Holy Books, Hollow Hearts

Two maps of America flashed across my screen. One from 1900, one from 2020. Heat signatures showing where African Americans live, separated by 120 years of supposed progress. The patterns nearly identical.

I shouldn't have scrolled to the comments. But sometimes I do this. Wade into these digital waters to take the temperature of our collective soul. What I found was disgusting. Tons of racist comments.

"Montana is the greatest state," they wrote, their meaning clear as crystal. Others demanded crime statistics, each comment a small revelation of what lies beneath our thin veneer of progress. The casual cruelty stunned me, but what broke my heart was the next discovery.

Profile after profile showed crosses, Bible verses, declarations of Christian faith. The hypocrisy. These same voices praising states for their whiteness also claimed to follow the man who taught us to love our neighbors as ourselves. The man who touched lepers, embraced outcasts, and saw the divine spark in every soul he met.

How do we hold such contradiction? How do we claim to follow teachings of universal love while harboring such selective hatred? How do we read "love thy neighbor" and add our own footnotes about which neighbors qualify?

The Yogis teach that souls evolve across lifetimes, each learning at their own pace. Some sprint toward understanding while others crawl. But what does it say about our current moment that souls can simultaneously clutch their Bibles while turning "others" into statistics?

I have friends from every corner of the world, each one a window into new ways of seeing, being, understanding. Each relationship a testament to the magnificent vastness of human experience. Yet here were people celebrating the absence of diversity as if uniformity were some kind of achievement.

The maps haven't changed much in 120 years. But what pains me more is wondering… How many hearts remain similarly unchanged? How many souls still choose the comfortable darkness of separation over the challenging light of unity?

Perhaps the Yogis are right. Perhaps these are simply younger souls, like children still learning to share their toys. But when I see ancient prejudice dressed in modern clothes, I can't help but wonder. How many more centuries until we finally understand that the divine spark, the Spirit, the “Holy Ghost,” knows no color?

Two maps. One century of supposed progress. And between them, millions of souls still learning what Jesus, Buddha, Krishna, and every great teacher tried to tell us:

The light within you is the same light within all. You only have to be brave enough to see it.