That Beauty May Enter

I love the location of our house.  I find nature uplifting.  It seems to provide a kind of refuge that helps focus one’s mental camera on the beautiful and peaceful.  A creek runs behind our house.  We have a blue heron that comes and goes.  There are two “couples” of ducks that show up from time to time and swim leisurely in one direction and then back.  It’s as if they enjoy one another’s company and are out for a Sunday stroll.  We’ve had a beautiful red fox sunbathing on the creek’s other side.  But the squirrels live here year round, as do the tiny brown birds that have coffee with me when I am outside.   And then there are the red birds that are here a portion of the year. 

The other morning, right outside the kitchen door that goes to the deck, was a red bird standing on the welcome mat, looking in.  Allan keeps the camera always nearby so he can capture just such pictures, but no matter how quietly and slowly he tries to snap the photograph, those red birds know.  And just a split second before he clicks, off they go.  It’s as if they delight in knowing we think they are beautiful and make a game of it.  They stay long enough for us to think we stand a chance of capturing their picture and then fly to the trees, to look back and see what our next move is.  Hang on to the thought of that red bird for just a minute, while I get to the real point of this post.  (Okay, so maybe more than a minute.)

Later on the same day that the little red bird was at our door, I broke a habit.  I rarely click on any news item on our computer home screen.  But there was an article about mothers against JCPenney. That caught my attention.   Mr. Penney, the only child of the original Penney’s,  used to actually live in the building where my office was.  Strange, yes; but true, nonetheless.  He had one-half of the 5^th floor.  And my office was on that floor.  He would chat with me when we met in the elevator.  I once gave him an inexpensive “door chime” from Radio Shack that I no longer needed. It might have cost $10.   He wrote me a personal thank you on his stationery.  It was sad really.  He seemed to view that as such a big thing.  Maybe he rarely had someone give him anything.  I simply don’t know.  I just know he was always very friendly with me.  I wondered, at times, if he simply was never treated like he saw everyone else treated; if no one dared talk to him.  Whatever the situation, you see why I was interested in a JCPenney controversy.

Evidently an organization of mothers are outraged that the department store has hired Ellen DeGeneres as spokeswoman.   They say that she is not representative of the mostly traditional families who shop at the store.  They maintain that the majority of these families will be offended and choose to shop elsewhere; that more business will be lost than gained by this decision of JCPenney. 

I read some of the comments, which I NEVER do.  I really wanted to know the general reaction.  I am glad to say it was supportive of JCPenney being able to hire whomever they want.  The consensus seemed to be that there are other issues with which these mothers could concern themselves.  I was especially happy to see that all of those who said they are Christians (remember the number of comments I read was small, but still…) were as disgusted as I with the response of this group. 

I would like to ask the women or suggest to them several things.  I wonder how they know the exact demographics of those who shop at JCP, nation-wide.  And I would like to know how they can predict anything about the future sales of a store.  Do they have degrees in marketing?  I would like to know what jobs they consider okay for gays to hold.  Are there any?  If the article correctly reports that they “demand” Ellen be replaced by someone who is not gay, I would like to know how they can “demand”?  Most importantly, I would like to ask where they think this would end?  If JCPenney were to fire Ellen, for example, and hire a young Latina, would that be acceptable to them?  Or would that not work because Latinos and Latinas are not representative of the majority of JCP shoppers?  What groups are to be allowed to have what jobs?  To what groups would the equal right to have a job of their choice be given?  To what other groups would this right be denied?  Suppose they were to discover that the manager of their local food chain is gay, would they also demand s/he be fired?   

What other areas of life, besides the work world, should be monitored by such groups as that of these women?  Would they feel the need to petition various radio stations to discontinue playing the music of gays like Elton John, since he might not be representative of the “majority” of us listeners?  (Of course I say “majority” without any data or search for actual demographic  facts.)  And where would the demanding stop?  Should students no longer study the contributions of Leonardo da Vinci to science, math, and art because he was gay?  What about Michelangelo?   Should any study of the Renaissance exclude mention of the Sistine Chapel or of his Pieta and David sculptures?  Surely Tchaikovsky’s musical compositions should not be played by orchestras or symphonies?  Shouldn’t English literature classes remove Walt Whitman, Oscar Wilde, Ralph Waldo Emerson, and Tennessee Williams, at the very least , from the course curriculum?

I would think that the study and appreciation of the talents of these historical figures who were gay should be of far more concern to these women than the spokesperson for the department store where they go to buy jeans during a 50% off sale?  Of course, if they were to decide that is a valid point,  the women would surely have to conclude and admit that gay people are more than just their sexual preference.   They would have to admit to the huge contributions of these historically famous (but gay) people.  Easier to not go there, I imagine.  To attack and discount what these people offered our society would require a lot more “demanding”. 

I repeat, where would this end?  Would we have to re-write the Preamble to our country’s Constitution?  Would we have to change the part that says “…secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity…” ?  Would it need to be changed  so as to read “…secure the blessings of liberty to those of us who are straight, and to our posterity, if they are not gay or….”?  In addition to being gay, what other “qualifiers”, or more accurately, “disqualifiers”, would we list to clarify for whom liberty is truly secured?

Certainly the Pledge of Allegiance to the flag would require editing as well.  We couldn’t have it read only “…liberty and justice for all”.  The same disqualifiers must be added here also.  We would have to pledge “…with liberty and justice for all who are not gay…”.  If other disqualifiers were determined by these women to better represent the majority of us, those would have to be listed as well. 

Allow me to make an assumption, for the moment, admitting the possibility that it could be totally incorrect.   Let me assume that one of these women is a professed Christian.  (Given that often enough the outcry against gays comes from “us” Christians, and the fact that I am making this assumption about only one of what is supposed to be a million women, I don’t find this an invalid or ridiculous assumption.)  Then I would want/need to ask that woman to give me an example of when Jesus wanted to deny anything good to “sinners”?   He didn’t run around trying to get Rome to take any rights away from them.  On the contrary, He spent time with them.  He ate with them.  I know what she would say, of course.  She would tell me that the Bible speaks against homosexuality.  And I would respond that it also speaks against lying, or cheating others, or judging them.  And then I would ask if she were to find out that JCP spokesperson had lied, or stolen $25, would she be demanding   that person be fired?  And I would remind her that Jesus spoke of sinners, period.  He did not categorize and  rank sin.  Only some of us like to do that.  I feel certain that if this woman were hateful enough she would not be convinced.  She would persist in her fight to deny gays a job, or whatever else she could. 

Going back to the little red bird looking into our kitchen.  Seems like that’s what some of us WANT to do; to exclude others.  We WANT them outside looking in.  But what we don’t see is what we are missing by not letting them in.  The red bird is different from the birds that live behind our house year round.  But what additional beauty and enjoyment even one red bird gives us!  Speaking for myself, I don’t want to close my door and have others looking in.  I want to not only open that door, but open it wide!  The person I let in might be different, just like our little red bird is different from the other birds we have around most of the time.  BUT, that red bird adds color and more beauty to our back yard.  Same thing could be true for people who are “different” from me. 

Come to think of it, what an interesting thing that the red bird came on the day I read about the mothers against JCP!  Jesus said God cares about even the birds of the air.  He then explained how much more God cared about us humans.  He didn’t say there was anything that qualified or disqualified us for that love.

You know, I like those red birds just fine.  Absolutely for sure, I’m going to try to live with that door open!  And if I do, just think what beauty may enter.