Wednesday, December 24, 2008
Thursday, December 18, 2008
Prayers, Please
Our local Cooper Tire manufacturing plant has announced it is definitely closing.
That's 2,100 jobs in our moderately-sized community. A real blow.
Pray for us, pray for this country, the whole shooting match.
Some depressions there ain't no pill for.
That's 2,100 jobs in our moderately-sized community. A real blow.
Pray for us, pray for this country, the whole shooting match.
Some depressions there ain't no pill for.
Friday, December 12, 2008
Why We've Helped Create Reasserters
I've had to come to accept that we, on the liberal side, have been complicit in allowing Reasserters, and, in the larger society, neo-cons, to cause the havoc they have.
In the name of compassion and kindness, we've tried to "engage" with them, to convince them of the errors in their beliefs. The result, however, has been like that of the typical co-dependent relationship, in that we've empowered their insanity, rather than helping them.
The fact is, by design or by accident, we've been weak, fearful, resistant to any sort of conflict. We're afraid of being labelled "bad guys," and, so, we've acted as if they had legitimate concerns.
They don't.
We serve no one's best interest, particularly those of these homophobes and rabid reasserter/neo-con/fundamentalists by pretending that they are operating from a reasonable, realistic, point of view. One shows compassion to a mental patient, but they must be made patients. You may have to forcibly commit them to psychiatric care, whether they or anyone else thinks you're a facist or any other ugly label. When a person tells you they need a drill to let the voices out of their and everyone else's heads, you don't hand the drill to them then try sweet reason in the hopes they'll stop drilling before they hurt someone!
We need to stop treating them as if their "concerns" were anything but delusional, as if they were operating from any position of reality. It may seem unpleasant, but think of it as the "slap" a hysterical person may need to calm them before they cause further chaos.
In the name of compassion and kindness, we've tried to "engage" with them, to convince them of the errors in their beliefs. The result, however, has been like that of the typical co-dependent relationship, in that we've empowered their insanity, rather than helping them.
The fact is, by design or by accident, we've been weak, fearful, resistant to any sort of conflict. We're afraid of being labelled "bad guys," and, so, we've acted as if they had legitimate concerns.
They don't.
We serve no one's best interest, particularly those of these homophobes and rabid reasserter/neo-con/fundamentalists by pretending that they are operating from a reasonable, realistic, point of view. One shows compassion to a mental patient, but they must be made patients. You may have to forcibly commit them to psychiatric care, whether they or anyone else thinks you're a facist or any other ugly label. When a person tells you they need a drill to let the voices out of their and everyone else's heads, you don't hand the drill to them then try sweet reason in the hopes they'll stop drilling before they hurt someone!
We need to stop treating them as if their "concerns" were anything but delusional, as if they were operating from any position of reality. It may seem unpleasant, but think of it as the "slap" a hysterical person may need to calm them before they cause further chaos.
Tuesday, December 9, 2008
This ISN'T a game!!!!!
The anti-gay forces behind Prop8 - themselves vicious proponents of mob rule - are complaining that the anti-Prop8 protests are mob rule . . .
. . and comparing gays who oppose Prop8 to terrorists in Mumbai.
See here and here.
Unfortunately, response has been left to the now-infamous HRC, whose effectiveness has been demonstrated at nil - well, other than fundraising for themselves.
Just as unfortunately, the response from the gay-and-gay-friendly community has been "Oh, stuff and nonsense! Just a bunch of soreheads!"
REALLY?!!!!
ARE YOU INSANE?!
You do realize, don't you, that these monsters are trying to get us killed:
Roman Catholic Archbishop Niederaurer
Pat Boone
Whoever the Hell heads up the Mormon "church"
ARE TRYING TO GET US KILLED!!
This isn't a game of whining bullies, but a concerted effort by political-action groups - "churches" - whose entire existence depends on whipping up a mob and leading them by the nose, to STAMP US DOWN . . . AND PERHAPS OUT!
I usually don't put myself forward - I'm certainly not leadership material - but to underestimate this, to under-respond to this, is stupid, short-sighted, and suicidal.
Respond in kind? Hit them back before they hit us?
NO. That is to make ourselves the sort of animals they reduce their followers to.
But call them, at every turn in every public venue, on this attempt at passive homicide-by-mob!!!
MAKE IT CLEAR WHAT THEY ARE DOING! THEY ARE INCITING MOB VIOLENCE!
STOP RELYING ON A BASIC GOODNESS THAT HAS NEVER EXISTED ONCE HUMANS GET INTO A MOB!!
. . and comparing gays who oppose Prop8 to terrorists in Mumbai.
See here and here.
Unfortunately, response has been left to the now-infamous HRC, whose effectiveness has been demonstrated at nil - well, other than fundraising for themselves.
Just as unfortunately, the response from the gay-and-gay-friendly community has been "Oh, stuff and nonsense! Just a bunch of soreheads!"
REALLY?!!!!
ARE YOU INSANE?!
You do realize, don't you, that these monsters are trying to get us killed:
Roman Catholic Archbishop Niederaurer
Pat Boone
Whoever the Hell heads up the Mormon "church"
ARE TRYING TO GET US KILLED!!
This isn't a game of whining bullies, but a concerted effort by political-action groups - "churches" - whose entire existence depends on whipping up a mob and leading them by the nose, to STAMP US DOWN . . . AND PERHAPS OUT!
I usually don't put myself forward - I'm certainly not leadership material - but to underestimate this, to under-respond to this, is stupid, short-sighted, and suicidal.
Respond in kind? Hit them back before they hit us?
NO. That is to make ourselves the sort of animals they reduce their followers to.
But call them, at every turn in every public venue, on this attempt at passive homicide-by-mob!!!
MAKE IT CLEAR WHAT THEY ARE DOING! THEY ARE INCITING MOB VIOLENCE!
STOP RELYING ON A BASIC GOODNESS THAT HAS NEVER EXISTED ONCE HUMANS GET INTO A MOB!!
Friday, December 5, 2008
GRUSS VOM KRAMPUS!!!
It's Krampusnacht!
Perhaps that is why GAFCON is being called out to Lambeth?
Look out, ya daffy-gaffies!!
Thursday, December 4, 2008
This Week
Nothing much to report.
Grandmere Mimi has a wonderful post on Advent as the season of Hope, and hope's been in pretty short supply all 'round, lately.
I really am beginning to get seriously discouraged at the state of the world around me. I've always had a feeling that we were moving forward, evolving, however much fundamentalists, hate-mongers, terrorists, the purely stupid, and the greedy and selfish tried to keep us back. I've always believed that, as we evolved, those people - and those impulses in us - would be transformed, as well. Now, I'm beginning to realize how little people actually look at themselves, their motivations and beliefs. At the risk of sounding superior, I think that we who do, who are self-aware in any degree, are a dangerously small breed, a species within a species. I look around and see Original Sin - not the bizarre concepts coming from Augustine and the Romans, but real Original Sin - the universal, self-perpetuating and self-imposed illusion of society and history all around us. We know the big illusions of sex, greed, etc., but what of the small ones we all embrace. "Competition breeds excellence." "People are just like that." "It's how the world works." All the lovely truisms that permeate even the church. "We have to be realistic!" Why? Realistic says "Hey, I only got one life, so I better keep from getting crucified or my message will die!" Even the very Church itself - Protestant, Catholic and Orthodox - participate willingly, lovingly in the illusion.
And illusions! Wow. Just the past week or so, talking with the anti-gay christians has been a horrifying eye opener. I think they really are crazy! They have twisted, gyrated and contorted their minds in so many self-justifications and rationalizations of their beliefs - and the concommittant illusion that they must be right or lack any center of stability - that they have literally drifted off into an alternate reality. Reality, right in front of them is gay people saying, "Look, you're really hurting me! You really are doing damage!" and they say, "Noooo. You just think you're hurting!" REALITY. It's right there. Right there!!!! I won't even get started on the people who really believe the Bible is literally inerrant. They should be under a physician's care.
Physicians! Doctors, trusted with care for human beings who come to them in need, and the government - our own little outgoing military junta - is trying to allow these doctors to say "Well, I swore to help you . . . as long as you agree with me morally!" How long before we say "Well, Catholicism, or Judaism or Buddhism or . . . what the hell ever . . . doesn't suit me, personally, so, as a doctor, I won't treat you." How long before it degenerates into fighting. This doctor won't see gays. This doctor will see gays, but not Jews, so that Jewish doctor won't see gays or Methodists, which that doctor happens to be . . . blah, blah, blah.
Illusion. Original Sin.
Still, there is hope, as Mimi points out. I see the hope a little differently, perhaps. The hope is not a future hope - the future is nothing - but a present one. The hope is in the fact that some of us see this ugliness, while others see business as usual. Phillip Kapleau said that Yasutani-Roshi spoke of the necessity of a "doubt-mass" in Buddhist practice to bring spiritual fruition. This doubt is not doubt as we think of it - the necessary operation of the limited human mind wondering if we've made the right decisions - still less the adolescent rejection of everything "conventional." This "doubt-mass" is that weighty, undeniable burden that some have that this is not how things truly are, that there is a better, fuller world and the evidence around us keeps saying there isn't. This doubt-mass brings fruition by pushing us. It doubts the illusion, the original sin and pushes us through it to greater things.
That is the hope, to me, found in this Advent. That is what will bring us to say "Why hasn't the Kingdom come? It's supposed to have!" and so saying, resolve to bring it, as Christ, as His body.
Grandmere Mimi has a wonderful post on Advent as the season of Hope, and hope's been in pretty short supply all 'round, lately.
I really am beginning to get seriously discouraged at the state of the world around me. I've always had a feeling that we were moving forward, evolving, however much fundamentalists, hate-mongers, terrorists, the purely stupid, and the greedy and selfish tried to keep us back. I've always believed that, as we evolved, those people - and those impulses in us - would be transformed, as well. Now, I'm beginning to realize how little people actually look at themselves, their motivations and beliefs. At the risk of sounding superior, I think that we who do, who are self-aware in any degree, are a dangerously small breed, a species within a species. I look around and see Original Sin - not the bizarre concepts coming from Augustine and the Romans, but real Original Sin - the universal, self-perpetuating and self-imposed illusion of society and history all around us. We know the big illusions of sex, greed, etc., but what of the small ones we all embrace. "Competition breeds excellence." "People are just like that." "It's how the world works." All the lovely truisms that permeate even the church. "We have to be realistic!" Why? Realistic says "Hey, I only got one life, so I better keep from getting crucified or my message will die!" Even the very Church itself - Protestant, Catholic and Orthodox - participate willingly, lovingly in the illusion.
And illusions! Wow. Just the past week or so, talking with the anti-gay christians has been a horrifying eye opener. I think they really are crazy! They have twisted, gyrated and contorted their minds in so many self-justifications and rationalizations of their beliefs - and the concommittant illusion that they must be right or lack any center of stability - that they have literally drifted off into an alternate reality. Reality, right in front of them is gay people saying, "Look, you're really hurting me! You really are doing damage!" and they say, "Noooo. You just think you're hurting!" REALITY. It's right there. Right there!!!! I won't even get started on the people who really believe the Bible is literally inerrant. They should be under a physician's care.
Physicians! Doctors, trusted with care for human beings who come to them in need, and the government - our own little outgoing military junta - is trying to allow these doctors to say "Well, I swore to help you . . . as long as you agree with me morally!" How long before we say "Well, Catholicism, or Judaism or Buddhism or . . . what the hell ever . . . doesn't suit me, personally, so, as a doctor, I won't treat you." How long before it degenerates into fighting. This doctor won't see gays. This doctor will see gays, but not Jews, so that Jewish doctor won't see gays or Methodists, which that doctor happens to be . . . blah, blah, blah.
Illusion. Original Sin.
Still, there is hope, as Mimi points out. I see the hope a little differently, perhaps. The hope is not a future hope - the future is nothing - but a present one. The hope is in the fact that some of us see this ugliness, while others see business as usual. Phillip Kapleau said that Yasutani-Roshi spoke of the necessity of a "doubt-mass" in Buddhist practice to bring spiritual fruition. This doubt is not doubt as we think of it - the necessary operation of the limited human mind wondering if we've made the right decisions - still less the adolescent rejection of everything "conventional." This "doubt-mass" is that weighty, undeniable burden that some have that this is not how things truly are, that there is a better, fuller world and the evidence around us keeps saying there isn't. This doubt-mass brings fruition by pushing us. It doubts the illusion, the original sin and pushes us through it to greater things.
That is the hope, to me, found in this Advent. That is what will bring us to say "Why hasn't the Kingdom come? It's supposed to have!" and so saying, resolve to bring it, as Christ, as His body.
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