Oh, I know all the  right wing moral guardians will rant and rave that men are half of the heterosexual coupling equation, but the truth is that from the beginning of time, men have had much more than half of ‘the say’ about such matters…in fact, all matters really.

Perhaps this is one that women should alone decide for themselves. Men, if you want to be sure a woman won’t get pregnant, stay out of her personal decisions and wear a condom! And if you are afraid that your female partner will keep you from fathering a child by keeping her decision private and keeping you in the dark, why on earth would you want to father a child with a woman who had made the decision to not have a child at this time.
That truly is her body, thus her business.

Of course couples ought to talk honestly and open about such things to try resolve differences and come to a decision that both can live with, but in the end, all women ought to decide whether she wants to be pregnant or not.

Unless of course one is of the mind that men should have the right to veto such a decision…and I suspect the male witnesses in that hearing room today all feel that way, whether they would say it or not.

Well, I was wrong and that doesn’t sit well with me. The fact that my state and apparently large pockets of my nation are losing its/their minds is a bit unsettling. Do folks really listen to what he is saying? Do they truly understand that he wants to undo all the progress we’ve made in human rights, environmentalism, fairness and decency? And destroying all of that in the name of a Jesus he has clearly misunderstood or has purposely chosen to misrepresent?

I used to joke about moving to Canada…but I’m not laughing any more. I suppose I’m too old at this point for such a huge change in my life, but if I was younger I would have to seriously consider continuing to live in a nation that is getting dangerously close to blatantly informing me that I’m not wanted here and will never have the same respect and rights as other Americans because of who I love, or what I believe, or how much income I have.

But thankfully, we’re not there yet, I realize that. I’m not convinced the currently wacky President-wannabes can win, and the primaries always bring out the kookiest folks who the media loves to cover. So I remain hopeful, but that hope gets a bit tarnished each time one of these strange folks gets held up by the so-called ‘base’ of their party.

I choose to continue  to believe that most Americans are sane and have enough common sense to elect someone who won’t lead us to a theocracy or oligarchy form of governance. And although more people than I thought possible seem to be embracing such a perversion and calling ‘democracy’, I still believe the vast majority of us are smarter than that.

We’ll see in a few months if I was right about that.

I actually did consider lung cancer, or COPD, or some other chronic, horrible disease with which I will have to live for the rest of my senior years…and then I began wondering just how many of those years I’ll have!

That kind of thinking can be part of my other disease…the one from which I have been recovering for over 21 years. I tend to think the worst. Although I must admit, it makes total sense to me to at least consider all the possibilities, even the awful ones, just so one has a plan of action if it turns out that way. Maybe that’s rationalization, my other disease talking, but I don’t think so.

Now, worrying and fretting over something is not healthy, that I believe. But logically considering all possible outcomes seems to me to be a very rational thing to do. Sure, it might end up wasting my time when one of those horrible outcomes doesn’t materialize. But the way I see it is that first, I was prepared in case they do, and second, it’s a great feeling when one of those horrific outcomes isn’t the case!

Call it rationalization if you want, but it works for me; and that’s all that really matters. The same goes for you…whatever works for you is just fine. It really is. Just don’t kid yourself…like I sometimes do!

And regarding being lazy about this blog…it worked for me to take a break! I’m back feeling better and will continue my meandering through life and occasionally dropping some thoughts on my way…as long as it is working for me.

So now the cell phone. Registering with government no call registry has done nothing to stop this mad woman from seeking me out for God knows what scandalous and perverted purposes. She uses that seductive voice to try to woo me…but to no avail. She obviously has me in her sites and won’t give up.

Oh, the curse of being so attractive that she can’t help herself. Rachel, if by chance you end up reading this, know that I don’t want to hurt your feelings, but Baby, you must stop intruding in my life. It’s no use. I have all the love I can handle. There’s nothing from you that I desire. Your chances are nil. Find yourself someone who can give you want you so desperately crave. I’m sure you deserve it.

Actually, there are other things you deserve, but I’ll refrain from getting ugly on this blogs site. Rachel…get your own life, I have one, thank you very much!

I realize all politicians exaggerate, even lie to get votes. They bend in the winds of special interests and money and voting blocks…all of them do it, regardless of brand or party. But this fiasco is beyond the scope of acceptability…it’s downright insanity. People are fickle in their anger…they leap from one candidate to the other on a weekly basis…listening to news channels that have their own clear agenda, and follow one sound bite after another, chasing the one you says the most outrageous thing the latest…and those are hard to keep up with.

So I have ‘checked out’ of the GOP race…not that I was ever in it, but at least I tried to listen to what they had to say other years. Not any more. They and their silly (albeit dangerous) followers can fall over each other and themselves trying to catch the biggest Obama hater of the week. The only pleasure I get out of any of it is the pleasure of watching them implode, over and over again.

Even if the least wacky one ultimately wins their nomination and it appears he will, the others will have divided themselves up to such an extent they, will have damaged each other so much with their usual vitriol, that they’ll be whining and screaming their ludicrous babble for four more years.

Good to be back!:)

before they reach the ground.

The air looks colder than it is,

yet  I shiver at the view.

The birth is closer,

the cows and sheep sense it.

Waiting has made me colder,

anticipating the warmth to come.

Straw strewn about to form a nest,

to comfort a new life;

as I still wait for mine.

Come, infant of hope,

Come.

The intended bullying or scare tactics make me more sad than anything else. I’m not sure what happens to folks who insist on living their lives from a such negative, even  hateful place. Obviously, they are wounded souls. But whatever it is, it saddens me, and I’m sure it is the source of lots of Divine sadness as well.

So my response to such things is to pray for their leader and for his followers, that somehow their hearts will be touched to recognize how misplaced their religious fervor is, and how it not only dishonors the One they profess to follow, but entirely misses the points of his teaching, in fact his very life and death and resurrection.

I also pray for all of those folks who are hurt by such tactics…folks who are already wounded by oppression, hate, bullying, discrimination…all of it. Anyone who chooses to prey upon the wounded are engaging in behavior solidly contradictory to the essence of the One whose birth we celebrate next week.

May God forgive them all, and work a miracle in their lives.

A family member, male, 28 years old, with a loving wife and five kids under seven, lies in intensive care after a couple of surgeries to remove most of a large tumor from his spine…a tumor that joined several others throughout his body, stemming for colon/liver cancer. This athletic, otherwise healthy young farmer has had everything going for him…his and his family’s future looked nothing but bright. Then the cancer struck a couple of years ago and the torture he has gone through in his fight to stay with his wife and kids is courageous, albeit very difficult to watch.

And I whine about my chronic bronchitis. The truth is that any of us can be hit by tragedy. Tragedy appears to be caught up in the very fabric of creation. And that presents an interesting conundrum. Either the power of God isn’t strong enough to conquer tragedy/evil, or God permits awful things to happen to good folks; which would nullify God’s perfect goodness. It simply cannot be both as we’re painted into a theological corner. If God is ALL powerful, God could stop horrible tragedy/evil…if God is ALL good, God would stop horrible tragedy/evil. Choose one or the other, my friends. I choose to believe God is ALL good…which suggests God’s power for some unknown reason is limited. I know, I know….talk of limiting God’s power is not only offensive to many, but heretical to some.

But think of it this way. I believe we were created to be co-creators with God, otherwise what’s the point? Are we mere entertainment for the Divine One to watch us squirm and whine, agonize and make dumb mistakes? Are we just puppets on a Heavenly String, playing out God’s holy melodrama on a celestial stage? That is not my understanding, not anymore.

I believe I am/we are created to co-create with God, so it’s possible that the choices I/we make now and over the long haul actually do limit God’s power to do even what God wishes for us. God’s goodness desires nothing but wholeness and health for us, but we individually and collectively make dumb, sometimes selfish mistakes or intentionally act out in dark or evil ways that get in the way of Divine Energy (power).

I realize none of us know the Truth about any of this, really. But to date, this is the best understanding I can come up with about why ugly, evil things happen to wonderful people.
I’m unwilling to trade away God’s total goodness. The comfort for me is that God still has the power to pour out the grace we need to bear it all. I watch my young family member bear it, his wife bear it, and so many others bear it. Now, that is real power!

I’ve had five decades of some kind of bullying, Christian-Right bashing, and shame producing behavior from even otherwise well-meaning folks…I’m done. The next time anybody, ‘Christian’ or not, says anything I can construe as belittling in any way who I am created to be…I’m not holding back.
I realize that sounds intolerant to some of my straight family and friends, including my pastor friends and colleagues, but you simply cannot understand…you have to be on the receiving end of this level of verbal abuse, intended or unintended, to have any notion of what I am feeling.

And I know I sound angry…even mad…but the truth is it’s way more than that. I’m not just having a tantrum and to suggest otherwise would be patronizing and maybe make you feel better…but it will do nothing to reflect you have a notion of the degree to which years of heterosexism can maim and destroy spirits and lives.

The good news is that I have survived all of that, and usually hold these kind of honest emotions back so you won’t feel uncomfortable and I won’t feel ‘bad’ for ‘acting out’. But my only response to that in this moment is ‘deal with it’…that’s what I’m doing.

Now, having purged myself for the moment…here’s what is what I think is going on…even deeper. Try and imagine what it feels like when for your entire life you run into many people who truly believe you are some kind of abomination. Imagine being taught and treated your whole life as if you somehow are entirely disgusting, ridiculous, dirty, sick, sinful, deserving of not only being ostracized from society, but to burn in hell for eternity. And yet, you know, deep within your soul, your very being, you had no absolutely no say in who God decided to create you to be. And you know because you have tried everything…literally everything to change who you are. And still…they taunt, they tease, they belittle, they trivialize your very essence.

Now, I’m lucky or blessed, because I don’t believe any of those things anymore…but I did, for much of my life. I’m a product of the same culture you are. After years of trying to numb and drown my shame/pain, therapy and 21 years of 12-step meetings accomplished a great deal to soothe most of the scars that hererosexism left…but still even today…it doesn’t take much for the memory of those scars to be triggered.

And today I was triggered. Triggered by the death of young teen Jacob who for whatever reason wasn’t able to survive like I did. He couldn’t take it anymore. He couldn’t see a life worth living…simply too much torture. The crap Perry spewed in his silly political ad is just more of the usual juvenile misconception and perversion resulting from biblical literalism. I’m almost used to that…so that wasn’t the trigger for my having reached my limit today.

It’s Jacob and all of the others we keep reading about. People say their ‘that’s too bads’ and go on living their comfortable lives. And why shouldn’t they…they deserve it. The problem is so do I. So did Jacob. Today my voice joins those of the ancient Psalms…

I cry aloud to God, aloud to God, that God may hear me. In the day of my trouble I seek the Lord; in the night my hand is stretched out without wearying; my soul refuses to be comforted. I think of God, and I moan; I meditate, and my spirit faints. You keep my eyelids from closing; I am so troubled that I cannot speak.

A third round of more and more potent antibiotics worried me just a bit to get rid of this chesty/mucousy/nasal thing I have going on, and the doc said I ought to be a bit concerned about that, but he’s more concerned about this going into something worse…so 10 more days of some superduper bacteria-killing pills.

If there was only a pill to kill all of the negativity flooding our senses these days. I mean, here we are in Advent, asked to hold lots of hope and all, waiting on the promise of Light to return once again, through a tiny screaming babe lying in a pile of straw. Yet, wars and rumors of wars continue, poverty grows and grows and those few with lots of money seem to care less and less about that as long as they are knee-deep in the green stuff.

Greed abounds at all levels, rich or poor, it would seem…’getting the other guy’ appears to be most folks’ creed. We need a pill that kills those kinds of bacteria!

Well, excuse the metaphor here, but perhaps we already have a Pill of sorts that does just that…a healing agent like no other; one that comes in the simplest form. For me, this Christmas Story represents the only possibility for healing that I and we as a world and a nation have. The arrival of God’s Spirit in such a dramatic, yet meager way gives me assurance that this simple human being currently struggling with a stubborn bug will not only be alright, but can look forward with eager anticipation to the journey ahead, no matter what more nasty bugs come my way.

That’s the hope and promise of Advent for this pilgrim. But for the moment, it’s time for another super-duper pill!