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Lest Ye Be Judged

Posted by AudiR10TDI on Thursday, August 16, 2007 7:17:14 AM

August 16, 2007 --In the 1990s, I belonged to one of the largest Anglican churches  n America, chiefly because I wanted to sing in the performance choir. This church practiced Don't Ask Don't Tell, and had many gay members who were prosperous business people that kept their sex lives out of the sanctuary and everyone was happy to welcome them. Then came AIDS. In our choir we had nine funerals in five years, of choristers whom we watched waste away before our eyes. We had funeral services for every one of them, attended by their grieving partners and families, and we sang at them all. They were our friends and colleagues and suddenly their private business was very public indeed. (Likewise the world of figure skating, which had strenuously denied that there were gays in their sport until AIDS began to take them away in a very visible way).If there was some malady that struck the adulterous, the thief, the blasphemer, the purveyor of toxic envy and those who neglect and vilify their parents, the same shock and dismay would strike that and every other congregation.
AIDS set an example for many other sinners, I think -- sinners who thought that they could also continue to do wrong and their sins would not find them out. AIDS proved to us all that nothing can be hidden forever.
It was not long after this round of funerals ended that the heterosexual choirmaster, married to one wife and father of four, was very publicly fired when his adultery with a young female choir member was discovered -- and it was the gay members of the choir who told him that his choices were two: either he would confess to the Dean or they would turn him in. He confessed and was fired that very day. When the Dean and the choirmaster met with us separately, it was the gay members of the choir who landed hardest on this man. To his midlife-crisis protest that "for the first time in my life I am in love" one man snorted, "You are not in love. You are in heat."
Having seen and experienced the wages of sin in their own lives, they were willing and eager to share that knowledge with those who thought that they too could break Commandments and never be found out.
And it was the gay members of the choir who comforted the deserted wife and humiliated children whose shame was revealed to everyone just as visibly as AIDS had marked those sinners among their friends.
Sin cannot be justified forever. Wise people realize that we are all sinners and use their own sinful nature to help others overcome like sins as they all progress toward Heaven. Together.
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It's a Self Centred World

Posted by AudiR10TDI on Thursday, August 02, 2007 10:28:56 AM
August 2, 2007 -- At the beginning of July some friends of mine who run a racing team and contribute all their winnings to charity made a donation of baby layettes to the local teen crisis drop-in centre.  They discovered that 25% of the girls seen there (ages 16-22) either are pregnant or have given birth within the past 6 months, and the Centre is desperate for baby clothes, formula and supplies. 

Recalling that one thing Jesus said we would be graded on when we stood before Him after death was whether or not we had clothed the naked, and that everybody comes into the world that way, I tried through our local intranet to interest the very large number of women whose friends bombard me three times a week with Baby Shower e-mails in donating some of the clothing and supplies their babies have outgrown or do not need, to these desperate and grateful girls and their little ones.  Deafening silence was my reward.  In a large company where everyone is paid well enough to buy everything her baby might need and then some, not a single person showed any empathy for mothers who had not their resources. 

Then I thought perhaps the firm would allow me to have a baby shower for these girls and their babies.  Surely another among the thrice-weekly blizzard of Give Suzie A Gift requests might inspire either generosity or guilt in those who have so much, if they had to step up in person.  Today I heard this from my firm: 
Thank you for your inquiry.  After discussing the matter with management, it is preferable that you put an ad in the classified site on Sesame to collect new and used baby clothes rather than have a "baby shower".  I am certain that once word of Evergreen Drop-In Centre's need is learned, [firm] staff will be very supportive.  

I informed HR that to the contrary, my fellow staffers are indifferent to any babies but those of their friends, besides their personal babies of course.  Like Scrooge, they believe that their taxes support aid for 'people like that' and those who need assistance must go there...meanwhile, like good little socialists, screaming for more "funding" (tax dollars) for their own well-funded babies, of course.

Being a lady and a Christian, I responded politely to this rebuff and said that I would continue to do what I can on my own, and to interest those friends from outside this self-centred, unfeeling, limited city in clothing the naked who are born that way.  And I will do my best to think charitably of these indifferent women and pray for their salvation before the day when they stand before Jesus Christ and say "When did we see you hungry, or cold, or naked, or homeless, or in prison, or ill, or in despair and passed you by?" and hear the answer, "AS YOU DID TO THE LEAST OF THESE, MY CHILDREN, YOU HAVE DONE UNTO ME."

I am far from perfect.  But God preserve me from indifference -- the sin more egregious than hatred because when you hate someone, at least you acknowledge that they exist.
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