Hypocrisy

It first visited me when I was young and starry-eyed. I had gone to church with my mother in a different town when we were visiting relatives one summer. Same religion we practiced at home; just a different congregation. That should not have mattered; but I had recently discovered I was a color, and that it was different from my mother’s and that it wasn’t terribly pleasant to be a color surrounded by, well, no color. People looked at me with unfriendly looks in their eyes when I had done nothing to garner such looks. I was a quiet, obedient child. Yet, I had only to be, to exist in my skin, and for some reason I did not understand, I was despised, less than, odious. And in this church, where I had been told we were all children of God, love thy neighbor as thyself, didn’t mean everyone.

If I listened to the murmurings after church amongst those converging outside on the steps – any church I ever attended - it was rampant, vividly present. Clearly, all were without sin as they cast stones on neighbors I did not know and would never meet. It was worse, years later, when I was in an adult choir and had to quit because the virulent comments between pastor and choirmaster and other choir members was so at odds with the words we sang, the prayers read. Even though none of it was aimed at me, it made my heart ache.

When I had a child of my own, my son had his first experience with it when attending a religious school…when a child told him he had to go to the back of the line of children who wanted to see some new toy the child had brought to school…because my son had color in his skin while the others did not. Clearly, the religious teachings were not as strong as others being learned by that child. My son didn’t understand. I had no words to explain, only love and hugs. We are all children of God...

And then, a few years after that, the pillar of a church called him an unforgivable name - without knowing him, the good, kind, generous, thoughtful loving person that he was and is. He simply saw a tinge of color and without regard to the faith he professed, the God creator he worshiped, he called a child he did not know, an ugly, ugly word. And scarred that child who still did not understand why simply living in his skin should be cause for maltreatment. Thank God he was surrounded by good people and friends – and parents and relatives – who helped him to see his worth despite those who would allow their judgement and behavior to be skewed, rather than guided by the faith they professed.

My son is now agnostic, perhaps atheist. Yet, he is accepting of all faiths, all races – all people. In the face of behavior that scares or angers me, he is forgiving. Understanding. Loving. Indeed, his behavior more closely follows the teachings of various religions than any of the hypocrites that we have encountered over the years who do not live by the precepts they profess. I thank God for them, though, for even they helped him to become who he is: “We are the sum total of our experiences. Those experiences – be they positive or negative – make us the person we are, at any given point in our lives. And, like a flowing river, those same experiences, and those yet to come, continue to influence and reshape the person we are, and the person we become. None of us are the same as we were yesterday, nor will be tomorrow.”