"Dissent is the highest form of patriotism."

Our love of country and national identity must extend deeper than the symbols of the flag and anthem, than the politics of left and right, or "what church do you attend?" or socio-economic status. Our national heart and soul and all that we treasure most as Americans must genuinely be about freedom and equality for all who reside in our borders. We must be truly accepting of our beautiful diversity of cultures, lifestyles, and perspectives--especially when we disagree. We must be about caring and helping our fellow humans, regardless of how they arrived at their circumstances. Any less renders songs and flags and platitudes rather hollow.

Here's the thing: the U.S. Constitution (under the 1st Amendment of the Bill of Rights) guarantees each of us the right to decide if we stand or kneel. It does not give us the right to dictate to others whether they "must" or "should" stand or kneel. If we don't recognize that, if we don't protect that right for all perspectives--especially the ones with which we disagree--then our nation has much bigger problems than how people treat a song or a piece of fabric. Those items are lovely things, but they are symbols of the true beauty of America--the freedom and equality that are supposed to be afforded to everyone, no matter their gender, skin color, religion, politics, gender-identification, socio-economic status, ethnic origins, sexual-orientation, or geographic location. And sadly, in 2017, not everyone has complete freedom and equality--this is what the players are very successfully bringing attention to; and the fact that they have us all talking about it proves that their protest is meaningful. It's up to all of us to carry the ball from there. 

The protests have again brought to the forefront the fact that not everyone here is truly free...not when certain skin colors are systemically profiled, punished more harshly, and generally persecuted. Not when some genders, identities, and lifestyles are treated as second class. This bigotry is ingrained in our society. We must decide to care more about liberty for all people than what boxes people fit into. It's a tough, ugly national conversation, but it is one we must keep having and working through until we are truly the "land of the free".

Live & Let Live

In my profile, I share that I am a "believer in Love, Family, Nature, Equality, Peace, Kindness, Diversity, and Lifelong Learning". That list is the gist of what I feel in my heart is universally true and right in this experience we call life. No doubt there are those who'd read my profile and think there's something missing from her list of what she believes in or I'm sure her belief in God or Jesus is meant to be assumed. Meh. Not so much. I am genuinely happy for those who find joy, strength, comfort, peace, and whatever else they need through believing in a god or Jesus or in attending a church. Truly. I'm happy for anyone who genuinely experiences all of those. The truth is that worshiping a god or Jesus or attending a church does absolutely none of that for me.

"Oh, you must have had a bad experience at a church..." has been uttered more than once by well-meaning folks who just don't want to accept that I don't believe as they do. No, my disassociation with religion (organized or otherwise) is not merely about having a "bad experience" at a church. I grew up going to church on occasion--those experiences provided nothing more than lessons in how to taking mental vacations and other means of quietly entertaining myself for around an hour.
I've read the Bible--that overly wordy, poorly written, edited and reedited repeatedly over history, grossly contradictory of itself, largely misogynistic book; and it provided me no golden light of belief. No Ah ha! moments. Nada.
I attended nearly a decade of Catechism classes--truth be told though, I was the kid who was regularly getting into trouble in class because--brace yourself--I asked questions. Lots of questions. And when I didn't agree with the answers, I'd press for more meaningful answers. And when there were no meaningful answers (which was usually the case), I'd expect to have the line of reasoning behind those answers explained. And it turns out that those folks were not into providing such reasonings. "Just believe it because you're supposed to!" Ugh. I'm not so good just following something or someone because you're supposed to. It was about a decade ago when I finally admitted to myself that this whole religion & god thing wasn't doing it for me. Since that moment 10 years ago, I've regularly given great thought to what does bring me joy, strength, comfort, and peace... ... ...Ta da! Hence the list in my profile.

What perplexes me about those who want to explain someone like me away with "Oh, you must have had a bad experience at a church..." is that anyone who has talked with me on the subject at any length has certainly heard my reasoning for no longer believing in all that jazz. It's about so much more than having had a bad experience.... it's about religion and dogma and all their trappings making zero sense to my questioning mind. It's about no longer being able to subscribe to a belief system that actively discriminates to varying degrees, depending upon the denomination. It's finding it ludicrous to look up to some magical dude who supposedly has some grand plan that we humans are too moronic to understand. And when those "plans" by this supposedly all-powerful, all-knowing, all-loving being involve violence, illness, suffering, and (depending upon the denomination) vengeance... well, hell no. I want no part of any such plan, thanks. I happen to think that we humans are more capable and more connected to each other than religion would have us believe. My rejection of church and religion and all its trappings is about realizing that we humans are so much more alike than different, and we need to look to each other for comfort, help, joy, strength. Instead of looking up for someone to solve our problems, let's look to each other. In looking to each other, we can find a little common ground. We can learn to live and let live.