GOD MUST LOVE VARIETY BECAUSE HE CREATED SO MUCH OF IT!

 

Today's post is a bit of a Sunday ramble, but I think it holds up, at the end.

Every Christian knows that one of the basic understandings of our faith is that God created each of us in His likeness and image.

"And God created man to his own image: 

to the image of God he created him: male 

and female he created them." Gen 1:27

 

What I find very interesting is that, while we are all created in God's image, none of us is much like any other! Even twins have physical differences, what to speak of the vast psychological differences of each person.

I find this fascinating. What could it mean about God's motives, or is God Himself intrinsically one and a variety? Father, son and Holy Spirit and SO much more?

I am not a theologian, and can't tell you the answer, but I suspect even the theologians probably do not really know. It is likely one of those delicious Catholic "mysteries." Even our greatest minds cannot know much about God's intentions, in particular. We only really know what God Himself has told us about His reasons. There isn't a lot of that. Instead, we have to trust that everything He created is "very good" and behave accordingly.

"And God saw all the things that He

had made, and they were very good."

Gen. 1:31

The fact that God created us in freedom, especially in our freedom of choice, is a concomitant factor of our diverse natures. I imagine that God did not want to create slaves that would love Him and engage with Him out of pre-programed, forced duty. 

Whatever his reasons, He obviously intended to create each one of us as a unique individual, like no other. There must be something intrinsically "very good" about this plenteous expression of diversity, otherwise the Lord would not have done it. And each of us is beautiful in His sight, I am sure of it. He would not create anyone who is not basically "good" in their natures. But that "free choice" I mentioned determines what we do with it.

Whether or not we glorify God by the free exercise of our decisions is another matter entirely, as the history books are full of tales of the mistakes of others who have gone before us, so we can't say that everything every human does is good. That is another topic, separate from the innate goodness of variety.

A related, but more mundane example about how diversity is essential to even the health of our bodies: 

I recently consulted my doctor about some dietary changes, and she talked about older patients needing much more protein (because of reduced ability to digest, as one ages), as well as the necessity for variety of animal protein sources. She told me about how animal protein is better than plant protein because it is "complete" in amino acids, for one thing. The multiplicity of available vitamins, minerals, and whatnot in our food sources are another indication of the need for and goodness of variety that our bodies express.

Given all the variety I've discussed, I am naturally wondering how we are "made in the likeness and image of God." I strongly suspect that we are "like" Him in our spiritual souls, our heart of hearts.

A deceptively mundane example: I really love watching wholesome family dramas in which the members are expressing love and affection for one another, within the context of the ups and downs of life. I rarely watch television, but occasionally, on Sunday, I will watch PBS. Today there is a marathon of "Call the Midwife," one of my favorite television series.

I find it very interesting that, although I was raised without parental love and was, in fact, emotionally brutalized by a sick and self-absorbed mother and an opportunistic and sociopathic sibling, I enjoy watching the family-oriented television dramas very much, and I easily understand the love and caring, the values and higher aspirations of human love.

You'd think I would be unable to understand any sort of love at all, given how I was raised, but instead, I feel tremendous affection and empathy for the human race altogether. I have no trouble loving people, no matter how odd, obstreperous, or difficult to get along with. I can't even work up animosity for the folks who treat me badly. I want the best for everyone. It isn't that I do not notice the cruelty. I do what I can to protect myself. I know that being loving and kind will not prevent them from mistreating me again, so I am careful to guard against future abuse, but it just isn't in me to join them in the dark place in which they live.

Everything depends on that free will and what we choose. Will we be true to God's most wonderful gift of our creation? THIS place of love that resides within us all is where we are most like The Lord. This is where we are made in His likeness and image. But, at the same time, we must choose to be faithful to it.

My family was anti-religious and, particularly, anti-Catholic. My mother had gone to Catholic school, and the nuns had been mean to her, I am told. From the time I was a young child, then throughout my 20's and 30's, I was on a journey in search of God, studying various religions, and even joining a Hindu-based convent for some time, but this search culminated in a radical conversion to Catholicism that began when I read the Catholic mystics while a nun in the Hindu convent. Gradually, gradually, I turned to the Catholic values and religion. From one choice to another, I learned of the faith, followed it, committed to it. It hasn't been easy, and there are no earthly rewards for adhering to the faith. In fact, it is usually a painful cross, but once I understood the stakes, I was "all in."

I am particularly focused on the topic of diversity today, thanks to the toxic public comments of the vulgar convicted felon that currently resides in the White House. Before allowing the families time to grieve, and without reference to any facts whatsoever, he is blaming Diversity, Equity and Inclusion hiring practices for a recent mid-air collision that killed many people.

"D.E.I." is the shorthand he uses for his idea that women, minorities and the disabled are being given jobs for which they are not qualified, and this idea is just another lie he is passing off - like all his other misogynistic, racist and ableist prejudices.

The D.E.I. programs were created because minorities, women, the disabled and the otherwise different were being denied the opportunity to COMPETE for jobs and housing.

The preference is for white males, and there is a descending order of prejudice below that.

People of color were mostly denied access to the higher paying jobs and/or were underpaid in comparison to white people occupying the same or similar jobs.

Qualified women were denied access because of their sex. Many times, women were rebuffed because they were not sexually attractive to the men who run every corporation and business. Countless numbers of women have been fired for not agreeing to sexual relations with their bosses. I myself was pushed out of more than one job for this very reason. Once I was pushed out of a secretarial job for gaining weight.

Disabled people were being denied jobs and housing because of their disabilities. Most work facilities were built or occupied buildings which did not allow for wheelchair access, for instance.

In short: Perfectly qualified individuals were being denied access to the same field of competition. The purpose of the D.E.I. programs is to make sure that qualified individuals are competing on an equal playing field.

These D.E.I. programs were NOT created to give UNqualified people preference over qualified persons. Anyone who says otherwise is misinformed or blatantly lying.

In addition to the sexual harassment I experienced in some of my clerical jobs, I witnessed people of color being actively discriminated against in housing.

More than 40 years ago, when I was apartment shopping in Los Angeles, I was standing in front of an apartment complex, talking to the landlord, when two young black women approached us. It was immediately apparent that they were already very upset, and they proceeded to yell at the landlord because she had told them just the day before that the apartment was already rented but, just as they suspected, she continued to show it to other people - to white people.

The apartment manager seemed stunned. It was an unexpected confrontation and she clearly did not know what to say. Clearly, the accusations were true, as was apparent by the "the look" that the landlord gave me. Clearly, she was expecting that this pretty young white girl standing in front of her would be sympathetic to her racism. But she was very wrong. 

As for the two young black women, what could they do but make their charges and then walk away? I noticed, as they turned their backs and made their way down the sidewalk, that they were dressed as well as I was, well-groomed and shod. But they were black and, upon meeting them the day before, the landlord, seeing that they were not white, told them the apartment was rented in order to get rid of them.

Without missing a beat, I gave the landlord a "piece of my mind," and told her that I would not want to rent an apartment from someone who had racist housing policies.

Then I ran toward the two young women, who were walking away from us, and I tried to talk to them, to reassure them that I would NOT cooperate with this travesty, that not everyone was in agreement about this toxic social ill, but they were so angry, they assumed that I had gone ahead and rented the apartment out from under them, and accused me of it. 

I tried, and failed, to get them to listen to me and understand that I had rejected the apartment. I imagine that lifelong suppression of their dreams and basic survival had given them assumptions about ALL white people so that they were unable to perceive a "friendly" when they ran across one. So both "sides" are prejudiced against the other - something that would, at least in part, be rectified by rubbing elbows with one another on a job site, office, or apartment complex.

They turned their backs on me, and walked away. This is a perfect example of why we need D.E.I. policies, in order to counteract racism, sexism and ableism.

D.E.I. policies are those policies that ENSURE that the best qualified person is hired, no matter their race, gender or disability. Donald Trump has turned this reality on its head. Right now, he is in the middle of a wholesale firing of expert government workers so that he can replace them with know-nothing, incompetent, disqualified lackies whose only qualification is that they are devoted to HIM. But he blames D.E.I. policies for everything bad that happens in government.

Trump and his movement is the worst thing that has happened in government in a long time because he deliberately exaggerates the animosities between different groups of people, using dishonesty as his primary tool to separate people from one another. 

While he is encouraging people to face off against one another, Trump is making diabolical changes to our government, using illegal methods. There are such a flurry of Executive Orders that I imagine he is intentionally flooding the zone to cause further confusion. What do we fight first?

"You are of your father the devil, and

 your will is to do your father's desires. 

He was a murderer from the beginning, 

and has nothing to do with the truth, 

because there is no truth in him. When 

he lies, he speaks according to his own 

nature, for he is a liar and the father of 

lies." John 8:44

Photograph by "Z"

on Unsplash

Does this mean that Trump and his minions are NOT "made in the likeness and image of God," since he uses Satanic methods and has values that are the antithesis of Christ's specific commandments?

No. What it means is that he chose the way of lies and this free choice deformed his nature. He isn't the first corrupt leader to claim to be an adherent to Christianity so that he could bamboozle the public. Claiming to be Christian but behaving otherwise is a path with a terrible price.

Christ's parable about the tares being sowed among the wheat is instructional on this topic.

24. Another parable He put forth to them, saying: 

“The kingdom of heaven is like a man who sowed 

good seed in his field; 25. but while men slept, his 

enemy came and sowed tares among the wheat and 

went his way. 26. But when the grain had sprouted 

and produced a crop, then the tares also appeared. 

27. So the servants of the owner came and said to 

him, “Sir, did you not sow good seed in your field? 

How then does it have tares?

28. He said to them, “An enemy has done this. The 

servants said to him, “Do you want us then to go and 

gather them up? 29. But he said to them, ‘No, lest while 

you gather up the tares you also uproot the wheat with 

them. 30. Let both grow together until the harvest, and 

at the time of the harvest I will say to the reapers, “First 

gather together the tares and bind them in bundles to burn 

them, but gather the wheat into my barn.”

Matthew 13:24-30

Obviously, people who claim to be Christian but whose choices and behavior are not in concert with Christ's commandments are the tares among the wheat. The "enemy" that planted the tares is Satan.

One thing I LOVE about Catholicism is that there is always time for the repentant to come to Christ, confess their sins, and be forgiven, in a very definitive fashion, until the time runs out. But Hell is not empty, unless you think Christ is a liar.

"Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ 

will enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who 

does the will of My Father who is in heaven 

will enter." Matthew 7:21

Clearly, the free choice to follow the will of God the Father, to the extent He has made his will known to us, is crucial to whether or not we go to live with Him in Heaven when we die. 

Jesus clearly tells us that prejudice and discrimination are the opposite of his most important commandments: 

36 “Teacher, which is the greatest commandment

 in the Law?”

37 Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with 

all your heart and with all your soul and with all 

your mind.’[a] 38 This is the first and greatest 

commandment. 39 And the second is like it: ‘Love 

your neighbor as yourself.’[b] 40 All the Law and 

the Prophets hang on these two commandments.”

Matthew 22:36-40

God has commanded us to love one another as we love ourselves. We cannot be selfish and at the same time be obedient to what God has asked of us.

If we are really Christians, we want the best for our neighbor, in equal measure to what we want for ourselves. Prejudice is obviously, blatantly inconsistent with this commandment.

The Diversity, Equity and Inclusion programs are meant to fight the prejudice that is abhorred by God.

There is nothing wrong with refining the program, better tuning it to its mission, but the wholesale destruction of it, without anything to replace its mission, is diabolical. Satan loves to see this chaos.

If God wanted to make SURE that all his people ended up in Heaven, He could have MADE us adhere to His two most important commandments, which would make prejudice and discrimination impossible, but He would have had to give up on the idea of being surrounded by his loving creation. Love, in order to BE love, has to be a gift given freely.

By trashing a program that works to demonstrate our love of neighbor, Trump is demonstrating values that are the opposite of Christian values.

By claiming widespread corruption in these agencies, without any proof, and destroying them without any due process or replacement of services, the current administration is demonstrating hostility toward the American people who are not part of the 1% of Americans who are rich white men and their families.

MOST of us, in one way or another, will suffer greatly by the elimination of services, just as we have suffered over the last 5 or 6 DECADES, as the wealth of our country has gradually been shuttled up to the top 1% of Americans. If you take a look at this chart, you can see that, since 1970, wages have stagnated, rising only 25% in actual money, but when compared to the increase in living expenses, have not increased AT ALL. CEOs of corporations, and corporate profits, however, have soared over those same 5 decades.

The above chart shows the years

1970 through 2005

In addition to the D.E.I. programs, this administration, using an unelected shadow government of gullible teenagers and young men barely out of college, led by an unelected immigrant billionaire (Elon Musk) are being given top secret information, as well as the private financial information of all Americans in an assault on the Treasury Department.

I pray today that Trump and the members of his unelected shadow government become real Christians, that they fall in love with God, fear His might and His reprisals and acknowledge His sovereignty, repent of all their lies and scams, confess all their evil intentions and that they choose to be obedient to the commandments of The Lord - before it is too late.

I pray that GOD take pity on the people who claim to be Christian but who are confused, who follow the lies of the enemy, thinking they are doing a blessed thing when they are actually trodding the road to Hell. May they be saved from their selfish orientation and illuminated with God's Truth and Love.

I pray that GOD take pity on the folks who claim to be Christian, but who know they are scammers trying to bamboozle honest people. May the fear of God be instilled in them so that they repent of their sin and turn their faces to The Lord.

We are all in need of God's pity, my friends, and here is my prayer of the daily recognition of it. I wrote it for myself and it has no imprimatur, but it can be an example for something that you pray for yourself.

My daily prayer of submission

Please Lord Christ, help me to perfectly follow 

each one of your commandments. 

My will is to be more faithful to Thee in every way. 

I pray that you help me do everything in exactly the 

manner and with the attitude that is Thy 

most perfect wish for me. 

Please, Lord, take from me every erroneous idea 

that I may hold, and replace it with the pure beauty 

of Thy ultimate Truth.

I know, Lord, how very easy it is to put a step wrong 

and start to follow the road to perdition, so I offer to 

Thee the ultimate sacrifice - that of my free will. Take 

all of it Lord, and replace it with your holy will.

Please, Lord, save me from every evil inclination. 

I submit myself to Thee.

Amen

Please, friends, join me in the prayers for the Trump Administration and also participate in some kind of prayer of sacrifice of our own will and replacement of it with His. Do we trust Him enough to abandon our selfishness and residual evil inclinations while we take the yoke of His will onto our shoulders?

I have the conviction that it will help us to order our behavior more perfectly toward the Lord's commandments, in order to find ourselves bathed in the light of the beatific vision when our time here on earth is done.

I pray for you, that The Lord enlightens you and helps you follow His holy road. Please also pray for me.

God bless us all.

Silver Rose

DONALD TRUMP, HARVEY WEINSTEIN, AND MY FATHER - Tales of my Life in the Entertainment Industry

My son and me

about 1977

The recent uproar about the assaults and rapes of women by powerful Hollywood characters and prestigious men in government is giving me flashbacks to what I experienced as a young woman working in Los Angeles in the 1970's. In fact, my whole life has been shadowed by sexual assaults of one variety or another, and I know that I am not alone. The world is not a safe place for women and girls to live.

Like many women in the American work force, I had to fend off the advances of men who felt that, since they were attracted to me, I therefore owed them my body.

I had been fighting off the unwelcome advances of employers, landlords and random guys in elevators since I was a kid. I'd gotten my first office job at age 16, shortly after I moved out of the house, and it was remarkably easy to get hired.  I endured a constant barrage of indecent proposals, lewd jokes and offers of "a ride home" on a daily basis. I had actually been chased around the house of a famous actor after he'd ordered up a secretary from a temp agency. Despite assurances that it was a "real job," I quickly learned that everyone was star struck and complicit in the trading of young flesh for the pleasure of the famous.

The entertainment industry is not the only one in which women are objectified. When I worked at E.F. Hutton, the entire department watched porno films during Friday lunches in the conference room. It was an all-male department. They hooted and hollered at me over the vulgar moans and groans blaring from the raunchy film they were watching. The traders yelled at me to come in and join them. I immediately started looking for another job. I couldn't quit. I had no money and no one to whom I could run for help.

Shortly after going to work in that commodities department, my boss, the head of the department, propositioned me to go to Las Vegas with him over a long weekend. I refused and reminded him that I wasn't old enough to enter a casino, being only 20 at the time. He fired me and blackballed me in the industry, telling prospective employers that I was "lazy." Yes, I was too lazy to have sex with him, so he lied about me.

Lying about their victims is typical for predators. Just read the news. Every woman that has come forward and told the public about their assaults has had their reputations sullied - in some cases beyond repair.

A few years later, I learned that my own father was one of those creepy guys who demanded sex in exchange for employment. He was the line producer for a popular television series, after a successful career as a writer on such early television shows such as Combat!, Mod Squad, the Rockford Files, and many others.  I had been helping out in his office at the television studio while his secretary was on vacation when I stumbled into his office one day and discovered that he actually used the couch in his office as the cliche'd "casting couch," I was dumbfounded. He was PROUD of it. He crowed about how he deliberately left the door unlocked because the possibility of discovery was all the more exciting for him. It was horrifying.

He had a woman living with him at the time who had appeared in some bit roles in the series my father produced. Is that how she got the job? Is that how she got him?

The use of the casting couch as a method of choosing which actress would be given a role is a blatant and concrete example of the misogynist's theme, i.e., that women are interchangeable and that talent, skill and experience are irrelevant to the work at hand. If an actress were to make a fuss about the status quo, she could easily be replaced, because one woman is the same as any other in the mind of the predator. Nothing is relevant except obedience. Spread your legs, or you don't get that television role.

Apparently, I was the last to learn about this casting couch. EVERYONE seemed to know about it when I queried them.  His was not the only casting couch on the lot, of course. Having a couch in your office was the hallmark of a powerful man. It was a status symbol - something akin to the corner office in the corporate world. I was revolted.

I let him know how I felt in no uncertain terms. Being a classic narcissist, the slightest hint of disagreement or disapproval of anything he did or said was enough to send him into a paroxysm of rage, and this topic was no different. He didn't even have the sense to be embarrassed or ashamed.

A few days after our confrontation about his casting couch, he stole a screenplay assignment from me in retaliation.

These assignments weren't given in writing at the time. You took a meeting, pitched a story, got the assignment for the story treatment. If the story treatment met with approval, you got the go ahead to write a first draft of the script. I'd gotten the go ahead, and had started work when we had our tiff about the casting couch.  The Writer's Guild couldn't help me because I had not used an agent in my negotiations and I had no proof. I didn't figure I needed one, for obvious reasons, but I was innocent and unprepared.

I was so overwhelmed by it all, I decided to abandon my writing entirely. I turned my back on the industry and never wrote another screenplay or teleplay or tried to do anything in that business ever again. My entire being revolted against what I had experienced.

Although we'd had a fight about his abuse of women, I could not make myself stop loving my father. It was a terrible interior conflict that tore me up inside. I ran away from it. I had to remove myself from the ringside seats. I fell into a deep depression. I couldn't find work. I ran out of money. My car got repossessed. I got a beat up old wreck of a car and moved to Arizona for a year, to take some college classes and clear my head.

Meanwhile, my father began telling lies about me to other family members in order to mask what had actually happened. He had to reframe the events to favor himself and hide his adultery from his wife. He had to destroy my reputation so that no one would believe me.

I was not able to resurrect my reputation in the family, becoming the scapegoat for his sins. No one questioned his version of events because people who live in the reflected light of the glamour of stardom  suspend disbelief of anything that the star has to say. Otherwise, they may lose their access to all that yummy glamour - and money. The religion of celebrity is a vile aspect of American culture. We're seeing it now with Donald Trump. His starry-eyed worshippers attribute God-like status to him and resolutely deny his very public moral and ethical bankruptcy.

I suffered a lot for walking away from my writing career, but I could not face the horror of what that industry deems commonplace. In a business where even one's father would steal from you, who could be happy? Then there was the fact that my father was a sexual predator.  From an emotional standpoint, I could not live with the reality of my father's involvement in a sexist system that had always abused me.

I understand completely why all these women who are now bringing suit against Harvey Weinstein, Kevin Spacey, Bill Cosby, Matt Lauer and Donald Trump did not come forward sooner. I know what it is like to be immersed in a culture that protects the powerful men and sneers at women who complain of being sexually abused. 

When I heard the Access Hollywood conversation between Donald Trump and Billy Bush, I became nauseous. Long buried memories came rushing back.

Donald Trump was bragging about grabbing women. "Grab 'em by the pussy," he said. Billy Bush egged him on in a smarmy, sycophantic manner so typical of the hordes of people I'd seen worshiping at the church of celebrity. Trump suggested that, when they saw the actress they'd come there to see, that he might just start kissing her. "I can't help myself," he said. "I just start kissing them." Bush cheered him on, like a frat boy encouraging a more senior member of the tribe.

As I watched Trump pillory the women who came forward to confirm that yes, he IS the sexual predator he bragged about being on that video-tape, I grew furious. I have seen this constantly during my many years  in the entertainment industry. Their stories rang true. Trump's assassination of their character was exactly what I had experienced, first hand. I had seen all sides of it.

During Trump's campaign, I was stunned by his obvious, overt bigotry and racism. His reduction of women to their physical parts was consistent, base and vulgar. His dog whistles were easy to hear. He put rich white males on a pedestal and urged his devotees to venerate that image and hate every other. The comprehensive nature of the hate takes my breath away.

I was struck dumb when Donald Trump was elected president. 40 years after I bailed out of the culture of celebrity, thinking that I had escaped that environment, I find that it has spread! Even women voted against their own best interests and EXCUSE Donald Trump's behavior. They have bought into the supremacy of the RICH WHITE AMERICAN MALE. This dark and evil soup of malevolent white male dominance and aggression, has spread, widened and deepened.

In the United States, women still make only 70 cents for every dollar a man makes, the glass ceiling is still very firmly in place, and we have never had a female president, despite the fact that many countries have had female leaders for quite some time. We have a serious problem in our country. While we have this arrogant, boasting nationalism that claims an exceptionalism we do not possess, at the same time, we have backward, primitive ideas about women, minorities, the aged and the infirm.

Donald Trump's naked display of the very worst aspects of our culture has caused my PTSD to kick into overdrive. His vision of an America that is hostile toward everyone but the rich white male, is frightening and evil. His childish, virulent twitter storms are a drumbeat that incites the primitive drive of angry white men who dream of  power and the subjugation of inferiors. He even defended NAZIs who marched in Charlottesville, chanting slogans against Jews!

I ask "conservatives" how they would feel if one of the women now suing Donald Trump were one of their daughters, or their wife, or their sister. They get mad at me because they've convinced themselves that the 16 women who came forward against him are all liars. The ease with which they skewer the characters of more than a dozen unrelated women they've never met and know NOTHING about infuriates me.

It has always been thus. Women are sexually assaulted on a daily basis and, if the rapist is a star or a favorite candidate, the sycophants conspire to ruin their reputations. They attack the victims with a cold vengeance. It makes me ill.

I find it ironic that in "liberal" Hollywood, the tide is now turning against sexist monsters who have used their fame and money as a weapon against women and girls, while in so-called "Christians," circles, people are excusing the sins of Donald Trump.

Harvey Weinstein has had some bad press and has lost his position. Louis C.K. has lost a lot of jobs as a result of his exhibitionistic masturbation scandal. Kevin Spacey has lost his job on the hugely successful HOUSE OF CARDS. Billy Bush lost his job on Access Hollywood as a result of that video with Trump, but I THINK he got in trouble because it leaked, not because it happened. Matt Lauer has recently been fired from his award winning, hit television news program on NBC.

Yet nothing happened to Donald Trump as a result of the release of that Access Hollywood video in which he brags about assaulting women. People voted for him anyway. They don't care that he is a serial assaulter of women, a bigot, a vulgar liar and a misogynist.  The women he assaulted are called liars and whores by his followers, who say they have "forgiven" the Donald for his crude behavior and they're SURE he's no longer using that "locker room talk." Some of them say the equivalent of "boys will be boys." A lot of people on Facebook say that he's the best thing that's happened to the Christian Church in years.

The fact that conservative Christians are defending the sex perverts in government while going after their victims is what keeps my PTSD fully engaged. America is a dangerous place to live for women and girls.

I have a granddaughter who is now the same age I was when my boss fired me for refusing to have sex with him. I pray that she is never exposed to the kind of pressure I experienced, but considering the support that Donald Trump enjoys from the very people I would expect to defend the innocent, I am not confident that she is safe, and I pray for her constantly because the only time the "trickle down" theory seems to work is when it involves the subjugation of the innocent.

It is worth noting that one of the reasons predators are not made to answer for their crimes is that there a small number of women who betray other women by taking advantage of this sick arrangement. There ARE some who deliberately trade sexual favors for jobs, and this muddies the waters for the rest of us who do not want this type of commerce in our working lives. There are also women on the Christian right, oddly enough, who follow their men blindly and participate in the savaging of the reputations of the women who HAVE come forward.

God save us all.


Silver Rose Parnell
(c) Copyright 2017
All rights reserved

THOMAS AQUINAS AND DONALD TRUMP

Saint Thomas Aquinas

Doctor of the Church

Angelic Doctor

Feast day: January 28

I have been wondering whether or not all the demonstrating and the marches and the loud outrage against the new president of the United States is a healthy thing. He won the election, and, regardless of whatever help he got from a politically motivated head of the FBI and computer hacking done by Russia, aren't we supposed to just be gracious and give him a chance?

Today is the feast day of Saint Thomas Aquinas, who said:

"To bear with patience wrongs done to oneself is a mark of perfection, but to bear with patience wrongs done to someone else is a mark of imperfection and even of actual sin."

Is it our place to "forgive" Donald Trump for sexually assaulting women and bragging about it on audio tape? Are we then to forgive him (or, worse yet, believe him) when he trashes the characters and reputations of the women when they come forward to confirm that yes, indeed, he DID do these things that he bragged about? There is at least one woman brave enough to follow through with a lawsuit against him. I don't know if the other dozen or so women who came forward to confirm Trump's own words will likewise sue, or if his new, even MORE powerful position has scared them off.

Are we supposed to "give him a chance" when he lies continually, both during his campaign and after his ascension to office? What about those tax returns? While making a grab for the nomination, he promised that, if nominated, he would release his tax returns. Now, he is actually elected to office and refuses to release them. Is an unrepentant liar supposed to get wholesale forgiveness?

Is it our job to forgive him for insulting the Mexican people who have come to our country by calling them criminals and rapists? Can any of us speak on behalf of the Mexican people?

What about the hypocrisy of Donald Trump smearing President Obama because of his use of executive orders while in office and then issuing a flurry of them IN HIS FIRST WEEK himself? The insults to our previous President remain unvindicated. The Republicans had announced that their sole aim was to prevent Barack Obama from having a second term, and they refused to pass any bill he presented. He HAD to issue executive orders to get anything done while in office. Trump has a Republican House and Senate, yet bypasses the legitimate, customary procedures, a mechanism that leaves a lot of detritus behind, since Trump doesn't bother to work out the details of what will happen as a result of his sweeping declarations.

The press, called "the fourth estate", has also been vilified by Trump and his people. Trump calls the press vile names and accuses them of lying; his press secretary attempts to force "alternate facts" down their throats during his bizarre and abrupt first meeting; and Steve Bannon, alt right scion and fake fact purveyor, flatly tells them to "shut up and listen for a while." Are we to endure this horrifying suppression of the First Amendment, the diminution of a press that represents the people of America in its attempt to get questions answered by our First Servant who is acting like the master of the house? Do we just sit back and watch while representatives of the press are called names in public venues? Who decided that it was within our rights to "forgive" Donald Trump for his boorish and crude treatment of people who are trying to gather the facts for US?

Can we, in good conscience, ignore Donald Trump's insults to our American Democratic system and all of the people who have pledged to maintain the integrity of the voting system? He lies and says there are 3 to 5 MILLION people who have voted illegally and refuses to provide a shred of proof, while every reputable source of information on this topic says that it is simply not true, and not even partially true. The years of education and experience that each of these experts has dedicated to this topic have been dismissed and discounted, simply brushed aside because the new president has such a grotesque ego that he can't stand the idea that he lost the popular vote by almost 3 million people.

The ego of the man is so perverse and has such a grip on his psyche that he is more than willing to hurt anyone he has to hurt in order to spread a lie that strokes that hungry ego.

These people, organizations and institutes of higher learning are being trashed, their valuable input dismissed, their reputations and characters just SHREDDED. Should we sit idly by and let these lies continue, unabated, without comment? Shall we sit and watch while all these people are humiliated?

What about the refugees and legitimate travelers from Muslim countries that have been stuck in an American airport for hours this morning, and the others that were preparing to come here, legally, and suddenly have lost all hope?

Again, I must repeat: WHAT ABOUT THE REFUGEES? There are legitimate refugees that are in desperate circumstances, fleeing from repressive regimes and ISIS?

What about the little girls who have been stolen from their parents, raped, and forced to convert to Islam and marry old men? Shall we sit here serenely, knowing that she cannot escape that old husband and his gropings? Her hopes dashed, she must endure the daily assault. Every day that Donald Trump prohibits refugees from taking refuge here in America, is another day of violence, death, beheadings and rapes of innocent people.

How many other desperate schemes of escape from the mayhem in Syria are in process but cannot proceed because Donald Trump, in the fashion of the new dictator, has summarily prohibited anyone from coming here?

Donald Trump is an arrogant, lying hammer, and all people in his path are nails. He is destroying America's reputation and he is HURTING PEOPLE.

We SHOULD be mad. We should be FURIOUS.

I am sick, disabled, poor and isolated - par for the course for the little hermit - but YOU are not! I pray that you will rise up and make your voice heard. Do not let this evil continue unabated. PUSH BACK against the evil. SPEAK TRUTH TO POWER.

Silver Rose Parnell

P.S.  I am working on transforming my Facebook page to one of inspiration. For the most part, I am publishing (1) Saint of the day; (2) Saint's quote of the day; (3) Bible readings (mass readings) for the day; (4) pictures of saints; (5) "Three Good Things of the Day"; (6) Artistic, creative and crafts posts; and (7) News items from reliable sources. Please join me there! Here is the FACEBOOK LINK TO MY PAGE