[Ernest Green, 1958, being rejected by white classmates at Little Rock's Central High School after becoming its first black graduate.]
Where are we first accepted…or not? Hopefully, it's in our mother's arms. Our mothers are the first ones who have the chance to love us. After that, our lives will always be places where, however kind and loving we are, we will occasionally encounter rejection.
Patients come to hospitals for cures. They also come for loving care, which they may or may not receive. What if the patient is homeless, alcoholic or weighs four hundred pounds? Will they truly encounter acceptance?
Charities were established for people who could find no acceptance elsewhere. In Nashville, for example, Oasis cares for teenagers exiled from home; Magdalene cares for prostitutes seeking recovery; The Next Door looks after woman leaving prison; and First Steps cares for infants and children with severe life challenges.
Most of us are tempted to turn away from people who look or behave differently from what we prefer. Charities, grounded in Love, are charged to accept the "untouchables" in our society because the rest of us have either failed to live Love or because we lack the skills needed for curing.
I grew up thinking that Christian churches, established as models of beloved communities, would accept anyone. I soon learned how tragically wrong I was.
As late as the 1960s, some white churches in the south, were turning away human beings who happened to have been born with darker skins. The photograph of Ernest Green being shunned by fellow students as the first black graduate of Little Rock's Central High School highlights the power of rejection and the poison of blind hatred.
To this day, many churches turn their backs on those who live a gay lifestyle. Many Southern Baptist Churches and many other religious denominations refuse to ordain women. The Catholic Church, as a whole, refuses communion to non-Catholics. Would Jesus refuse communion to you or me? To my Jewish or Muslim or Hindu or atheist friends who sought to share God's Love in this way?
What exactly is it that we need to do to gain acceptance in this life? What is the membership test beyond being human? Where are the places that not only speak Love but offer it with no conditions? Do such places exist?
The choice for America's charities is be places staffed by people who understand how to evaluate and treat, not judge and discriminate. The challenge for caregivers is to learn the difference between diagnosis and judgmental thinking. These answers are found by living Love.
What do you think?
-Erie Chapman
Journal of Sacred Work 
Leave a comment