Ranty post ahead. Proceed with caution (or ignore it). 🙂
So, I live about five miles outside of a town of about 25,000 people. The youngest member of the horde would correct me with the exact population if he was here, because he has a great mind for PRECISION and insists on exact time and facts. He’ll be an excellent lawyer software developer, or scientist some day without a doubt. But he’s still in school, so I can “about” with impunity.
Between us and the south side of town, there used to be a 7th Day Adventist church. Sometime before I moved here, said church was sold. I don’t know why, but I know to whom: a group of Vietnamese Buddhist monks. They’ve spent the last few years making the unassuming little building, parking lot, and lawn in the space their own, as anyone would. The results are utterly gorgeous: they’ve added two buildings, a huge archway over the driveway, flowers and landscaping, and statues. Beautiful, huge, gleaming white statuary that makes me feel peaceful just driving by. I want to stop and meet them. I want to participate, particularly when I can see all that work has been done by the members and…congregation? What does one respectfully call Buddhist worshipper community non-monks?
Last summer I drove by one day on my way to Target to complete my standard and expected Minnesotan shopping ritual (one must Target at least once a month for essential everyday items, as per the small print included in all real estate contracts signed in this state*) and noticed the tall brown privacy fence between the parking lot and the house next door had a huge white banner hanging over it, espousing a biblical quote about how Jesus is the only way to God.
Hung on the MONASTERY’s side of the fence.
It bothered me all the way through Target, so I bought a small pot of ‘mums before I left the store and stopped at the monastery on my way home. The inside was AMAZING. Equally welcoming and curious, the very tiny Vietnamese ladies (I’m 6’ tall…I towered over them and I am often called intimidating, so I tried very hard to look friendly and…shorter?) in the converted church showed me the building, accepted my flowers and comment that I wanted them to know not everyone in the neighborhood is like the people next door, and invited me to the next service.
I still wish I’d been able to go (it was a day I had prior commitments), and I’m awkward as hell so I’ve never gone back to see if I could attend another time.
The banner people must’ve had some comments from someone about the legality of invading their neighbors’ space and disrupting their peace, because they moved their banner (which is seriously big enough to be on the side of a truck: it’s at least 3′ tall by 6′ long, like a temporary sign easily read from the road) to a makeshift frame on the top of their own garage. The frame had various signs all proselytizing and judgmental quotes, all fall and winter. Like, they clearly had MULTIPLE banners made with different biblical quotes. They have since built half a cement wall between their driveway and the monks, and moved the banner to the back of a trailer hitched to a pickup. Apparently they needed to complete the redneck look? I don’t know. The current (as of yesterday) banner has a quote about God not being found in stone, an Exodus reference. The signs still face the monastery.
The monastery has installed a metal gate across the driveway. Perhaps coincidence, perhaps not.
Rumor (and this size town there are plenty of rumors) has it the people who live right there were 7th Day Adventists who were pissed the church was sold. I want to bring them a Bible with all the quotes about loving others, forgiveness, kindness, and NOT FUCKING THROWING STONES highlighted.
I want to remind them that what they’re doing isn’t a good look for Christianity, and it absolutely isn’t in the Bible to attack your neighbors with passive aggressive pettiness for their beliefs. I want to ask them why kindness and curiosity is so fucking hard, and at the very least why the “live and let live” mentality people claim to want to espouse living in the country doesn’t apply to the people next door. Is it because they’re Vietnamese? Is it because they’re Buddhist? Is it because they aren’t paying any attention (or at least, not noticeable attention) to the provocation and going about their lives, happily working on landscaping and renovations and adding statuary wherever the fuck they like? I have so many questions for those un-neighborly neighbors.
These sorts of social things make me so horrendously uncomfortable because I don’t know what the right move is. It may well be a failing of mine that I don’t stop and ask, with kindness and curiosity, what the actual fuck is wrong with them (yes, that is intended to be tongue-in-cheek). If the universe gives me the opportunity naturally, like if I meet someone and discover they live there, I’ll ask what the signage is all about, but in the meantime it’s frustrating to see and feel like I can’t do anything constructive.
There is absolutely no reason to be so rude and unwelcoming to folk who find deity on a different path, particularly when they’re not trying to force you to leave your own. There is no reason to shove your own way to deity upon others. But harassing, excluding, persecuting, and killing in the name of one religious way or another is one of humanity’s most honed weapons to thin the herd, going back so many thousands of years I wonder if it’s not hardwired into human DNA as a way for nature to exert population control. I hope it isn’t. As an amateur historian it’s so damn disheartening to know religious intolerance has killed billions since civilization began.
I wish I had less frustration and gentler ways to confront intolerance in the moment, to discuss and really listen without losing patience. I can find curiosity about why they’re so upset, but the rudeness, the lack of compassion or tolerance for others…it’s infuriating and so disappointing.
So I drive by and roll my eyes and write ineffective venting blog posts (sorry, but I did warn you), and listen to the Horde’s indignant protest about how that’s not Christian behavior, and those people should be ashamed of themselves (yes, I was proud to listen to that particular car commentary).
And when the ‘mums are out at Target this spring, I may pick up a pot or two and drop them off on a sunny day when the gate is open, being as friendly and unthreatening as possible, and remind the monastery folk that I think it’s cool they’re here. They are making their little piece of Minnesota gorgeous, and I’m glad they are still doing their thing, and ignoring the fuss.
*perhaps hyperbole, but have YOU ever read all the small print on every page of the stuff you sign during a mortgage closing or rental application? Just sayin.
No Pithy Phrase 