This is how I imagine it will shake out in heaven.
A gay activist and a fundamentalist preacher both die and stand in judgement before God.
The gay activist says, “I helped in the acceptance of gay-marriage!”
The fundamentalist preacher says, “I helped defend the sanctity of marriage!”
God then says, “You both embarrassed me.”
As I sit here in the infusion center watching my wife and other innocent people receive chemotherapy, it occurs to me that a human being is made up of so many more important components than sexual preference.
Before you can consider sexual preference as vital you have to address the basic elements of survival; food, water, shelter, and health. This collection of people I gaze upon are all of varying age and gender, but they are all seriously challenged by what most take for granted.
In a way, this is a purer life to live. It certainly is simpler. Fighting for your life, or for the life of a loved one, has a way of eloquently streamlining what is important, and especially what is not in a person’s world view. It changes things.
Time, something you might expect to be a human constant, takes on new meaning. It is no longer measured by sunrises or sand falling through an hourglass. No, it’s now measured by poisons dripping at their own pace through a tube, or the anxious waiting until the next appointment.
Quality of life is quantified in even more boldly simple terminology; appetite, nausea, pain, insomnia, depression.
In this place, reality now is redefined as something exceptionally personal, and yet essentially shared. As people experience pain and apprehension, they turn inward, they become deeply introspective. There are so many personal realities here, but they all dwell on survival.
Nowhere in this elegant, streamlined world view is sexuality of concern. Neither is political affiliation, nationality, nor income bracket. All patients are treated with respect, and all cancer is reviled regardless of personal preference. Here, in this world view, we are all commoners before mortality, and judgements are reserved. For doctors.
I confess that when I point my new world view into the ‘real’ world, I am greatly disappointed. Battles of all kinds have drawn their distinct lines throughout society, and banners are unfurled with words like ‘sin’ and ‘hate’ snapping in the breeze. As cruel as it sounds, I almost wish an uncomfortable but nonfatal physical malady to befall all these ‘soldiers of causes’, something that re-tunes good souls to life’s most common, and still most important virtues instead of the cacophony the world has become.
Otherwise, I am afraid that our culture will stand before judgement someday and hear these words:
“You embarrassed me.”
Tweet
Loved this post.
Go Bob! That is so well said – I listen to all the babble on the TV news all day while my husband sits there, unable to speak or get up – I get it!!
Bob, your point is spot on. It seems we are living in upside down world, where the things on the fringes are elevated in importance, while the core of our lives seem to be out of bounds, or worse, ignored. Thank you for continuing to write through this time. Your guts help us to understand, even if just a bit.
Bob,
You have spoken volumes in your comment with regard to gays and have done it to the point and made every word count. “An unsidedown world,” “fringe,” “core of our lives out of bounds.” Bravo.
Clark
Nice post. Not to be too picky, but the term “sexual preference” suggests that gay people (or straight people) have a choice about whom they are attracted to. They usually don’t. “Sexual orientation” is a better term.
As a spousal caregiver to a quadriplegic for 35 years, I understand the primacy of the struggle to survive. Yet I am bothered by this post because it implies that all other causes are trivial, and that’s simply not true, and is an unfair characterization.
Take the gay marriage issue, for example. There are gay people who have become seriously ill, and have been denied visits by their longterm partners in hospital ICU rooms because the patient and the partner did not have the legal protections of marriage. Imagine being critically ill and not being able to receive the support of your significant other.
An ill person’sstruggle to survive can understandably become all-encompassing, yet I would hope that he or she as well as their caregiver would continue to regard the pursuit of justice and human rights as noble causes, even if too sick to actively engage in advocacy for them.
To the extent that they are able, the sick should still care about humankind and the problems of the world they live in.
I have spent more than my share of time in ICUs over the past 20 years and I have NEVER known of anyone to have been “denied visits by their longterm partners because the patient and the partner did not have the legal protections of marriage.” I honestly believe this is an underhanded fabrication by certain special-interest groups in order to ignite emotions and increase sympathy for their cause.
In ICU’s in states that don’t recongnize same sex relationships at all, if the family of the ill person (parents etc) don’t want to allow the partner in they can be refused entry. I feel grateful every day that my family and I have a good relationship and they adore my partner because I would worry if we were on vacation the hospital could keep us apart. It has happened in Florida to a family leaving to go on a cruise. Even with power of attorney’s in place.
Diana, in the case you’re referring to, the woman was not denied the right to see her partner because of anti-gay sentiment. It was because it was a trauma center, they were trying to save her partner’s life, and family members would not be allowed in under any circumstances. It would have been the same had they been a heterosexual couple. Gay-rights activists have distorted this case to make it look like anti-gay discrimination. I’m sorry, but that’s the truth.