Tuesday, January 04, 2022

Tell Me How This Works Again...

MTG's personal Twitter account was suspended. Her official account is still operating, but maybe no one on her staff has given her the password? Then her (personal?) account on Facebook was suspended, both times because she was spreading dangerous lies. She announces the Facebook ban on Telegram, which gets reported by Raw Story.

Is she silenced?

And McCarthy takes this opportunity (without naming her, because that would give her power?) to say "lockdowns and school closings" are being reversed.  Really?  

The rapidly spreading omicron variant of the coronavirus has upended the holiday season for many Texans and forced the cancellations of thousands of flights.

(Yeah let's skip lightly over the disruption of holiday travel due to sick flight crews who couldn't man planes for passengers, as planned.  Nothing to see here, folks!)

It has also prompted school districts in the Northeast and Midwest to take measures like limiting winter sports activities and temporarily returning to remote learning, though that is not the case in Texas, where the state government has prohibited school districts from requiring that teachers and students be vaccinated or wear masks. (Many districts are defying the mask mandate prohibition.) For now, schools are largely sticking to what they already have been doing to control the virus’s spread.

Which is doubly weird because FoxNews is complaining that local government (yeah, who put them in charge?  George Soros?) is not following CDC guidelines (now my head hurts):

Yeah, Abbott is freaking out over the need for more testing centers in major urban areas of Texas, and demanding Biden supply both testing supplies and personnel, as well as more treatment for coronavirus since unvaccinated Texans are using up the nation's supply.  But sure, everything about covid is "being reversed."  Is McCarthy Trump's stooge, or DeSantis' Surgeon General? 

It's really weird when Florida is making Texas look rational.

And "Big Tech" companies are not using the "shield" of "Section 230."  They are relying on the First Amendment and the fact that they are PRIVATE COMPANIES which operate according to a set of rules and conditions everybody "AGREED" to and didn't read, but which are perfectly enforceable at law.

If Blogger decided this blog was too incendiary (it would mean somebody had noticed!) and suspended me, would that be the denial of "diversity of opinion" in the "lifeblood of our democracy"?  Nah.  I could go to Telegram, too (if I could find it; I'm old and not all that internet-savvy).

As I recall, Congresspersons still have the franking privilege.  MTG can bulk mail her 700,000 constituents all kinds of crap about how silenced she is as a member of Congress.  That's something even the pooh-bahs of Twitter and Facebook can't do.

I'd say the playing field is level, wouldn't you?

Posted by at No comments:

Security Guards?

I didn't really care about the headline; this was what caught my attention:

The publication noted that as Stone was recently confronted while giving a sermon at his church. Stone was speaking to his congregation about people who've walked away from the church when a woman stood up and spoke out.

"Probably because you keep touching them, you nasty perv," she yelled. "Why don't you tell them the real reason why they left? Because you kept touching them."

Stone responded by threatening to have the woman arrested.
 
"Ma'am, I'll have you arrested, and I'll bring a lawsuit against you for making statements like that," he said before security guards removed the woman. "You've talked to people who told 16 lies on my wife and I! That's who you've been talking to."

I grew up in a church with elders and deacons, officials of the church elected by the congregation to set terms.  One of them might have acted as a "security guard" to remove or quiet an unruly member/visitor, if such a thing had ever happened.

Congregations are full of interesting people.  In my first church there was a member whose husband, if memory serves, was a "colorful" character who didn't like being told what to do and who liked to let people know it.  That's how I remember him; not a trouble maker, but with a bit of a chip on his shoulder.  He was married to another church member who was in the "inner circle" of the man who fancied himself the true leader of the church.  The husband was a bit quarrelsome, but I got along with him, and he never disrupted services like the woman in this story.  Still, the "leader" of the church, for reasons lost to me now (and never that sound then), approached me one day to have this man "barred" from the church.

I told him I couldn't do that.  I had no guards to post at the door to exclude him from the building, and I had no desire to ban anyone from church services.  I thought, and still think, that even disruptive persons should be allowed, and it's up to the congregation to calm them or ask them to leave, if necessary.  "Security guards"?  Seems antithetical to the idea of a church or a congregation, to me.

I didn't last at that church a year.  The "leader" and his "inner circle" had definite ideas about how the church should operate (like a business, basically, with me as the main attraction that would draw spectators to fill the pews. They thought that's how I should be paid, too; basically on commission.). The church, not surprisingly, didn't last long after I left; but it was not because I left, either.

Interesting concept of "church," where you have security guards to decide who belongs and who doesn't; or rather, who is allowed and who isn't.  By order of the pastor.

Actually, that would have been kinda nice....

Posted by at No comments:

Natural Selection As The Theology Of Scarcity, Or: Seasons Greetings!


"If these shadows remain unaltered by the Future, none other of my race," returned the Ghost, "will find him here. What then? If he be like to die, he had better do it, and decrease the surplus population."

Scrooge hung his head to hear his own words quoted by the Spirit, and was overcome with penitence and grief.

"Man," said the Ghost, "if man you be in heart, not adamant, forbear that wicked cant until you have discovered What the surplus is, and Where it is. Will you decide what men shall live, what men shall die? It may be that, in the sight of Heaven, you are more worthless and less fit to live than millions like this poor man's child. It may be, that in the sight of Heaven, you are more worthless and less fit to live than millions like this poor man's child. Oh, God! to hear the Insect on the leaf pronouncing on the too much life amond his hungry brothers in the dust!"--A Christmas Carol, Charles Dickens

I've written about the theology of scarcity so much I'm just going to link to the general category.  But if you want to see it in a sentence, this will do:

its [a biological grouping's and an idea's] right to exist is coextensive with its power of resisting extinction by its rivals

That's a quote, with slight emendations, from Thomas Huxley in the late 19th century, defending the idea of "natural selection."  An idea predicated on the Malthusian notion that there isn't nearly enough to go around, so some of us deserve all the fixin's, and others don't deserve what goes to the dogs.  Let me quote Malthus directly:

A man who is born into a world already possessed, if he cannot get subsistence from his parents, on whom he has a just demand, and if society do not want his labour, has no claim of right to the smallest portion of food and, in fact, has no business to be where he is.  At nature's mighty feast*  there is no vacant cover for him.  She tells him to be gone....(Essay on the Principle of Population, quoted in The Christmas Books by Charles Dickens, Vol. 1, ed. Michael Slater, Penguin, 1982, p. 257.)

It's an old, old story; which doesn't justify Malthus in the least: 

Instead, suddenly a woman whose daughter had an unclean spirit heard about him, and came and fell down at his feet.  The woman was a Greek, by race a Phoenician from Syria.  And the started asking him to drive the demon out of her daughter.  He responded to her like this: "Let the children be fed first, since it isn't good take bread out of children's mouths and throw it to the dogs!" 

But as a rejoinder she says to him, "Sir, even the dogs under the table get to eat scraps (dropped by) children!"

Then he said to her, "For that retort, be on your way, the demon has come out of your daughter." 

She  returned home and found the child lying on the bed and the demon gone.  Mark 7:25-30 (SV)

There are fine examples of people convincing God not to be as narrow minded and prone to draw boundaries as people are (like Genesis 18:20-33). The theology of scarcity, in other words, is not a cudgel to wield against others: it's a warning of how easy it is to substitute your preferences for what the world needs; your desires for what justice would actually be.

Dickens ends Scrooge's time with the Ghost of Christmas Present memorably, especially after the Christmas Day the Ghost travels through indicates plenty and contentment for almost everyone they pass or visit:

"Forgive me if I am not justified in what I ask," said Scrooge, looking intently at the Spirit's robe, "but I see something strange, and not belonging to yourself, protruding from your skirts. Is it a foot or a claw?"

"It might be a claw, for the flesh there is upon it," was the Spirit's sorrowful reply. "Look here."

From the foldings of its robe it brought two children; wretched, abject, frightful, hideous, miserable. They knelt down at its feet, and clung upon the outside of its garment.

"Oh, Man! look here! Look, look, down here!" exclaimed the Ghost.

They were a boy and girl. Yellow, meagre, ragged, scowling, wolfish; but prostrate, too, in their humility. Where graceful youth should have filled their features out, and touched them with its freshest tints, a stale and shrivelled hand, like that of age, had pinched, and twisted them, and pulled them into shreds. Where angels might have sat enthroned, devils lurked, and glared outmenacing. No change, no degradation, no perversion of humanity, in any grade, through all the mysteries of wonderful creation, has monsters half so horrible and dread.

Scrooge started back, appalled. Having them shown to him in this way, he tried to say they were fine children, but the words choked themselves, rather than be parties to a lie of such enormous magnitude.

"Spirit! are they yours?" Scrooge could say no more.

"They are Man's," said the Spirit, looking down upon them. "And they cling to me, appealing from their fathers. This boy is Ignorance. This girl is Want. Beware of them both, and all of their degree, but most of all beware this boy, for on his brow I see that written which is Doom, unless the writing be erased. Deny it!" cried the Spirit, stretching out its hand towards the city. "Slander those who tell it ye! Admit it for your factious purposes, and make it worse! And bide the end!"

"Have they no refuge or resource?" cried Scrooge.

"Are there no prisons?" said the Spirit, turning on him for the last time with his own words. "Are there no workhouses?"

Dickens knew who he was talking to, even if Huxley's comment was 37 years in the future of Dickens Carol. Malthus, after all, published his essay in 1803. The Ghost might as well be talking to Huxley as talking to Scrooge.  He might as well be talking to us.  One thing Dickens emphasizes in his famous Carol is that we are all bound to each other.  Marley makes it a mortal obligation that curses those who don't fulfill it for all eternity.  Scrooge exemplifies the living curse of that refusal to be a part of the community of humanity:  he lives alone, a cramped, contentious, and unhappy person.  The real lesson Scrooge learns is to regain his humanity, and share that with humanity, in order to be human himself.  It's just shy of a real spiritual revelation, a real spiritual conversion; but it's a better vision of humanity and how we should then live, than Huxley or Darwin or Malthus ever proposed.

*irony fully intended

Posted by at No comments:

Choose Your Adversary!

Paxton wants the Court of Criminal Appeals to reverse its decision that the Texas AG doesn’t have the authority to try criminal cases. Arguing he does because “exigent circumstances” is not a winning Constitutional argument. There is no “except in cases of election fraud” doctrine in Constitutional interpretation.

Besides, he has no facts to stand on. (And he knows it; this is just rube bait.)

The Court wrote a very sound opinion interpreting the Texas Constitution. It was an 8-1 decision. Paxton isn’t getting anything from them.


Reacting to the ruling, a Republican state representative, Briscoe Cain, said he would file a bill the next time the Legislature convenes that would let prosecutors in neighboring counties go after election cases.

"If the attorney general can’t, and a county won’t, then prosecutors from an adjacent county should be able to do it," the Deer Park lawmaker tweeted.

I gotta big picture of local DA's telling their voters they are protecting them by prosecuting fraud in a neighboring county.  One advantage to electing DA's is they don't go looking for fights that don't win them electoral support.  What county wants to pay its DA to poke around in another county's business? Especially since nobody can find any evidence of voter fraud in the first place. Prosecutors don’t file cases they can’t win.)
Posted by at No comments:

Here, Let Me Blame You For My Problems

Seven federally funded COVID-19 community-based testing sites operated in El Paso, Dallas and Harris counties last year, but they closed down in June 2020 despite a bipartisan push for them to remain open longer. At the time, Abbott said the state was prepared to transition away from federal testing sites.

Oops.

DSHS said this week the state was running out of the only antibody treatment deemed effective against the omicron variant. Regional infusion centers in Austin, El Paso, Fort Worth, San Antonio and The Woodlands have exhausted their supply of the monoclonal antibody sotrovimab, according to DSHS. The state is asking the federal government to send more shipments of sotrovimab, as well as Regeneron Pharmaceuticals’ REGN-COV2 and bamlanivimab, antibody treatments that have proved effective against other COVID-19 variants.

“The State of Texas is urging the federal government to step up in this fight and provide the resources necessary to help protect Texans,” Abbott said in a written statement.

And why is Texas running out of treatments for covid?

As of Wednesday the state’s positivity rate — or the percentage of COVID-19 tests that return positive for the virus — was 26.5%, and hospitalizations had climbed to more than 5,500.

And, of course, Abbott has opposed vaccine mandates and mask mandates:

“That was, I think, a real frustration for health care workers because those (hospitalizations) could have been prevented and certainly patients were taking up beds that could go to other patients who had been delaying care,” Alsip said.


The Texas Department of State Health Services says its regional infusion centers in Austin, El Paso, Fort Worth, San Antonio and The Woodlands "have exhausted their supply of sotrovimab," the only monoclonal antibody treatment that appears to be effective against the omicron variant. The department said the scarcity stems from a national shortage of the treatment, which is made by GlaxoSmithKline and received emergency use authorization from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration in May.

The affected infusion centers will not be able to offer sotrovimab until federal authorities ship more supplies in January. Chris Van Deusen, a department spokesperson, said it’s likely other infusion centers will use the remainder of their sotrovimab in the next few days.

Monoclonal antibodies are laboratory-made proteins that mimic how the immune system prevents the virus from entering healthy cells, and they have been used to treat patients at high risk of becoming severely ill from COVID-19.

A scarcity of the treatment would leave the state’s health department without an important tool to combat the virus as cases surge across the country. Some hospitals in the New York region have had to stop offering monoclonal antibody treatment because they’ve run out of sotrovimab. Those hospitals have said they will continue offering them when they receive additional supplies from state and federal agencies.

Maybe if more Texans were vaccinated this wouldn't be such a problem?

“About 90 to 93% of our hospitalized patients are unvaccinated,” Young said. “That number is closer to 98% for critical care, and around 60% for those on ventilators.” 

Well, that and:

COVID-19 numbers in the Greater Houston area have reached record levels and health experts believe the peak of omicron is still a couple of weeks away.

According to the Texas Medical Center, more people are being admitted to its hospitals daily than ever before. It’s creating a strain on hospitals where more healthcare workers are getting sick.

"Last week, we had over 1,100 staff who had COVID and were unable to come to work on their normal schedules," said Robert Schwartz, the executive vice president for Methodist Hospital. "We’ve had to really juggle our staffing and constrain our beds."

So maybe that's what Abbott's worried about.  But won't this all lead to FEMA testing sites? 

I'm kind of hoping the GOP in Texas decides Abbott is a RINO for stuff like this.  One of his primary opponents wants to eliminate property taxes, the only source of revenue for cities, counties, and schools in Texas (aside from a pittance given to cities from the state sales tax).  The other announced candidate is Alan West.  If Abbott loses to either of them, Beto can send the moving vans around to the Mansion the day after the primaries.
Posted by at No comments:

Choose Your Adventure!

Or:
Posted by at No comments:

Monday, January 03, 2022

So Go To Parler

Or Frank, if Lindell hasn’t crashed it yet. Or whatever fleece-the-rubes scheme Trump is still trying. Go to Facebook; maybe the Grandmas there will listen to you.

The rest of us just think you’re an asshole.
Meanwhile, back with a House member with actual Committee appointments: Except she has absolutely no idea how to start that, much less accomplish it. I’m so old I remember when conservatives opposed government interference in the free market. And J.S.Vance gasps for breath cries out for attention. Because the real point is freedom for me, but not for thee. At least Twitter didn’t fire MTG. I’m pretty sure there are some people in Georgia who can make her go away. Unless the press decides for some unfathomable reason that she still deserves our attention. Or go to Telegram. And, of course, there's a loophole: So she can use Twitter to complain about how Twitter has silenced her! So 2022.
Posted by at 1 comment:

Ninth Day of Christmas 2022


O God, open my lips/And my mouth will declare your praise. Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit.  As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end.  Amen.

Antiphon:  Be careful, then, how you live, not as unwise people but as wise.

Psalm 5

Hear my words, my groans,
my cries for help,
O  God my king.
I pray to you, Lord,
my prayer rises with the sun.
At dawn I plead my case and wait.

You never welcome evil, God,
never let it stay.
You hate arrogance
and abhor scoundrels,
you detest violence
and destroy the traitor.

But by your great mercy
I enter your house
and bend low in awe
within your holy temple.

In the face of my enemies
clear the way
bring me your justice.

Their charges are groundless,
they breathe destruction;
their tongues are smooth,
their throat an open grave.

God, pronounce them guilty,
catch them in their own plots,
expel them for their sins;
they have betrayed you.

But let those who trust you
be glad and celebrate for ever.
Protect those who love your name,
then they will delight in you.

For you bless the just, O God,
your grace surrounds them like a shield.

(silent reflection)

Psalm 72

God, give your king judgment,
the son of the king
your sense of what is right.
help him judge your people
and do right for the powerless.

May mountains bear peace,
hills bring forth justice.
May the king defend the poor,
set their children free,
and kill their oppressors.

May he live as long as the sun,
as long as the moon, for ever.
May he be like rain on a field,
like showers that soak the earth.

May justice sprout in his time
peace till the moon is no more.
May he rule from sea to sea,
from the River to the ends of the earth.

Enemies will cower before him,
they will lick the dust.
Kings from Tarshish and the islands
will bring their riches to him.

King of Sheba, kings of Saba
will carry gifts to him.
All kings will bow before him,
all the nations serve him.

He will rescue the poor at their call,
those no one speaks for.
Those no one cares for
he hears and will save,
save their lives from violence,
lives precious in his eyes.

Every day they pray for him,
bless him all his life.
Long life to him!
Gold to him from Saba!

May wheat be thick in the fields,
fruit trees sway on the slope.
May cities teem with people,
thick as the forests of Lebanon.

May his name live on for ever,
live as long as the sun.
May all find blessing in him,
and he be blest by all.

Blest be Israel's God,
Lord of wonderful deeds!
Bless God's name for ever!
Let God's glory fill the world!
Amen and amen!

Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit.  As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end.  Amen.

Antiphon:  Be careful, then, how you live, not as unwise people but as wise.

Reading: 1 John 2:29-3:6

29 If you know that he is righteous, you know that everyone who does what is right has been born of him. See what great love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are! The reason the world does not know us is that it did not know him. 2 Dear friends, now we are children of God, and what we will be has not yet been made known. But we know that when Christ appears,[a] we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is. 3 All who have this hope in him purify themselves, just as he is pure.

4 Everyone who sins breaks the law; in fact, sin is lawlessness. 5 But you know that he appeared so that he might take away our sins. And in him is no sin. 6 No one who lives in him keeps on sinning. No one who continues to sin has either seen him or known him.

BENEDICTUS ANTIPHON

You will see the Son of Man coming on a cloud of great power and glory.

BENEDICTUS

Praise the Lord, the God of Israel,

who shepherds the people and sets them free.

God raises from David's house

a child with power to save.

Through the holy prophets

God promised in ages past

to save us from enemy hands,

from the grip of all who hate us.

The Lord favored our ancestors

recalling the sacred covenant,

the pledge to our ancestor Abraham,

to free us from our enemies,

so we might worship without fear

and be holy and just all our days.

And you, child, will be called

Prophet of the Most High,

for you will come to prepare

a pathway for the Lord

by teaching the people salvation

through forgiveness of their sin.


Out of God's deepest mercy

a dawn will come from on hight,

light for those shadowed by death,

a guide for our feet on the way to peace.


Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit. As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end. Amen.

Our Father....

Giver of all gifts, you love and choose us, your least ones.  Increase our humility so that we might rejoice in the generosity of your love and be mindful that the good in us comes from you, Creator, Redeemer and Spirit, now and forever. Amen.

May God bless us and keep us. May God smile upon us and be gracious to us. May God look upon us kindly, and give us peace. Amen.

Let us bless God/and give thanks.

Posted by at No comments:

"DAMN YOU RICH!"

Congratulations, you poor!

God's domain belongs to you!

Congratulations, you hungry!

You will have a feast.

Congratulations, you who weep now!

You will laugh.

Damn you rich!

You already have your consolation!

Damn you who are well-fed now!

You will know hunger.

Damn you who laugh now!

You will learn to weep and grieve.

Damn you when everybody speaks well of you!  Recall that their ancestors treated the phony prophets the same way.

But to you who listen I say, love your enemies. do favors for those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for your abusers.

When someone strikes you on the cheek, offer the other as well.  When someone takes away your coat, don't prevent that person from takine your shirt along with it.

Give to everyone who begs from you; and when someone takes your things, don't ask for them back.

Treat people the way you want them to treat you.

Luke 6:24-31, SV

That Sermon on the Mount? (Technically, this one is the sermon on the plain; Matthew's sermon is on a "mount."  So maybe quoting Luke's version is a bit unfair.)
Posted by at No comments:

Still Waiting For An Answer

Posted by at 1 comment:

Political Party Half-Crazy?

Or three-quarters fools? Do they still get to vote? Because based on 2020, they’re still in the minority. Take away the advantage the incumbent has, and I don’t see any need for discourse, understanding, or compromise. I’m still not sure. Am I supposed to be worried about people this stupid? Obviously the ones who don’t sue Twitter are part of the conspiracy. Or, you know, are actually lawyers.
Posted by at 1 comment:

Sunday, January 02, 2022

Which Poll/Pundit Do I Listen To? 🎧

Yeah, nothing to see here. Besides: democracy! Fragility! Something really scary!! Yeah, and it's probably not going to be. Odds are you could have polled 12% who wanted Nixon instated instantly in '63. Or Goldwater, in '66. Clinton? Fuggedaboutit! More than 12% wanted Reagan back; for 8 years. 





The Dallas airport, November 22, 1963.  And Kennedy carried Texas.

There is indeed nothing new under the sun.
Posted by at 1 comment:

“Not Me” Did It!

It's been a year since that pro-Trump mob broke through the Capitol doors and windows, attacked law enforcement and media and vandalized the building as lawmakers were rushed to secure locations. Five people died in or as a result of the attack and 140 police officers were assaulted, along with members of the media.

As it was unfolding, we asked one of the rioters, who called himself "Joe from Ohio," what the goal was.

"The people in this house, who stole this election from us, hanging from a gallows out here in this lawn for the whole world to see, so it never happens again," he said. "That's what needs to happen. Four by four by four, hanging from a rope out here for treason."

A makeshift gallows with a noose was actually built on the Capitol grounds that day but was never used.

On another side of the Capitol, Tom Bowman was talking to Natalie O'Brien and Chris Scalcucci, a couple from Detroit. He asked them why they were doing this.

"The Republic falling," O'Brien said. "And becoming corrupt and unmanageable. And our vote not mattering at all whatsoever."

"Because we love our country," Scalcucci added. "And we don't want it to fall in the hands of these evil people. The stuff that they do, it's unforgivable."

"Our tax dollars pay for this monument. This is kind of our property," O'Brien said.

For many who participated in the siege, it felt like a patriotic act. They were loyal Americans protesting what they had been told was a stolen election.

And now that there are consequences for their actions, they didn't do it, they weren't even there.

Months later, Tom Bowman and I went back to the Capitol grounds in Sept. for the "Justice for J6" rally. A lot of the people we spoke to had also been there on Jan. 6. And yet, they were echoing the story they had heard on Fox News.

"Those weren't Trump supporters," said a man named Phil from Kentucky, claiming the only people breaking in were dressed all in black.

"So they were black helmets, black clothes, black backpacks who started busting the windows first," said Janie, a nurse from South Carolina, who said she saw members of Antifa and Black Lives Matter committing the violence. She also claimed the Trump supporters were actually trying to fight them off. But when we mentioned we were on site that day, she admitted that she never actually came close enough to the Capitol to see any violence.

We let her know that the Proud Boys were dressed in all black that day, having planned to forego their usual colors of black and yellow in order to be "incognito."

"I didn't know that," she said.
Knowing is half the battle; right? 

And 700+ people have been charged with crimes.  How's that working out for them?

Tampa Bay attorney Bjorn Brunvand represents several people who were at the Capitol that day, including Robert Scott Palmer, who was recently sentenced to five years in prison for assaulting law enforcement officers with a fire extinguisher, a wood plank and a flagpole. His is the longest such term yet.

"He believed in the lies that were being professed by former President Trump and his accomplices," Brunvand said.

But he said his client has had a major change of heart since his arrest.

"It went from 100% support for President Trump and the idea that the election was fraudulent at the beginning ... to the recognition that he was misled. He's sitting in a detention facility here in Washington, D.C. and this big powerful former president who said 'meet me at the Capitol', he's too busy playing golf and has no interest in any of the guys that have been arrested," Brunvand said.

He said Palmer took President Trump's words that day as a directive. That he did it for him. And now he feels abandoned.

"Not only did he not show up, he's not there for anyone who were there and supposedly were there to save democracy and save the country. When in fact, they were doing quite the opposite," Brunvand said.

I do wonder if these people even vote; or influence how anyone else votes.  And then I remember the 2020 election was a repudiation of the incumbent, something Americans almost never do.  So why is Trump likely to win again in 2024?

But the idea of Jan. 6 did not die with the day. The University of Chicago Project on Security and Threats has been tracking insurrectionist sentiment in the U.S. for a year now. It found that 21 million share the same beliefs that motivated rioters that day.

In other words, millions of Americans support the idea of political violence. Researchers call it "an American insurrectionist movement" that, a year after the attack on the Capitol, is still alive and well.

Millions of Americans also opposed granting civil rights to non-whites.  It happened anyway, because millions more supported it.  Watch the donut, not the hole.  And watch the players, too:
This is actually a switch for Crenshaw, which may explain why MTG is so upset. I first heard Crenshaw shouting on the topic on a local NPR talk show. He was shouting so much and so vehemently I thought it was a crank caller. I found out later it was my newly elected Representative. Of course, now he’s shouting because Biden, so maybe not so much change after all. Apparently MTG is defending the “don’t test/don’t tell & it will go away” line a true Trumper would embrace.

I wonder what changed his mind? Of course, he didn't run as a complete jackass; he mostly ran as the butt of Pete Davidson's joke on SNL.  Maybe he doesn't think he can win re-election by appealing to people who want to get covid.
Crenshaw  asked for more testing facilities to be available in his district, which includes Houston (or did).   That, or his district has changed. Either way, it tells me "stupid" is not playing as well for him as it once did.
Posted by at No comments:

Press The Meat, or Fear Sells

Barton Gellman just told Chuck Todd that the GOP will control the electoral college vote count in 2025 if they win control of Congress in 2022. (Todd promotes Gellman’s book as an introduction.)

Except the GOP would have to win control of Congress again in 2024, to control the electoral vote count in 2025.

And now he says the motivating factor on January 6 is white supremacy and fear of a brown planet. The “replacement” theory, IOW. Which motivated 700-1000 people; out of 330 million.

But it doesn’t seem to be motivating massive support for MTG; or undermining Mitch McConnell. Who still isn’t proving to be the Master of the Senate he always told a gullible press he was. Maybe because he’s not telling them that anymore?

So much of this is just perception; and then we have elections, despite the perceptions, and the narrative never changes.

An overwhelming majority (72%) of Americans believe the people involved in the attack on the Capitol were "threatening democracy," while 1 in 4 Americans believes that the individuals involved were "protecting democracy." Broken down by party identification, Democrats are nearly unanimous (96%) in believing that those involved in the attacks were threatening democracy. Republicans are more split, with 45% saying it was a threat and 52% saying those involved in the riot were "protecting democracy."

The ABC/Ipsos poll, which was conducted by Ipsos in partnership with ABC News using Ipsos' KnowledgePanel, also shows strongly aligned views among Democrats regarding Trump's responsibility for the attack, with 91% believing Trump bears either "a great deal" or "a good amount" of responsibility for it. On the other hand, a strong majority (78%) of Republicans believe the former president bears "just some" or no responsibility for the day's events.

I think the problem is in the GOP; not in the country as a whole.  Maybe that should be the narrative. 

Fat chance of that happening.

Posted by at No comments:

Second Sunday Of Christmas



Sirach 24:1-12

24:1 Wisdom praises herself, and tells of her glory in the midst of her people.

24:2 In the assembly of the Most High she opens her mouth, and in the presence of his hosts she tells of her glory:

24:3 "I came forth from the mouth of the Most High, and covered the earth like a mist.

24:4 I dwelt in the highest heavens, and my throne was in a pillar of cloud.

24:5 Alone I compassed the vault of heaven and traversed the depths of the abyss.

24:6 Over waves of the sea, over all the earth, and over every people and nation I have held sway."

24:7 Among all these I sought a resting place; in whose territory should I abide?

24:8 "Then the Creator of all things gave me a command, and my Creator chose the place for my tent. He said, 'Make your dwelling in Jacob, and in Israel receive your inheritance.'

24:9 Before the ages, in the beginning, he created me, and for all the ages I shall not cease to be.

24:10 In the holy tent I ministered before him, and so I was established in Zion.

24:11 Thus in the beloved city he gave me a resting place, and in Jerusalem was my domain.

24:12 I took root in an honored people, in the portion of the Lord, his heritage.


Psalm 147:12-20

147:12 Praise the LORD, O Jerusalem! Praise your God, O Zion!

147:13 For he strengthens the bars of your gates; he blesses your children within you.

147:14 He grants peace within your borders; he fills you with the finest of wheat.

147:15 He sends out his command to the earth; his word runs swiftly.

147:16 He gives snow like wool; he scatters frost like ashes.

147:17 He hurls down hail like crumbs-- who can stand before his cold?

147:18 He sends out his word, and melts them; he makes his wind blow, and the waters flow.

147:19 He declares his word to Jacob, his statutes and ordinances to Israel.

147:20 He has not dealt thus with any other nation; they do not know his ordinances. Praise the LORD!


Ephesians 1:3-14

1:3 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places,

1:4 just as he chose us in Christ before the foundation of the world to be holy and blameless before him in love.

1:5 He destined us for adoption as his children through Jesus Christ, according to the good pleasure of his will,

1:6 to the praise of his glorious grace that he freely bestowed on us in the Beloved.

1:7 In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace

1:8 that he lavished on us. With all wisdom and insight

1:9 he has made known to us the mystery of his will, according to his good pleasure that he set forth in Christ,

1:10 as a plan for the fullness of time, to gather up all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth.

1:11 In Christ we have also obtained an inheritance, having been destined according to the purpose of him who accomplishes all things according to his counsel and will,

1:12 so that we, who were the first to set our hope on Christ, might live for the praise of his glory.

1:13 In him you also, when you had heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and had believed in him, were marked with the seal of the promised Holy Spirit;

1:14 this is the pledge of our inheritance toward redemption as God's own people, to the praise of his glory.


John 1:(1-9), 10-18

1:1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.

1:2 He was in the beginning with God.

1:3 All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being. What has come into being

1:4 in him was life, and the life was the light of all people.

1:5 The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it.

1:6 There was a man sent from God, whose name was John.

1:7 He came as a witness to testify to the light, so that all might believe through him.

1:8 He himself was not the light, but he came to testify to the light.

1:9 The true light, which enlightens everyone, was coming into the world.

1:10 He was in the world, and the world came into being through him; yet the world did not know him.

1:11 He came to what was his own, and his own people did not accept him.

1:12 But to all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God,

1:13 who were born, not of blood or of the will of the flesh or of the will of man, but of God.

1:14 And the Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father's only son, full of grace and truth.

1:15 (John testified to him and cried out, "This was he of whom I said, 'He who comes after me ranks ahead of me because he was before me.'")

1:16 From his fullness we have all received, grace upon grace.

1:17 The law indeed was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.

1:18 No one has ever seen God. It is God the only Son, who is close to the Father's heart, who has made him known.


In the pulpit this probably would have been Epiphany Sunday. Even though Epiphany is in the 6th and this is only the 2nd, people were usually anxious to be done with Christmas by now. I have a dear friend from seminary who puts up her tree on Thanksgiving (or, I guess, the day after), and promptly puts it all away on December 26th. I remember as a child the general family confusion about when to take the tree and the decorations down. January 1 was, by general consensus, long enough. After that it just seemed odd to see wreaths and greens and a tree still decorated in the window or occupying a room corner.

Today if I put up greenery I might leave it until Candlemas. As it is, January 6th conveniently marks the end of Christmas, so why end it before it’s done?

This isn’t really a sermon, so I can indulge a bit of Biblical scholarship before turning to the exegesis. 

So John’s gospel opens with the famous hymn to the Logos. You really have to read it in the original Greek to recognize the hymn-like qualities of the opening words. Sorry I can’t provide that; in Greek, this is my favorite passage in the gospels. But the important point of this hymn is the introduction of the Logos. This is where the scholarship comes in.

John’s gospel comes last in the canon, in sequence and in time. Jump back to Mark, the earliest of the gospels. Mark starts with Isaiah, goes to John the Baptist, and through that prepares the way (in eight verses!) for the baptism of Jesus, which pretty clearly turns Jesus from just another man to “my son, whom I love, with who I am well-pleased.” (John, interestingly, will use this same story, altered for his purposes. There are curious connections to all the synoptics in John.) The nativity stories of Matthew and Luke we’ve already heard about recently. What we haven’t considered is how the nativities move the divinity of Christ back to his birth. Mark has Jesus anointed in baptism (making the act itself clearly a sacrament). Matthew starts with the father, Luke goes “back” (in social standing) to the wife.  Slowly, we work backwards to John, who makes Jesus both God (one and indivisible) and the organizing principal of Creation. This is a Greek idea, but the Hebrews had the same notion with a female personification of Wisdom (the organizing principal of Creation), Sophia. So John is not sui generis, any more than Paul is.

John moves the divinity of Christ back to the beginning of time. Further back we simply cannot go. Here we have Christ in the Godhead, more fully God than man. (Mark has Jesus more fully man than God. Matthew and Jesus mix divine and carnal as best we can.) This move also moves Jesus as far from human as we can go, at least in telling his story.  Is it any wonder that in John alone  “Jesus wept”? Or ate fish on the beach after his resurrection?

This emphasis on a beginning before the beginning connects us with Paul’s letter to the Ephesians. If John seems to marry Greek and Hebrew ideas and establish Christ as Logos, not just the Anointed One, Paul joins Greek and Hebrew ideas and lays the groundwork, arguably, for predestination. And there’s the connection between John and Paul.

Paul’s argument, however, is Platonic, not bluntly determinative.  Paul is not concerned with fate, but with revelation. To the Hebrews wisdom comes from God; it is revealed. To Plato wisdom (the only knowledge worth knowing), is recovered, because it is knowledge known but lost to us. So Paul’s argument to the Ephesians is not that their fate is fore-ordained, but that the revelation they have received comes from God, who always knew they would receive understanding and enlightenment. They have not recovered knowledge, it has been revealed to them. But God meant to do that from the beginning of time, from the first act of the Logos in creating. What is pre-ordained is their benefit, not their favor above others. Indeed, Paul would find that a horrifying idea.

Paul is the connection between John’s Logos and us, mere human beings that we are. John wants us to relate to God (whom no one has seen) through Jesus (who has been seen; yes, doubting Thomas). Paul wants to connect the faith (trust) of the Ephesians to God and to Jesus, neither of whom they have seen.

Nor have we.

John wants us to understand that God is God, and Jesus is God, and God (Jesus) is omniscient and omnipotent, and certainly moves in mysterious ways. These are very Greek and Hebraic ideas (with, yes, important differences). Paul wants his house church to understand they are special to God because they had the revelation from God. They aren’t special because God chose them above and beyond others for a special privilege denied to others; they are special because of God. Their faith comes from God and their blessings come from God. In the beginning, (and in the end) God…

John makes Jesus fully God ab initio. He declares Jesus central and fundamental to all Creation. That’s the central statement of Genesis, of God as Creator. How do we know God, first and foremost? Through the Creation. That revelation doesn’t replace the call to Abraham, the mighty acts of power for Israel, the signs and wonders: it supports them, it affirms them, it restates that God is one. One, and all. Through God everything that is, is. And through God all life is. And that life is the light which the darkness cannot dispel. Darkness is the mere absence of light, but the light is never absent. It is the blessing from God that will never end.

From Sirach through the Psalm through Paul and John the message is the same: “we have all received grace upon grace.” We have all received life.  We have all received light.  And these things will never end.

Posted by at No comments:

Saturday, January 01, 2022

The Only Good Cop Is Every Cop

??? 

Oh, NOW I get it. At first I thought it was just another variant on "the gun just went off!" Which doesn't happen with any other object or deadly weapon known to humankind. "And then the knife just slit his throat." "And then the arrow just leapt from the bow and pierced his eye." "And then the blunt instrument just hit him right on the back of the head."

But guns, you know, just go off.  Or bullets kill people, all by themselves.  Guns got rights, you know.  They're creatures; or beings; or something almost human.  We have to respect that.

I guess.
Posted by at 2 comments:

Oh Good God In Heaven Give It A Rest!

Over 700 cases have been brought against individuals involved in the riot and invasion of the Capitol almost a year ago today. A few people are still being pursued, and all will face a judge sooner or later.  So far none are getting away with "time served" or some kind of plea deal or leniency for a first offense.

Trump is being investigated by the New York AG and the Georgia AG, and for all we know by the DOJ (who doesn't talk about their prosecutions beforehand).  Congress is diligently and determinedly investigation what happened on January 6, an investigation which Trump can't even slow down, much less evade.  Signs indicate that despte the historical precedent of the party out of the White House gaining seats in Congress, the Democrats may well hold both houses and even see gains.  This is in no small part due to the very Trump supporters we are all supposed to be so very afraid of.

Does no one remember the story of the boy who cried wolf?  Can no one perceive that 3 years is a long time off?  Joe Biden seems quite comfortable with what he's accomplishing and what he will accomplish, and his attention is on leading/serving the nation, not his poll numbers.  Take a lesson from the oldest and currently most successful politician in the nation, and relax.

The only service done by those crying "FEAR! FIRE! FOES!  AWAKE!"  by know is that they are proving their bona fides with the kewl kids, who all know the present condition is the worst it's ever been (for white people) since 1968, which at one time was the "inflection point" in recent American history when wise heads said we almost lost democracy because of that turbulent year.  54 years later, who even remembers it?  Who remembers all the political violence of the '70's?  Even the "existential threat" of Islamic terrorism, for which we were supposed to surrender all our individual liberties (no threat to democracy there?).  Yeah, it's all about self-importance and being alive "AT THIS TIME IN HISTORY!" and how fucking self-important we are.

As Chou-En Lai reportedly said when Nixon visited China and a reporter asked the Chinese leader what he thought of the French Revolution:  "It's too soon to tell."

An anchor on CNN the other night took her chance to pontificate on the airwaves about how "fragile" our Democracy was, and how January 6th "proved it."  And I remembered again 1968, and then Watergate, and Nixon's resignation, Ford's pardon (which reaked of being an inside deal, mimicked by "Poppy" Bush in the last days of his only term, saving his own fat from the fire, something even Trump didn't do), and all I can think is "If democracy was THAT fragile the tent would have folded on January 7, 2021."  It isn't, of course; it's the narrative of our fragility that is fragile, so everyone with a microphone or a public platform must assure us the emperor's clothes are indeed on fire.

Calm down.  In fact, calm the fuck down.  The people with access to the megaphones are no brighter or wiser or better than you; in fact they are often more childish and immature.  Pay no attention; remember you are a grown up.

I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain. (Frank Herbert)

Yeah, that's a good way to start the year.  Look at it this way:  despite Trump's clumsiest efforts, the institutions of government held and things went on.  Even the assault on the Capitol is not being ignored.  Yes, our systems work in part on expectations of acceptance of the rule of law; but the rule of law had the last word, in 60+ cases, in the inauguration of Joe Biden as President, in the Congressional committee investigating the bizarre effort at dictatorship.  

Now, let's talk about the expectations of the rule of law where non-whites are considered.  Let's talk honestly about what CRT really is, and why it matters, and why white people are so afraid of it.  And for God's sake let's quit having this conversation as if only white people mattered and only their experiences/opinions were normative.  A lot of what people at the NYT (and elsewhere) are surprised by is that not all white people think like they do, and that we all still have a problem of allowing non-whites to be human beings, and not representatives of some ideal of their "race" that we still want to hold them to.

Lotta bullshit goin' down; a lot of it is on us, the white people in charge.  White supremacists see that and fear their power ebbing.  I think that's the same fear reflected by the NYT editorial board.  But in neither case does it have to be an existential threat that causes us all to panic, run in circles, and scream and shout.

Fear is the little death that brings total obliteration.  And isn't "total obliteration" what they are all afraid of? 

Posted by at No comments:

White People Worries

When the country was founded blacks were not even persons, and lower than animals. Women and children had no rights. The “Bill of Rights” only restrained the Federal government. Only white male property owners could vote.

And Mr. Nichols list of Cassandra’s files to mention any thinker or writer between 1951 and 1993.  What, no Black men or women or Native Americans or Chicanos had anything to say? Ever?

White people remain very concerned about the condition and concerns of white people.  “Terrible, terrible freedom.” I heard that argument repeatedly while Dr. King was alive. The concern was exactly the same then. Except then it was blacks who didn’t understand the responsibility of freedom.  Mostly because white people feared being held responsible for how they'd wielded their freedom for so long, making sure to keep it away, or under tight control, from non-white people.

When do we include that in the indictment of who is, and is not, acting like an "adult" these days?
Posted by at No comments:

A Meditation For The New Year 2022


Ecclesiastes 3:1-13
3:1 For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven:

3:2 a time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up what is planted;

3:3 a time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to break down, and a time to build up;

3:4 a time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance;

3:5 a time to throw away stones, and a time to gather stones together; a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing;

3:6 a time to seek, and a time to lose; a time to keep, and a time to throw away;

3:7 a time to tear, and a time to sew; a time to keep silence, and a time to speak;

3:8 a time to love, and a time to hate; a time for war, and a time for peace.

3:9 What gain have the workers from their toil?

3:10 I have seen the business that God has given to everyone to be busy with.

3:11 He has made everything suitable for its time; moreover he has put a sense of past and future into their minds, yet they cannot find out what God has done from the beginning to the end.

3:12 I know that there is nothing better for them than to be happy and enjoy themselves as long as they live;

3:13 moreover, it is God's gift that all should eat and drink and take pleasure in all their toil.

Psalm 8
8:1 O LORD, our Sovereign, how majestic is your name in all the earth! You have set your glory above the heavens.

8:2 Out of the mouths of babes and infants you have founded a bulwark because of your foes, to silence the enemy and the avenger.

8:3 When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars that you have established;

8:4 what are human beings that you are mindful of them, mortals that you care for them?

8:5 Yet you have made them a little lower than God, and crowned them with glory and honor.

8:6 You have given them dominion over the works of your hands; you have put all things under their feet,

8:7 all sheep and oxen, and also the beasts of the field,

8:8 the birds of the air, and the fish of the sea, whatever passes along the paths of the seas.

8:9 O LORD, our Sovereign, how majestic is your name in all the earth!

Revelation 21:1-6a
21:1 Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth; for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more.

21:2 And I saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband.

21:3 And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, "See, the home of God is among mortals. He will dwell with them as their God; they will be his peoples, and God himself will be with them;

21:4 he will wipe every tear from their eyes. Death will be no more; mourning and crying and pain will be no more, for the first things have passed away."

21:5 And the one who was seated on the throne said, "See, I am making all things new." Also he said, "Write this, for these words are trustworthy and true."

21:6a Then he said to me, "It is done! I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end.

Matthew 25:31-46
25:31 "When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, then he will sit on the throne of his glory.

25:32 All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats,

25:33 and he will put the sheep at his right hand and the goats at the left.

25:34 Then the king will say to those at his right hand, 'Come, you that are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world;

25:35 for I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me,

25:36 I was naked and you gave me clothing, I was sick and you took care of me, I was in prison and you visited me.'

25:37 Then the righteous will answer him, 'Lord, when was it that we saw you hungry and gave you food, or thirsty and gave you something to drink?

25:38 And when was it that we saw you a stranger and welcomed you, or naked and gave you clothing?

25:39 And when was it that we saw you sick or in prison and visited you?'

25:40 And the king will answer them, 'Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family, you did it to me.'

25:41 Then he will say to those at his left hand, 'You that are accursed, depart from me into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels;

25:42 for I was hungry and you gave me no food, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink,

25:43 I was a stranger and you did not welcome me, naked and you did not give me clothing, sick and in prison and you did not visit me.'

25:44 Then they also will answer, 'Lord, when was it that we saw you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and did not take care of you?'

25:45 Then he will answer them, 'Truly I tell you, just as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to me.'

25:46 And these will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life."

It took me a few days to realize these are good words for starting off the new year. They are the lectionary selections for New Year's Day.

These are challenging words to start a new year with; judgmental words, even. "To everything there is a season" already violates our sense of time: we don't want things to be seasonal, we want them to be occasional, and the occasion to be right now, if we need it; and later, if we don't need it right now. We don't want time to come in order, unless it's tax time coming only once a year, and Christmas coming only once a year, but then only because we don't like taxes, and we start Christmas earlier and earlier, and the sooner it's over the better! Then there's that funny part that, as we get older, Christmas and taxes and whatever else we look forward to but don't really, seems to come faster and faster and more and more often. We've really kind of broken the seasons, in fact; literally as well as figuratively. Long out of school as most of us are, our lives are still ruled by school holidays: summer, then Christmas break, then the Easter holiday, then summer again. But the seasons mean less to us than to farmers. One season just means we run the A/C, the other just means we run the heat; and in between the most agricultural practice we follow is whether to mow, rake, or shovel. There is no rhythm to our seasons anymore, except the rhythm of shopping (Christmas, especially after Thanksgiving Day) or school (summer, the afore-mentioned holidays).

Just to think that "To everything there is a season" is already to put ourselves out of primary position, out of first place, out of the driver's seat. We don't want to be in charge (who wants the responsibility?), but we want to be in control. So to everything there is a season, when those seasons and those things suit us, and serve us, and please us. Otherwise, away with them, please!

But the Preacher doesn't give us that. He puts us out of control, but recognizes how disturbed we are by that. Indeed, there is nothing new under the sun! This is the beginning of wisdom:


I have seen the business that God has given to everyone to be busy with. He has made everything suitable for its time; moreover he has put a sense of past and future into their minds, yet they cannot find out what God has done from the beginning to the end. I know that there is nothing better for them than to be happy and enjoy themselves as long as they live; moreover, it is God's gift that all should eat and drink and take pleasure in all their toil.
Now there, at least, is a change: eating and drinking and working are not punishments and drudgeries, they are pleasures we all should enjoy. Easy enough to remember during these holidays (unless you are the one in the kitchen all the time! Been there, done that, own the franchise!). God, we are assured, has made everything suitable for its time. And when things are not suitable, is that God, too? Or is that human beings, trying to play at God? Is the basiliea tou theou a place where no one works and everyone eats without labor? Or is it a place where everyone enjoys their food and their drink and their labor, too? But that labor serves everyone, not just those who claim to be in control of the system; until they are not.

That, too, is a meditation for this new year.

We have a sense of the past and the future in our minds, Eccelesiastes tells us, yet even with that we cannot seem to see beyond the present, or to think beyond our own needs. And that brings us to what I'd always thought were the harsh words of Matthew, the parable that revolves around the painful and fearful question: "Lord, when did we see you?"

I don't know if Matthew even meant to add the emphasis on "see," but I inevitably do. It makes these words so plaintive, this question so freighted with despair, that it breaks my heart everytime I read it. So when I read these words as part of the New Year's Day lectionary, I had to hesitate. I had to hesitate a few days before I could say anything from them. And then I realized these words don't have to be said at all, that these words could be a blessing on another year, a statement of Christology, even, that could start the year off in ways new and unexpected and as a blessing. Because what does this story say? It says, as Leonard Bernstein once wrote, that God is the simplest of all. And that all you have to do, in your everyday life, in your quotidian existence, in your daily efforts of labor and eating and drinking, is to see your brother, your sister, hungry, naked, in jail...and do something for them. Anything. A little thing. A meal; a cup of water; a visit. And doing that for them, you actually do it for God. Imagine that. How simple is it? You spend your time looking for God, looking for something to fulfill your days, to satisfy your needs, and there it is beside you the whole time, and what's asked of you? Almost nothing. What does it take to serve God? Almost nothing.

"Our hearts are restless until they rest in thee," Augustine famously said; and somebody took off with that and called it a "God-shaped hole" in us that we must fill, and that became exclusionary and the favorite hammer of the fundamentalists with which to prey up on the rest of us, and for a long time I couldn't make peace with Augustine because of it, and I just rejected the idea outright. And then, just yesterday, just a day or two ago now, I understood. It isn't that we have this hole, this lacking, this emptiness that only "God" can fill. It is that we have needs, wants, desires, which are bottomless: and there are good ways to satisfy them, and less good; and even bad ways. And the fullest satisfaction, we can call "God." So that Christ is both the teacher, and the teaching. And the teaching is that we can simply find God, in simply seeing others as human beings, too. Which brings us to what John saw, on the island of Patmos: the new heaven, and the new earth; and the new Jerusalem, where God lives with all the people. All the people who are God's people.

It is to hard to see it, isn't it? War widespread and spreading; famine created largely by failures in distribution; diseases rampant that don't need to be; people oppressed because those with power find it easier to be oppressive than humane. Disease that divides us, frightens us, seems bent on destroying us. It is so easy to start another year in judgment, and to use these words like a cudgel, to lay about against our opponents and our enemies and in trying to destroy them to simply make more of them. It is the task of killing the hydra, and we never think to kill the body instead of hacking at the heads.

To everything there is a season; and this is the season of reassessing, and reconsidering. This is the pause we allow ourselves, to consider what courses we have followed, and what courses we could choose, if only we would be wise. It is really very simple, and it really does all come down to this: God has made everything suitable for its time. When you see someone in need, whether it is great need or small, you see the Christ, the Anointed One: you see God. And you have your chance to serve the Messiah. And the new heaven and the new earth and the new Jerusalem where God dwells with all the people, is a vision of here and now, not the sweet bye and bye. If God has put a sense of past and future into our heads, but we still cannot find out what God has done from beginning to end, why can't this be true? Why can't the Revelation speak of the continuing present, one continuing for nearly 2000 years? Why should this year be any different from the last, except that we start it off with new eyes, seeing through new hearts, serving with new joy? What are we that God is mindful of us, and yet God has put us in charge of all this? It is a wonderful responsibility. It is a great joy. This is the day the Lord has made; and the year; and the lifetime; and the whole of creation. Rejoice and be glad in it.

Happy New Year. Allow every season its time; allow all your time its, not your, purpose. Look for the Christ. He is easy to find. And help him. It's all you have to do, to serve him. What could be a better way to start the new year, than that?

Posted by at No comments:

New Year's Day 2022

God, bless to me the new day,
Never vouchsafed to me before;
It is to bless Thine own presence
Thou hast given me this time, O God.

Bless Thou to me mine eye,
May mine eye bless all it sees;
I will bless my neighbour,
May my neighbour bless me.

God, give me a clean heart,
Let me not from sight of Thine eye;
Bless to me my children and my wife,
And bless to me my means and my cattle.

This poem was repeated the first thing on the first day of the year. It was common throughout the Highlands and Islands. The writer has heard versions of it in many places.--Alexander Carmichael

Posted by at No comments:
Subscribe to: Posts (Atom)