There Will Be Teeth in the Grass

"And when you give me your clothes
And when we're lovers at last
Fresh air, perfume in your nose
There will be teeth in the grass

And when you give me your house
When we're all brothers at last
There will be food in our mouths
There will be teeth in the grass

And when there's nothing to want
When we're all brilliant and fast
When all tomorrows are gone
There will be teeth in the grass..."

~Sam Beam

             +++++++++++++++++++++

"Woe to you who desire the day of the Lord!
    Why would you have the day of the Lord?
It is darkness, and not light,

    as if a man fled from a lion,
    and a bear met him,

or went into the house and leaned his hand against the wall,
    and a serpent bit him.

Is not the day of the Lord darkness, and not light,
    and gloom with no brightness in it?

I hate, I despise your feasts,
    and I take no delight in your solemn assemblies.

Even though you offer me your burnt offerings and grain offerings,
    I will not accept them;
and the peace offerings of your fattened animals,
    I will not look upon them.

Take away from me the noise of your songs;
    to the melody of your harps I will not listen.

But let justice roll down like waters,
    and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream."

~The Prophet Amos

Not Impossible

She placed the stars in the sky each night 

as the sun set low and red

"I used to think it was impossible

but now I know better," she said.

The Word of God (Can Not Be Contained)

The Word of God is not contained!

Reasonably speaking (if one accepts the notion of a God), the Word of God is that which God says, that which God thinks, that which God wants.

Many conflate “the Bible” with God's Word, because we've used that term as a title for the Bible over the years. But the Bible doesn't call “the Bible” God's Word, nor has God. That's just our tradition.

Which is fine as long as we don't forget that the tradition does not need to be taken literally.

What IS God's Word then? Seems to me that IF one believes in a Good and Gracious God, a God who is defined as Love, then God's Word is ALL that is good and true and pure and loving. As we find in the Bible where the author of Philippians writes...

Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.

Finally, brothers and sisters,
whatever is true,
whatever is noble,
whatever is right,
whatever is pure,
whatever is lovely,
whatever is admirable -

if anything is excellent or praiseworthy -

think about such things.

~The Apostle Paul (probably – Philippians 4)

IF one accepts a Good, Loving God, then ALL that is good and loving (just, pure, kind, compassionate, helpful, brave, unwavering, etc) is of God. That which is hateful and cruel is NOT of God.

And IF all that is good and loving is of God, then it stands to reason that all those words that promote that which is Good and Loving are at least passing on themes of God's Word, God's Will... if not God's Word outright.

In the CS Lewis book in the Narnia series, The Last Battle, the Calormenes are a (crudely drawn) Muslim-like people who worship Tash. This is a clearly false and evil god in the book. One of the Calormene citizens, Emeth, has been a devout follower of Tash all his days. Near the end, he meets Aslan. This is the story of that meeting...

There came to meet me a great Lion... then I fell at his feet and thought, “Surely this is the hour of death, for the lion will know that I have served Tash all my days and not him...”

But the Glorious One bent down his golden head and touched my forehead with his tongue and said, “Son thou art welcome.”

But I said, “Alas, Lord, I am no son of thine, but the servant of Tash.”

He answered, “Child, all the service thou has done to Tash I account as service done to me...
no service which is vile can be done to me and
none which is not vile can be done to him.”

Emeth replied, “Yet I have been seeking Tash all my days.”

“Beloved,” said the glorious One, “unless thy desire had been for me thou wouldst not have sought so long and so truly, for all find what they truly seek.”

~CS Lewis

The Word of God, or so it seems to me.

Scripture points to Jesus, not the other way around...
the point of Scripture is not to lead us back to Scripture.
The point of Scripture is to lead us to Jesus Christ.

~Rachel Held Evans

The Word of God, or so it seems to me.

Take someone who doesn’t keep score,

who’s not looking to be richer,

or afraid of losing,

who has not the slightest interest even in his own personality:

he’s free...

Yesterday I was clever, so I wanted to change the world.

Today I am wise, so I am changing myself...

Very little grows on jagged rock. Be ground.
Be crumbled, so wild flowers will come up where you are...

~Rumi

The Word of God, or so it seems to me.

You do not have to sit outside in the dark.

If, however, you want to look at the stars,

you will find that darkness is necessary.
But the stars neither require nor demand it...

The way we live our days,
is the way we live our lives...

~Annie Dillard

The Word of God, or so it seems to me.

I feel safe in the midst of my enemies,
for the truth is all powerful and will prevail...

Life is a hard battle anyway.
If we laugh and sing a little as we fight the good fight of freedom,
it makes it all go easier.
I will not allow my life's light to be determined by the darkness around me...

Religion without humanity is very poor human stuff.

~Sojourner Truth

The Word of God, or so it seems to me.

...As soon as the generals and the politicos
can predict the motions of your mind,
lose it. Leave it as a sign
to mark the false trail, the way
you didn’t go.

Be like the fox
who makes more tracks than necessary,
some in the wrong direction.
Practice resurrection..

Do unto those downstream as you would have those upstream do unto you...

Whether we and our politicians know it or not,

Nature is party to all our deals and decisions,

and she has more votes,

a longer memory,

and a sterner sense of justice than we do...

Rats and roaches live by competition under the laws of supply and demand;
it is the privilege of human beings to live under the laws of justice and mercy...

~Wendell Berry

The Word of God, or so it seems to me.

The wind blows wherever it pleases.
You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going.
So it is with everyone born of the Spirit.

~Jesus (John 3)

Very truly I tell you, whoever believes in me

will do the works I have been doing, and they will do even greater things than these.

~Jesus (John 14)
Jesus did many other things as well.

If every one of them were written down,
I suppose that even the whole world would not have room for the books that would be written.

~John 21

The Word of God, or so it seems to me.

And the Word of God is not – CAN not be contained.

Thanks be to God.

You Know Who Hated Immigrants? The "Sodomites."

I've been doing a little reading in the Bible about Immigrants/Foreigners/Strangers. As hopefully we all know by now, the term is used frequently in the Bible, almost always in defense of those sojourning in a nation not their own. We see “alien” often listed with widows and orphans as people who we should be especially welcoming to and supporting of. And why was this? Because then, as now, the widowed (often, the poor woman with limited resources), the orphaned (those with no familial support) and the foreigner were all people with limited support and prone to being maligned and abused and taken advantage of, especially in a culture where support was almost exclusively linked to family.

I'll probably be posting more eventually, but wanted to share one new insight I had today...

Interestingly, I found that the very first appearance of the word, alien is the Lot story (Genesis 19), where the “all the men” of Sodom (recall that town?) were angry at Lot for welcoming in strangers (very strange, they were considered angels in the story, so VERY foreign...) and for being “judge-y...” You see, they wanted to gang rape the visitors and Lot dared to refuse to remove his protection from the visitors.

The word, “alien,” is used in this story by the men of Sodom as a sneering epithet towards Lot (“...this OUTSIDER comes and acts all self-righteous!...”) as the outsider being all moral and defending the angel/visitors (also, very much “aliens” or sojourners).

This use of “alien” as an epithet, is very much the same way that our current administration and the anti-”illegals” crowd uses “immigrants” and “Mexicans” and other “outsider” words as an epithet, to suggest that being an immigrant is akin to being a monster, a rapist, a threat.

So, in this first use of the word “alien” in the Bible, we see its embrace as an epithet by some of the people who are now-famous for being evil. And, as we see later in the Bible (Ezekiel), the Sodomites were NOT known for being evil for “being gay” (contrary to popular wisdom,) but for refusing hospitality to strangers/immigrants/foreigners.

Of course, good, reasonable, moral people should - in contrast to these evil ones - embrace the outsider and the immigrant – especially those merely seeking safety and refuge – because, as God often reminds the people of Israel, “YOU, too, were once aliens, and mistreated... don't do that!”

God, on Immigrants

Enough said.

Some of Jesus' Teachings, This Easter Week

Jesus, at the beginning of his ministry, explained what his mission was...

"The Spirit of the Lord is on me,
because God has anointed me
to proclaim good news to the poor.

God has sent me
to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and
recovery of sight for the blind,
to set the oppressed free..."

And when John the Baptist asked Jesus if he was "the One," Jesus said...

"Go and tell John what you hear and see:
The blind receive their sight
and the lame walk,
lepers are cleansed and the deaf hear,
and the dead are raised up,
and the poor have
good news preached to them."

And when he was teaching a lesson to a wealthy man who'd invited him to dinner, Jesus said...

"When you give a dinner or a banquet,
do not invite your friends or your brothers
or your relatives or rich neighbors,
lest they also invite you in return and you be repaid.
BUT,
when you give a feast,
invite the poor, the sick, the lame, the blind,
and you will be blessed..."

When the rich young ruler asked what he needed to do in order to be saved, Jesus said...

"If you want to be perfect, go,
sell your possessions
and give to the poor,
and you will have treasure in heaven.

Then come, follow Me."

When the young man heard this, he went away sad, because he had great wealth.

Then Jesus said to his disciples, 

“Truly I tell you, it is hard for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of heaven.
Again I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle 
 than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God.”

When Jesus gave his most complete recorded sermon, the sermon on the mount/plain, Jesus taught...

“Blessed are you who are poor,
    for yours is the kingdom of God.
Blessed are you who hunger now,
    for you will be satisfied.
Blessed are you who weep now,
    for you will laugh.

Blessed are you when people hate you,
    when they exclude you and insult you
    and reject your name as evil,
        because of the Son of Man.

Rejoice in that day and leap for joy, because great is your reward in heaven. For that is how their ancestors treated the prophets.

But woe to you who are rich,
    for you have already received your comfort.
Woe to you who are well fed now,
    for you will go hungry.
Woe to you who laugh now,
    for you will mourn and weep.
Woe to you when everyone speaks well of you,
    for that is how their ancestors treated the false prophets."

and Jesus continued teaching...

"Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you,
bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you.

If someone slaps you on one cheek, turn to them the other also. 
If someone takes your coat, do not withhold your shirt from them.
Give to everyone who asks you, and 
if anyone takes what belongs to you, do not demand it back. 

Do to others as you would have them do to you."

And when Jesus taught his parable about who is in the Realm of God, Jesus said...

"Come, you who are blessed by my Father; 
take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world.

For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, 
I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, 
I was a stranger and you invited me in,
I needed clothes and you clothed me, 
I was sick and you looked after me, 
I was in prison and you came to visit me."

And then Jesus' parable addresses those who aren't in the God's Realm and their terrible fate...

"Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. 
For I was hungry and you gave me nothing to eat, 
I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, 
I was a stranger and you did not invite me in, 
I needed clothes and you did not clothe me, 
I was sick and in prison and you did not look after me."

Jesus' teachings, this week of Easter, where our current president just told us, in not so many words.

"Happy Easter, everyone... and by the way, we're NOT going to allow those DACA Dreamers to be welcomed after all! Nasty Mexicans and liberals are making me do this!"

What a way to remember the teachings and life of the one we celebrate on Easter.

And upon entering Jerusalem, following the praise and adoration of Palm Sunday, Jesus saw the vendors in the temple taking advantage of the poor in the temple (selling "approved" doves - the offering the poor gave - at a great profit, Jesus was outraged.

‘My house shall be called a house of prayer for all the nations’? 
But you have made it a robbers’ den.”

...Because of his anger at those who were taking advantage of the poor (and others).

After this event, the Bible tells us...

"The chief priests and the scribes heard this, 
and began seeking 
how to destroy Him..." 

And then, Easter.

Happy Easter, all. May we remember the teachings of the Easter God.

Romero

Oscar Romero was a relatively conservative priest in the Catholic Church in El Salvador. The church appointed him to serve as Archbishop of San Salvador, which pleased the wealthy class but worried greatly the more progressive priests who worked with and alongside the Salvadoran poor. 

However, in March of 1977, shortly after he was appointed to this post, a Jesuit priest and friend of Romero's, was assassinated. This priest, Rutilio Grande, had been working with the poor there and his death had a great impact upon Romero. Romero later said, "When I looked at Rutilio lying there dead I thought, 'If they have killed him for doing what he did, then I too have to walk the same path.'"

This was the beginning of a turning point in Romero's life. Much to the surprise of conservative and progressive Catholics, Romero became a voice for and with the poor in El Salvador, a voice against the violence by the US-supported military in the nation.

For three years, Romero worked and spoke more direct with and for the poor, spoke out more directly against the violence and oppression of the poor by the nation. 

On March 23, 1980 (I would have been celebrating my 17th birthday), Romero delivered a sermon where he called upon Salvadoran soldiers to forsake the violence against the poor, and to follow in God's ways, instead.

The next day, while he was conducting mass at a hospital, Romero finished his sermon, took a few steps away from the podium and was gunned down.

As far as I know, no one has ever been found guilty of the assassination, but it was apparently orchestrated by the (again, US-supported) Salvadoran military.

Oscar Romero, presente.

Some of Romero's words.

"A church that doesn't provoke any crises, a gospel that doesn't unsettle, a word of God that doesn't get under anyone’s skin, a word of God that doesn't touch the real sin of the society in which it is being proclaimed — ​what gospel is that?"

"When the church hears the cry of the oppressed it cannot but denounce the social structures that give rise to and perpetuate the misery from which the cry arises."

"I will not tire of declaring that if we really want an effective end to violence we must remove the violence that lies at the root of all violence: structural violence, social injustice, exclusion of citizens from the management of the country, repression. All this is what constitutes the primal cause, from which the rest flows naturally."

"Even when they call us mad, when they call us subversives and communists and all the epithets they put on us, we know we only preach the subversive witness of the Beatitudes, which have turned everything upside down."

“When we struggle for human rights, for freedom, for dignity, when we feel that it is a ministry of the church to concern itself for those who are hungry, for those who have no schools, for those who are deprived, we are not departing from God’s promise. He comes to free us from sin, and the church knows that sin’s consequences are all such injustices and abuses. The church knows it is saving the world when it undertakes to speak also of such things.”

"Aspire not to have more, but to be more."

Come Healing

In the season of Lent, this year at my church, we've been thinking on the theme of...

Walking in the Dark; Never Afraid, Never Alone.

...and we've had some nice imagery, stories, songs and sermons shared in the process. Today, a group of friends sang Leonard Cohen's, "Come Healing." It's a beautiful song. Enjoy.

Happy International Women's Day

She found she could sleep 

anywhere at all 

as long as she had friends, 

nearby and quiet

Such was the determined ferocity of her heart

and the mighty comfort of her friends.

Here's to all the mighty great women out there! Long may you rest, fight and prosper!

Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them

Some excerpts from an article from a researcher on the depth and depravity of lies told by this current administration... which comes as no surprise to anyone who isn't blinded by an unhealthy sort of partisanship.

I Study Liars, And I've Never Seen One Like Trump

I spent the first two decades of my career as a social scientist studying liars and their lies. I thought I had developed a sense of what to expect from them. Then along came President Donald Trump. His lies are both more frequent and more malicious than ordinary people's...

In Trump's first 298 days in office, however, he made 1,628 false or misleading claims or flip-flops, by The Post's tally.

[!!! Holy Shit! This is not normal nor should it be acceptable! We can't just casually pass this insane bit of data by! ~DT] 

That's about six per day, far higher than the average rate in our studies. And of course, reporters have access to only a subset of Trump's false statements — the ones he makes publicly — so unless he never stretches the truth in private, his actual rate of lying is almost certainly higher.

That rate has been accelerating. Starting in early October, The Post's tracking showed that Trump told a remarkable nine lies a day, outpacing even the biggest liars in our research.

But the flood of deceit isn't the most surprising finding about Trump...

Trump told 6.6 times as many self-serving lies as kind ones. That's a much higher ratio than we found for our study participants, who told about double the number of self-centered lies compared with kind ones.

The most stunning way Trump's lies differed from our participants', though, was in their cruelty. An astonishing 50 percent of Trump's lies were hurtful or disparaging...

By telling so many lies, and so many that are mean-spirited, Trump is violating some of the most fundamental norms of human social interaction and human decency...

Read the whole story...

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/commentary/ct-donald-trump-liar-20171208-story.html

                                           +++++++++++++

Lying lips are abomination to the LORD: but they that deal truly are his delight.                            

~Proverbs 12

You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.

~Exodus 20

But what comes out of the mouth proceeds from the heart, and this defiles a person. For out of the heart come
evil thoughts,
murder,
adultery,
sexual immorality,
theft,
false witness,
slander.

These are what defile a person.

~Jesus, reading a laundry list of an average day in the Trump White House (with the possible exception of "murder...," so far as we know...)

Making a difference

"What good is it, my brothers and sisters, if someone claims to have faith but has no deeds? Can such faith save them? Suppose a brother or a sister is without clothes and daily food. If one of you says to them, “Go in peace; keep warm and well fed,” but does nothing about their physical needs, what good is it? In the same way, faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead."

~St James

Work. Keep digging your well.
Don’t think about getting off from work.
Water is there somewhere.
Submit to a daily practice.
Your loyalty to that
is a ring on the door.

Keep knocking, and the joy inside
will eventually open a window
and look out to see who’s there.

~Rumi

“Human salvation lies in the hands of the creatively maladjusted.”

~Martin Luther King, Jr

If you cannot feed one hundred people,
Feed one.

~Mother Teresa

“Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me...

[For] ‘truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.’’

~Jesus

Our Violence Problem

Thinking things through a bit more on gun violence and talking point solutions I've heard thus far...

I. First and foremost, we need to recognize that the ROOT problem we have is a violence problem. Especially amongst men and especially young men, violence in our culture is seen as acceptable.

THIS is the root problem that needs to be dealt with.

II. The problem with the "arm the teachers/fortify the schools" approach (beyond the problem that it plays into the notion that violence is an acceptable solution) is that it's operating on the notion that, "This is what we will do IF an armed 'bad guy' gets into the school and starts shooting... THEN we will shoot back... and (giving the greatest possible benefit of the doubt), fewer people will be harmed/killed than might have otherwise happened.

It's a response to a bad situation, not an answer to it.

III. Which is to say, this solution is acting as a REACTION to hopefully (but not definitely) lessen the harm done, it's not being offered as a way of stopping the incidents from happening in the first place.

IIIa. Having said that, some have said that just having the guns present will have a preventative effect, as the would-be violent shooters will not want to go to a place where someone may shoot back.

But what does the data say?

Clearly, some people - i.e., many of these often white young men - who have gone into mass shooting situations, have done so with the expectation of being killed in the process. So, having armed responses on site does not seem to be a deterrent, on the face of it.

But again, what does the data say? It bears research.

IV. Of course, one other problem with this is that it's adding to an already overloaded list of things that teachers are responsible for. If we're arming the teachers and they're tasked with operating as body guards, their pay should increase, as a starting point! (their pay should increase, regardless... teachers are generally underpaid).

But that doesn't help with the fact that they're already overloaded on work. As many teachers have been saying, "You want to arm me? Arm me with support staff. Arm me with reasonable pay. Arm me with the tools and supplies I need, rather than expecting me to pay for it..." etc.

V. This "armed teacher" solution presumes that guns are the best way to stop a person ready to commit violence. Being prepared and trained in programs/philosophies like "Safe Physical Management" (or models like that), presumes the better option is to be prepared to talk people down from violence, rather than reacting with violence to a violent person. Not saying that there are not times where meeting violence with violence feels like the only possible solution, just that it should be a last resort.

Indeed, if we have armed staff shooting back at armed intruders, Wild West style, we have already failed. The goal is to prevent it from happening in the first place, not engaging in shoot outs.

Which is another problem I've had with some who have responded with a "Let's arm the teachers" response... It often is presented as if coming from a rather simplistic and shallow view of the problem. "It takes good guys with guns to stop bad guys with guns..." is a funny bumper sticker, but does not have much depth and seems a rather juvenile response, to many of us, at least.

VI. All of which points back to the root problem that we need to keep in mind:

We have a violence problem.

Especially amongst men and especially young men, our society is one of the worst for producing people who believe that violence and deadly violence are acceptable options to conflict. Other developed nations don't have this, not to the degree that we have it. Nearly. (Again, look at the data).

WHY are we, specifically, producing deadly violent young men? And let's not jump to easy, careless answers off the top of our heads (it's the violent movies! It's video games!)

What does the data say?

This is a topic that needs to be investigated and studied. That is certainly a starting point.

VII. In the meantime, IF we have violent young men as a given, at least for now, what can be done to lessen/ease the problem? Some say making the licensing and regulation of guns - especially guns that can kill a lot of people quickly (assault-style rifles). This seems reasonable and should at least be on the table of discussion.

But, liberal friends, we need to keep in mind that IF we make it more difficult to access assault style weapons, other weapons will no doubt be used, so that is not an ending solution, either. Maybe a mitigating and interim partial solution, but it's only partial.

But, conservative friends, it certainly seems like research and considering regulations and limitations should be on the table.

Some thoughts, for what they're worth.

+++++++++++

Now, to the people who keep saying that "The 'bad guys' don't obey laws so passing new gun regulations won't make a difference," this is a mistaken argument for at least three reasons.

1. We have speed limits. People still break the speed limit, driving faster than they should. Nonetheless, some people DO obey the speed limit and most people will not break the speed limit by too much. The speed limits (and seat belt laws and road safety laws) all combined DO make a difference.

2. Depending upon how the regulations and rules are written, they are still effective even if some people ignore them because they allow for enforcement.

IF a person was restricted from owning guns for some reason (demonstrated violent tendencies, for instance) and they owned guns anyway, or tried to buy guns anyway, the rules/regulations would allow for responsible people to prevent that from happening or allow for them to be taken away before harm is done.

3. This is an argument for anarchy. "The 'bad guys' won't obey the rules, therefore, what's the point of laws..." is not a rational argument UNLESS you're arguing for getting rid of all laws and regulations. And even then, it's an irrational argument because regardless of whether you're arguing for anarchy (and hopefully, you're not), the rules DO make a difference (see points 1 & 2).

That laws, rules and regulations make a difference is demonstrable, we can see it by looking at the data. We need data-driven solutions, not fear-based solutions nor solutions based upon irrational or anarchy-based arguments.

++++++++++++

It's been too hard living, but I'm afraid to die

'Cause I don't know what's up there, beyond the sky

It's been a long, a long time coming

But I know 

A change gonna come, 

Oh yes it will

~Sam Cooke