My faith is in shambles today, because Google honored Cesar Chavez today instead of celebrating Easter. Or at least so the Christian Right would have it.
Google
has a custom of altering the logo on its main page to mark major
holidays, significant events and anniversaries, and just because it can.
A lot of these doodles are fun, like the time it replaced the Google
logo with a functioning Pac-Man game. (My daughter still plays that.)
Others are educational, like the time Google honored M.C. Escher. Other
times, they're just odd, like the logo honoring the 150th birthday of
L.L. Zamenhof, the creator of Esperanto. (For what it's worth, I speak
the language, and just shrugged at that one.)
But heck, it's their logo, they can do whatever they want with it. Right?
Apparently
not. On Easter Sunday this year, Google honored Cesar Chavez, a labor
activist born on March 31, 1927, and not the Resurrection, and that,
apparently, was too much. Glenn Beck got all snarky at the imagined
disrespect; other Twitterfolk suggested that Google was elevating Chavez over Christ, or even found it a tremendous insult to their religion.
Come on, really?
I
fully understand that Christians on Easter may greet one another with
cries of "He is risen!" and "He is risen indeed!" But it's silly, it's
pointless, it's completely un-Christlike, to demand that everyone else
celebrate the Resurrection with us, and to take offense when a
corporation like Google, with users who are Hindu, Muslim, Buddhist,
Jewish, agnostic, atheist, Jainist, Shinto, Sikh and Wiccan as well as
Christian, does not take the time to affirm our particular set of
religious beliefs, or even to celebrate our holiday with us.
The
empty tomb on the first Easter is foundational to my faith. It is the
basis for my belief that Jesus is the Son of God, the foundation of my
hope that one day I too will rise from the dead, and for my conviction
that God's dream is for us one day to live in a world free of pain,
disease, death and infirmity, for us to walk with him as his people and
for him to walk with us as our God.
I don't need a Google Doodle to
affirm my faith today, and even if Google actually savaged Christians
today with a doodle that declared "He's dead, you nitwits," my faith
would be unrattled. (Though at least in that case I could understand
being upset.)
But, in fact, Google's choice of doodles today is
one that affirms my faith, and if you're a Christian you also should
find it encouraging.
Cesar Chavez, after all, was a tireless
advocate for the rights of poor workers. Himself an American farm
worker, Chavez was a leader in the labor movement in the 1960s and also
worked for civil rights, encouraging Mexican Americans to become
registered voters involved with the political process.
With Dolores
Huerta, he co-founded the National Farm Workers Association, a labor
union that worked to ensure laborers were paid well and treated with
dignity. One of the hallmarks of his activism was his strict commitment
to nonviolence.
Chavez, it should be noted, was a devote
Christian, He drew his inspiration for all these stands and for his
actions from the person, the teachings and the life of Jesus Christ.
And isn't a transformed life the best way to honor the man we believe rose from the dead?
Copyright © 2013 by David Learn. Used with permission.
Tweet
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment