Strangely Naked

This week is the traditional U.S. observance of Thanksgiving.  I had originally invited over several families and friends from my neighborhood. I haven’t been in my house very long, maybe two years, after I gentrified the area raising property taxes and forcing out the more “unstable” poor people who lived there. Don’t worry, I gave them some blankets.

So, to ingratiate myself upon my neighborhood and foster a sense of belonging, I invited over a bunch of people who newly moved to the area. This was the only place they could find some work and I wanted to help them feel welcome. It’s not that I am of great means, people told me that if I welcomed these people in that I might not have leftovers! Can you imagine the horror? But I thought, who am I to hoard at the expense of my neighbors? I can spare that little bit of post-feast treats, the next day gluttony redux, if it means those without will find a little measure of comfort in this harsh world, know that they aren’t alone and that others care.

That is, until this past week, when everything changed. Someone robbed a neighborhood bank. Not in my neighborhood, mind you, but about fifteen states away in a place that I and my fellow neighbors typically mock. Not on this day. On this day, we all shake our collective heads in disbelief that someone could perpetrate something so heinous as to assault capitalism through a bank robbery! As details emerged, it appeared that this odious act was perpetrated by an evangelical Lutheran who twisted an otherwise peacefully Capitalist religion to say that the Bible calls for Communism and an all-out assault on the free market! Worse still, this radicalized Lutheran hid herself as member of the community! You know what, though, you know what? She wasn’t. She was from a few counties away, snuck into neighborhood by renting a place for a week, then went into the bank like she was part of the neighborhood!

 

I have little choice now but to ban from my Thanksgiving dinner anyone from outside the neighborhood, or anyone who has lived in my neighborhood less than a year, or anyone who identifies as Lutheran. It’s not my fault. If the Lutheran are such a peaceful religion, then they should be do everything in their power to actively eliminate this radicalized Communist faction. Mainly through genocide. That’s what any strong Lutheran would do, murder those with different beliefs as though that’s not a crime everywhere in the world.

Though I recognize that I immigrated to my house, I would rather ensure the safety of me and my Capitalism and my humble American turkey than dare risk ONE non-neighborhood Lutheran to understand that I am hospitable, then I risk other non-neighborhood Lutheran having a positive image of me and my home. I don’t want to sound so closed off to those in need. How about this? The only way non-neighborhood people will be allowed in my home, not even to eat my food, just to bask in the glory of my home, will be if they first PROVE that they are my particular denomination of Christianity and they will have to guess what that denomination is–HINT, it ain’t Lutheran!

Besides, if I let them into my home,  am I expected to be burdened with their dishes and refuse!?!  Where will they sleep? They’d be taking beds from hard sleeping, NEIGHBORHOOD neighbors while leaving a burden for the rest of us neighborhood neighbors!

~Fin~

In case you couldn’t see through my thickly veiled metaphor, that’s how ludicrously stupid it sounds when people and politicians talk about banning Syrian refugees from immigrating to their country.