Sundays with God
I rode my bike to the Lakefront this morning. It was the first time I had been on the bike since the MS 150 ride. My playlist was God on Sunday, a tweaked version of a playlist I had made to visit friends years ago in Ponchatoula on Easter Sunday. It’s actually a great compilation – from Why Me Lord, by Kris Kristofferon, to God Makes No Mistakes by Loretta Lynn. The criteria is the singer has to say God once in the lyrics.
As I rode towards the water, I thought about Proposition 8 and the signs I saw people carrying as they picketed the Mormon Temple in Salt Lake (apparently the Mormons were hugely behind the effort to defeat same sex marriages and had marshaled all their troops) – some of the signs said “God is Love” and “I love my Gay Son” and “Love One Another.”
Years ago, my brother, who considers himself a rabbi, even though he should spend more time familiarizing himself with the law rather than religion, told me the story of a Torah student who asked what the Talmud teaches. The rabbi told the student to stand on one foot, to put the Torah on his head, and to rub his stomach at the same time and memorize the following “do onto others as you would have them do unto you.”
In my wanderings away from Judaism, I retained a few ticks and a few keepers. One of the ticks are statues of gods, which always make a me a little uneasy. One of the keepers the do onto others part. Imagine how you would feel if tomorrow you woke up and a group of people decided you were not conforming to a standard that needed to be met for you to marry the one you love, raise a child with your partner, and leave your inheritance to your amor.
Imagine; also on my God playlist.