We live in very divisive times. We’re divided by our political affiliations. We’re divided by our religion. We’re divided by our neighborhoods, by our schools, by the cars we drive, by the charities we support. Our country, The United States of America, is divided.
Unfortunately instead of tolerating (or even embracing) our differences, we have started using them as lines in the sand. The lady in line behind me at the grocery store last week said to her friend on the phone, “Oh, you won’t like her. She’s a Democrat.”
This month, a local boy, Sgt. Christopher Gailey of Ochelata, OK, gave his life so that we could embrace those things that we’re passionate about. He laid down his life courtesy of a roadside bomb in Afghanistan ensuring that people all over world were afforded the luxury of their own opinion, just as we have here in our grand country, a place Chris felt so passionately about that he chose to volunteer his life for it.
As has become standard for military funerals in the past few years, members of Westboro Baptist Church exercised their rights and planned a protest at Chris’s funeral. They made their intentions known and our small little town took exception to their message. Before the protesting group could finalize their plans, many groups in Bartlesville, OK were making plans to shield the family from harm’s way, just as Chris had done in shielding our country.
The day of the funeral services and burial, motorcycle groups came together and escorted the body to the church and escorted the family to the church. They parked their bikes – their Harleys, their Hondas, their Kawasakis – outside the church and up and down the street, letting the family know that together they were dedicated to being a barrier.
A major highway from the church to the cemetery was lined with people from babies in strollers to gentlemen in wheelchairs to teenagers in concert shirts to 50-year-old cowboys. All of them had a flag in their hands and all of them were waving the flag in support of the sacrifice made by one of our own hometown boys. Their differences put aside for the duration of the memorial services and burials.
At another intersection, Westboro gathered on a street corner. To their left, they saw Veterans with their flags. To their right, they saw college students with their posters relaying messages of gratitude and peace. Directly across from them they saw young families and old families and singles and divorcees and widows who raised their voices with messages of freedom and patriotism and unity.
For that day, for that time, Westboro had taken away the topics that made us intolerable of each other. For that day, for that time, Westboro had united us in freedom and gratitude and patriotism. For that day, for that time, Americans came together and put our differences aside. We stood united. I know for a fact that was not Westboro’s intention. But, I’m glad God chose to use them in such a way in our town.
For the right to express our differences in a peaceful and tolerable way: Thank you, Sgt. Christopher Gailey. Rest in peace, Soldier.
