Many Christians in the U.S. saw the opening ceremony of the Olympics, not as an homage to earlier European religions, but as a parody and assault on their own Christian religion. Something bad happens when we look out at the world through the lens of our own sectarian narrative and cannot listen to people in their own terms. When groups are taught that God created the world especially for them they will most likely judge outsiders as inferior versions of themselves. So, instead of being able to understand the opening ceremony as a whimsical panoply of earlier European Gods and Goddesses, many Christians saw the opening ceremony as a sacrilegious depiction of the Last Supper. Sectarian Christians cannot really love those outside their theological bubble. To sectarians, life is always about themselves. Sectarian religion brings division to the world when it does not recognize the figures in its own theology as personifications and analogies of a deeper, common life we share with every other being. Sectarian religion ruptures the ear by which can hear the truths that do not fit in our simplistic Sunday School narratives. Literal belief wounds the eye that would see the humanity of those who do not fit into our religious narrative; but are, none-the less, standing right in front of us.Whatever the symbol “God” means, it must include female as well as male, animals as well as humans, and non-believers as well as believers. If religion is not to be toxic, it must point beyond anyone’s sect and call us into the life we share with everyone, including those who do not believe in our religion at all.If the Holy Spirit is understood as a ghost-like being belonging only to Christians, the symbol will leave believers isolated, selfish, and without roots into the natural world. But, if Holy Spirit is understood as a personification and analogy of the tie that binds us all together the symbol will not only unite Christians to each other, it will unite us to all humankind and to the web of life itself. The symbols of religion are like tiny umbrellas that start with our isolated egos and open us to the common life. They are seeds that open only to the sunlight of honesty and the nurturing rain of compassion. If our religion does not allow us to feel our kinship, even with the most dedicated Atheist, our seeds have not yet opened.