How I Wish They Preached Holiness and Separation When I Was Growing Up

I’m wishing today that when someone preached holiness to me when I was growing up, it didn’t just bind itself to dress codes, and jewelry and controlling my tongue. I wish when I was growing up separation from the world didn’t just mean music I listened to or places I shouldn’t go to.

I wish when they preached to me holiness and separation that they preached against hatred and bigotry and seeing people differently than myself. I wish they preached a separation from a world where I may deem myself better than others because of my color or my money and that I should fight that with every fiber of my being.

I wish they preached holiness not of what clothes I should wear, but the kindness of heart that should have. Not just about the music I shouldn’t have listened to, but the evil I can conceive about others in my heart and mind. Not just on how many people I shouldn’t sleep with but how many people are sleepless and hurting. That when they preached love your neighbor, it meant not just the ones across my pew but my street, the ones across “the train tracks”, across my culture, across my skin color. That purity was not just about sex but about the propensity of my mind to think evil of others.

I wish they preached against racism, sexism, violence both domestic and otherwise. I wished they had elevated the love for Jesus beyond me going to church, singing the worship songs and reading the Bible and paying my tithes.

Yeah, they taught on it. Sure they told me to love others, but they made holiness an action of the outside. I wish they hammered it on for the holiness on the inside. I wish they showed me Jesus beyond the cross that I shouldn’t be wearing on my neck to the cross that I should be carrying on my back.

I mean ... I wish I taught on it. I will now.