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Writing about what I have been reading and encountering in the media. |
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WELCOME TO MY BLOG! I comment on things I am reading, thinking about, encountering in media, and spiritual issues. I hope you will find something interesting. PS. I love feedback... |
| What he said: Black women in New York City have more abortions than any other group in the USA. What she said: They love their children. What she didn’t say: Why would they bring a child into a world filled with people like you? What she said: The largest number of abortions in the country is middle aged women who have raised their families and feel unready or unable to parent again. When did you last hear of a “change of life baby?” What he said: I need to not discuss this stuff. What she didn’t say: I need to find another broker. |
| Guerin, Paulette, Wadding through Lethe, Futurecycle Press, Athens, GA, 2022. Before opening this lovely volume of lyric poetry, I asked why the title was chosen and what it said about the content. After all, one is supposed to drink the waters of the Lethe, not wade in them. The first poem is about holding on vs. letting go. As I read, I came to see a line, like a horizon, or the bank of a river, that one might cross, or having crossed already, one carries memories to the other side. There may be "desires concealed like tree rings," "a burst of yellow," or "her smell. I had already learned to let go, not expecting the grip of bergamot, of cloves." They may return "like a forgotten letter in her own handwriting or a snapshot of herself she can't remember being taken." The memories may appear annually as ghosts connected only to the past, with no present and unwilling to consider the future as in the poem, "Visit." If you consider memories, in the way Paulette Guerin does in this slim volume while facing the river Lethe, perhaps you, too, will choose to wade rather than drink, at least for now. |
| Some time ago, I had a long Facebook exchange with a young friend who takes care of homeless people who are excluded from homeless shelters due to problematic behavior. He does this in his home. We discussed the issue of abortion. I presented the metaphor of someone moving into your body without your permission and the state saying you must keep them, and they need care for several years from someone. His response is that he would take them in even in his body because that is what he does. Following is my response: You would react to that differently! ☺️You do welcome intruders. However, those intruders are there because you welcome them. Therefore, they aren't intruders. When you invite them, that changes their definition. When you invite a child into your body, it isn't an intruder. My experience with grief over losing my fertility, after 15 years of deliberately not conceiving, taught me some things. Since no one else grieved my lost children, I came to realize they were imaginary. I concluded that children come into being when you imagine them, when you decide they are a child and this happens at different times. There was a law, around the time of Roe v. Wade, in another state, that said a woman could get an abortion if two doctors agreed that her health was at risk if she continued the pregnancy. Sometimes, it took so long to get through that process, the pregnancy would be into the second trimester. The mother could have died in that time, or the fetus could be decaying in her body and poisoning her. This stopped with Roe v. Wade. Now, states are putting up so many barriers, women are back in the same position in some states. The whole thing seems to me to focus on who gets to decide what that tissue in that woman's body is. When someone else decides, the outcome is very different than if the woman decides. What if the police decided that your guests are intruders and just came and rounded them all up and hauled them off? That would be the state deciding rather than you deciding. Or what if the state decided you had to let anyone in and let them do what they want taking away your control of the situation? What if they rounded up everyone they could find and hauled them in and dropped them at your place with no provision for meeting their needs and said they must stay on your property and you must meet their needs. It would be a whole different experience, wouldn't it? The issue is not should someone get an abortion. The issue is who decides who will carry a child and give birth. Pro-lifers want the state to decide. Pro-choicers want the woman to decide with advice and support from the people she chooses to help her. The Pro-lifers can befriend her, can give her support, can offer to love and raise the child, one on one, in person, and make a difference in the outcome. Instead, the Pro-lifers have all been herded into a social ghetto and have decided that pro-choicers are their enemy and their enemy won't even listen to what pro-lifers are saying. The community can support a process that defines that tissue as a child in each individual woman by welcoming the women even when they don't agree with what they believe or think and make a difference, just like you are doing with the people you are choosing to help. However, pro-lifers shoot doctors and harass pro-choicers. I feel hated in my own community by people who have never asked what I think. I feel very unsafe around pro-lifers because they have expressed so much hatred and vitriol. Hatred just makes it harder for women to deal with an unwanted pregnancy. Why aren't those pro-lifers joining Planned Parenthood and helping reduce the number of abortions through prevention? Because they have become pawns of people who care less about the issue than getting power for themselves. |
| Malone, Dave,Tornado Drill, Kelsay Books, American Fork, Utah, 2021 Opening a window to small-town life, Dave Malone begins by watching a storm while others hide for safety. In this, his latest book of poetry, Mr. Malone moves the reader gently through the climate of small-town life. There is no denial of fear, but no acknowledgment either. Just how bad is it for Icarus to fall “upside down,” and by implication, see his father fly away? The women in the town walk slowly, purposefully, “as if they know something I don’t.” It appears to the young boy that God is “barely perceptible” until he notices the light dancing on the cypress floor and he suspects the instructor is missing the whole thing. He goes into darkness, experiences shaking “with the stomp of the unknown,” and when it all seems a bit too much, like the young herons, he flies to hide among the cedars. His grandmother shows that trees bring solace, even when fearing loss or facing it. Among them, one can stay “a long time, longer than life.” Dave Malone’s voice is that of one who is curious, independent in his thinking, and like many rural people, he speaks with an attitude that is somewhat fatalistic with an attitude of acceptance. His writing is rich with imagery and flows like the water that runs through the rivers of the Ozarks. |
| BOOK: Kooser, Ted, The Poetry Home Repair Manual: practical advice for beginning poets, University of Nebraska Press, Lincoln, London, 2005. This was recommended to me by the poet, Dave Malone. I got it through Amazon and read it immediately because I like Ted Kooser so much. The title tells the truth. His advice is practical and his examples clear. Mr. Kooser's discussion is often entertaining and funny. Even though this is written for beginning poets, some of his suggestions were new to me. Over all, it was just a darn good read. I hope you will enjoy this useful book, too. |
| These are the days of apostles The days of the Apostles were very much like today. There was rapid social change due to the coming together of people of many cultures related to the expansion of the Roman empire and related increase in trade and travel. There was violence. Jesus was crucified with others and his crucifixion was totally political in origin as opposed to being the result of him engaging in serious crime. They didn’t have AR15 rifles, but they had many other ways to torture and kill. Before the Pentecost that we celebrate today, the Apostles had daily contact with Jesus. It is probable that they had a good understanding of the nature of the Holy Spirit. Nevertheless, we have no way of knowing exactly what each apostle experienced at the moment they became aware of the presence of the Holy Spirit that day. I suspect they were astonished at the very least. It might not have been the same as having their hair on fire, but there were flames over their heads. They had become like candles and the flames did not go out in the rushing wind. The people who gathered there were from many nations and spoke many different languages. At that moment, they heard what was being said in their native tongues. Was that the apostles speaking in various languages, or God translating what was being said for each individual? The writers of the Bible chose to think of it as the Apostles speaking in different languages. In any case, all those people took in new wisdom in an amazing way that they understood and didn’t forget, and that people still talk about two millennia later. In this way, Christianity was born. One Pentecost Sunday, many years ago, I was in a large, urban gothic revival church, The nave or sanctuary was shaped like a cross with the chancel, that is the altar and area around the altar, in the middle, a small chapel to the left of the chancel and a baptistry to the right of the chancel area. The baptistry had a font, much smaller than what is used here. There were many sconces each with a single-lit votive candle on the wall behind the font. The choir, seated on a balcony in the back of the sanctuary, was organized around a core of 6 professional singers and lead by an outstanding organist playing a first-rate pipe organ. They had chosen a modern piece that sounded like rushing wind and many voices singing in different languages. It was quite mystical and moving. As the music reached its climax, a votive candle fell from the baptistry wall and crashed to the floor. The feeling I experienced was immediate and intense and my thought was “I’m not ready, Lord.” What if today, we have our own experience of the Holy Spirit? When I was a teen, I asked my pastor why people believed that God would speak only through the Bible. It seemed to me that this was very inefficient and not especially effective. I found the Bible very hard to understand, and still do. I have to get out reference books and then think, and then do Google searches, and still, sometimes I feel uncertain that I have understood what I read. But the newspaper is a whole different thing. I have no trouble understanding it because it is written at a fifth to tenth grade comprehension level and in contemporary language that people easily understand. Now, we have multimedia communications. I think that the creator and sustainer of the multiverse can figure out how to communicate to us through these media which may actually be a gift from God. A few years back, there was an earthquake on the east coast of the US. It damaged the Washington Monument and the National Cathedral. Some Christians saw it as a sign from God that homosexuality is bad, and others saw it as a sign from God that LGBTQ+ people should be accepted. If it was a communication from God, it didn’t get through very clearly. Again, I think God is capable of better than that. You all know the song We are one in the spirit, we are one in the lord with the chorus, and they will know we are Christians by our love. Is it not true that we believe God is acting through us when we show compassion, offer help, or just show respect for others? If that is the case, the Holy Spirit is very active and communicates with and through each of us every day. It is time to be astonished. Those apostolic flames are burning over our heads all the time. Are you ready? Are we ready? What do we need individually and as a faith community to be ready, to feel ready for the Holy Spirit to act through us? Take a moment now and think about what can prepare you to show your love effectively. It may be something you have, receive, or do but it may be something you need more of, or something yet to be available to you. If it is something you already have, then it would be something to give thanks for. If it is something you need, then it would be a request. Now pray your way into sharing grace of the Holy Spirit. {image # 1445398} |
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