June 24: The Stranger
RANT: I remember about 10 years ago driving through Tyler and stopping to get something to eat. I felt like an "outsider" wherever I went, wherever I sought information. I drove away from your town feeling as though something out of Medieval Days were still haunting your town. And now I read the news about sex and children in Mineola.
Mineola, like Tyler, gave me even more frightening feelings. I just drove until I found someplace that was comfortable. To feel as an "outsider" is one of more important themes in all of Scripture. Jesus welcomed the "outsider" and did not shun the stranger.
And so, I wonder how it is that Mineola can have 30 churches in that small, conservative town and still allow sex with and between children, who are given prescription drugs, to even be tolerated, and not welcome the "stranger."
Looking back as I drove through both your towns, it seemed as 'though everyone would know everything about everyone, and still this horrific act went on for quite some time - even once incident would have been one too many.
Like most of us who strive to serve God and live the dangerous Jesus story, it seems as appalling for you to claim "the word" with your backs turned away from your own and from the "stranger."
I find the word that most newspapers are describing your towns ("conservative") as disconcerting. Might you not be living the dangerous Jesus story in a contemporary world where fundamentalism is driving us more and more into hate, into ignoring the "stranger," and promoting the dangerous Jesus story as filled with "law" and "order."
Jesus' bottom line theology was love. Maybe if there were more love and welcoming in your towns, incidents such as the one I continue reading about would not have happened.
Rev. Fr. Joseph D. Pisano
John University Parish
Morgantown, W.Va.
John University Parish
Morgantown, W.Va.
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