Time to Ban Lascivious Flowers and Their Colors
It appeared this morning on today's edition of Sunday Morning on the local CBS network, a segment about the banning of books in our school systems and, by extension, in our local libraries. Much of the segment gave credit for the bans to an organization ironically named, 'Moms for Liberty'. Liberty must certainly have a different meaning today from when I grew up, but I digress.
As I viewed the segment and the related story concerning the backlash from others across the country committed to making books, all kinds of books, available to anyone who wants to read them, it occurred to me that if we do not take this kind of oppressive authoritarian behavior seriously now and try to stop it, the next thing you know they will be trying to ban lascivious flowers and their colors, wherever they may be found - because, you know, flowers include the colors of the rainbow - and so much more. Having just received some absolutely stunning pictures of Spring flowers at Diamond Valley Lake in California from a cousin of ours, I thought about how much I enjoyed those pictures and how near the beauty of Diamond Valley Lake they brought me. If you look carefully, you can sense them swaying in the breeze, their pungent aroma thoroughly washing the surrounding countryside with waves of earthy sensuality - and their dance, their dance inspires youth and aged alike to trip the light fantastic without a thought or regard for whom else might be watching or why. It is, after all, the Springtime of God's creation - and earth, as well as earth's inhabitants, will do what God has created them to do since time began. Or have we ignored or, worse yet, forgotten that little seismic inconvenient Truth for the sake of self-righteous indignation and puritanical political control posing as protectors of the children?
Whose children are you protecting?
God has something to say about such things, including the banning of books. Were that not true, great sections of the Holy Scriptures themselves would have been left out, rather than put on full display for all to read and reflect upon. Those who choose to use the scriptures as a weapon with which to wage a holy war of their own making, regardless of the issue, most often find it turned around in their own hands and staring at them from the door of an empty tomb, with the Risen Christ left to care for the broken ones, the marginalized ones, the differently colored ones, the poor ones, the sexually struggling ones, the abused ones, and the economically disadvantaged ones . . . while the Pharisees among us blithely and blindly continue their campaign of terror to claim a foothold which is nothing more than sand itself.
If you want to ban books, then you need to close publishing houses, followed closely by censoring all authors. Yet, even if you ban books, close publishing houses and censor all authors, you can never silence the rocks and stones themselves, for they will sing of God's Truth, however the Spirit inspires them to sing it - in the same way flowers will bloom in the manner the Spirit gives them brilliance and wonder to rise up.
Of what are the book banning Moms afraid? That in the midst of reading a book their child will discover something their parents have failed to teach them? Or taught them to be untrue? That the world is not exactly the homogenous gallon of prejudice, bigotry and power that they have raised them to believe it is? That this is one world, one global village, one human experience in many expressions? Of what are they afraid? Of what are you and I afraid?
One of the easiest ways to spot a weakness in another's life story is to observe what most they strive to silence, to stop or to deny. Perhaps that is why God Herself is so bold with flowers, with wonder, with Truth and with Grace. God will not be silenced, stopped or denied. Just ask Caiaphas, Pilate or the Centurion.
Thank you, God, for not allowing our ban of You in Jerusalem to become a ban of You forever. Thank you for overcoming our silence, dismay and self-righteousness with the simplicity and strength of flowers spread out through the Valley . . . perhaps such a vision of flowers is what caused the Psalmist, David, to write, "Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death I fear no evil, for Thou art with me, Thy rod and Thy staff they comfort me." He saw the flowers and knew he was not alone.
Neither are we. Savor the flowers among us, do not ban them, for to such as these belong the Kingdom of God.
Something to ponder on the journey.
Photographs (c)Karen Bayles, 2023. Used with permission.
