peace and darkness

Tonight is Christmas Eve. We are being smattered by pouring rain, while in the states south of us there are tornado watches, and over a foot of snow in Oklahoma. Even Texas will get a white Christmas.

I went to a candlelight service at a nearby church that I hadn't been to before. Since we moved here I've been intermittently attending a nondenominational "mega-church." Not much like me, considering that I was raised in what seems to be one of the most oppressive Protestant religions around. I won't name the church, because it already seems to be having enough trouble with the congregation without me helping it along.

The service wasn't exactly my idea of a candlelight service. I mean, they did light candles, but they kept the lights on. So it was hard for me to really focus on the service as I like to do when I attend these sort. I had too many distractions: holes in each of the big toes of my socks where I could feel them poking through, like a loose tourniquet (poor choice in socks--what was I thinking?); the headache I've had all day that Advil won't alleviate; my eyes going spazzy from the overhead lights, needing to constantly look down and not be able to watch the pastor speak, feeling rude; being tired from the end of a long day preparing for the big family meal tomorrow, mixing up desserts, vacuuming, scrubbing down bathroom walls.

I'd like so much to find peace and God in a church, but my body distracts me from it. I would think that most people, as they get older, tend to enjoy longer sermons. I've never asked anybody this question, but I would think that older people would be more patient with a long-winded pastor. But not me. The older I get, the more I want to get out. No, that's wrong. What I mean is that I love to listen to the teachings--I could listen all day--but the damn eyes won't let me just sit there and listen quietly. And even the noise from a crying baby makes it hard for me to stare straight. They seem to have a mind of their own lately.

I find more peace in my car, driving in the dark late at night when the roads are empty, than anywhere else. Tonight while I was heading home, the rain was coming down hard and my brights were on. I suddenly came upon a possum walking across the road. I was probably 8 feet away when I actually saw it. The little guy kept strutting along as if he didn't notice the large machine bearing down on him. That's one of those major decisions in life that are not very fair--where there is no turning back if you are wrong, yet you aren't given enough time to figure out the correct course of action. And I was wrong. Hoping he would stop walking and move safely through the underside of my car as I drove over him, I hit the brakes just slightly in order to give him a little more time to get between the wheels. But it didn't work, and I could feel the car slice into him as I rolled over his body with my right front tire. I cupped my hand over my mouth and tensed up. The thought went through my mind that possums are unfriendly creatures and hiss and bite when people come near, just for a split second, maybe as if to unconsciously exonerate myself from the murder of this animal. I drove most of the way home in a state of very little movement. What small amount of peace that I may have found in church while singing Christmas carols and taking communion was gone.

My only resort tonight is to go into the dark to find the calming love of Christ. We originated from the dark--the earth, our bodies, our knowledge--and we will someday return to it in death. It is in the dark where rest and growth occurs. And it is in this restful place where I will go when I need to be moved.

christian liberals

In Defense of the Christian Liberal
October 12, 2002
By Frank Lovato

Traits I have observed in the behavior of many political conservatives that irritate me is their absolute confidence that they are "right" about anything and everything, and their misuse of the Christian religion to justify the inhumanity of many of their words and actions.

I remember a line in the movie "Inherit the Wind" in which the William Jennings Bryan character asks the Clarence Darrow character "Does right have no meaning to you?" to which he responds, "No! Right has no meaning to me, but truth does."

Conservatives tend to act as if "right" were revealed to them by a higher power and that everything they say is so because they believe it is "right." "Truth" they are willing to subvert, and in many cases violate, to further their perception of "right."

As a case in point, W scares me. He is quoted as saying, "I believe that what I believe is right." His own ignorance and stupidity are an asset to him because study and the knowledge gained from study might undermine his being "right." These attributes make him currently popular with some of the American public because they mistake ignorance for directness and stupidity for single-mindedness.

Willingness to examine one's position and to realistically appraise it is the hallmark of a mature and educated person, and it seems most conservatives never reexamine their positions because it might lead to the terrible prospect of being wrong.

In stark contrast, we liberals seem to always be questioning and rethinking our convictions and the reasons for those convictions. Maybe that is one of our political weaknesses; we think too much to always present a solid united front. But yet again, maybe that is one of our greatest personal assets.

The second thing that irritates me is the misuse of the Christian religion by many conservatives to justify their position in a political situation. It seems to be a planned conservative strategy to couch themselves as "godly" and "religious," as opposed to liberals who are "ungodly" or "non-religious." The Clinton impeachment debacle is a case in point.

Under his leadership the country was running great, but his abilities were completely overshadowed by his "sins." Conservative congressmen and senators went after him as if his sexual transgressions were the most terrible of all crimes. But when their own conservative leadership was found out to also be guilty of the same things, it was passed off as no harm, no foul.

It was all right for them to sin because they were "godly" people who made a small mistake, but even as Bill publicly confessed and asked for forgiveness, the conservatives pronounced that he was not truly repentant, and because he was "ungodly" he must be punished for his sins. Even the FBI was so busy trying to get him to lie to them that they completely forgot the possibility that terrorists could be planning something much more devastating than a little hanky-panky in the White House.

A very personal reason why this use of Christianity by the conservatives annoys me so much is that I consider myself a Christian, and I am also very politically liberal. I firmly believe a person who really tries to follow the teachings of Jesus Christ would be much more likely to be a political liberal rather than a conservative.

Despite all the religious trappings that conservatives are so prone to flaunt, most look down on their fellow man, especially if he is poor or non-Christian, and more so if he makes any demands upon their wealth or time. I like to call these people "Old Testament" Christians because they like to quote the Old Testament and never the words of Jesus Christ as related in the New Testament. I can very well see why they do this, because the Old Testament is absolutely full of death and revenge while Christ taught only life and peace. The various parables of Christ as related in the New Testament teach love and forgiveness and never revenge or war or judgment.

Christ taught us not to judge our fellow man, but the Pharisees (the conservatives of their time) ignored him because they thought they had every right to judge others because they were perfect, since they kept all the Jewish laws and the "sinners" did not. These present-day Pharisees are not much different from the old ones, and in their "righteousness" they quote the Old Testament because it justifies their lack of love or concern for their fellow man.

When asked by one of the Pharisees which was the most important of the commandments, Christ answered the most important was the first commandment concerning the love of God, but then he likened it to the second about the love of fellow man. Why did he do that? Because Christ knew it is impossible for a person to love God and at the same time not love his fellow man. Conservatives camouflage this lack of love by insisting that their overriding concern is for having people take responsibility for themselves and their actions. Noble-sounding, but it also lets them off the hook for providing for the needs of others. In a word, conservatives tend to be just plain cheap.

Looking after the poor and needy effectively is costly and generally means the use of tax money, and to conservatives those are fighting words. Help to the poor and needy can also be provided through charity, and conservatives are now introduced a new wrinkle. They are now willing to provide government funding for aid to the poor and needy through "faith based" charities. Why are they now so willing to provide funds to the poor and needy through charity and not through direct government support?

If a person is beholden to charity, he has no say in how assistance is administered or what that assistance entails. Being a recipient of alms, he can only keep his mouth shut and be grateful. If, on the other hand, the government were the source of the aid, the recipient, by the fact of being a citizen, would have a voice in the kind and administration of the aid. That in a word is entitlement, and that word causes shivers to run down the spine of any true conservative. Government assistance to the poor and needy through "faith based" charities is just another way of disenfranchising them.

Liberals, whether or not they are Christians, are often more Christian-acting than the more vocal conservatives, because they are truly concerned about the well being of people and do not rush to judge the righteousness of their fellow man. The Bible has a passage that states "Judge not least you be judged." A very good idea, but in any and every social controversy conservatives are there to judge who is right and who is wrong and believe they have every right to do so.

Conservatives are also very quick to shed tears over the death of innocent babies killed in abortions but not one for the killer on death row. I am firmly against abortion, but I am also firmly against the death penalty. In my opinion, it would seem that a true Christian society would be willing, if not eager, to provide a means by which a killer could save his soul and not prematurely end his life before he has had every opportunity to repent of his sins. If he repents, there will be great celebration in Heaven, and if he does not the responsibility is all his. Christian teaching holds that the innocent unborn child and the hardened killer are both precious to God, and not one more than the other. But the conservative is the first to defend the death penalty and cry out for revenge.

But as far as the abortion question goes, conservatives preach about how every unborn child is precious and how each one should be provided the maximum protection under the law. I agree, but just ask them if the government should provide funds to care for these children after they are born and for their mothers who would provide them care. They immediately fall back on the old line that it is their fault and they should take responsibility for their actions. This is a win-win argument in that conservatives can sound holy and still not have their holiness cost them anything.

Sometimes I get the feeling that the thought of sinners writhing in hell makes these folks really feel good. I read recently about a minister picketing a theater performance of a play about the homosexual young man that was killed in Wyoming. He seemed almost elated to announce with absolute certainty that the young man had already been in hell for two years. That doesn't sound very Christian to me. What do you think Jesus would say?

All these traits I mentioned are irritating, but the most dangerous to our American democracy is the conservative's use of government to forward their religious and philosophical views. They try to pack the courts with themselves, try to pass legislation that aids them in gaining control of government, and take every opportunity to label the opposition as traitors or at best unpatriotic. And they are ruthless in their attacks. Again, remember the Clinton impeachment.

They use government policy to further their own strange interpretation of scripture. They believe the United States should support Israel--not because of any affection for the Israelis, but because they believe the establishment of a Jewish state will speed or assist their concept of the second coming of Christ and, ironically, the conversion or elimination of the Jewish people.

They ridicule natural resource conservation because they believe the imminent second coming of Christ makes conservation of the environment unnecessary and even silly.

They espouse causes such as the anti-abortion movement because it gains them the support of Catholic voters while still avowing that the Catholic Church is the "whore of Babylon" and that the Pope is the "anti-Christ". They cite their extremely literal interpretation of the Bible as if it were fact and justify their vile and often untruthful attacks on others as being a service to God.

They ridicule Islam for its insistence that the words of the Prophet Mohamed are the only truth, while doing exactly the same thing with what they profess are Christian beliefs.

I hope, and yes, even pray, that this is just a passing phase in the political history of our country, and that soon we will wonder how a country supposedly based on the concept of freedom and fair play can have drifted so far from this concept. The mere suspicion of hostile intent and the possible possession of weapons of mass destruction by another country (this time Ira--who knows who will be next?) are grounds to make war against that country and encourage its citizens to overthrow their government.

Conservatives are turning our country, that historically has been a believer in the rule of law, into an international bullyboy who throws its weight around merely because he can. For a time, we liberals have got to adopt one the traits of the conservatives by standing united in our opposition to these terrible policies that threaten the safety and virtue of our beautiful country.

an abandoned farmstead

The long arm of progress awaits the past

I am one with the mud.

A Dickens of a Christmas, 2009

I choose to be a mother

I Choose to be a Mother

Some houses try to hide the fact that children shelter there,
Ours boasts of it quite openly, the signs are everywhere,
For smears are on the windows, little smudges on the door,
I should apologize, I guess, for toys shrewn on the floor,
But I sat down with the children and we played and laughed and read,
And if the windows do not shine, their eyes will shine instead,
And when at times I'm forced to choose the one job or the other,
I want to be a housewife, but first I'll be a mother.


Borrowed from http://angietolpin.blogspot.com

the living frost

to the pre-lit christmas tree in my front room

Hello there, tree. Nice to make your acquaintance. I'm sure that you're feeling cramped in that box, and a little airing out will suit you well. It must've been a long and harrowing trip from China to my living room. Up on the stand you go. Now to add your midsection and top. All assembled. Feel better?

My husband recently inherited you from a co-worker and thinks that you'd be a more suitable choice for our Christmas decor this year. Let's make something perfectly clear: I do not agree. I know that you're probably confused, so I'll explain. I am a sentimental packrat, and I don't like replacing things that still seem to work fine and that I have an attachment to. You will soon find this out when you get crammed into the storage closet with the rest of the holiday decorations from years gone by.

I didn't see anything wrong with my old tree, but my better half says that it's missing too many needles. FYI, we have two kittens, and I can see them already eyeing yours like they're chew toys.

The real problem is that you're not really presenting yourself well. Sure, all of your lightbulbs are working. For now. But your shape is lopsided and I can see your pole. Don't be shy...I've seen many like this before. We'll just make some of your inner branches more erect to cover it up. Am I making you blush? Can we puhleeze keep this on a professional level???

Here kitty kitty. Excuse me for a moment while I dig my cat out from your innards. She's really just a baby, but recently came into that special time in life whereby she walks around moaning and rubbing her butthole on everything in sight. Laypeople such as myself call it "heat." Don't worry, this is not a permanent condition, and it won't cause you to burn down. We plan to get both of the cats sterilized...after Christmas.


I think that you and I are going to have some good years together.

writing phenomenon

I've noticed that it's sometimes easier for me to uninhibitedly write a letter than a blog post. So I'm going to try a new format for awhile and see if it makes my efforts feel less labored. All my posts are going to be written as letters to someone or something. The subject will determine the recipient. I haven't seen this method used in a blog before. Time to climb out of the box. And maybe talking to inaminate objects suits me better anyways.

I hope this doesn't come off as totally insane, so at moments like this I feel honored to mention one of my favorite quotes by E.L. Doctorow: "Writing is a socially acceptable form of schizophrenia." All in the good name of unbridled creativity.