24 May 2012

Earlier this week, perhaps Monday, I walked the dog around 8:15 and I was struck by how warm it was. It felt humid and I expected the air to cool me, but it did not. I checked the weather widget on my iPhone and it said it was 72˚F. I didn't see how that was possible, so I checked Wunderground for the humidity, and found that the temp and humidity readings at the closest location to me were 75˚ and 30%. That made more sense. I also downloaded Wunderground's smart phone app.

This morning I got up and put on a long sleeved shirt, because I heard it was going to be cold. And it was! I whipped my phone out again and checked my Wunderground app, which proclaimed it to be 60˚ F. No way was it that warm, my nose and forehead were cold by this point. So I checked my iPhone widget which said 46˚ F. Then I checked the Wunderground website, and saw that it was 50˚ with 35% humidity. All the readings on the map overlay were from 45˚ to 51˚ F. The one aberration was the KNRV site which said 60˚--even the airport said 48˚. So having other sources to confirm what I already was feeling was useful. The sun was hot on my back, and it felt warmer than 50˚ by the time I got back, so what I'm feeling is so dependent on other things too. When I write in the middle of the night, I'm much more emotional and, I believe, more eloquent. If you don't trust what you are feeling, wait a bit, I suppose.

I've been thinking lately of the hate the sin, love the sinner maxim that has been making more of an appearance more these days. I'm trying to make sense of it. If sin is a vice, a bad habit, an unhealthful practice like not getting enough sleep, smoking or the overconsumption of goods and the resultant waste that engenders--something that probably should be changed whether the person is willing to or not, then I suppose I can hate the sin. Fat people & smokers may fall into this category. Gay people may too, for some.

If the sin is something worse, like drug use that causes the "sinner" to harm other people by both legal and illegal means, that's something else. But you still may love the person as much as you detest what is happening to them. Or you may not, you may write them off completely as unwilling to leave their destructive lifestyle in favor of treatment. Gay people and fat people may fall into this category, as well as substance abusers.

If the person has beliefs and practices that are detestable to you, it is still possible to love the person even as you hate their politics. Right wing social conservatives fall into this category for me for the most part. Actually, even fiscally conservative Republicans who think they are doing good fall into this category, the first group is trickier. It's harder when the beliefs are so divergent that you feel that they are hurting people and choosing to bring sorrow into the world. Bigots--the people who want to keep a system in place that benefits the status while denying rights and power to a large group of people, it's hard to actually hard to believe they are just misguided. I try to, I try to love racists, I try to see people as a composite of good and bad with the bad not tainting the whole person. Especially since so many of us are racists just by the fact that we don't examine the practices and structures which keep exploitation in place.

But finally I come to my main idea, the one that got me thinking on all of this. I have been feeling very angry towards the Catholic church. Almost as soon as I was thinking it, the love the sinner hate the sin idea came into my head. But I don't know that I can love or find value in institutions that perpetrate crimes on people. I've always thought there was so much, good and bad about the Church that the important thing was to keep the good, throw out the bad, honor what was right. Now I think that maybe the whole thing needs to be dismantled and burned to the ground, and then rebuilt. I feel that the foundations are so corrupt, it's not possible to keep shoring up the main structure at this point.

I was not actually able to finish my thoughts on this topic before I had to leave the house. Suffice it to say that I know my opinions would be offensive to people, and it seems that I'm throwing the baby out with the bathwater, which has always been the opinion I've had. Our history will always be our history, we can't change it, we can just acknowledge how it influences us today, and move away from some of that influence rather than embracing it. But sometimes it seems impossible to overcome the decay of many years, especially when people refuse to open their eyes to the problem.