Who We Are

Ann Maria Reeves Jarvis and daughter Anna

No cemetery is willing to take the body of Tamerlan Tsarnaev. Not just Boston.  Anywhere in the US.  "Send him back to Russia!" is the rallying cry.  

I was not one rallying to insist everybody sing Kumbya and forgive Tsarnaev.  But this is a really disturbing trend.  The man is dead.  His final resting place can only cause more pain if people choose to make it so.  And people are choosing to do so.  This is why forgiveness is so important.  Not because of any love or sympathy or understanding of the one who hurt us.  But because if we do not forgive and let go of our anger and grievances, they continues to hurt us.  Tsarnaev is dead.  We do not hurt him by refusing his body a place to rest.  We hurt his family.  But most of all we hurt ourselves.  Because of this story, he is still in the news, still taking up our attention, our thoughts, our energy.  We are the ones who choose to make this an issue.  

And it hurts us because we become less than who we are.  Civilized people do not desecrate the dead of our enemies.  Desecrating bodies, refusing burial rites, condemning the dead to some sort of hellish after life by what we do, all these practices are from another time, an ignorant and brutal time.  Do we want to be *that* people?

Mother's Day is coming up.  Few people remember the origins of that day.  Anna Jarvis campaigned for this day in honor of her mother who worked to bring mothers of soldiers on both sides of the civil war.  One of the things those mothers did was care for the graves of soldiers of the other side.  These mothers of slain boys did not grieve their losses any less than the people of Boston.  They did not view the soldiers who killed their sons any less "traitors" than we view Tamerlan Tsarnaev.  And yet they brought themselves to take care of their graves. This is our history.  This is who we are.

I don't even believe this is a Christian issue.  This is about who we are as Americans.  If it is no longer who we are, then the terrorists have won.

The Gosnell Case - A Combination of Poverty and Restriction of Abortion

I've always wished we could have an honest and sane discussion on abortion.  

It is my belief that a compassionate and just society makes it possible for women to both bear and raise the children they conceive.  

This idea that women are just casually getting abortions is simply not true.  

Many many years ago I read "In a Different Voice" by Carol Gilligan that is about how the way women make moral decisions is different than men.  The book was not about abortion, though she used women making decisions about abortion as an example of how women make decisions.  

But what struck me was how many women ended up getting abortions to keep men in their lives, who were needed to support the children they already had.  

People think feminism is responsible for abortion but it seems to me if women were more independent, they'd be able to have and raise their children.

So you can't get rigid "pro-life" (really who is anti-life?) people to discuss abortion in a sane way and you can't really get feminists to discuss it either because they are so desperately trying to keep it safe, legal and  available.  Which I understand.  

 I wish pro-life people would understand that trying to forbid abortion does not solve anything, it only makes things worse.  And I wish pro-choice people could talk about the fact that we are discussing life and there is a violence and a loss for women who must make this choice.  

It's like there are only two ways of looking at abortion, abortion is the equivalent of Hitler killing Jews, or it's just removal of unwanted tissue.  Both these view points is harmful to women and harmful to society.

I won't post any links to the Gosnell case.  If you haven't heard about it you can Google it.  He was a butcher who took advantage of poor women.  Period.  And now he's the poster boy for the argument that there is a pro-abortion, left wing media conspiracy because the press didn't pay much attention.  The truth is nobody ever pays attention to poor women. 

People don't like the idea of late term abortions, but these are the result of lack of money and access to health care to detect pregnancy and to earlier abortions.  

Then women get desperate and they go to butchers like Gosnell.  

This is what happened before abortion was legal and it's going to happen more as more states make end runs around the constitution to block access to safe legal abortions.  And unfortunately the way the "left wing" media has played into anti-abortion's narrative of this case, this is just going to make it worse.

Now about that Women & Gay Marriage Thing

I really owe Pope Francis a debt of gratitude for getting me back into the blogging habit.

So after giving him a pass on the whole military dictatorship thing... What about the fact that he believes what his church teaches?  Namely, that women do not belong in the priesthood and gays should not be be allowed to marry each other or adopt children.

Well on the one hand, DUH.  At this point in history, with *that* conclave of electorate, nobody pushing for radical change was going to become pope.  It hardly seems fair to blame the Pope for well, being Catholic.

On the other hand, I have no sympathy for those whining about the media constantly bringing up those issues.  Would it be nice if the press were a little more informed and educated about the Roman Catholic Church and Christianity in general.  Well yea.  But this is the thing--  The Roman Catholic Church wants to be a player in the secular world.  The Vatican is a "country" after all.  The Pope is a world leader.   You wanna play in the big playground but play by your own rules you are going to get some pushback for that.  So, no the Roman Catholic Church, nor Pope Francis, now it's Head and spokesman don't get a pass on that.   As the rest of the world (and even most of their own members) sees nothing wrong with birth control and are willing to concede some instances where abortion is moral option, want to see women leaders in the church, favor gay rights and even marriage, these questions and critiques of the church are not going to go away.  And nor should they.

Bergoglio & the Third Way

 I've been looking more into the accusations of Bergoglio's relationship with Argentina's military dictatorship in the 70s and 80s.  
A colleague who was in Argentina and knows and trusts Adolfo Pérez Esquivel takes his word that  Bergoglio had no links with the dictatorship.

Besides the general accusation that he and the church in general did not oppose or even distance themselves enough from the dictatorship (see my previous post on the Pope re the church and government since Constantine) the main accusation that seems to be floating round is that the had something to do with the arrest of two Marxist priests who were dismissed.  There really seems to be no real evidence of this.  He insists he actually tried very hard to get them and others released.

It looks like much of this ill will comes from those who are unhappy that although Bergoglio advocated for the poor, he rejected Marxism and liberation theology because he saw it as too wrapped up in Marxism.  There are many people who see things in black and white, right or wrong, pick a side.  If you are not on the Marxists side, you are on the dictator's side. 

It looks to me like Bergoglio chose a third way - the Gospel and that just wasn't good enough for some people.  Kind of like how Jesus let down the zealots.  

Lean in, but Don't be Surprised if it's Women Who Try to Smack You Back Down Again

So  a successful woman writes a book advising women they might take some responsibility for their own success.  And all hell breaks loose in a storm of controversy, and "HOW DARE SHE!" outrage.  And where is all this outrage coming from?  Pretty much women. 

HOW DARE SHE suggest women can be responsible for their own success?  Which is really saying "How dare SHE take responsibility for her own success?"  She's just LUCKY.    And the rest of us are still victims who if we aren't lucky can't do anything.  What a pack of bullshit coming mostly from other SUCCESSFUL women.   Really I am ashamed for my sex.

"Lean in"  I love that phrase.  Lean into your opportunities.  Women do tend to hold back.  Sometimes it is for reasons of family and I think that's a good thing.  I think men should do that more.  But more often I think women hold back for lack of confidence, fear of claiming authority and most of all fear of not being "liked". 

Nobody, not even Sandberg said there is not still sexism and barriers for women.  But when those barriers are not there or soft and fluid, she is encouraging women to "lean in" and push back.  YAY!  I say.

There is another strand of criticism.  She's just a privileged white woman talking to other white women.  Yea and so are some of the women criticizing her.  Successful  white privileged writer Susan Fauldi wrote an article complaining that  Sandberg left single mothers behind.

Where was all the criticism of Steve Jobs when he wrote motivational books that he didn't address ALL of the problems addressing women in the world?  Oh, I see.  The requirement that every book you write must address all the issues of oppressed women only applies to....women. 

Seriously this not what women should be doing.  We should not be attacking women for not addressing our particular issue.  Women are allowed to be successful.  In fact I think this attack on Sandberg for daring to suggest women can claim their own power is an example of that resistance to "leaning in"  that she writes about.  

Seriously ladies, if she didn't write about what you want ... LEAN IN AND WRITE YOUR OWN DAMNED BOOK!

Habemus Papam!

Well, not being Catholic maybe I don't get to say "We" have a pope.  But still it was all very exciting yesterday.  Social media just makes these events so much more fun.

I have to say I wasn't too excited before this as to who they might choose, it all sounded like so much same old same old from grumpy old men.  And many will argue that Argentina's cardinal Jorge Bergoglio, now Pope Francis, is more of the same. Certainly he's not going to move the Roman Catholic Church forward when it comes to women or gays.  But seriously did anybody really think THAT was going to happen?

But a cardinal from South America, known for his simple life style and care for the poor, who calls himself Francis, I think that has to be about as best as *that* conclave could have come up with.  Right away there was some confusion as to which Francis he was taking, as there is also the missionary Francis Xaiver, a Jesuit, which Francis is.  But soon the Vatican came out saying he had taken the name Francis of Assisi because of his love for the poor.   A very good sign.

There is some grumbling because of his relationship with the military dictatorship in Argentina in the 70s.  He should have been more outspoken against them.  If you don't want to be a persecuted minority you are always going to risk getting your hands dirty and looking complicit in things Jesus never would have done.  But that was the choice the church made back in the time of Constantine.

Like I said it was all very exciting and I felt very hopeful.  But in the end, it is still a church run by old men who still rely on smoke signals.  Most of my gay and unchurched friends on facebook did not share my giddiness.  And the truth is, it's like the English Royalty.  I love to watch and follow their pomp, but I don't want royalty in the U.S.   And while I love that there is a Pope but I don't want one for me, thank you very much. 

When a Pastor's Bad Behavior in Public becomes Public

Very interesting story making the rounds on social media. 

First an Applebees server posted a picture of a pastor's rather snotty note on a receipt "I give 10% to God why do you get 18%?" and identifies themselves as a pastor.

So that alone sets off a firestorm on social media.  And reveals the dirty little secret that I learned from working as a waitress at Bob's Big Boy on Van Nuys Blvd (yes the very same street cruised in American Graffiti)  - Servers always dread the Sunday after church crowd.  They are the most demanding and the worst tippers.  This is apparently still as true as it was back in the late 70s when I was schlepping food.  And it brought about discussion among Christians about how if are going to publicly identify ourselves as Christians we darn well better do as we say because if we don't people notice, and nowadays they put it Reddit or YouTube.

It also stimulated a discussion about justice and how unfair it is that wait staff are usually paid less than minimum wage and how if you can't afford to tip, you can't afford to eat out.  

Oh it got worse.  The pastor identified on the receipt called Applebees and demanded everybody involved including the manager be fired.  The server (who was not the one who served the pastor) who put the receipt online was fired. 

Then the pastor was identified and it turned out the grumpy old white man most of us were imagining was actually an African American woman.  Which is only relevant in that we imagined something different.  Anyway apparently her reputation was ruined -
Pastor Who Left Sanctimonious Tip Gets Waitress Fired from Applebee’s, Claims Her Reputation Was Ruined

 I know, we are all weeping profusely for her in mock sympathy. 

It's a brave new world we are in. On the one hand, publishing her name on a a receipt was a violation of privacy.  On the other hand, when you write a note and identify yourself as a pastor, it would be fair to assume that you stand by your note and feel justified in doing what you are doing and should not be "humiliated" by other people knowing what you did.   When you put on the collar, you kind of let go of your right to privacy.  On another hand, people can really be vicious when judging others--especially when anonymous online. We don't know anything about this pastor other than she resented having to pay a mandated 18 percent gratuity that is added to group bills.

It also points how easily servers can be fired based on the complaint of customers.  It might give us all pause before we decide to complain about bad service.  Was it really so bad that it is worth someone losing their job over? 

It behooves all of us to remember that what we do in public may end up being even more public than you think.  This may end up being a good thing, maybe we will regain a good sense of shame that will make behave better if we know everyone is watching.  But whether or not it is good thing is moot, it is the world we live in now.  For better or worse. 
 

This is Why Nothing is Going to Change

You must indulge me in a fit of despairing cynicism that despite the grief and hand wringing and vows that "We can do better!", nothing is going to change.

I had some hope.  At first I thought maybe we could begin to look a little at how easy it is to get guns in this country.  But with talk of laws, I realize that no law is going to change this country's odd love affair with fire arms.  In fact I am beginning to fear that banning guns would no more make people give up their guns than Prohibition made people give up their booze.  And I shudder to think of an even bigger gun black market business.

Well maybe we can do something about the abysmal access in this country to mental health services.  I know something about this but I have NO INTENTION of talking about my experience because of what I see happening to Liza Long who wrote the much shared I am Adam Lanz's Mother .  She wrote a heart wrenching, painfully honest post on what it was like to have a violent mentally ill son.  Everyone I knew was sharing it all over the place.

Then the backlash.  You can read the gory details here.  Okay she's not a nominee for Mother of the Year.   She says some disturbing things in a blog she thought was anonymous.  Seriously - YOU  never felt like throttling your kid?  Disfunction, divorce, abuse, mental illness.  It's messy.  What - are we only supposed to have compassion for perfect families that struggle? 

I also think people are piling on her because she is messing with their agenda.  The gun control people don't want her issues diverting people from their agenda.  Advocates for the mentally ill don't want people to think they are potential mass murderers.  But here's the deal.  Sorry but sometimes mentally ill people ARE violent.  Especially if they aren't treated.  That truth makes people squeamish about the mentally ill, but the answer is not to pretend it's not true.

Anyway the lesson seems to be, unless your life is spotless and blameless, don't write about your struggles and expect any compassion.  Oh wait.  Perfect people don't have struggles.  Or need compassion.

When Jesus heard this, he said to them, ‘Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick; I have come to call not the righteous but sinners.’ 

Mark 2:17

Anyway it sounds like business as usual.  Everyone has an agenda.  If your experience doesn't fit my agenda, then just shut up.   I feel like all those babies died in vain and it will happen again only next time it won't be quite as traumatic. 

Kyrie, eleison

So the way I see it...

The latest scandal all started because some FBI guy couldn't impress an army groupy with a picture of his chest, so he tried to prove he was a big shot in the FBI.

And I feel the press needs a little vocabulary education:

1)  A "mistress" is a woman who is woman who is financially supported by a married lover.  Paula Broadwell is nobody's mistress.  It's an outdated concept and no self-respecting journalist should be using the term.

2)  Losing your home in Hurricane Sandy is  tragedy.  Losing your job because you had an affair while in a job that you knew such behavior would cost you your job (not to mention your FAMILY) is not a tragedy.

That's all.

There is a Difference Between calling someone a "BullShitter" and a "Retard"

Normally hearing that Ann Coulter would be on Pierce Morgan would send me running wildly down the stairs to change the channel on the downstairs TV (which is hooked up to the Dish and then my bedroom TV only has a device that lets me watch whatever is on and forces me to run downstairs whenever I want to change the channel but I digress).  But I thought, silly me, that she would have the humanity to back down a little when confronted with the pleas of the disabled and parents of the disabled and the gentle rebuke of John Franklin Stephens in his open letter to her.  Surely she would show some shame, some semblance of apology, for using the word "retard" as an insult. 

I was wrong.  She was just as belligerent and even played herself as a victim of the word police.

I was so appalled, I did what any savvy social media person would do - I expressed by dismay on Facebook.  I usually avoid politics on my pastor Facebook (yes I have two Facebooks) but this is so outrageous I again, in my naivety, assumed even Republicans would have to be repulsed by this woman.

Surprise.  A Republican friend responded with basically this argument --Obama called Romney a bullshitter and I have blinders because I only point out her insults.  

My my my.  Where to begin.  Well first of all, I don't have blinders.  I do call out my own side when I think they are wrong.  I angered some of my Democrat friends when I said Harry Reid needed to shut up about Romney not paying his taxes if he didn't have any proof to show.  I posted my concern when it looked like the White House was going to throw Hillary Clinton under the bus over Benghazi.  She, classy and smart team player that she is made a preemptive move and gracefully climbed under it herself.  But I digress...

Okay number one.  Mitt Romney IS a bullshitter.  That's not an insult, that's the truth.  And while I would not want to hear that language in say, the State of the Union address, it just does not bother me in the context the President used it in Rolling Stone, for crying out loud.  If Mitt called Obama a bullshitter my only response would be "is not!'   I would not whine about the insult or the language.  Or suggest that was equal to calling someone a "retard"

But here is the big difference.  You never hear bullies surrounding a child chanting "You are a bullshitter!  You are a bullshitter"

And if you can't get that, well there's just nothing more to be said.

Forgiveness in the Abstract is Always Easier

That's what I have to say to those who want to start sermonizing about forgiving Jerry Sandusky.  I have no intention of forgiving Jerry Sandusky.  I have no right to forgive him, he has not wronged me.  I don't even know the guy.  And I'm still having a hard time working on forgiving the guy on the ELCA Clergy facebook group who said something that annoyed me so I'm not about to lecture sex abuse victims about forgiving their abusers.  

Now I'm not too keen on all the spewing and scapegoating about "that monster".  I find the so called "jokes" and the wishing of prison rape on Jerry Sandusky abhorrent.  Rape is not a joke.  It is not okay.  Those jokes are particularly upsetting if you realize most victims of sexual abuse in prisons are not, contrary to conventional wisdom, child molesters, but youth who have been sentenced as adults and put in with the adult population in prisons.  And if you consider the likelihood that those youth were probably abused in some way as children before that, it is a particularly offensive "joke".


Jerry Sandusky like other high profile criminals has become our monster that we can put in a cage and excuse ourselves of the hard work of making systematic changes in the culture that allows child abuse to happen.  

And he's also the poster boy for people who have never been sexually abused to lift up and talk about how much God loves him to show everyone how Christian they are and how brave they are to talk about loving Jerry Sandusky.  I call bullshit.  Show me a sexual abuse victim who has truly forgiven her abuser (not been shamed into it by her religious community like um, I don't know,  an isolated cult that also abuses puppies?  Never mind, I digress) and then I'll be impressed.  Show me a victim who has not forgiven his/her abuser and I will talk to them about God's forgiveness and healing for them even if they can't forgive. 


It's easy to forgive in the abstract.  It's much easier for someone who is not a sexual abuse survivor to talk about God's love for Sandusky than for someone who has personally hurt them.  So if you are a preacher and were planning to talk about forgiving Sandusky in the pulpit tomorrow, I know it's late but I'm going to suggest you reconsider.   Instead talk about how you were able to forgive someone who really really hurt you.  Or talk about how you are still working on that.  Or talk about the birth of John the Baptist.

No We Can't Put it all Behind Us

Now that Jerry Sandusky has been found guilty on 45 of 48 counts of child sexual abuse, the calls (mostly from Penn State folk) are already coming in for "Okay let's put it all behind us and move on."   Let's forget all about it.   Let's focus our attention all on one person, call him a monster, and get on with what is really important-- college football of course.  Let's not examine ourselves as to how  we let  a football program became so important that people were willing to completely ignore what was really more obvious than people want to admit.  Let's not observe that while horrible and disgusting, we can understand why a pedophile (and possible sociopath as he seems to have no concept that he's done anything wrong) can do the horrible things he did, we seem to be less willing to examine why so called normal people became enablers of abusive behavior.  

No let's just move forward.  I'm always preaching about moving forward and getting our eyes off the past.  But in some cases moving forward just means ignoring what has happened in the past and not doing anything to make certain the future is any different. 

A hearing for former high-ranking Penn State administrators Tim Curley and Gary Schultz, facing perjury charges related to the case will come up in July. I wonder how much coverage that will get, or will we decide it's time to move on?  

The ugly truth is that there will always be child molesters.  So far there's been little to no success in changing them.  What we need is more protection for children, less access for molesters to children, fewer normal people willing to protect and enable them.  Even if it means putting football programs in jeopardy.   Even if it means giving up your privileged life as the wife of one.

Yes I'm going there.  I'm calling Dottie Sandusky to account.  I don't believe she had no clue.  I do not believe she is a victim.  She was prepared to testify against her own adopted child.   One of the responsibilities that comes with being in a country that granted, has some work yet to do with women's rights, but at least criminalizes men throwing acid on your face if they don't like how cook dinner is that white privileged women who have resources do not get a pass when it comes to offering up their and other women's children in order to keep their privileged position.  Those damaged children's lives are on her as well.  I'm not saying it would be easy for her to face the truth and do what she needed to do to protect those children.  Too effin bad.  Sometimes the price of getting to be a grown up independent equal citizen is that you are responsible for doing hard things.

So while I  see it is a very good thing that eight victims of a powerful influential man were believed, we still got some work to do.  And if that's what people mean by "moving forward", yes let's move forward.

HOW DID I MISS THIS???

More importantly, how did Father Anonymous miss this?

A few years ago I lived within range of a Catholic Radio Station and I listened to it all the time.  It was the fundi Catholics but was just much more fascinating than your typical Christian radio.  Some of the stuff they taught was right out of the stuff Luther railed against and I thought had been explained away in all of our ecumenical agreements.  

One of the preachers I loved to listen to was Father John Corapi.  Just for his voice alone.  Deep and gravely.  He was funny and a good speaker.  I didn't agree with much of what he said but sometimes he'd talk about basic faith stuff, like the need to lean on God that we all can agree on.  He was like the EWTN's pitch hitter.  The great defender of Mary, the Pope and the Catholic Church.  Not afraid to call a sin and sin and tell us all how bad this liberal, morally lax culture was. 

And apparently last year he was found guilty of sexual immorality and drug abuse.  And then he up and quit the church.  I just read about this yesterday.  I know this is an old story in more ways than one, but I was shocked.

I'm not above entertaining a little schedenfruede, but this was really disillusioning for me.  I can't imagine how this hit the people who agreed with him and admired and looked up to him.  I have to wonder... is EVERYONE screwing around?  Not to over share but I must assure you, I'm not.  I don't even have time.  How did he find the time?

And why is the Vatican going after the poor nuns when this seems to be a much bigger problem for them?  Maybe they should be doing a better job of watching over the boy stars.  

Oh and mister anonymous atheist  whatever you are calling yourself right now who always likes to post some smug anti Christian stuff on the comments that I never approve anymore.  Just don't bother.

Taking Sides

I've been meaning to say something about the Trayvon Martin case for a long time.  It's just been hard to get it out in a calm and rational way.

When I first heard that a young man was shot and killed for no real reason and the one who did it was let go on his own say so I was appalled.  What?  I just presented what happened in a biased manner?  I'm not being neutral?  I'm not acknowledging I don't really know what happened?  

Damned straight.  Because I am also appalled at the number of white people, white Christians, white ELCA members committing on Bishop Anderson's statement one facebook and the number of white ELCA pastors who all of a sudden are so interested in nuetrality and not taking sides.  Who are so unwilling to listen to the vast experience of African Americans when they say "HEY! Racism is alive and well.  This IS a race issue!  This happens more than you know!"  

And I'm so overwhelmed and discouraged that we can not move forward with race relations in this country.  And I don't know what I can do.  But I can do this.  I can take a side.  I can look into the grief filled eyes of a mother, the grace-filled, dignified face of Trayvon's mother, Sybrina Fulton and believe her.  Because one of the consequences of being on the margins of society is that no one believes you.  Well I can believe her.  

I'm not a judge or a jury so I get to make a judgment.  I get to take a side.  And I choose to believe Sybrina Fulton when she says her boy was an innocent victim.  I believe her when she says she knows that is her boy's screams on the 911 calls for help.  She doesn't believe her boy attacked George Zimmerman and I believe her.

I mean seriously.  Everybody felt free to judge that Casey Anthony was guilty of killing her daughter, even after she was pronounced not guilty by a jury of her peers.  But now all this "caution" for the sake of George Zimmerman.  Let's not rush to judgment for him.


Now I don't know that I believe Zimmerman consciously killed Travyon because he was black.  I think Zimmerman is a man who needed to feel important and strutting around the neighborhood watch with his gun made him feel important.  Tracking down a thief made him feel important.  I kind of feel sorry for him.   Yes I believe he got himself into this mess but I think of him as a sad little man who just wanted to feel important.  I think Trayvon died so he could feel important.  I wish there was some other way we could have made George Zimmerman feel important.  


I am convinced race had everything to do with the Sanford Police taking Zimmerman at his word, dumping young Trayvon in a morgue and making absolutely no effort to find out who he was until days later his parents had to file a missing person's report to find out where he was.  I do not believe for one second a white boy would have been treated that way.

I'm taking sides.  I believe Trayvon's mother.

Cissy Houston Brought the World to Church Today

I confess I didn't like Whitney Houston too much.  I preferred Dolly Parton's version of "I Will Always Love You"  When I heard she died my first thought was that I thought she had already died a few years ago.  As far as I knew she was a has-been druggie and I was annoyed by all the coverage.  

I'm one of those people who keeps the TV on for noise and it's usually CNN so I was pretty annoyed all week because it was all Whitney all the time.  I had no intention of watching the funeral.  Surely there would be some cute show about kittens on Animal Planet, I thought. 

I had a funeral myself this morning.  I came home, turned on the TV and Bishop T.D. Jakes was really preaching it. I wished I had preached like him.  I could not turn off the TV.

I did not know that Whitney Houston was a person of deep faith who never left her home church.  I did not know she was insecure and never felt she was good enough.  I did not know Whitney Houston.  I did not know her to admire her but I did not know her to dislike or judge her either.

That's the thing.  We don't know these people.  What we do is use these people.  Interestingly Andrew Root spoke about this at the Luther Mid Winter Convocation.  As our identity is wrapped up in consumerism, we consume celebrities and throw them in the trash when we are done with them.

The televised funeral of Whitney Houston showed a community that did not throw Whitney away.  And thank God it was televised because I heard the Gospel being preached over and over and over again, in word and song.  And I thought of all those people who were tuned in in order to consume more, but maybe got more than they bargained for.  This was not a tribute...this was church.  Three hours of it.

 This is why I don't believe the church is going away anytime soon.  It's just not going to be the way it used to be and we are going to find it in places we did not expect, like live-streaming on CNN.  And a lot of the community will be strangers tweeting it.  But it will be the church and it will be there to tell people - You are a beloved child of God and you are not something to be used and thrown away.  Praise the Lord. Let the church say AMEN!

Diversionary Tactic

Yea you know that cartoon a few posts down? 

Here it is again.  It was more apropos than I thought.  I got this heads up from Diana Butler Bass's facebook page.   All this hang wringing about the poor oppressed church --- it's been a very clever diversion from the real story   a Vatican conference on clergy sex abuse, where it was just revealed more cases in Asia now   The media from the rest of the world has been on like white on rice.  While we've been crying about Obama's so called war on religion. 

Seriously? Religious Liberty means Thowing over Women's Reproductive Health and Freedom?

This is one of those issues that's really pissing me off. So much so I'm imposing the "You don't get to use my blog as a forum for your opinion".  That's right.   I don't want any comments about how this is about the constitution or religious freedom. You can spout that drivel somewhere else. Not here. And forget about trying to tell me how bad birth control is and how it's led to the objectification of women. If I could I'd make software that would smack you if you try to write that on my blog.

So this is the deal. The Roman Catholic church wants to run businesses, engage and yes profit in the world, but it wants to have special rules for itself, in that it doesn't want to have to include contraception coverage in their insurance for it's employees, like everyone else does.   And this is supposed to be about "religious liberty" and for that reason all us non-Catholics who care about religious liberty are supposed to say "SORRY WOMEN YOU LOSE AGAIN" and take up their cause. I call bullshit and say screw that.

I have no problem with making an exception for the church itself. I think if the Catholic Church doesn't want to provide condoms for their priests, then they should not have to. But if they want to venture out of the church and run a business in the world, then you play by the world's rules and you get your hands dirty. You can't have it both ways. And I say that for all churches who want to run businesses.

To me that is the bigger theological question. Not religious freedom. (and where in scripture are we told to force the State to give us rights?). It's about engaging in the world and how it can mean getting your hands dirty. And you can't engage in the world, profit from it or even help it and say "well I want to do this but I want you to make certain exceptions for me so I can be in business with you but can still claim that I'm better than you because I don't do these terrible things you do" .  Like provide reproductive healthcare for women.

But the fact that women are AGAIN the collateral damage from this is really what makes my head explode.

A True Gentleman

If last night during the State of the Union Address you saw a lone Republican standing during parts of President Obama's speech, it was not because he suddenly had Democrat leanings.  He was Representative Jeff Flake of Arizona's sixth district.  He had the privilege of sitting next to Gabby Giffords.  And every time she tried to stand up and cheer the president, he helped her up, rising himself.   Now that is a true gentelman.

It's Not Really About Forgiveness

I didn't really pay much attention when the hullabaloo first began over outgoing Mississippi Governor Haily Barbour's pardons.  I began to pay attention when I heard his defense that the convicted murderers he pardoned had committed "crimes of passion".  It was disturbing to learn that Mississippi has a history of tolerance for "crimes of passion."  That's often code for "He killed his wife and she probably deserved it".  It was a little disturbing to learn 8 of these men murdered their wives.  

I didn't have much luck finding out how many of those pardoned were women.  There was a wealthy woman who killed two doctors while driving drunk.

I do know who he did not pardon.  He did not pardon Jamie and Gladys Scott, two sisters who were paroled last year on the condition that Gladys donate a kidney to Jamie. 

Jamie and Gladys Scott were serving LIFE sentences for being in the same car with some teenaged boys who robbed someone for $11.  The boys who actually did the robbery only served a couple of months in jail.  

Barbour defended his pardons by saying "You do not want to take away hope and the opportunity for a second chance, particularly when you see what our religion says," he said.

Second chances for wife killers - but not these women?  I call bullshit.  A lot of these so called "crimes of passion" are no better than the "honour killings" that we claim to be so outraged about when committed by people of a different culture and religion.  And it was an honour killing that Jesus stopped when he turned away the powerful men who sought to stone the woman caught in adultery.  To invoke Jesus to excuse and pardon honor killing is  a travesty. 

No doubt there is politics involved in these pardons as in all pardons.  But there's an ugly undercurrent of sexism and misogyny going on here too, wrapped up in Christian smugness and fake piety.  Like I said, I call bullshit.

"We, O Church, owe it to Margaret and yes, to Ben, to ponder this more deeply"

 Margaret Kritsch Anderson, a 34 year old Park Ranger at Mount Rainier and mother of a 3 year old and 1 year old was shot and killed in the line of duty by a troubled veteran.  She was a friend of ELCA Campus Pastor Jayne Thompson.  You need to read what she has to say on The Lutheran Blog.  Margaret.  That's all.