A Little Love Goes a Long Way

After trying to explain to one of my grandmothers on Mother’s Day that the Church (big C) can get in the way of God, I saw this article today and thought of how much the world has to learn about who/what “God” really is.

I was shaken after leaving my grandmother’s house, and my thoughts went back through my life, turning over and over the interactions that may have driven my father’s side of the family to dislike me so immensely. I’ve sometimes wondered if it’s because I hang out with gays. (I asked Jacob last night if I was okay to drop the “the” and just say “gays”, and he said that since I’m a honorary gay, it’s okay.) They are so very uncomfortable about anything “gay” and my utter embrace of the culture may have offended them.

And as I was talking to my mom about how frustrating all of this is (not just the family hating me part, but also the family – and lots of other people – hating gays part), she said, “Katie, if more people had a Jacob, there’d be a lot less hate in the world.”

And my heart sort of melted. She’s not wrong.

I wish everyone knew how much their hate could hurt. I wish everyone knew what this little boy knows. God is love. God does love. God’s love is good.

For those of us humans who choose to embrace religion, it’s important to remember that actions speak louder than words. Professions of hatred, such as the ones by the Westboro Baptist Church, are not in keeping with the teachings of Christ. Whatever faith you embrace (or don’t embrace), use today to spread a little love. Set a better example.

Kid Told Westboro Protesters ‘God Hates No One’ Because, ‘That Is True’

Categories: ReligionNational News

01:40 pm

Josef Miles, making his own statement.

EnlargePatty Akrouche/Facebook.com/FeverDreamsJosef Miles, making his own statement.

“I just don’t like seeing those signs and I kind of wanted to put a stop to that.”

That’s 9-year-old Josef Miles’ simple explanation for why he held up a notepad that said “GOD HATES NO ONE” as supporters of the tiny Westboro Baptist Church staged another small demonstration featuring their signs that say God hates homosexuals.

His Mother’s Day Weekend action in Topeka, Kan., which we we reported about last week, won Josef fans across the Web after photos of him started to spread. Today, he and his mom spoke with Tell Me More host Michel Martin.

Josef’s mother, Patty Akrouche, told Michel that she and her son have often seen the Westboro Baptist protesters in Topeka, where the church is based. As we’ve said before, Westboro Baptist has gained notice in recent years for protesting against homosexuality, abortion and other issues outside the funerals of military veterans and celebrities.

Josef had in the past asked her about the signs, which feature an objectionable F-word when referring to homosexuals. Akrouche had told her son that the signs were using “a hate word” to refer to men who love men and women who love women.

As he reflected on that, Josef said, he decided that “I didn’t want everybody to think that Topeka has a bad image.” So on the day earlier this month when they came upon the protesters again, “I thought about it for a minute” and concluded that “God hates no one” would be the right thing to say.

Why?

Because “that is true,” Josef said.

Akrouche told Michel that “it’s a privilege and honor” to be Josef’s mom. She has better conversations with him, she said, than with many adults: “I learn something new from him every day.”

As for Josef, he felt “really brave and confident” that day (the Westboro protesters “were respectful,” by the way, according to Akrouche). And now he’s a little surprised by the attention he’s gotten. “I thought it would be just, like, ‘oh, that’s really great, good for you,’ ” he said, not something that would go viral.

Source: NPR

Advertisement

Leave a Reply

Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in:

WordPress.com Logo

You are commenting using your WordPress.com account. Log Out /  Change )

Twitter picture

You are commenting using your Twitter account. Log Out /  Change )

Facebook photo

You are commenting using your Facebook account. Log Out /  Change )

Connecting to %s