“Right” and “Wrong”
As I was out for a run on this gorgeous sunny morning, a thought that sounds almost like a Buddhist Koan struck me: “There is no wrong way to be.” The power of this statement hit me right between the eyes and it was both sufficient unto itself as an eternal truth, and also invited me to unpack more wisdom.
There are some folks who are engulfed by the idea that the only people who are fully human are white, male, cisgender American Christians. And in their narrative, everyone else is quite literally less than human. Women are property. Black and Brown people are animals. Transgender people are demons. (I recommend this article as uncomfortable but necessary reading about how this set of beliefs is explicitly, intentionally Christian.) For folks with this belief system, there is quite clearly a right way to be, and a wrong way to be.
I reject this on its face for the simple and obvious reason that the people currently being Black and Brown and female and transgender are who they are with no choice in the matter. None of us got a vote on how we came to exist in this world — we are what we are. So if you ascribe to the notion of an omniscient, omnipotent magic being in the sky who created everything, all of us are here on purpose. And if you don’t ascribe to that particular mythology, all our existences…
