Month: August 2021

When I was debating who I was going to vote for… Not liking either choice… my sister advised me of my choices. Now let me tell you, my sister is a wise Crone! She’s "been there; done that." A divorced, single mother of 3 children, often criticized for her ways of bringing up her children. Often criticized for the life she led as an artist who loves the beautiful deserts of New Mexico. She sent me to Abiquiu, the home of artist Georgia O’Keeffe and I realized why Sarah loves the countryside! I know how much Sarah wanted to live out her life in New Mexico, but she chose to be near her family in Jacksonville. Anyhow my wise Crone of a sister talked to me about the Presidency. "Who do you want to see speaking to you from "the Oval office" when bad things happen? Whose calm voice and gentle demeanor will soothe you?" Sarah asked. Well this certainly has been the week for that voice. I saw our President lower his head when the reporter Doocy hammered him. I too have lowered my head and backed off from hammering voices in the past year. But that head lowering wasn’t power presidency, and I wish he hadn’t done that. He wanted to say, "Shut up!" like he did say to Trump at a debate, but he was criticized for that too, and actually he is a gentle man. So he probably prayed, "Shut up!" …. Now I shake my head with, what? sorrow? I’m not sure what I feel. I strongly pray for our safety here in the United States and I support the drone strikes that we have retaliated with when we were hit at Kabul airport. As if to say, "this is what we are going to do… we will strike back, so stop it!" Today the bodies of 13 military men and women were brought back to Dover Air Force base and recieved with high honor while New Orleans braces for a big hit from a hurricane packing winds up to 150mph. The images are so sad and frightening.

In church this past week we have been reading from St Paul’s first letter to the Thessalonians. He wrote, (I’m paraphrasing) "We are family. We pray together for our protectors. We pray for those we don’t know and don’t love. … We pray for those who are far from God…. Let us no longer offend God." … "Love one another… aspire to live a tranquil life; to mind your own affairs." Let us eliminate negativity. It’s like snail slime. The negativity is voiced and then it stays behind even after the snail creeps off. Rather say the name of Jesus as in "O my Jesus… forgive us…" For those who think you don’t have to repent or say, "I didn’t sin." What do you think our lack of prayer is? Think about asking God our Creator to help us to Love. God bless us.

Look at the silly donkey without a tail! Quick! look! Then suddenly you can’t see. Someone has tied a scarf around your head, covering your eyes. You are now blinded. You are tossed around in circles. It’s dizzying as you pass from hand to hand. There is laughing and lots of noise. Then strong hands on your shoulders stop the spinning and something is placed in your hands, "Here, pin the tail on the donkey. In the right place." You bluster, "But I can’t see the donkey! How do I know where his tail goes?" People are laughing and hooting and hollering. The noise is deafening! You move forward and they laugh. You turn right and they laugh louder…. Left? They laugh and jeer: "You are no where near him! You can’t do it!!!" This is frightening. A thought fills your mind: "I can’t do the right thing because I am relying on my own strength and I’m blind! I can’t find the donkey, let alone put his tail in the right place!"

There are other games like this. Remember the pinata! Again, you are blindfolded and tossed around. Then a big heavy stick is placed in your hands. "Hit the pinata! Get us our candy!" You would love to get the candy, but "where is the darn thing?" … Sound familiar? Blind, we can’t see where we are going. We reach out to stick that pin or to hit that bundle of candy, but we miss the mark. Our senses are all screwed up because we miss the vital sense of sight. We’ve been tossed and turned and blindfolded. Dizzy, we can’t see the target. Depending on our own strength we are useless.

Scripture is filled with people who make promises to God and then forget… They turn back to their ways of worship of their old gods. Are we like this? What are our gods today? Greed! What is enough Money? Power. What is enough power? If my pursuit is wealth and power will I want to "do what I believe in and let no one stand in my way?" Will I resort to cancellation of those who restrict me? In a sense, God restricts us. He says, "You will love and honor the Lord your God first, and then you will love and honor your neighbor." Putting God and my neighbor first puts me third. But what about my desire and dreams for power and wealth? Rather than a Baldacci or a Catherine Coulter book, pick up Scripture and read Deuteronomy, Joshua, Judges and Samuel. Count how many times the words are repeated: "But Israel turned away from God and back to their own gods." Finally, Israel gets tired of being beaten up by their neighbors and asks Samuel to find them a good strong king! He will defend us!!!! And God, always loving and caring for his people, says, "don’t argue with them Samuel. Give them what they want, but warn them first: … Warn them solemnly and inform them of the rights of the king who will rule them…. He will take your sons and assign them to his chariots… soldiers… he will set them to his plowing, his harvesting… He will use your daughters… He will take the best of your fields…. You will complain against the king whom you have chosen, but on that day the Lord will not answer you." (1 Samuel 8: 8-18) It’s there. Read it. But, our eyes are blinded; we can’t see it and we are relying on our own strength.

In church, we are asked to pray for America… I think it’s not the right prayer. In humility, the tax collector prayed, "O Lord, have mercy on me, a sinner." (Luke 18:13) God bless us. Angels with us.

Hi dear readers! It’s horrifying to turn on the television, but we have to to check on our fellows… Cousins in Connecticut are directly in the way of Henri. They are used to snow and heavy rain, but now throw in the high winds and rain of a hurricane. Bummer. Pray Henri goes East, out to sea, fast… Trouble is, it’s not turning away from the NE US.

Meanwhile in Afganistan, the Burkah’s are aired out and I just read an amazing article you might read to better understand why we must pray. Afganistan hasn’t been "free" for a long time… 1980 to 2000 war which the Taliban promised to end…. Their law is harsh for women who must stay inside the house except when escorted by a male. The article is about Shukriya Barakzai who woke up sick and dizzy but couldn’t go to the doctor because her husband was at work. She shaved her daughter’s head to look like a male escort, and she walked into Kabul "escorted by the child" to see a doctor… on the way to a pharmacy she was accosted by Taliban moral police and beaten with a rubber hose for breaking moral law. Taliban is out to shame and punish those who break the moral law. You can find the article on "The Taliban’s return is catastrophic for women" in The Atlantic.com. I will never suggest we need to go back into war to save these people. I ask God to help them. It’s something we tried… Help people who can’t help themselves. But we haven’t been successful. I remember watching helicopters trying to get frantic people out of Vietnam…. That war didn’t work did it? God bless us. We can financially support the veterans who are trying to help get people out…. The Twenty Year War co-author Dan Blakley spoke today about trying to help the evacuees. I asked yesterday… What are we going to do? Be charitable. Pray. Be charitable. Angels with us.

Yesterday I was moved by passion to write about something that has been ticking in my mind since my friend asked me a question that I couldn’t answer. He quoted Scripture which I believe is God-inspired. He showed me passages and he used the words, "it is sin." I was shocked as I think I and many people have become lax in calling actions "sin." If indifference is a sin, especially when in regard to God, then my Mother would send me to confession as she did one time up in Cleveland. I am (always have been) stubborn, and don’t take kindly to being called a sinner. It is good sometimes to realize what we are, and what we will tolerate. I’ll get off this topic now and move onto Sharia.

It’s on our television and news feedss 24×7 if we tune in to it: Afganistan is "lost." After 20 years of American fighting to establish a protectorate, the Taliban is back in spades and in control. And so the word Sharia Law is often being repeated by women. Apparently Islamic civil law is interpreted from the Kuran (Quran) the Islamic sacred book, believed to be the word of God as dictated to Muhammad by the archangel Gabriel and written down in Arabic. Muhammed was illiterate. He recited what the angel said and others memorized it. It was all written down after Muhammed’s death around 700 AD. Kuran is regarded as Islamic civil Law. Koran dictates Islamic Criminal law. Women bear the brunt of that law as they are forced to cover their faces and stay inside… A raped woman is a criminal and she can be killed. She can be beaten if she is caught going to the grocery store without a male relative. What is that all about? Are women genetically sinners or does the sight of a woman cause men to sin? Oh poor weak men. Oh poor down trodden women. It would be as if we were governed by the first 5 books of the Old Testament… "An Eye for an Eye…. If your right hand sins, cut it off, etc." Scary to us isn’t it? However do people govern by religious law? Today in Mass we read that the Pharisees tested Jesus, asking him "What is the greatest Law?" Guess what it is? "Love God." "What’s the second greatest law?" "Love your neighbor." (Matthew 22: 34-40). Wouldn’t it be wonderful if this were all we needed rather than all we have? God bless us.

"We made an agreement?" … The Old Testament is packed full of incidents of the Broken Covenant. Israel would bow down and pray, and then turn against God’s Law… again and again. …. Our prayers are full of "I believe in You my God, Creator…" but then what happens? Do people know they can’t keep a covenant? What makes us so vulnerable to "the way the wind blows." A Catholic priest, or a devout Catholic, or some others, will tell you unequivocably, "It is the devil." He’s right here always whispering what he calls "the Truth."

"So", my stepfather Jack would say, "What are we gonna do?" And I ask, "How do we keep the Covenant?" I guess the first thing is to know exactly what the Covenant is. "I am the Lord your God…. I will care for you, defend you against the enemy. Stay here with me." Jesus said, "I will take you home with me." So, how do I get there? Readings in Mass this week are from Judges. After following God and the Arc out of the desert, the people said, "We want to be like other people and have a King." "Oh boy," God said, "No you don’t… Kings will tax you, take your young men into the military, take your best land…" And so, we hurtled into the future of 2021 and … We have rejected most of what Scripture says for our own kings of wealth and power. We certainly have forgotten what our "Forefathers pledged." This is God’s country. What’s the latest thing we have done? Hanging LBGQT Gay Pride flag under the American flag at American Embassies? Yes that was even approved by our State Department and the President. Where does sin and breaking the Covenant end? Recently a very good friend asked me what I thought about transgender and gay, and I said, "I don’t know…. I am indifferent." Yesterday, I faced a very frantic friend at church who told me about flying the Gay Pride flag at the embassies (It was a few embassies and it was only in June, Gay Pride month. After patting my hand, she said, "We have to get to work!" … "Wow!" I have been wondering ever since, "What’s the work? and Where does it end?" I am conceerned with the kids who are changing sex because they don’t "feel" what they were born as. This goes in the face of God and our teaching: "We are made in the Image of God our Creator." But what if I don’t like what I am? I take a knife and drugs to myself. When and how do we stand up and seek the Truth again? In Matthew 22, a King invites people to the Wedding Feast for his son, but they reject him and go elsewhere. He has the ones who reject him killed, and he holds the Feast anyway, but he feeds the poor and street people. What is that Feast, and am I invited? Will I go? Yes, I am invited! Will I go or will I go my own way? God bless us.

I made such a stink to my friend who is unvaccinated and got Covid, really bad Covid, followed by pneumonia. I made such a stink that she begged someone else to stop talking vaccination, but she copied me too. What’s the problem I want to ask? Do you WANT to get sicker than we might if we are vaccinated? But I promised not to lay it on so thick…. But most people I know and go to Mass with and hang with are vaccinated (2 shots). I can carry the virus, but the unvaccinated can carry the virus too and it will get them worse than it will get me. I pray to God He move their hearts to protect themselves and us too.

So about the Burkas. I am sick at heart and sick in my belly about the 20 years of freedom the women of Afganistan just lost. It’s really so sad that their government couldn’t hold up. On May 14, 1948 Britain announced the end of the "British Mandate" over Palestine, and at midnight, Israel declared independence and the shooting started. Israel fought two very hard wars, waging war with the help of the US for sure, but in 1948 and in 1967, Israel beat back the Palestineans. So what does this have to do with Afganistan? Israel fought for freedom from hard Moslem rule and won. Afganistanian laid down the minute the Americans moved out. Afganistan women won freedoms they can’t have under strict Moslem rule. What if I couldn’t go to school after age 10? I worked hard at small jobs in the UM offices and cafeteria, and I studied many midnights and got two degrees beyond the bachelors just because I could and because I loved literature. The business degree I didn’t really care about, but AT&T paid for it. I could and so I did. Have you seen the Afgan women doing yoga? the women Olympic athletes …. They struggled to do athletics and cover their bodies. How free we are, and how free they were under the "American protection." It’s gone now and I fear for the women. Taliban need men children. Who do you think will be the mothers? Fear for the women. Pray for the women. God bless us.