Without prejudice

There have been a few starts and stops regarding me posting a new entry here.  I have a few partially written blog posts in my draft folder that I gave up on for one reason or another.  A lot of times, I'll get a bit of writer's block or just lose interest; not in writing the blog or its contents, but just a lack of desire to get my words out there.

Now that I'm generally off social media, in particular anything Meta, I've found it a bit easier to gather my thoughts on certain issues that I'd previously shunned.  With what I'm about to post in this particular entry, I expect to ruffle some feathers - unintentionally, I might add - and perhaps clear a few things up.  My intention is not to rile anyone.  I need to make that clear.  Where's that get you anyway.

Let me get into why I, at the very least temporarily, dropped most social media.  

The state of the world right now has not been worse since the last World War.  I'd love to know what Mom and Dad think of what's going on in the States (I refuse to refer to them as the United States, as today they're anything but "united").  A conservative pundit with a long history of hate speech was killed recently.  I'm not one of the crazy jackasses who celebrated this, though I don't think there are as many of those people as we may have been led to believe.  

But the religious far-right has spread like a cancer rapidly since the current States' president was sworn in this past January.  I've not ever seen a political figure, or figures in this case, induce more hatred via religion and partisanship in my life in the so-called free world.  Some of this hatred genuinely irks me more than it has in the past.

DEI.... Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion.  I don't understand how this is a problem.  It was working, for the most part, from what I've witnessed.  It isn't perfect.  It's a policy that needs constant refining, like everything else, and needs time to evolve to reach adequate efficacy.  Considering the diversity of the States, namely I would think in the urban and coastal regions, I think it's only fair that there is a boost to those who are part of minorities that contribute to society (IMMIGRANTS) that they get some kind of representation.  Let's face it... the States have a long, ugly history of oppression and whitewashing.  Anyone seen as different, especially if they're multiplying in numbers harmlessly, has become a target in the modern-day States.  Rather than learn from minorities, too many have chosen to attempt to keep them from offering their voices to what should be a blossoming palette of culture.  Canada is showing them how this is reached.  We have our own history, of course, which I like to think we have learned from.  At least until the MAGA wing of politics overcomes our Conservative Party and Americanizes them, which is currently being attempted.  I honestly don't believe it would have gotten this bad with the Progressive Conservatives, which dropped its "progressive" moniker once the Reform Party from the west merged with what was left of the PCs at the time.  

But whatever happens in the States all too often tends to wind up happening here in Canada.  And I have serious issues with some of this.

I offer a personal story of my own to elaborate.  

My daughter has been seeing her boyfriend from all the way back in high school for a number of years now.  They are grown adults today still trying to find their place in the world.  Work, or 'the big career jobs' that we all want to get us through life, has evaded them, for the most part.  Hell, it evaded me all of my own life. He's shuffled through jobs, but managed to still be gainfully employed.  She has too.  She works for Janice at the post office kiosk Janice manages.  

Nearly two years ago in November, the four of us traveled to Montreal to see the KISS End of the Road Tour at the Bell Center.  Through the years, we've noticed the steady progression of evidence indicating gender fluidity in our kid's boyfriend's appearance.  He chose to wear makeup - not the KISS kind of makeup - to the show.  There was certainly a feminine slant to his appearance that was noticeable to Janice and me, but we didn't think much of it.

Fast forward to the drive home after the show.  We got home and dropped off the kids at their apartment and went home ourselves.  A discussion via messenger took place with Janice where it was revealed to her, and me, that he was coming out as trans.  We were shocked!  In retrospect, we should have seen it coming.  All the signs had been there.  Our daughter was fine with it.  We responded at the time with the assurance of "the God we believe in loves Everyone."  

Except, once it began to sink in, it screwed with my head a lot.  I didn't eat or drink anything for three days.  I was in bed that whole time and didn't/couldn't get up.  It all made me think that I wasn't going to have a conventional future with our kid, and I just didn't know if I could cope with it.  

Over the years, I'd gotten more and more accustomed to the idea of becoming accepting (NOT "tolerant") of the gay community.  I thought I pretty much fit in with the liberal side of society on the live and let live tropes that so many of us allege to subscribe to.  Well, this was a test.

Nicole was now the name of our daughter's partner, formerly Cole.  

This thrust me into a place where my openness to such relationships was to be put on trial in the present day going forward.  I did decide to make an effort to understand it all.  Except, there was nothing to actually understand, as much as accept and embrace.

In my recent spiritual awakening, what I've come to realize is that religion is generally a scam built around money.  There are numerous factions in the form of 'faiths' that all seem to say that only through them can you get to Heaven.  Each thinks there's something wrong with the other.  Generally, Christian religions respect one another, but there are extremist our-way-or-the-highway-to-hell types that are relentlessly persecuting in their beliefs, all based on separate theologies of different interpretations from scriptures that inevitably got lost in translation, literally, from the original texts, which had a limited vocabulary in those days to begin with, leaving interpretation wide open to subjective malleability.  Much of the texts of the Bible omit several gospels to conform to different ideologies, which in turn, of course, leads to conflict among those with different beliefs based on biblical scriptures.  

It's my own belief that our own recorded history under-reports details of how society treated women, in particular, before biblical times.  From what I've seen and read, women were revered and respected far more than the patriarchal days of the Old and New Testaments, in particular though, the Old.  In my opinion, Jesus was sent to us to teach us to refine how we treat each other.  I believe he tried to teach us to find Heaven within ourselves.  It's not a physical place we go to.  But by learning to love each other, we gain more recognition with what we call God.

And who, or what, is God, really?  Well, the Bible tells us.  But is the Bible God's word, or is it man's interpretation of God's word?  Did we muck it up at all if that's the case?  Surely not.  Man is perfect, after all.  Oh wait, God is the one who's perfect.  These scriptures were penned by human hands.  

Among the translations that changed along the way were God actually having... GASP!.... pronouns.  He/Him/His, etc.  

Here's my problem with that... in my opinion, from numerous accounts of the afterlife that I've been reading, the ego dies with the body upon death.  Imagine that.  Imagine not having an ego.  Nothing to be proud of, nothing to be offended at or with, nothing to be mad or sad about, no jealousy, etc.  To me, that's the definition of bliss, of ecstasy.  Pure love and happiness.  What a thought!  That is, indeed, Heaven, or at least part of what it is.

Now, imagine a spirit with ego.  In the Old Testament in particular, God seems to have an out of control ego, at least as I interpret it from the King James version of the Bible.  Attached to the ego has to be gender representation.  God is referred to as a male entity.  Meaning God has a penis.  It's how we refer to men and women, generally.  And if we were created in God's own image, and God doesn't have a vagina (I am not trying to be smart here, either), then what's the purpose of God being male or female?

In my view, God is neither male nor female.  God is God.  God is Love, and love binds everything together.  A lack of love finds hate within its proximity.  Hate comes in many forms, I think.  Intolerance, jealousy, pride, envy, etc.  Anything that is antithetical to joy and happiness.  Hate exists in the absence of Love.  

Therefore, if God has no gender and is not bound by earthly limitations like ego, competitiveness and sex drive, then all there is left is love.  Enlightenment is what happens when there is nothing left of us but that.  I believe when our bodies pass away, we finally escape the confines of our physical bodies.  What happens for us to atone for our earthly 'sins' is another matter that I have ideas of that's another conversation.  

Our earthbound bodies harbor our spirits like avatars.  When those avatars have outlived their purpose and usefulness, we're left with our souls.  We don't take our penises and vaginas with us, or anything else from our confining bodies.  No jostling for the favor of the opposite sex or any sex, for that matter.  No desire to be better than anyone else.  Just be YOU, and love each other for it, unconditionally.

So, how are we to assume that the souls that each of our bodies carries should be assigned to one type or another?  In spirit, such boundaries are dropped.  Why should these boundaries be recognized in our physical existence?  If we are indeed spirit embodying solid form, why do we need to limit our love to what we see here on the physical plane?

Coming to the realization of all this made me rethink everything.  I am a human being with an ego that is subject to the whims of all the trappings of humanity, like every other person here on this planet.  And I have absolutely no right to judge how anyone chooses to express their true spirit.  If love surfaces in a form that the human eyes have difficulty to comprehend, to me that's an opportunity for spiritual growth of my own; to see beyond what my eyes see, and what I've been trained all my life right from the cradle to believe and accept as fact, when all along it's all really just based on wide-ranging theologies with various interpretations. 

It's not just Nicole that I've had to evolve to respect.  I have family members and friends who are also.  Accepting the homosexual wing of society took more effort than I first realized, but to my credit, I think I just about have it figured out.  The trick is to stop fighting it.  I'm a straight man who sees gay love as exactly the same as straight love or anything else like it.  And the absence of love brings the opposite, and I don't wish to be a part of that anymore.  It took some learning and understanding, and a whole lot less of "what about"isms.  The goal posts for love are a wide open net for all, and all it requires is surrender - letting it be what it is.  I'm talking about TRUE love, not lust.  Real love exists even in lust's absence.  Real love lies in embracing one another especially in times of trial.  And forgiveness also kills hatred and intolerance.  

This brings me back to my stance on social media today.  I witness, very sadly, too many friends and acquaintances on all platforms from people dear to me getting caught up in the hateful net of bigotry, self-aggrandizing and holier-than-thou-ness.  I'm guilty of it too.  Having spent time away from it all, I see the disease it can actually become.  I see friends and relatives embracing the likes of far-right personalities, all while people they know and love who live a lifestyle they choose look on and then wonder if they can be in the same space anymore.  How enormously sad that is, the more I think about it.  It's apartheid, or wannabe apartheid.  The more we separate and compartmentalize each other by color, gender, race, etc., the more detached we become from one another; perfect breeding grounds for hatred and separation.

Well, that's not an acceptable world to be living in.  And I won't have any part in it.  

Now that Nicole is "out", and pursuing a career in the Canadian army where she won't get passed over because of orientation or gender, I need my own friends and family to be accepting the way my wife and I are.  I do love my daughter and I love her partner, without condition or premise.  They are two loving souls that have gravitated to one another unencumbered by their genders.  I also have family who are members of the gay community.  Should they be reading this, I want to thank them for having the patience to stand by while I continued to grow to understand them.  I think it took too long.  But also, I am the product of this cultivated environment.  Just like each and every other one of us.  I forgive myself for my ignorance, now that I can see it in retrospect.

And for anyone who defends the hateful rhetoric of the far-right and their stubbornness to try to force those unlike them to conform, I need to affirm that I stand with my gay-plus friends and family, known and unknown, and ask that you be mindful of who and what you support with them in mind.  

Let them teach you like they did me.... teach you how to love without prejudice.