different, act differently, or believe differently, we fear you, and even hate you. And you can frequently add that if you are a female who expresses intelligence, independent thought, assertiveness or sexuality, you are also worthy of fear and hatred.

It's a pattern within humanity that has played out, over and over, and over. And it's playing out again, all over the world today. 

Difference breeds fear. Fear breeds hate. Stop trying to make it about something else. I call bullshit on your bullshit. 

You don't need to pass legislation limiting the rights of the LGBT community because of your faith or because you feel traditional marriage is threatened. You need to do it because you personally feel threatened by that which is different from you. If you are scared gays, lesbians and transgendered people are going to assault you or your children in restrooms, you don't understand much about sexual predators or pedophilia? You don't need to limit a woman's right to control her reproductive destiny because you are pro-life and ready to fulfill the path of Jesus by making sure all of the children conceived in our country have a good home with appropriate clothing, food and shelter. You need to do it because the power of women to control procreation scares you as men. You may really believe that "all lives matter," but you weren't shouting it from the rooftops until the African American community finally got tired of their youth being considered thugs first and humans second. 

If you are going to fear something or hate it, at least own your fear and hatred. You don't have the right to hijack legitimately high ideals such as faith or patriotism to justify your personal agenda. 

It saddens me to no end that these scenarios are still playing out in a nation founded on the idea that we are all equal, and that we all are entitled to the same rights. Now, I know that there are clearly some issues with our founding fathers, and the way they expressed these ideals in real life. But I choose to believe that they had the best of intentions, and I believe that equality and freedom were the cornerstones of the nation they were trying to build. 

I do not believe they intended religion to have a place in our government. It was never intended that America was going to be a Christian nation. Sometimes, it seems like people argue as much about the meaning behind their words as they do the words of Jesus and his dad. I know people argue about who our founding fathers were on the spectrum of faith. Undoubtedly, some were Christians, but some were also uncertain like me, and I believe that while they probably never conceived of the idea that our nation's makeup would become so diverse, the groundwork they laid was intended to allow for any possibility, and ultimately, to uphold the ideals of equality and freedom. 

And yet here we find ourselves in a nation torn apart by "faithful patriots," stretching and twisting the words of god(s) and people whose ideals so clearly disconnect from the actions and words done and said in their name. 

It absolutely boggles my mind. 

In the name of God, you are not entitled to fairness in employment, housing, commerce or care if you look different, act different or believe different. This can apply to people of color, different sexuality and gender identities, and religions. In the name of patriotism, you are not entitled to a chance at refuge, or safely living your life as an American citizen because a minuscule percentage of your fellow believers have committed heinous acts in the name of your religion. In the name of God, if you are a woman, you are not entitled to the same rights to control, care for, or protect your body that men are. You are still considered, on some level, to be a commodity. 

Up until now, these "truths" were masked. They were ideas that your crazy uncle expressed at a very uncomfortable dinner table. They were the gnarled backbone of euphemistic rhetoric in the political arena. 

But now, the "mask" is off. And to be honest, the "winners" of our upcoming elections--presidential and otherwise--hardly matter, because exposing this dark side of ourselves so blatantly and shamelessly makes losers of every single one of us. We are all poorer for the existence of so much fear, hatred, and open discrimination, whether hidden or not.

How have we not come further? How have we failed to follow in the words of our faiths?  How have we so atrociously failed at fulfilling the promise of those original patriots who took the first much scarier steps toward equality and freedom? How have we lived with justifying harm to others in the names of these brilliant ideals of faith, and forward thinking? And what will become of us?