Sunday, June 12, 2011

174/365 My Sunday

I take Leo to the back during the second reading. It's over for him already. I get one of the hearing-assistance devices and sit in the Utah Vestibule, wrestling with the 18 month old. I listen to the readings, hiding the little receiver from Leo because he wants to play with it, too. I listen to the Gospel--always a strange one, with the phrase, "let the dead bury the dead." I've been jarred by this before. I've tried to make sense out of, on one hand, giving everything up to follow Christ, but on the other, the idea of obligations, of the corporal works of mercy, of being a Christian.

Then Miguel starts his homily. It's about the Danish resistance during World War II, led by King Christian X. The Jews of Denmark were not rounded up and taken away to concentration camps. Neighbors helped neighbors get them out to safety in (was it Sweden? I can't remember now). There were other simple examples of resistance--they kept the Danish flag raised through the whole occupation, there were no yellow stars on the sleeves of Jews, there was no ghetto. The way Miguel told it, it wasn't an armed resistance, just a peaceful "no" and the follow through that mattered.

Jews were not well-liked folks even in the best of nations back then. Jews were scapegoats and outsiders. In Denmark most likely they were well assimilated and part of society, but they were still the 'other.' Nowadays, we look back at the German Final Solution and I, at least, find the whole notion ridiculous. Horrendous and terrifying, but ridiculous from the standpoint of today. Israeli politics aside, I don't think Jews are a big topic anymore. I don't blame the Jews for anything, really. And even at their most fearful and racist, I've never heard my dad's relatives have anything to say about the Jews. They're kind of a non-issue, really, at least in western society (I'm not talking about Iran, I'm talking about countries where Jews actually live). And I know that isn't entirely true, I took the class on The History of Antisemitism in college. But they don't seem to be the Big Hated Minority any more than any other minority anywhere.

And I considered this as I stepped outside with Leo, after the homily and he was completely wild. The gay pride parade was gearing up--floats were assembling, tan men in leather skirts were standing on the sidewalk in front of our church drinking gatorade and talking to tattooed women with tiny dogs dressed as astronauts. You know: weird with a capital W.

And I thought again about the story of Denmark and the Jews.

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