oh God

In the 50’s in Pittsburgh, my dad was one of about 8 men who happened to be Jewish and happened to be a police officer. When holiday time came around we received a Christmas card from about 75% of the members of the police force and invitations almost the entire month of December to join the Christian families in their celebration of this American holiday.

Many of the families with whom we broke bread over the holidays had no idea Jews did not celebrate Christmas and thought that Jesus was the official God of this nation anyway so what harm would it be for us to enjoy his birthday.

I thought, originally, that Christmas was not a religious holiday but rather a national holiday similar to the Fourth of July, Labor Day or Memorial Day. And being it was the 50’s we also celebrated Christmas in our public school, Linden Elementary with our annual Christmas pageant, where Miss Cyphers, the Music teacher, and Miss De Turk the Art teacher had the students learn all the verses to almost two dozen Christmas carols, and have grades K- 8 create festive murals celebrating December 25.

We would all gather in the foyer in front of the principal’s office, a very mean and goulash looking woman, named Miss Patterson the principal, would welcome us with a psalm and verse from the New Testament. Then each grade dressed in a Christmas theme outfit would stand in front of the tree a follow spot in red gels angling at the angel on the top and sing their Christmas carol, including however many verses each song included.

In the 50’s in Pittsburgh we had the Blue Laws. It was a prohibition on sales of alcohol for this day of the Christian Sabbath. No booze served at all or with special compensation from a politician at least until the last church service was over and the parishioners would no longer have to make a choice of attending church or drinking a few “boiler makers”. Television channels carried messages from many a preacher. Billy Graham had his radio and television hour and presided over his crusades to educate the nation about his Lord and Savior. He was deemed by many a conservative wealthy business man as the anti evil of the Communists and through his vision of a Christian America we, counting on the American Lord could keep our democracy strong. In many of his crusades and hour long Sunday presentations Mr. Graham made it very clear that a good American was a Christian American.

I grew up knowing I was Jewish, understanding as best I could from Hebrew school teachers teaching me Jewish facts in Sunday school the reasons for my existence. But all around me, in school, on the television, on the news from my parent’s co-workers to politicans I was told over and over again that there is a right way to be an American and if not a wrong way a very unpatriotic way…this was a Christian nation, like it or leave it.

For a while after we fought the first of many Civil Rights battles, battling the preachers and ministers who said God created Black and White and one is superior to the other. When we fought for Women to be more than chattel and heard from rabbis’ preachers, and ministers that surely a woman’s right to her own body or voting would destroy the kind of family God wants for all Americans. For a brief period there was some idea that America was great because of its diversity. That being an American could include God,or not. During the days of personal rights we learned that we could pray to God but not necessarily one God or any God at all if you so desired. There was a brief period of history in this nation where were were Americans first and anything else like religion came second or third.

But now as an adult with many more years behind me then in front of me, I watch as once again, via the politics in this great country of ours, the questions of whose country is this come to the fore. Whose God is the correct God to worship? And whose moral standards are accepted and whose inappropriate behavior as based on my interpretation of Gods word and the Scripture will be rejected?

And I wonder, really, really wonder with great consternation and worry, where this acting like God will lead all of us? And then I ask the question, is this Divine Intervention or Human Intention? Are we God’s Children or Children of the Corn? Are we one Nation indivisible by God or one nation divided by God?

There are many people so afraid but instead of looking to God for help, for guidance, they think that God has given them permission to scapegoat and blame. They are so afraid that they turn inward and they turn their God into a tyrant unforgiving and angry.

Oh, God!