A lady I know told me she was re-reading and studying the Bible.
I laughed. “You don’t believe the Bible,” I said.
She puffed herself up. “I certainly do.”
“No you don’t,” I replied. “You told me yourself you were a racist.”
“I am not a racist,” she said firmly.
“Oh, OK,” I said, “Maybe I misunderstood.”
But I did not misunderstand.
One of our first conversations was her asking me: “You’re not prejudiced at all, are you?”
“Not a bit,” I said. “Not racist, not homophobic, none of it. Not perfect, but not that.”
She mewed she was “a little bit racist” which, considering the question that she had broached, and my emphatic response, meant she was almost certainly a very solid racist.
It was a weird beginning and one of our first conversations.
I had never been asked a question like that — as if it was something odd to **not** be a racist or homophobe — like being a Zoroastrian or a pygmy.
Nor had had anyone ever described themselves to me as she did.
I assure you, it was quite a memorable conversation.
She probably raised the question because she’d seen several non-white people coming in and out of my house over many months — Hispanic, Black, Asian, Arab, many of them workers when I first bought the house, or repairman over the course of the 42 months since then.
That a few of these non-white people might be my children was an idea outside her imagination.
Even now, three and a half years later, she did not know or understand that “the little guy” (her words) moving dirt with me the day before was not some hired help, but my son, who runs 20 miles at a crack at least once a week, and who has shoulders like a tree trunk.
My neighbor says she supports Trump for his “policies,” but when I once asked her which of those policies Jesus might have endorsed, she flapped and pivoted. Suddenly she didn’t want to talk politics.
Which is fine. I don’t bring up politics or religion with my neighbors. In fact, I have told them explicitly, let’s **not** do that; let’s be neighbors instead.
My other neighbor gets it, but this one forgets, and she likes to talk. If we talk too long, it seems these topics bubble up out of her like oil out of an Ozark seep.
On this day, I try to move the discussion to other subjects and succeed — the vandalism to her mailbox last year, the financial help we extend to our kids, who she might recommend for small engine repair, the flowers and lilies now going into my orchard area.
But the unresolved issue is there, and as I tried to pry myself away towards the end, she circles back to it.
“I’m not a racist,” she says, bringing the subject up again, and clearly upset I had seen her in a light in which she did not want to be seen.
I realized this was actually a good sign.
She *knows* being a racist is a bad thing.
And yet, she is also a Trump voter who is attracted to Trump *because* of his cruelty and racism.
She will not admit this, of course, but if you press her she says she “likes Trump’s immigration policies”.
But which ones? The ones that admit and pardon foreign pedophiles like Ghislaine Maxwell and the Tate brothers, or the ones that separate small children from their parents?
The ones where employers who profit from hiring illegal immigrants are lauded or ignored, or the ones where ICE agents shoot non-criminal misdemeanor violators dead, and without benefit of trial?
And then there is the little matter that she had told me herself, in one of our very first conversations; that she is a racist.
But who wants to fight with a neighbor?
Not me.
And so, once again, I try to open up space for redemption and change.
“OK,” I said. “I must have understood.”
There it was: space where, through her voice and action, she could definitely prove me wrong over time.
But then she said it.
She could not help herself.
“I used to work with a lot of black people,” she says. “I’ll accept them if they accept me. But, you know, a lot of them are racist against white people.”
“Uh huh,” I say. I hear you,” and I walked away to signal that the conversation was over.
“I hear you,” is simply a statement of fact, but it’s ambiguous, and non-combative.
I hear you.
I was not trying to fight.
I hear you.
And yes, I did.
Loud and clear.
Maya Angelou said “When someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time.”
I did, but I also try to allow space for change and redemption.
She said she was reading or re-reading the Bible. That was hopeful.
But was she **really** reading the Bible?
I had my doubts.
The Gospels are neither long nor complex.
Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John tell the same story four times.
Matthew 5:3–10 is the Sermon on the Mount in which Jesus lists specific virtues and actions (the Beatitudes) that lead to divine grace and true happiness.
Surely she had read them?
Further on in the same Gospel (Matthew 25:34-46), Jesus has a colloquy with his disciples in which he outlines the roads to Heaven and Hell;
“Then shall the King say unto them on his right hand, Come, you blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. For I was hungry, and you gave me meat: I was thirsty, and you gave me drink: I was a stranger, and you took me in. I was naked, and you clothed me: I was sick, and you visited me: I was in prison, and you came unto me.
“Then shall the righteous answer him, saying, ‘Lord, when were you hungry, and we fed thee? Or thirsty, and we gave thee drink? When did we see thee a stranger, and take you in? Or naked, and clothed you? Or when did we see you sick, or in prison, and came unto you?
“And the King shall answer and say unto them, ‘Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as you have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, you have done it unto me.’
“Then shall he say also unto them on the left hand, ‘Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels: For I was a hungry, and you gave me no meat: I was thirsty, and you gave me no drink: I was a stranger, and you took me not in: I was naked, and you clothed me not: I was sick, and in prison, and you visited me not.’
“Then shall they also answer him, saying, ‘Lord, when were you hungry, or thirsty, or a stranger, or naked, or sick, or in prison, and we did not minister unto thee?’
“Then shall he answer them, saying, ‘Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as you did it not to one of the least of these, you did it not to me.’
“And these shall go away into everlasting punishment: but the righteous into life eternal.”
Right.
That seems clear and unambiguous
What policies and actions lead to “everlasting punishment”?
What policies and actions lead to “life eternal”?
But now we circle back to it; how can you say you believe in Christ *and* that you voted for Trump both the first and the second time?
Have you read the Gospels?
To be clear, I am not a member of this Book Club, and I did not choose this book.
But have I actually read it?
I have.
And did I need to re-read it again and again to understand it the message?
I did not.
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▪️Related Link: Epstein 3:16
