We had to get new tags for Mom's old Buick yesterday. We had a choice between this and a palmetto tree.
I stared at this tag for ten minutes, flipping the two plates back and forth in my hands while my husband and kid fidgited and begged me to "hurry up so we can get to Radio Shack!"
Isn't this just going to add to the general perception that all South Carolinians are intolerant bigots?
Am I the dorkiest person in the world?
Why am I ashamed of my faith?
Why was I laid off the only job I ever wanted and loved, sometimes more than my kids, to be brutally honest?
Why is Mom, a devout worshiper of God, dying an agonizing death from Alzheimer's?
Why am I, a loudmouth who once got slapped by Daddy for refusing to go to church, suffering so with fibromyalgia?
Why did I come home on September 11, 2001, burst into hysterical tears and declare that I would never worship God again?
"I'll take this one," I whispered, drawing shocked looks from Roger and our daughter, who has heard me rail against the injustices of this world since I changed her first diaper.
Because, in the end...no matter what...no matter what an idiot you may think I am....
I DO.
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6 comments:
Love you, you ill-tempered Southern belle. You are so in touch with the inconsistency that plagues, and makes, us all.
It's a good choice.
I think your personal faith was running headlong into your legal knowledge of the Establishment Clause which expressly forbids the federal government, at least, from "trusting in God".
As Thomas More says in "A Man For All Seasons"; "A man may construe according to his wits. This COURT must construe according to the law". Courts, states, governments...the American tradition is that our laws are human law; not Sharia Law, not Talmudic Law, not Vatican Law.
So you were understanding at some deep level that for you to put a bumper sticker on your car saying "In God We Trust" is different from the State of South Carolina putting a bumper sticker (or a license plate) on your car saying "In God We Trust". One is a statement of personal faith, the other establishing a faith - because you notice it isn't in Allah, or Buddha, or Zoroaster, but "God" we're commanded by the State to trust.
Wise you. Sorry the state forced you into that choice. Glad you feel you made a good choice.
You made the best choice for you...I'm just sorry you feel like you were forced into it.
No, not forced into it..Actually Roger had already grabbed the palmetto one when I said, let me think about this for a second. I decided I wanted the world to know what I really felt. I run around with a lot of people who disagree with me and sometimes I'm not as fast to speak up as I should be, I guess, so I wanted to be bold.
Lorrie
Blog won't even let me post using my name! "Incorrect password". Whatever!! lol
So - just to be a stirrer-up-of-stuff, then why not go with the tree, then, and then add a sticker that says the same thing? Or one of those Jesus fish?
That way it's YOU trusting in God rather than the State of South Carolina telling every Buddhist, Muslim, Jain, Hindu, Wiccan, Zoroastrian, atheist, Shinto, Sufi, Mithraist, and Pastafarian "This is MY God in whom I trust and if you have any others you can kiss my palmetto"?
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