My column last week about the Gideons dispensing Bibles outside a public junior high school got some readers all catawampus with me. It had occurred to me this might happen. I knew something was up Sunday morning.
My husband wakes, reads the papers, feeds the dogs and then heads into our office, alert and ready to check the home e-mail account. Heck, sometimes it’s exciting and we get a coupon from the dry cleaners.
At least an hour later, I get up, search my way to coffee, collapse in a chair, blink at the sun and sigh. At just that sighing moment, he sashayed into the kitchen and said, “You’ve got mail!” all Snow White and singsong-y.
He doesn’t read my correspondence, but can see the ticker count of incoming messages. I look at him. “How many?” I ask dryly. He raises his eyebrows and cocks his chin as a response and we both know the ride has begun.
After three cups of coffee, I log into my account. These are the first words:
“You have solidified my belief that we are in fact in the end times of our civilization, when people start calling Wrong right and Right wrong . . . NO matter what your belief or background Spiritually or Religiously, this Nation is a depraved, apathetic, Sin-sick, greedy, self-serving, ego gratifying combination of Infidels . . .”
“Wow,” I say out loud, a phrase and tone I stole from my eldest son who deadpans it, usually bemused, each time he’s left otherwise speechless by some wisdom I’ve just tried to impart.
I read more:
“You are just another number in the sea of our population who gets off on publicly degrading the dispensing of God’s word.”
Again, “wow.”
Part of my reaction to the Gideon Bible giveaway grew out of what I see as a continuing and disturbing trend toward God-mongering and using God as a cave-man club.
The question “What faith are you?” is becoming a not-so-subtle litmus test with a single right answer.
I don’t think this is good news. If one narrowly defined group of people is going to make such issues public, and political, then all types should and must join in the discussion.
Thus, I spout off about God. Yes, I see the irony of that when what annoys me in the first place is the all-too-sure voices using podiums, in churches and out, to make those who disagree feel beaten to a pulp, lesser than, disenfranchised and lousy.
The Gideon column that raised such passionate responses asked a question about religious books in the public sphere: How do we feel about groups standing outside a public junior high, distributing holy books to kids? I said that I didn’t like it.
Now I have a new question: Can you ask questions of those who perceive themselves as stalwartly righteous without being attacked with sarcasm, anger or threats of hell and damnation?
I believe, because of the people who have written to me for years, that most of us can disagree gently and reasonably.
The loud cymbal-crashing voices are, yes, loud, but not nearly as numerous as I’d thought. Most of us don’t believe the world is coming to an end or that we are all sin-sick and depraved. Those noisy voices are trying hard to sound big and definitive and absolutely sure of it all; they are really more like a small herd of mice roaring.
Many e-mailed me and respectfully disagreed with my thoughts about the Gideons. Many more agreed. To those of you who felt begrudged, I’d ask you to keep reading.
In the Bible, when Jesus lays into someone, it is frequently because the person is too full of himself, too sure of his holiness, his own truth, his own righteousness. Jesus spends a lot of his time talking about gentleness.
We have to find a way to talk to each other without being so afraid of differences that we turn rude and hostile — especially at this point in our history.
I believe James 3:17 says something about all this. But, then again, perhaps you disagree. Luckily there are a lot of you out there who are OK with disagreement. The willingness to respectfully disagree is what will save us — in the short run and the long run.
E-mail Fort Collins poet and writer Natalie Costanza-Chavez at grace-notes@comcast.net. Read more of her essays at .
