resident alien day 13; alien babies and gay marriage

I have alien children.

They have neither green heads nor big eyes. They were not found in a desert in Nevada. They do not try to phone home.

They are living in America as resident aliens. They were "born" as such, as are all people who are baptized into the Christian Faith regardless of denomination; Baptist, Church of God in Christ, Anglican, Catholic, Episcopal.

Those who are baptized as adults have an advantage in that they have a voice to claim their true citizenship, but those who are baptized as infants are no less aliens. They have been given to God, just as Hannah had done:

"Every year this man went from his hometown up to Shiloh to worship and offer a sacrifice to God-of-the-Angel-Armies. Eli and his two sons, Hophni and Phinehas, served as the priests of God there. When Elkanah sacrificed, he passed helpings from the sacrificial meal around to his wife Peninnah and all her children, but he always gave an especially generous helping to Hannah because he loved her so much, and because God had not given her children. But her rival wife taunted her cruelly, rubbing it in and never letting her forget that God had not given her children. This went on year after year. Every time she went to the sanctuary of God she could expect to be taunted. Hannah was reduced to tears and had no appetite.

Her husband Elkanah said, “Oh, Hannah, why are you crying? Why aren’t you eating? And why are you so upset? Am I not of more worth to you than ten sons?”
So Hannah ate. Then she pulled herself together, slipped away quietly, and entered the sanctuary. The priest Eli was on duty at the entrance to God’s Temple in the customary seat. Crushed in soul, Hannah prayed to God and cried and cried—inconsolably. Then she made a vow:

Oh, God-of-the-Angel-Armies,
If you’ll take a good, hard look at my pain,
If you’ll quit neglecting me and go into action for me
By giving me a son,
I’ll give him completely, unreservedly to you.
I’ll set him apart for a life of holy discipline."

Our infant-baptized-God-gifts are to be raised up in the ways of God until they can claim by the gift of faith through the power of the Holy Spirit that they are His. These little ones are no less residents of a foreign land than we are. 

Yesterday my littlest alien-baby spent the day with me collecting food, clothes, cleaning supplies and money for victims of Hurricane Sandy.  It did not matter what color they were, what their home country was, nor their sexual orientation. My alien babies know that God causes the sun to rise and the rain to fall on everyone and that national disasters affect us all because the world is broken due to sin. 

On the way home from a lovely dinner last night, my oldest alien-baby who just started kindergarten pipes up from a way-past-bedtime back seat; 

"hey dad, can girls marry girls and boys marry boys?" 

I took a breath, prayed, and my wife and I each had that look. 

My emotions were not caught up in "us and them" , "right or wrong", or any sense of frustration. 

I was flooded with the sense that here, in the back seat of my wife's Honda CRV, after driving home from someones house who is on the forefront of battling human slavery in Connecticut, after my youngest daughter nearly passed out in her lunch since she was so tired after running back and forth to two trucks loading up material aid for total strangers, after we had spent a day as a family, each of us loving the least, and past over in our town and nation, I was about to drop a bomb on my little kid...

The world is going to tell you that you are wrong

The world is going to tell you that you are hateful

The world is going to call you all sorts of names

You, little child, will be persecuted

God gave me great love in that moment; for my daughter and for the world. 

"Why do you ask honey?

Oh, "....." told me in kindergarten today that boys can marry boys and girls can marry girls

Oh, and why did he tell this to you? Who told him? 

His dad did...

Olivia, sometimes the world does things and says things that we understand aren't right in the eyes of God. Sometimes we get called names and get excluded from things. 

We understand that God made men and women for each other and that men should marry women only. The laws of our state say that this isn't true. I know it's confusing, but we are to follow God. Hey bud, if your friends tell you things that you know aren't right, just say, we feel differently and love them. God's people have to follow God's rules.

Remember how much God loved Nineveh, and how Jonah was really upset with them? God wanted Nineveh to stop, but he told Jonah to love them anyway. And hey, great job asking dad about something that confused you. You can always ask me, all the time. "

So I looked at my wife, and she winked at me. 

If you read this and you disagree, please have the respect for my kid I have for yours, and for you. 

It breaks my heart that my kid who has such a big loving heart for everyone is going to be harassed, confused, and told she is phobic, hateful, and a slew of other things when all she does is love God and everyone around her...

I guess I shouldn't worry so bad. She is a veteran of persecution. She is only five.

She was told God was fake and she was stupid for believing in him way back when she was three. That's when we first taught her to love those who hate you, just as Jesus did.