Religion

For the first time I was looking at these parents that were in the system as people not monsters that abused their children. The mother that gave up her daughter was a mother with a HUGE secret and she didn't handle it as I would have but then again how do I know I wouldn't do the same thing in that situation? I have never been there. I have never lived it...who am I to judge her decisions.

One of the other things that we talked about in class that day was religion. Now I know this is touchy subject for people. I mean isn't the saying never talk about religion or politics?? But being the open minded one here I do need to have a few of my thoughts put in black in white if for no other reason than that you may open your mind just a bit for a few seconds while you read my word....my ideas.

The scenario was this....a christian foster family took a child in that was brought up Jewish. They had the child around Christmas time in their home. Every time a Christmas event was taking place...for example candle lit Christmas Eve Service, Christmas caroling or family gift exchange...the foster family would send the child to its room while they participated in the festivities. Again my heart broke for this child...can you imagine everyone having a good time downstairs and you having to sit in your room?

Well it turns out the rules were if you were a foster parent you couldn't keep that child from participating in any of the biological families religious beliefs and you couldn't force them to participate in any of your beliefs as a foster family. This didn't mean you had to take the child to synagogue while you attended Sunday services it just meant you couldn't baptize the child christian because you thought that child would be saved in the after life. Or if the child read the Koran you could make him read the bible. I agreed with all of these things. I think as a society we spend alot of time fighting over who we pray to. Which is ridiculous if you think about it because basically we all pray to the same God its just some of us have a different middle man than others. Like my mom believes in Jesus but other members in my family believe in Baha-u-llah...I have friends that believe Joseph Smith and what about Moses? All these men bring different ways to celebrate life but they all also bring the words of love one another and live good lives. And really if we are praying and believe in a higher power should we really be so angry and judgemental of others? I mean what gives me the right to say my beliefs are the only ones that work? My beliefs work for me but they don't work for some people very close to me. I don't love them any less for it and they don't love me any less. I have come to learn from the differences...I listen to what they believe and they listen to me. It makes it easier to respect one another if we just listen with an open heart. You may not agree and you don't have to...but we do need to respect the differences...and not judge them. If we just worried about our own lives more and other peoples lives less the world might change for the better.

As I listened to this story I felt so bad for the child...I don't think we should make children feel bad because they are being brought up differently than how we see it in our own homes. I wasn't called on by Leyla for this scenario but I have thought about it over and over again in my mind. In my house, I think the God I pray to would think that it would be more important to make a child's heart feel whole by me learning and participating in his religion than to send that child to his room to feel lonely and abandon one more time because of the family he was born into. Or the other option is as a foster family don't take those children in if you can't be open minded enough to love them for who they are. We are all people and children are just little people with bigger hearts than adults. We shouldn't break them continuously.