I’ve noticed a few things that seem to keenly affect me. One is how I feel when I need some form of being taken care of, and the person I ask for it and/or expect it from doesn’t come through. I realize that people can’t read my mind, so it takes me a little time to sort out my feelings in the latter case. Either way, though, I feel frustrated and betrayed. I do a lot of taking care of people. I enjoy it, and it blesses me. But everybody needs to be taken care of, at some point, even the caretakers.
Another is when I can tell I’ve disappointed somebody, let somebody down. It’s worst, of course, when that somebody is a person I really care about or a person I want to think well of me; I feel like the world’s biggest heel. The problem with this one is that I don’t always understand that I’ve disappointed someone until they are very clear about this. I can be good at reading people, and I can also be totally oblivious.
There’s something about the period between about 2:30 and 4:30 am. If there were a time of day that is the desert wilderness — as opposed to the times of day that are growing fields or orchards ready for harvest — then it would fall in that range of hours. The neighborhood is quiet. The home is silent, holding only those little creaks and clicks and hums that the house makes. You’re too tired to do anything, and too awake to stay in bed and sleep. These wilderness hours, they are the time of existential crisis, the time when we are stripped bare, vulnerable to thoughts, ideas, and feelings of the worst kind.
When I lie awake during these hours, I become aware of all the people I’ve let down ever, and I feel like a poop. Not just any poop, but the poop of the creatures that eat poop: the lowest of the low. And I fear that nobody is really taking care of me, not as me; everyone’s just doing their own thing, and when it happens to help me, well, then good for me. Or maybe I come to the stunning realization that they only take care of me because they feel sorry for me, this worthless poop. I begin to wonder if I’m wrong about everything and everybody. Is love actually real? Is it only really self-interest after all? And if love mightn’t be real, then family doesn’t matter and friendship doesn’t matter, and we’re all just terribly and terrifyingly alone. And worst of all, if all of this is true, then what does it say about God? Is God real, or have we just made God up? Is everything just hopeless and pointless, and then we disappear into oblivion?
Wilderness sucks. There’s no other way to say it. When we’re in the times or places or life-situations of desert wilderness, it just sucks. Thankfully, God’s been pretty handy with the Great Cosmic Two-by-Four (aka, “Clue-by-Four”), with which God can whack me upside the head when I start circling the drain with these thoughts. It doesn’t always take a whack upside the head; sometimes it’s more of a poke with the Little Cosmic Twig or even a whisper from the Cosmic Rustling Leaves.
And that’s the Good News: even in the driest desert, in the darkest night, the furthest reaches of the wilderness, God is there. Nothing can separate us from God’s love. Not us, not any other person, not any substance, not any accident of birth or illness or anything else, not any being that has ever been created: nothing whatsoever can separate us from God’s love.
The least that any governor owes any president is respect.
It’s more than that. The least any PERSON owes any other person is respect.
Imagine what Republicans would have said if what occured at the Mesa airport between Gov. Jan Brewer and President Barack Obama had taken place between Gov. Janet Napolitano and President George W. Bush.
Can you imagine the explosions of rhetoric from our U.S. Senators and our Republicans in the House if there was a photograph of Napolitano wagging a finger at Bush?
The condemnation would have been overwhelming.
And justified.
The governor wasn’t at the airport greeting the president on behalf of herself. She was there representing ALL of us. Right, left and middle. Young and old. Men and women.
A simple “Welcome to Arizona, let me know if there’s anything we can do for you,” would have sufficed.
A lecture, an argument, a confrontation of any kind shows disrespect for the office. Not just for the person who holds it.
The governor should be embarrassed.
We all might have different views on politics. But we know good manners, and bad ones, when we see them.
I’m happy this newspaper is taking their governor to task.
She owes not just President Obama a personal apology, but she owes the White House an apology and the People of Arizona one as well, for embarrassing them like that (via str8nochaser)
Because music and other files are far more important than someone raping and murdering someone.
The “justice” system in the United States has absolutely nothing to do with justice, but with punishment. People think they will get “closure” when another human being is locked up forever or, worse, is executed. They quickly discover that there is no closure in stripping a human of his or her humanity.
Former Apple executive, who chooses to remain anonymous because of confidentiality agreements: This system does not work for anybody, including Apple. The short-term gains may be attractive, but you degrade and diminish all of humanity by your complicity in these abominable choices.
Watch the Republican debates on television and you would think that America faces not a single social challenge other than stopping gays from marrying and women from aborting fetuses. America is a religious nation whose religious convictions have been hijacked by these twin issues, even though they have little to do with most Americans.
Today we celebrate the ordination of Florence Li Tim-Oi, the first Woman Priest in the Anglican Communion.
Gracious God, we thank you for calling Florence Li Tim-Oi, much-beloved daughter, to be the first woman to exercise the office of a priest in our Communion; By the grace of your Spirit inspire us to follow her example, serving your people with patience and happiness all our days, and witnessing in every circumstance to our Savior Jesus Christ, who lives and reigns with you and the same Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.
