THE SPIRITUAL STATE
Marc Gellman
Polling the Bigot Within Us
The most important question for people of faith in campaign 2008.
For people of faith, the most important question in this election is not "Who is he?" but "Who are we?" The most important question in this election, which can never be answered but which we must try to answer is, "To what degree has bigotry shaped our vote?" This is not just a question about racism and Barack Obama. It's a question about sexism and Hillary Clinton. It's a question about ageism and John McCain.
This is not the kind of question that pollsters can ask. Questions like, "Are you a bigot?" do not produce honest or reliable answers. This is a question we must ask of ourselves before our naked conscience or before God.
What is at stake is everything. Are we truly capable of judging others by the content of their character? Have we actually let go of the accumulated prejudices of the past and the new prejudices of our own time? Our vote in this election can be a self-reflective and teachable moment. We can use this political event as a moral event, an occasion to honestly reflect on the level of prejudice we have allowed to corrode our characters. If we look deeply within ourselves, then the election in November will yield not only a new president but also, in the words of the prophet Ezekiel, a new heart: "And I will give them one heart, and put a new spirit within them. And I will take the heart of stone out of their flesh and give them a heart of flesh."
So how do we look within ourselves and discover the truth? Do we have hearts of stone or hearts of flesh? For the overt haters among us the truth is clear, but haters are not generally self-reflective people. There is, however, a comfort in the overt prejudice of those who do not even try to hide their hate. They name what they hate, and their hate brands them and isolates them. If you are one of those people who actually admits to being unable to vote for a person of color or a woman or someone eligible for Social Security, I beg you to reflect on your brokenness. What happened to you? Were you taught to be prejudiced by beloved family members? Can't you separate their poison from their love? You must heal yourself in order for America to be healed.
However, the self-declared bigots are not the real problem. The ones who chill my soul and shrink my hope for our national comity are those "respectable people" who disguise their venality under the cloak of rationality. People like this are also morally broken but have not yet summoned the courage to face the truth. For those of you who are worried that you might be harboring this moral virus, here are some simple questions you can ask yourself: Do you have close friends of a different race? Do you relate to powerful women differently than you relate to powerful men? Do you mostly respect old people or do you pity them? Do you tell jokes that would hurt you if you were the brunt of the joke? (If I hear another priest-and-rabbi joke where the rabbi is a doofus, I am going to blow!) Looking deeply into your own soul requires great honesty and courage. I find that courage in prayer and community, but you can find it anywhere your soul can open to the truth of your life.
A story: Rabbi Nachman of Bratslav was walking down the street one day trailed by many of his students. Suddenly he stopped, looked across the street and asked his students, "Who is that walking there across the street?" They looked and said to him, "Rebbe, it's no one. That's just Moshele, the water drawer, walking across the street. He's nobody." Reb Nachman shouted at them, "You are no longer my students until you can look across any street and see any person and say to me, 'O that is the image of God walking there'."
America will be healed and America will be whole when we can answer the question, "Who are you voting for?" with this answer: "O, I am voting for the image of God who happens to be running for the office of president of the United States."
© 2008
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Member Comments
Posted By: claudichameleon @ 09/05/2008 6:40:47 PM
Comment: What if our objection to a person is based not on their race-sex-religion-orientation-etc. but on their beliefs/ideology/speech/actions? What if we think, based on what they say, do , and inspire others to do that they're just evil incarnate..(.regardless of their age, race, etc. etc.)? Regardless of what they claim their religion to be? Yet when we say, "I think John McCain is just evil for the things he's said and done," we're accused of "age\ism".
Posted By: joetraderny @ 08/28/2008 2:05:49 PM
Comment: I don't give a *** how old mcbush is..I care about his telling some teen he will draft his punk ass, saying on meet the press and face the nation he knows nothign about the economy, singing songs and laughing about destroying other countries, can't happen soon enough...etc..etc..not knowing any geography which countreis border iraq, which country russia is attacking how to prounounc abkhazia and south ossetia etc etc....getting asked a question, making some stupid remark then changing his mind, then later have his advisor say he didn't really hear the question anyway!!!!!!!!!!!!!that is what is scary.........gop really scraping the bottom of cesspoll with this one, just to continue in the religious fundamentialist right wing crazy mode, mcbush will most likely announce mitt "the fonze" romney as vp...this free spender would bankrupt the whole country, if you wnt brainwashing just go to utah where the church leader of LDS will "interpret" presdiential address, so it will be interesting, like we don't already have total lies misinformation cover-up, total sham of free press, all orchestrated by white house, now coward pansies wsate of flesh excuse for journalist are coming forward and admitting most "news" was cleared through white house.....cheney is already hiding maybe in uae where he has squirrreled away his billions so he doesn't pay taxes, these *** are such as total failure and embarassment, so some racist says yippee more of the same...great......
Posted By: joetraderny @ 08/28/2008 1:57:16 PM
Comment: oil companies are not doing anything right except siphoning our money, which is why every other "modern" country in the world, however you would wish to define it outside africa which we ignore when we aren't putting their farmer out of business, causing starving africans and ignoring genocide, and all other countries are too far ahead for ANY president to catch up in the next four years, the difference is, with mcbush, we will continue to fall further and further behind, the sad truth, religious extremists want this because in their delusional fantastical thiinking they are not responsible for anythign they do to the earth wiping their ass with the bible basically and crapping on god and EVERYTHING the bilble says thinking they will get masically zapped up or whisked away maybe on a comet who knows? while their actions destroy the earth and everybody LEFT BEHIND....one major prob with their faulty logica, they are the sinners.....and hypocrites, and idolatoers, worshiping at the alter of money......living in gommorha, etc etc....bush is an evil and stupid small minded idiot......cheney is an evil despot who just moved halliburtion to UAE what a patriot!!!! bush allows private righ wing mercenary to patrol american streets......like NO after katrina in defiance and without regard to local laws and local law enforcement.....russia is now using our horrible example to do the same thing we are doing in iraq, but not even 1/10 as bad as the atrocities we continue to do to iraqis......we have taken the least of all iraqi refugees, we will now use US taxpayers who didn't wnat to go to war and be blackmaileed to rebuild iraq just to siphon off their oil.....for rich people......halleluja, praise jehova......git r dun