Ggids

The voters have spoken, they have made their voices, their preferences, their needs, their priorities known. To someone like me, and to those interested in reading this, it is a good thing. It is good because it includes going forward and working towards the values we hold dear, values that will make us and our society more inclusive or equal. Through their votes, people came together in unprecedented numbers because for many months before that they received news they were upset by, disliked, disagreed with, stood against. For all the stomach churning of the news and the depressed feeling each item generated, the coming together reflected in the vote couldn’t have happened otherwise. The good came because the need for it was revealed through the difficult to take news most were subjected to. It’s like cancer. No one feels good receiving a cancer diagnosis. Yet it must precede the treatment and, in many cases, the cure.

We’re so enmeshed in thinking that good must come from what is pleasant and feels good, that we forget that the meaning of good goes far deeper. Knowing a problem exists is part of the good its solution represents.

In the many months to come we shall be exposed to much that is difficult to take. We now live with a different kind of polarized society: The voters and those they voted against.  Since those voted against are still in power, let us steel ourselves for a bumpy ride.  Only then shall we be witness to the making of what’s good. And when the next vote comes, make our choice prevail again to continue going forward.

Back when they built ships to transport slaves, they added near the top what they called a bishop’s chair. That is where a bishop came on board and from that chair converted en masse those who were below and would be sold as slaves. Without their consent or understanding, they were declared Christians, and the whole endeavor of slavery could then be justified as a means to convert infidels to Christianity.

In his recent encyclical Magnifica Humanitas, Pope Leo XIV apologized for the Church’s involvement in the transatlantic slave trade, acknowledging those actions as having legitimized it. While the pope has not openly apologized for slavery, the fact he wanted this apology included in this encyclical is, to be colloquial, a very big deal. Especially so since the apology includes condemnation of the church’s silence for the centuries hence, which the encyclical labels as “a wound in Christian memory.”

For some, gender is fixed, male and female. We in the West now recognize that is not necessarily so, there are others, usually fitting within the LGBTQ spectrum. That is us, but actually there are other cultures who more formally recognize genders going beyond male and female.

• The Hijra of South Asia, mainly India. They do suffer from marginalization, but since 2014 have been given some recognition when India, Bangladesh and Nepal recognized the rights of non-binary people.
• The Bugis of Sulawesi recognize 3 genders besides male and female, Calalai who are women exhibiting male characteristics, Calabai who are men exhibiting feminine characteristics, and Bissu who can be either and are the priests. They have had to adapt to Islam, but have still managed to retain their cultural norms.
• Muxe among the Zapotec people in the Oaxaca region of Mexico who are men who have female identity.
• The Sekrata among the Sakalawa people in Madagascar who are male who when they are perceived as having feminine traits as children are raised as girls and recognized as a separate gender.
• The Two-Spirit people among several North American indigenous cultures, people who are recognized to embody both male and female spirits.

It’s comforting to know that some cultures think outside the box!