Make Slogans Great and Stronger Together Again

Used with permission of the artist, Rod Gillies
https://www.flickr.com/photos/24681250@N07/30756737366

Taking a break from the Four Needs for a brief acknowledgment of the imminent Black Tuesday, a date which will live in infamy.  The day we decide if we want to be ruled by a ruthless sociopath or a megalomaniacal one.  If we want the devil we know or the one hiding behind the door on the right.  But this is not a negative post.  i'm not bashing anyone more than they bash themselves.  That would be whipping an octopus which is busily flogging itself with all eight limbs.  It just wouldn't notice.

What i would like to talk about are slogans.

Mr. Trump says he would like to Make America Great Again.  i am all for that.  i would like America to be what it was when i last thought it was great.  When i was taught civics by idealists from the forties, fifties and sixties who came from both the left and the right and still shared the same ideals.  The same belief that we could do anything as a country.  That despite our foibles and faults and faux pas we were still the greatest country on earth.  When i played with white and black and filipino and vietnamese and hispanic kids and never thought a bit about what made us different.  Before i new the N word.  Heck, i may not have even known the F word.  Because those words weren't allowed on tv.  Back when stores were closed on Sundays and holidays.  Back when i thought everyone went to church except that one or two neighbor of mine who still fought and put out a fire in our house one Sunday before we got home from church.  Back before i knew the word "corporate" as a slur.  When i thought my money was safer in a bank.  i would love for America to be all the things i thought it was when i was young and naive.  What it was before i new what naive meant.  When i believed leaders when they spoke.  When i teared up for patriotic speeches.  When i wanted to stand at attention when i saw a marine walk by.  When i believed in just wars and liberations and the defeat of actual tyrannies by citizen soldiers.  When i thought America would never ever but never flirt with electing a tyrant ourselves.

Mrs. Clinton says we are Stronger Together.  And i completely agree.  Which is why as the most despicably divisive candidate to ever be put up against the most dispicably mad one we've ever had, if she actually believed what she says, she would step aside and let someone run who could actually have a prayer of uniting this country.

Mr. Johnson, i'm sorry, sir, i have no idea what your slogan is, which is really all i need to know about you and your chances.

So if i may, i'd like to propose a new slogan:
God save America.

Welcome

i hate locked doors.

By extension, i hate being ignored, passively or actively locked out of a conversation, a group, a place where i was hoping to enter, participate in or just listen to.  i don't need to be celebrated, i don't have to have the recognition and delight of every participant, i just want to be included, allowed, given a fair shake. 

Welcome. 

America is locking its doors.  Fear and jealousy is taking over.  Selfishness.  If we share with you, there won't be enough for us.  If we let you in, you might do something violent.  If we let a lot of you in, we may change.  We won't be in charge anymore.  There is danger in welcome.  Guests are not always pleasant.  Hospitality is costly.  Safety is tenuous.  Comfort is more comfortable.  Welcome is vulnerable.

Vulnerable is scary. 

You have to assume damage if you are going to love the damaged.  And everyone is damaged.  None are healthy, no, not one.  Everyone is hurting from something.  And where they've been hurt, they have learned mechanisms to defend themselves.  Where they've been denied, they've learned skills to get what they think they need.  Those mechanisms and skills are broken, they are almost always sinful and damaging, but they work in the short term and that's all that matters to the damaged and the needy.  If you let them in, you are going to be stolen from, you are going to be hurt, your stuff is going to get broken.  They may be ungrateful.  They may lie about you.  They may hurt you.  They might even beat you up. 

They might kill you. 

They might drag you through your own streets, nail you onto a beam and hang you up for public ridicule.  This is what happens if you cross us!  This is what happens when you welcome!  This is what happens when you love! 

People call Christians intolerant.  They accuse us of being exclusive.  Unwelcoming and i'm sure they've got some examples they could hold up.  We are all broken, we are all damaged and some have yet to understand the God they believe in.

But that's not what we are.  Christians are people pointing to a door.  Testifying about a door.  You don't enter a house through the wall.  Only thieves go into a temple through the window.  You enter a kingdom through a gate.  Through a door.  Jesus is the door.  He's literally the way in. 

And for now, he's not locked.