Food for Thought: Core Issues

I use to read some 40 or 50 books a year, but for some reason in recent years I haven't read as many. I am sure I read only 20 books per year, if that.

I read fiction books for style, so I read them slowly. I read nonfiction just for the sake of reading them, hoping to learn a thing or two.

When it comes to nonfiction books, I am more interested in the one or two things from the book that stay with me. And I am thinking about those points many months later.

I read a good book last year titled Unexplained Mysteries of Heaven and Earth by Ron Phillips. It catered to some of my interests, most notably spiritual and scientific matters.  I tend to see a bridge between the two at times, and this book touched on some of those themes.  I even liked the archaeological discussions. It was just a well balanced book, and it left room for me to draw my own conclusions.

And I read something that I thought all along for many years. And I was surprised that someone else thought the same thing.

A discussion of the whole Sodom and Gommorah situation caught my attention. You know, the cities that were destroyed due to the rampant homosexuality.

We all know about this. Well I know about it because I have heard it preached from many a pulpit. Not so much these days, but moreso when I was a child. It all left me a bit terrified at times.

This book discusses it. It even lays out all those familiar scriptures in Genesis.

Ok, I thought. That's nothing new.

But after laying out all the scriptures, it went a step further. I want to quote it.  There are no page numbers, as I was reading electronically, but it is from chapter 5, position 659 of 3541.

Directly after a look at the familiar Genesis scriptures, the author wrote

 . "...So there, plain as day, the sin of Sodom must  have been homosexuality.

The problem of course, is that we tend to latch onto homosexuality as the preeminent sin of Sodom because it is not ours.  We can associate homosexuality with a sin worth of destruction because 'At least we don't sin like that.'  While it is true that homosexuality was rampant in the cities of the plain, and it is also true that homosexuality is a sin, the Bible actually provides some clarity for us on this issue.

You see, the real sin of Sodom is recorded in the Book of Ezekiel, where the prophet declares in an a admonition against Jerusaleum:

"As I live," says the Lord God, "neither your sister Sodom nor her daughters have done as you and your daughters have done. Look, this was the iniquity of your sister Sodom:  She and her daughter had pride, fullness of food, and abundance of idleness; neither did she strengthen the hand of the poor and needy.  And they were haughty and committed abomination before Me; therefore I took them away as I saw fit." - Ezekiel 16:48-50. 

Look at those sins. Sodom was a city full of people who were prideful, wealthy, and idle, but it addition they had lost all concern for the poor and needy among them. They disregarded the hungry and homeless. This was a nation that was prosperous to the point of overflow, and their plenty caused them to ink into the pointless pursuit of pleasure.  They had cast off restraint, and they began to indulge in every conceivable vice and sin, to tolerate and even embrace those who committed any and all manner of perversion.

Does this sound like any country you know (or in which you may reside)?"

Hmmm...  This whole passage has stuck with me.

I've never read that verse before. And I'm wondering why, in all these years, no one has talked much about it in a sermon?

And it's the first time I have seen in print what I actually think in a nutshell: Folks latch onto the whole homosexuality issue as if to say "At least I don't sin like that."

And that's just the way I have always looked at it, especially when folks are overly fervent about it.

I'm sorry. But I don't really have any idea why I would be so concerned about someone else in that manner to the point of hatred, really. And if we don't have that to pick on people about, what do we have?

Just a question.

Anyway, I thought it was interesting that the Ezekial verse details the core reason for Sodom and Gommorah's destruction: the pride, the abundance gone wrong, the disdan for the poor and needy. And let's admit it, all kinds of issues arise from that. I am more interested in core and root issues than peripheral issues.

No one ministers on those core issues because it must be too hard. For we all have had a few things going on in life. This country really looks down on its poor.

I think that's the reason.

Also, homosexuality is an easier target. "It's a abomination," ministers yell.

Okay, it is. That's according to the bible. But I'm sorry, I think people want to just feel better about themselves and the things they are doing. I think there is waaaaay more of that going on than people truly hating homosexuals. No one has any reason to hate anyone who has done nothing to them.

And the whole abomination argument is just so old. Why? Because there are a TON of abominations in the bible. Go look them up. I have busted a bunch of them wide open myself over the years. I'm probably going to do many more abominable things in the future.

Oh what a heathen I am. Sigh.

So it's a bit odd of me to turn around and look down my nose at anyone who has committed abominations that I consider worse than my own.

That's what it comes down to. And I'm sorry, I just think there is something a little bit wrong with that.

I have never been bothered by homosexuality. I have had homosexual friends and associates, and I am quite nosy, meaning I ask a lot of questions. Questions like, Why do you think you are the way you are? Would you change it? How do you feel about it?

I had one coworker who'd been married to women twice but found love with a man. Me and my nosy self had a good hour long conversation about that situation, and all the hardships involved. It was quite enligthtening. I understood the struggle long before it became the current cause it is now.

I look to understand people. We all have different life experiences and life paths and purposes. It is a bit, I don't know, foreign to me to hate anyone concerning their life choices. I have too much going on my ownself to do that. I am a work in progress until the day I die.

But I am taken aback about the disdain for the poor as the core issue.  Along with the idleness and fullness of food. One translation says the people were filled with "pride, gluttony and laziness while the poor and needy suffered outside her door."

Sigh. Sounds like my country. Good ol' USA. We hate our poor more and more by the day. And I don't understand that. We are making assumptions about why people are in the position they are, when truth be told, many of us are living paycheck to paycheck. Many of us are one paycheck from poverty... one paycheck from being in the "poor" low class category.

And I don't live in a theocracy. I have made religious choices for myself. It is hard enough to keep myself straight without picking on others. (I don't like the word "religious", as I don't care much for religion. Relationship is my goal).

The whole homosexual hate is a... cop-out. Okay, cop-out is too harsh. Let me speak for myself. For myself, it would be a cop-out... My way of saying "At least I'm not doing that."  Therefore it gives me the right to rant on it and be all judgmental. Yes. That's the ticket.

Yeah.

And the verse of scripture gives credence to that. It's much easier to judge others rather than face and deal with those core issues within ones ownself.

This book in general made me think of myself and my own perspectives. So these are some of my general thoughts on something I read. Yours may be different and this fine. I'm the type that is always learning and growing, and I must admit I learn new things everyday that either add to me and who I am or shine a light on changes that I need to make in my thinking.

And I've always had a different perspective on homosexuality, anyway.

Why? Because I grew up with "two uncles."

 My grandfather's brother, my Uncle Olin, was homosexual (and at times a transvestite) and he had a boyfriend named Otis. They were together for a good 25 to 30 years, some of those years before I was born, I believe....

And I told Southern Black Gal that I would write a post about it. I told her that a few years ago...

I do believe I will write it this week...

To be continued.