“There is no Jew or Greek, slave or free, male or female. For you are all one in Christ Jesus.”

 

“There is no Jew or Greek, slave or free, male or female. For you are all one in Christ Jesus.” Galatians 3:28.

We view ourselves as so civilized and advanced these days. It horrified the West to hear on the news about Iran whipping women for not wearing a hijab or Afghanistan, making it illegal for girls to go to school. Canada demanded China uphold human rights and not force its citizens to abandon their religion and way of life.

We forget much of our past easily. Just over a hundred years ago, there were still slaves on our continent. A slave is a human being who has no rights whatsoever. If you had the money to purchase one, you could do with them whatever you wanted. Some grandchildren of slaves walk amongst us today. If you were born to slaves, you were a slave.

If you were born a girl, you couldn’t vote and your husband could beat you to submission. If you were not Caucasian, you had much fewer rights and your children were the same. Well, thank God now Great Britain has a Prime minister of Indian descent, not that I agree with his political views.

Here the government is contemplating paying some First Nations for the land stolen from them against our laws (they weren’t selling and we took it) and soon there will be a public backlash. I am preaching equality but don’t wish to pay for the sins of my fathers. How about you? How can we fix past injustice?

When I started working for the City of Calgary, we excluded women from managerial positions. If they became pregnant, they were forced to resign and reapply after the child was able to go to Day Care. When they did, they lost their seniority. I and some others fought against that rule. Call me a fool, but the world was changing. We started considering human rights.

When I was six, there was a woman that used the bus I went to school on. Her nose was cut off, and the adults said that she was unfaithful to her husband and he cut her nose off. Although I was frightened by her, her situation taught me that women are equally human. I think here they are, but we can improve.

Life went on and I got old. Living in Canada is so much better than it could have been in the other half of the world. We no longer have slaves and I have a female doctor and studied under female professors.

The real conflict in this day and age is over the theory of evolution. There is no question in my mind that all living and growing things change over time to improve their survival. The question we have not answered is, who really is the fittest that will survive? Is it the rugged, selfish individual or the multitude uniting to assure their own survival? Here the line is not clear.

In the past, it was much more obvious. Some capable person would shed their moral code, hire an army, and take over smaller nations or groups less powerful. The foolish people would join in admiring a strong leader. Little do they know that they will probably end up being exterminated or dying lacking the necessaries of life. Admiring a strong leader and wishing to be like him is the opposite of what some faiths, like Christianity, are all about.

Two thousand years ago, humankind was developing to where a decision had to form. Some simple people from the middle east went to the world preaching that the kingdom of God is at hand. Humans understood that there is a force, not physical or material in nature, which influences human destiny but does not dominate it. That force, which people loosely call God, will not force us to do things. It goes against its nature. Teaching and convincing are necessary to secure a win. It is the only way to have our species buy into it.

I have been studying what I can about that force for over fifty years now. It does much that I don’t understand and it never rests. The believers think it will judge people on judgment day, but it looks to me as if each day is judgment day. Those who choose to follow the selfish strong leader seem to suffer consequences here in this life, not needing hell in the afterlife. I am conflicted, yet my faith is stronger than ever.

With no research or even thinking hard, I can name four or five strong men who must hang on to their political leadership positions to stay out of jail. This forces them to do favors for other selfish people and hurts the poor more than they are now. Often when the powerful lose their grip on power, the punishment is severe.

There are things beyond our comprehension, hidden from our limited senses.

We have great knowledge, but civilizations before us also did and died off. All I know how to do is to be another simple man from the Middle East and try to tell what I think is true. When we need help we pray (Just honesty, no devices.) and trust the force that we can’t see, because it’s good.