Just a few pieces of good news

Tuesday was full of good news for liberals like me. Way beyond Democrats becoming governors in Virginia and New Jersey. Some more pieces of good news.

*Charlotte elected it's first female African American mayor.

*St. Paul elected it's first Black mayor.

*In Minneapolis, Andrea Jenkins, a transgendered black woman won a seat on the City Council.

*In Seattle a lesbian, Jenny Durkar was elected mayor.

*In Helena, Montana a Liberian immigrant, Wilmot Collins, became mayor beating a man who ran on not wanting immigrants in Helena. 1% of Helena's population is black....

*Danica Roem, a transgendered woman, won a seat in Virginia's house defeating the man who wrote a bill restricting bathroom use to gender of birth.

*Also in Virginia, 2 Latinas and a Asian America became the first of their kind to be elected to the stat house of Representatives.

*Ravi Bhalla became the first Sikh mayor of Hoboken, New Jersey.

*Also in New Jersey a black woman, Ashly Bennet, unseated John Carmon from the Board of  a county. Carmon posted a deal on Facebook asking if the women on the women's march on Washington would be home in time to cook dinner. Now he has time to cook his own.

There were more GOOD NEWS elections, but those really caught my attention.

I hope it's a ground swell for 2018. I hope and pray.

A government of the people and by the people--ALL the people....

Moore is better

Is it possible that the allegations of sexual abuse against Weinstein, Spacey, O'Riley and so many others both here and abroad will finally convince people of what has always been true--that women are seen as prey for men who are predators?

Bern has always said, "Men are dogs". And, in many cases she is right. The recent spate of allegations is stunning--but not surprising.

But the best one came today--Judge Roy Moore, Republican candidate for Jeff Sessions Alabama Senate seat, has had 4 women allege he was sexually abusive toward them while they were minors....

The accuser who brought the others out of the woodwork was 14--14 for God's sake--when Moore, who was 32, undressed her, touched her, kissed her and asked her to touch him. She refused and he did take her home. But a man of 32, a lawyer, doing that to a 14 year old? Give me a break.

Judge Moore was thrown off the Alabama Supreme Court twice for ignoring federal law. He believes homosexuality should be against the law and punishable by prison. He doesn't believe Muslims should hold elective office. He thinks the 10 Commandments should be on public display in government buildings. He thinks anyone should be able to carry a gun in public. He does like horses, I'll give him that, but any Conservative Evangelical who abuses minor girls should be beaten to a pulp.

The law in Alabama says that it's too close to the election to drop off the ballot--the special election is next month. Steve Bannon and Fox News folks are defending him. He is arrogant in his denials.

So, we get to see if Alabama is willing to send a pedophile to the Senate just as the country (and a huge majority of Evangelical Christians) sent a  "p***y grabber" to the White House.

I can only pray that the uproar over sexual harassment will last longer than a news cycle and that women will finally, ultimately, correctly be heard for the Truth they are telling.

We shall see, won't we....


 

Putting it on the line

I often tell people, "I'm so left-wing, I scare myself!"

And it's true.

Just so you'll know, I grew up in a mixed culture. My father's family were hard shell Republicans. They were middle-class before the term became popular. Hard working and committed to family, community and the Republican Party.

My mother's family was a ring below them economically--though, eventually the Jones created more college graduates than the Bradley clan. But Mom's family was FDR Democrats.

As I think of it, some of the Jones family might have been Trump supporters these days and all the Bradley family would have been moderate Republicans repulsed by him. Ironic, not?

Where did I get my Socialist leaning Democrat bent?

My cousin Mejol locked me in her room when I was 14 with Catcher in the Rye and two Bob Dylan albums when I was 14 and didn't let me out until I'd  heard all the songs and read the book. Dylan and J.D. Salinger began my move to the far left.

But, in high school I was a big Goldwater fan. Probably to please my father more than anything. I even painted "AUH2O" on a building in Anawalt with spray paint. I didn't get in trouble because I was a Bradley and most of the town, including the guy who owned the building, supported Goldwater.

Here was the second fissure leading to the far left--Goldwater, late in the race, suggested privatizing the Tennessee Valley Authority. The TVA was where the electricity for where I lived came from. Most of the people who lived where I lived were poor. Privatizing the TVA would punish them for being poor. I suddenly questioned everything I believed and became Holden Caufield singing Highway 61 Revisited....

In college in the late 60's, I was not immune to the politics of the Hippies and the Student Non-Violence Committee. I became convinced the needs of the world were served by moving left and then more left.

That's continued my whole life.

I have a theory that not everyone believes. I think the older you get "the more you become like you always were...." People don't get more conservative as they age unless they were conservative to begin with.

So, here I am, at 70, ripening into more of what I always was--a socialist-leaning Democrat.

I actually would prefer socialism to what we have today in this country. But if we had single payer health care, like every sensible country in the Western World, that would do me.

I firmly believe in the Welfare State. Everyone should be able to have the necessities of life: food, housing,, education, health care--and those of us more fortunate than the many should pay for it.

Higher Education--at least the first four years--should be free to all. And we should pay for it.

Housing should be affordable to even those now homeless.And we should pay for it.

What's been called "The Paradise Papers" (google it if you haven't heard of this leak) reveals that the richest corporations and individuals in the US have billions and billions of dollars socked away in overseas accounts that have never been taxed.

God help us--just the tax on that money would provide housing, health care, education for every person in this country so they would have a shot at the American Dream...and if the dream didn't come through, at least their lives wouldn't be a nightmare.

Oh, guns, I haven't mentioned that. Children in Connecticut and Country Music fans in Las Vegas and Baptists in Texas and gay folk in Florida shouldn't be mowed down by guns.

I would 'take away your guns'--all the guns that were not obviously for hunting or target practice. And all the 'conceal carry' laws would be repealed. And only people with a six month psyche and background check could buy hunting guns. And a crime committed with a gun would have an automatic life in prison sentence. Seem extreme? I hope so. Only cops and soldiers should have guns.

I believe in national defense. But I'd only pay for the armed forces once everyone had a decent life--housing, health care, education. We could do it all if we only wanted to.

Look at the Scandinavian countries: almost no poverty, universal healthcare, few to no guns, little violence and huge taxes!!!

This Republican Tax Bill would do 12 things wrong for every single thing it did right.

I believe everyone of us should be totally committed to the ultimate well being of every one of us. And only money will make that possible. "Self interest" in my opinion, means "in the interest of all".

OK, so I've scared myself a little about how left-wing I am.

But I'm not as scared as I used to get.

I'm growing older and becoming more and more who I always was.

Ponder my thoughts, please.

My thoughts are finally, "All for one and One for all".

That simple.

I don't think it's crazy in the least.

humility

In the gospel for today, Matthew's Jesus says, "whoever exalts themselves will be humbled and whoever humbles themselves will be exalted".

The whole humility thing is a tough one. The moment I think, "boy, I'm being humble!" I'm obviously not.

I was following a car today on the way to the first of the two churches I celebrated at that had a bumper sticker that read: STAY HUMBLE. It was on a very new, very expensive, very big car. 'Good luck with that,' I said to myself.

(Someone at the second church told me it might be an AA bumper sticker. Those in recovery probably do know a little more about 'humility' than most of us--but STAY HUMBLE is a demanding taskmaster.)

In my life, I've noticed that humility is much more often something that 'happens to me' rather than something I 'do'.

Thinking of my two children humbles me. They are such remarkable and brilliant adults in two great marriages and are both incredible parents. I'm humbled by them--I know 'they did that', it's not something Bern and I 'gave them'.

I've always been humbled by the people I serve as a priest--more so now in these three little churches than ever before. The folks in these country churches are remarkably committed, constantly compassionate and deeply loving. I am humbled to serve them and just to be around them.

I was profoundly humbled by the two funerals I officiated at yesterday. One was for a woman of my age, roughly, who I never met but is related to a member of one of the Cluster churches and one was for a young man, just 27, who left behind two small children.

The woman's funeral was a private, by invitation service in a lovely chapel in a cemetery. She had suffered greatly and was in a care home with advanced Parkinson's disease when she died so there was some relief along with the grief that her troubles were over. She was obviously loved and very lovely (pet lover--enough for me but from all I learned of her I wish I had known her--she would have humbled me, I believe.

The young man's funeral had a packed church with 40 or so folks outside listening to the service on a speaker system. His mother is a dear, brave soul. His children are precious. Funerals for the young are tough to do--so much left undone, so many questions. I was doing alright, even through 3 moving eulogies. We ran out of wafers because so many of the crowd came to communion so I asked a member of the altar guild at the rail to go get more. But the Verger, when the service was over, went to get the young man's now fatherless son to put out the candles, which he's done before. But to watch that small boy extinguish the candles around his father's ashes humbled me to tears.

Here's something I notice--the things that humble me (my children, the people I serve, the moments of funerals and most every worship even, the kindness of strangers, the compassion I encounter, my wife's love) 'bless' me as they humble me.

Maybe what we need to do is really pay attention to those moments of humility that are visited on us and give thanks for the blessings they bring.

Maybe that's how being humbled exalts us. Maybe that's so.

Something surely to ponder....

I killed a cat once

I'm not ashamed. Miss Kitty was 23 years old and miserable, barely able to walk and in pain.

I fixed her some very good food--hamburger I think I remember--and laced it with 4 or 5 aspirins. Aspirin is toxic to cats. She died within an hour, full and without suffering.

Miss Kitty was part of the deal of Bern and I renting a house on Everitt Street in New Haven. The owner had moved in with her man friend and he was allergic to cats. We got a great deal if we were willing to keep Miss Kitty.

It was painful to watch her in the last few weeks, so I killed her.

I only regret that I didn't remember the aspirin trick which our cat Luke was in his last days. I was too attached to him to be thinking rationally. He was the best cat ever--a big yellow coon cat who was more like a dog--coming when you called him, loving to be petted.

I could have saved him a few days of agony if I'd only cooked some 90% fat free hamburger and filled it with aspirin. I wish I had.

And now there's Bela, who falls down the last three steps of our stairs almost every time now and hits his head. He has a hard head. Sometimes it takes him 20 seconds to get up and make his back legs work. He often falls on our hardwood floors and needs help getting up. He almost never can jump up on the bed though we have a table as a step.

My greatest fear, I told Bern today after ruminating about it for several weeks, is that he will fall and damage himself beyond repair and have to be put down in pain and confusion.

Aspirin doesn't work on dogs or I would be thinking about it.

He isn't who he's been for 12 years. He's afraid of things he would have previously attacked. He doesn't react to knocks on the door. He sometimes doesn't seem to recognize us or friends and family he used to celebrate. He sometimes shows he teeth when we rub him. He won't let Bern groom him at all and looks bad. And the constant falling, even sometimes when he comes up the one step from the back porch to the kitchen.

And his stubbornness has increased. Our back steps are carpeted and have a little landing and are much better for him to climb and descend. But he won't unless we force him with real 'force'--which I don't like to do.

Bern hopes he'll die in his sleep. I do too, devoutly. But I worry about him more and more each day.

I wouldn't ask you to 'pray' for a dog--but I do hope you'll hold Bela in your heart and hope he passes through that mysterious door in peace and without pain. Thanks.

Creature of habit

OK, I'm 70 years old (as unbelievable as that is to me) and getting a little dotey (which spell doesn't acknowledge as a word but I don't know how else to spell it.) Doe-te means "not quite all there" where I come from. I don't know what it means to you. Let me know. Dottey? Douty? Doghty? Spell check doesn't like any of those either. Add it to your vocabulary. "Jim is a little 'dotey'." Meaning he isn't quite all there all the time,

But I'm also a creature of habit. As impulsive and out of the box as I present myself, I really love 'being in a rut', doing things the same way every time. Stuff like that.

So, when I go to the store (which I do almost every day) I always put my groceries in the trunk to go home. Our refrigerator is semi-empty. Bern and I take turns cooking dinner and usually go get dinner stuff the day we cook it.

So, I have lots of practice putting groceries in the trunk, using the little tab with my key to open the trunk before I get there.

For reasons I cannot ever explain (being a creature of habit, lover of ruts, keeper of traditions) I put the grocery bag in the back seat behind the drivers' seat today.

When I got home I opened the trunk from the button on the door of my car and went back there and stared into a trunk with lots of grocery bags (I keep them there always--never using plastic bags...creature of habit stuff.)

I stood in our driveway for what may have been a minute, staring into the trunk, wondering what happened to my groceries--running through scenarios that were impossible.

Finally, I remembered putting the grocery bag in the back seat because I wasn't able to find my car keys when I got back to the car because I'd put them in my shirt pocket rather than my jean's pocket--breaking another 'creature of habit' habit.

Maybe I'm just 'dough-tee' (I'll spell it like I pronounce it since spellcheck doesn't accept any of my spellings) or....Maybe I'm coming to a time, later in life, when I break my habits and live free and do things in surprising new ways.....

I prefer the latter to the former explanation!!!!

Of course I do.....

Our only friend

In case you missed it, the UN General Assembly voted today to condemn the US embargo of Cuba by 191-2! Only the US and Israel voted against it.

Pretty alone in the world when 191 tells you to stop something and only Israel says, 'keep on doing it!'

There is no real power in that 191-2 vote since it can't pass the Security Council over a US veto.

And to be fair, in the last year of the Obama administration, the same resolution was voted on. That time the vote was 191-1 because the US abstained. So the only nation saying our embargo on Cuba is a fair and legal thing was Israel....

Feeling pretty lonely these days when "America First" means breaking from the rest of the world on the environment, free trade, the Iran nuclear deal and most every thing.