Thoughts

Earlier this week when I jumped on Facebook, I saw some live feed about how the Greek’s were celebrating the Orthodox Passover or bringing it in or something. I equate it to Ash Wednesday but I could be wrong there… I don’t know. Truthfully, I have Greek blood in me and wish to know more, but at this point in time I just don’t.

So in the live feed they had dyed flour, blues, pinks, reds, greens. I’m not sure if that is signifcant, remember, I just stated I don’t know much about their traditions. And they were marching through the streets throwing flour. Personally, I thought, wow, that’s cool I want to know more.

I truthfully love learning about other cultures. I remember in my junior high school History class, we actually spent a couple months looking at all the different world religions. Now, when people hear religion and school they throw a fit, but he wasn’t pushing religion on us, he was informing us about all religions. Now not all, because hello we didn’t have that much time, but there were quite a few. I specifically remember, Judaism, Christianity, Islam/Muslim, Atheists, Catholicism, and I think there were a couple more, but remember that was back in Spring 2000.

Then again in college I had to take a World Religions class. The professor presented a lot (we’ll leave it that way instead of all!) of different religions around the world. If she didn’t wear a cross necklace, which she actually hid under her shirt in class, you really wouldn’t have known she was a Christian. She played devil’s advocate for all religions, stirred up debate, and everything else to make people think, “Is this really the best religion.” It was a lot of fun.

So why am I giving all this backgroundedness (I made that word up)? I was reading through the comments on this passover video. People are actually quite rude. They were dissing and dismissing this religion’s traditions. They criticized them for dying flour and throwing it in the streets when it could have been used to feed hungry people.

From what I gather, it was supposed to represent Ashes to Ashes and return to ash again or something to that effect. Now… maybe that flour could have been used to feed hungry people, but we don’t have any idea how much flour was actually used in all of that. We don’t. So how can someone criticize? I just don’t get it.

It was one day a year, I think. There again, I’m not claiming to know anything about that tradition other than what I saw on the video. And trust me, I watched it longer than I should have because it felt like a group coming together and celebrating.

I truly think I’m over all this hostility in our country. No, I don’t think, I know. I’m sick of people only being able to express their opinion when it meets what someone else believes or else they get criticized. 1st Amendment, Freedom of Speech. I guess it doesn’t guarantee no criticism… Okay, you got me there. But such negative hostility. It’s just tiresome.

Sure, I have my opinions. We all do. There are even times I get tired of biting my tongue and not speaking what I feel… but I do it for many reasons. Although sometimes, I forget those reasons and speak out… but I try not to do that if I don’t have all my ducks in a row.

So anyway, this is a lot of randomness, but seriously… something that has been on my mind.

Happy Thursday!