I Think It's About Time For Uncle Remus To Put Down That Syrup Can

Yesterday, I had to drive my dad to get his hair cut and along the way, we stopped and ate lunch at this little hole-in-the-wall BBQ place called George's. The food was great, but as we were walking out, I was noticing all of the signs they had hanging on the walls. They looked like they were from the 1930s. I was thinking,"pretty cool", right about the time when my eyes fell on a sign advertising Uncle Remus' Syrup. The sign showed a black man with whitegray hair standing in the middle of the sign holding a can of said syrup. The caption read,"Dis sho am good!" *le sigh* Ok. I do live in the south, but I thought the Civil War was over? Racism just pisses me off whether it's white/black, black/white, white/latin, latin/black...whatever. I just don't understand it. I mean, what's to understand? I'm supposed to sympathize with people who are so ignorant that they condemn others just because of the color of their skin? It's one thing to be angry with someone for something that is their choice, but no one ever chose the color of their skin. I mean, come on. Giveth me a break. I was so offended by that sign and I started to turn around and say something to the owner, but a little voice inside me said it probably wouldn't do any good. So, I just followed my dad out the door. I wish I had more guts. (Now, in my mind, there is a voice singsonging "patience is a virtue".)

I also read the other day a particularly good piece of writing on the gender of God here:

Mushgoo~The High Romance.com Blog

I also read the comment that this lady

Floating To Armageddon

put after it.

When I first read her comment, it struck me funny (not funny as in haha, but funny as in weird), but I didn't know why. Well, the day moved on and I went to my French class. I called Ashley and asked her if she wanted to go to lunch with me. She said she did, but it wouldn't be until about 12 noon or so. I looked at the time and it was 10:30am, so I drove home, made sure that dad didn't want anything to eat right then and had planned on going right back out the door. Well, as per usual, I laid down in my bed thinking that I would only rest for about 20 minutes. I was awakened by the phone ringing at 11:45. I told Ashley that I would leave right then and meet here at the restaurant. I'm always irritable when I first wake up and even more so when I'm rushed and even more so when it's daylight and hot as Hades. I got in my oven-car and started driving. My thoughts were going a mile a minute and they were all leaning toward things that piss me off. Then, my thoughts landed on the little comment that I read on the afore mentioned blog. That's when I realized that it was a backwards compliment. Then, I started thinking about what she had said and how the piece of writing commented on, in her opinion, was simplistic.( I have nothing against this lady. I don't even know her. I just think she's missing out by overlooking something so beautiful: the simplicity of the love of God.) I started to get less irriated at that point and more introspective.

These were my thoughts:Doesn't God value and treasure simple things? He told us in the Scripture that unless we have the simple faith of a little child that we could never come to Him. When Jesus walked the Earth, He explained what He was doing and all about His father in simple terms. Terms that the people he was speaking to could understand. God also said that faith in His Son would be a stumbling block to some because it is so simple. Some of us try to make being a follower of God so complicated when it isn't really. God's way is hard for some of us to follow sometimes because of our stubbornness, but He's laid it out for us pretty simply, in my opinion anyway. Doesn't God treasure the simple acts of His children, like worship? Doesn't He treasure it when we help someone who, for instance, doesn't have any food or doesn't have any clothes, or doesn't have a place to live? I have read some books on being a "Christian" and some of them were pretty good and others I just couldn't follow because they weren't written with someone like me in mind. I'm a simple person and I think my faith is simple too. I've tried to make it a honking-big-complex thing before. All I got for my efforts were emptiness and frustration. I don't think it's a bad thing to be uber-intelligent and ponder the deep philosophies of the Bible. I mean, where would we be without people like Paul? Even he, as intelligent and gifted of God as he was, spoke while keeping in mind those to whom he was speaking. It's just that there are, by comparison, so many more people who are not theologians and philosophers. What are they (I mean me.) supposed to do when they (me) want to understand more of God? What Jon Trott wrote spoke to me in a way I could have never imagined. It opened my heart to think of God as feminine. I never thought of Him that way before. As a rape and incest survivor, God to me was always this masculine thing that was just something harsh and the only way we could obtain His mercy was through Jesus. Someone once told me,"God is always angry. It's only through Jesus that he's able to not be." I realize only just now that that sort of thinking puts God in a teeny little box. He is so much more than that. It gave me chills to think that God actually experienced my pain as those things were happening and that He continues to experience my pain with me everyday. I've heard these things before, but until I realized that God could be feminine, I never had it in my heart. So, to Jon Trott, this is what I meant when I said,"Thank you for opening my eyes." I am going to pray and pray and pray that I don't lose that heart-knowledge.

I am going to write this on my bathroom mirror in red lipstick:
Don't despise the simple things just because they are simple.