Thorns and Roses

" Trannies and Faggots. Wow, you got the cream of some sick man's loins."  This was the hate-filled comment left by a man named James Gifford on a Facebook post about my precious (trans/gay) children (Chris Rhodes and Courtney Rhodes) recently.

This statement not only attacks my children and me, but it attacks my husband and his parents and my parents.  I do not take this man's comment to heart, as I know who I am and I know who my children are, but I have to say, I was angry when I read it - so much so that I wrote another post calling him out for his meanness and then I deleted him as a Facebook friend.  He then blocked me - which was fine by me.  I mention all this because even though I seldom encounter people that voice this sort of opinion openly to me, I know they are out there and I know my children deal with this sort hate every day. 

I have written before about my religious beliefs.  I grew up Baptist and I have a strong belief and faith in God.  I believe that God created the Earth and Heavens and Hell and the people and animals.  I believe God created woman for man, as it says in the Bible in Genesis and many times throughout. But ... I also believe that the brilliant God I believe in created man with the ability to make choices.  He could have just as easily created man with the inability to make choices.  Believing that, I have concluded that I do not know what God's plan really is.  Is it that he wishes for all His people to find their way back to one straight and narrow path that is somewhere defined as the only path that leads to Him, or ... is his plan that man live each of their lives making choices that distract from some "perfect" path so that we all come to some realization that diversity and color and abstract and shattered pieces are really the things that will teach and unite and form beings He can truly appreciate and love?  The Bible teaches that God became angry when Adam and Eve sinned in the Garden of Eden, when they ate from the tree of Good and Evil.  It was after that that He put thorns on the rose bush; allowed the world to be more brutal.  A God that can and did create all the wonders of our world that He has created has to have known the choice Adam and Eve would make.  That's my belief.  Believing that ... I have to believe He knew that over the many millions of years, we would either destroy ourselves through and because of our diversities or find a way to all survive together.

We fight this fight every single day, in America and around the world - trying to find a way to live together peacefully.  And because it is impossible for every person to undo all of what they have done wrong, every person's ancestors to undo any of what they did wrong, every nation to undo all the wrongs they have done ... logic suggests that it is impossible, at this point, to revert easily or convert completely to some "perfect" path.  As individuals, we can continuously make new choices to try and "perfect" our own lives to the point that we believe we are living a life that God would be pleased with, but we can not do that by alienating or eliminating others from our lives that do not live as we live or how we believe they should live.  If that were the case, most people would be traveling through life completely alone.

One of the consequences of Adam and Eve's sin was the division of people/races/languages.  Creating a world where there was lack of unity and solidarity, was meant to be a "punishment" for man's sin.  My belief is ... God always intended it that way; diversity.  He allowed Satan to tempt Adam and Eve from the very beginning, according to the Bible.  The story is that Eve ate fruit from the Tree of Good and Evil and then so did Adam and sin was born.  If this is truly the beginning of the story as the Bible suggests, why would God even offer such a temptation (a brilliant God who could prevent it and also predict it) if that was not how it was intended to be?  Why create man filled with flaws and choice if you did not intend or desire to see their lives play out through their choices?  I do not believe God ever intended man to live simple, easy lives in a world with thornless roses.  How boring would that be?

Having said all this, I go back to the comment James Gifford left on my Facebook about my children and me and our family.  James Gifford does not believe my children or I are living the sort of lives he believes to be acceptable; it's apparent by his comment.  Are we to change the way we live to conform to some idea he believes to be "right"?  Do we just blindly accept that how he chooses to live his life is the "right" way?  And what if how he lives his life is not right for any of us - do we just change, anyway? We are not asking him to live his life the way we live our lives, even though we believe we live our lives in such a way that we are kind and loving to others, we are hurting no one, we love and protect each other, we support everyone else and respect how they live their lives, even James Gifford, who has the right to believe anything he wants to believe.

A brilliant God would create a world with diversity just to see all the paths people would take and how long and successfully it would take them to find a way to becoming unified, even and because of their diverse and unique individual lives.  That's the real test, in my opinion. 

My children and I aren't anymore diverse or unique than James Gifford, and I have to admit, I did nothing to bond his life to mine.  I failed that test when I deleted him as a "friend" on my Facebook.  I chose deleting this person from my Facebook over trying to reach out to him to make friends.  I did that because I believed I would likely enter into a debate I could not win - not to mention I was too angry to care about being his friend.  I told myself I did not need this sort of person in my life, as he obviously was disgusted enough to make such a public comment.  The truth of the matter is, I need this man in my life and he needs me in his, because we are so different from one another.  

Man has found a way to grow roses without thorns.  Sadly, both I and James Gifford found a way to still use those thorns against each other ...