In God I Trust

I see nothing wrong with your choice of religion and am often saddened that people think they should choose for you. I don't believe my God or my Savior would want that of anyone. I strongly believe the Trinity wishes you to demonstrate your Christian beliefs through your actions, not your words. (no condemnation, my friends) I grew up hearing fire and brimstone from friends and family. I just couldn't imagine a God --or our Savior--truly following through with such a threat when all I ever hear is Peace, Love and Acceptance. Hmmm? So--on my trend of political rants I throw in my religious rant (as it seems appropriate for this post). This country (the United States) was created to provide religious freedom, and for that I am grateful. I don't believe our Founding Fathers created the freedom of religious rights to allow people to judge. I also don't believe that added "freedom of religion" in our Bill of Rights for some people to tell other people how and when they should believe in their God. It breaks my heart that the God this country was founded on is being removed from anything and everything that others feel He doesn't belong. (if you need me to be specific, schools, public buildings, the PLEDGE of ALLEGIANCE)... I have been reading "Brother Odd" by Dean Koontz. In it I found a passage that struck me as down right evil...but something that occurs in our social system on a day to day basis. "Long before she ever considered the life of the convent, Sister Miriam had been a social worker in Los Angeles, an employee of the federal government. She worked with teenage girls from disadvantaged families, striving to rescue them from gang life and other horrors. Most of this I know from Sister Angela, the mother superior, because Sister Miriam not only doesn't toot her own horn--she does not have a horn to toot. As a challenge to a young girl named Jalissa, an intelligent fourteen-year-old who had great promise but who had been on the gang path and about to acquire a gang tattoo, Miriam had said, 'Girl, what do I have to do to make you think how you're trading a full life for a withered one? I talk sense to you, but it doesn't matter. I cry for you, you're amused. Do I have to BLEED for you to get your attention?' She [Sister Miriam] then offered a deal: If Jalissa would promise, for thirty days, to stay away from friends who were in a gang or who hung out with a gang, and if she would not get a gang tattoo the following day as she intended, Miriam would take her at her word and would have her own inner lip tattoed with what she called 'a symbol of my gang.' (sidenote: the tattoois on her lower lip and reads 'Deo gratias' which is Latin for 'Thanks be to God') An audience of twelve at-risk girls, including Jalissa, gathered to watch, wince, and squirm as the tattooist performed his needlework. Miriam refused topical anesthetics. She had chosen the tender tissue of the inner lip because the cringe factor would impress the girls. She bled. Tears flowed, but she made not one sound of pain. That level of committment and the inventive ways she expressed it made Miriam an effective counselor. These years later, Jalissa has two college degrees and is an executive in the hotel industry. Miriam rescued many other girls from the lives of crime, squalor, and depravity. You might expect that one day she would become the subject of a movie with Halle Berry in the title role. Instead, a parent complained about the spiritual element that was part of Miriam's counseling strategy. As a government employee, she was sued by an organization of activist attorneys on the grounds of separation of church and state. They wanted her to cut spiritual references from her counseling and they insisted that Deo Gratias be either obscured with another tattoo or expunged. They believed that in the privacy of counseling sessions, she would peel down her lip and corrupt untold numbers of young girls. ...the court sided with the activists." So--why did I include such a long passage? Well, it's simple. Why on earth, with our social system the way it is today, are people concerned about how social workers are FIXING the system? If it works--don't change it. WHY does it matter that Miriam brought her love of Christ into her counseling. It breaks my heart that people are so wrapped up in themselves, that a nation--created based on Christian ideas--now caters to each and every individual group rather than the nation as a whole. This is now creating a lack of national pride and a lack of national identity. What a scary thought. Will there even be a United States of America in 10 years? This Godless world scares me.