I don't normally climb up on my soap box and preach, but this week I have three times been poked just hard enough to make that climb. I am sure I will get a lot of hacked off readers for this, but the beauty of it all is I really don't care.
I loathe politics. I am neither red or blue and I think politicians lie. The other day I read some diatribe written by some dude that proclaims to be just to the right of republican. His beef? Gay marriage. I refuse to reassemble his arguments here but suffice it to say his bottom line is that gay marriage is sick, immoral and disobedient to God. His platform included a proclamation to Republicans that if they were true Republicans, they would agree. I don't remember the guy's name and I wouldn't print it if I did because I do not want to support anything he says. If I were a Republican, I would be appalled that he is single handedly undermining the more relevant issues of the Republican platform. I would stand up for the more critical issues of my party and leave love alone. Love is not heterosexual and it is not partisan.
Cheerios has a commercial where a little girl asks her mom if Cheerios is good for the heart because daddy said it was. The mother confirms - yes it is. The little girl then goes to her father napping on the couch and pours a box of Cheerios on his chest (knowing that is where his heart is located.) Cute? You bet. I love that commercial. I saw it at least three times before it registered that the couple is bi-racial and the beautiful little girl is of mixed race. I loved the commercial even more. However, there has been a very public backlash against this commercial - name calling, complaints, outright proclamations of disgust. I am shocked and disappointed. I thought we, humanity, had evolved from that. And I wonder - IF the parents were both Caucasian and the little girl bi-racial; the unspoken message that the couple had adopted her, would it THEN be acceptable? Love isn't race specific.
Finally, I had a discussion with a friend who is heavily involved in her church. I admire her dedication to her church family, I respect her deeply held beliefs. She believes that those who have not accepted Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior as the ONLY way to salvation are damned to hell. And that's where we part. I believe in God but I no longer attend any churches or belong to a specific religion. I was once asked by a pastor why I had not become a member of the church I attended for quite a few years. I told him that I could not stand up and proclaim that Jesus is the ONLY way to God. I cannot believe that a loving God would create so many vastly different, beautiful people and cultures, so many different belief systems, only to make the sweeping majority wrong in the end. The more I think about it, the more I feel like organized religion is a function of the mortal demand to manage God. If God is love, He loves us all.
I do not feel a need to back-up my beliefs with Bible quotes, philosophical arguments or political facts. It's what I believe and I don't have to justify it to anyone. That is freedom.
Judi Coltman is an author of mystery books. She is currently working on her fourth novel. Follow her at
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Showing posts with label religion. Show all posts
Showing posts with label religion. Show all posts
Wednesday, June 5, 2013
Saturday, September 17, 2011
My Big Secret
You might have noticed that I haven’t paid much attention to my blog lately. . .then again, maybe you haven’t. I’m not sure which is worse.
Most of you know that I have written another book and spent the summer getting it ready to launch. I have had exciting feedback on this new book - and in case you haven’t heard me talk about it ad nauseum, it’s called In The Name Of The Father. This book is 180˚ out from the first book. It was intentional. If I may speak confidentially, may I? I wrote the first book because I knew it would be easy for me. That’s right, I said easy. It’s not tough to comment on the human condition when it comes to the differences in men and women, they smack me in the face every single day. Or, to ruminate on my aging body, and justify why I believe wine should be covered by health insurance (that should be a no-brainer!) or share my mishaps with a bag of pot. So, yeah, in the big picture. . .it was easy. The big question was, would it sell? As a control freak, this looming question mark mocked me at every turn. But, it did. . .and well. I am proud to say it is still in the Amazon top 10 in humor, parenting and marriage - even after a year. I learned a lot writing that book, putting it together, marketing it and figuring out what works and what doesn’t. The one thing I learned was the best thing a writer can do it to write another book. Luckily, I had one on the back burner of my brain with some haphazard starts on my hard drive. People would ask, are you writing another book? I’d answer in the affirmative and they’d just assume it was volume 2 of the first book. They plied me with stories, suggestions, and ideas and I would listen, all the while knowing I wasn’t writing humor this time. They were busy regaling me with funny and I was busy killing people off.
So, on August 10th, a year to the day that I released Is It Just Me? or Is Everyone a Little Nuts!, I released In The Name Of The Father. I am proud of both books, but this one is where my passion has always been and, I am here to tell you, it is a better book. As I said, the feedback has been phenomenal. There’s sex, drugs, language, murder, and even a love story, not your general humorous fare, right? So, imagine my reaction when, among all of the obvious "thriller" comments, I get a reader who commented, “I thought it was a cute story.” Cute?
Huh.
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