"NOTHING PERSONAL," YOU SAY?

Mother Mary

in my little garden

When disagreements arise in modern life, I have noticed that some people are unable or refuse to put themselves into the place of the other guy, in their imagination. Because they cannot empathize, they cannot imagine why that person on the other side of the debate has an opinion so different from their own.

When engaging in a formal debate, definition of terms often forms a preliminary phase of the debate process so that everyone involved is "on the same page" and talking about the same thing, but modern Americans, set loose on the internet, are not taking advantage of this tool.

Refusing to attempt to understand the actual position of the other side, in a sympathetic light, and making assertions about what your opponents think, believe or want, has become common and is not productive of anything good. It just perpetuates the prejudices and discord.

"Nothing is sweeter than

to think well of others."

Saint Therese of Lisieux

It won't be news to you if I tell you that there is a lot of turmoil in our country right now. I believe that at least part of the cause of this is this disorganized approach to communication among us.

Most of my readers will remember that I am a Catholic convert with a Hindu (Vedantic) orientation. I was raised without any religion whatsoever and participated in many different faiths before converting to Catholicism about 14 years ago. While I believe in everything the Catholic Church believes and teaches, I have a tremendous amount of experience as a non-Christian American. I can easily speak to the point of view of non-Christians, as a result.

When having discussions with some of my Catholic brothers and sisters, I will often object to their characterizations of poor people, gay people, brown people, immigrants, disabled people, and other vulnerable groups. The reply I often get is, "oh, I am not talking about you." As a single, female, senior, divorced, disabled poor person, I fit into many categories of the most vulnerable groups and, having been raised in a non-Christian environment, I am intimately familiar with the lifestyle and beliefs of unchurched people.

But those good Catholic people ARE "talking about" me! They have erroneous, conspiracy-level beliefs about poor people, for instance. There is a huge amount of prejudice about the poor! Right wing people who identify as Christian will often immediately talk about drug addiction and criminality when discussing "the poor."

It isn't that I don't find drug addiction and criminality disturbing, because I DO. Since becoming disabled and poor, and after moving into low-income housing, I have been on the receiving end of quite a bit of the criminality of a segment of the poor. Several of my poor neighbors have stolen from me. The homeless who have encampments in the bosque next to the apartment complex have stolen things out of my garden and my patio, and have rifled through the drawers of the potting cabinet on the patio - looking for whatever might be useful, I suppose. My car has been broken into several times, with no more apparent motive than to scrabble around for change or valuables, leaving me with a broken side window and a creeping sensation of wonder that, although the car was parked right next to my apartment windows, I never heard a thing.

I've had neighbors aggressively try to "befriend" me just so they can get into my apartment and scope it out for possessions they might like to have. One woman spent months telling me I should just "give away" the bed I wasn't using instead of selling it, and then called me one morning and announced that her daughter-in-law had "cried with joy" at the news that SHE would be receiving this bed because she really needed one. I had not agreed to any such thing and was even FURTHER astonished when the neighbor told me she had arranged for a rental truck to come and get it and that it would be at my apartment within two hours! It dawned on me that the neighbor who had pursued my friendship had been "working me" for months, with the express purpose of divesting me of whatever possessions she liked, so I gave her the bed. I rightly guessed she would stop bugging me after she got what she wanted, and I was right. The woman came and took the bed and never spoke to me again.

Anyone who imagines I don't know what I'm talking about when discussing the criminality of the poor needs to take a step back and try another tack. The thing is, despite feeling really bad when someone steals from me or tries to manipulate me for profit, as in the case of the neighbor and the bed, I know that the thievery of the poor is just more obvious and personal than the thievery of the other classes. 

There is a percentage of people in all walks of life who will steal. I have an entirely middle-class sibling who, through a complex con that she worked on me over several months, managed to legally bar me from successfully fighting the theft of inheritance by my father's third wife - just so the sibling could take whatever scraps were available.

The wealthy classes steal from the poor and the middle class in a less direct and less personal way. I would make the case that theirs is the most reprehensible type of thievery because it relies upon the inability of the lower classes to protect themselves. I 

The thievery of poor people is more honorable, in one sense, because it is blatant and out in the open and in-your-face. I know what my neighbor stole from me when I hired her to clean my house. Likewise a second neighbor, the daughter of people I believed were my friends - she ALSO stole from me. I was able to speak to her directly about it.

But what can I do about the thievery of the rich who give one another tax breaks and talk about "trickle down economics" that no one believes is true because nothing has ever trickled down from these accomplished con artists? Millionaires and billionaires buy more luxury goods and properties for themselves while the rest of the people scrabble around for bread.

The fact is that there are no higher a percentage of criminals in the poor populations than there are in society in general. In fact, it may be quite a bit lower, because most poor people are poor because they're disabled or elderly. There is no more drug addiction among the poor than in society as a whole. It's just that people who are successful criminals have enough money to shield themselves from punishment. Drug addicts who are rich, famous, or have solid families have enough resources to support expensive rehab programs.

How many alcoholics do you think exist among the middle class and wealthy? Quite a lot. They can afford the booze. They can also afford to make it 'look' better. I have a relative who is an alcoholic. On the outside, it looks like she's a nice middle-class lady. She's got the trappings of respectability. But she is a terrible drunk. The packaging is just more attractive. She can afford to drink herself into oblivion inside an attractive home. She can also lie, cheat and steal under cover of apparent "respectability." You won't find HER in the gutter, slurring her words and vomiting her stomach contents onto the road. She does it behind closed doors.

This is why, when discussing the middle class or the wealthy, alcoholism is not the first thing that unkind people will talk about. It's the first thing mentioned when the topic of poor people arises, though. Why isn't it the first thing one hears when discussing the other socio-economic groups that have this problem? Americans are prejudiced against the poor in the same way the British in Dickens-era England were. Nothing has changed.

People want to justify their prejudice against the poor.

I am far from a perfect person, but I am not a drug addict. I don't drink. I'm not a criminal. Heck, I haven't had so much as a parking ticket in 44 years! I do not live on welfare. I have Social Security into which I paid for more than 30 years of constant work. I have no tattoos. I have lived as a celibate religious for almost two decades. I am nothing special because, aside from my formal religious vows of sannyas, I am very typical for a woman of my age. MOST poor people are like me. They've done the best they could with their lives, and they are struggling to make a go of it on very little income in their old age. 99.9% of us are NOT homeless people begging with big signs on the street corners, and shooting up drugs at night. They're the exception, not the rule. But even if ALL poor people were drug-addled, alcohol soaked n'er do wells, I ask you to remember that Jesus did not put any requirements upon poor people before they were entitled to the compassion of Christians.

"The poor man has one plea, his want and his standing

in need: do not require anything else from him; but even

if he is the most wicked of all men and is at a loss for

his necessary sustenance, let us free him from hunger."

St. John Chrysostom

Most of us have no help whatsoever. We receive "too much" income from Social Security, thanks to our work histories, but certainly not enough to pay for our needs. Some of us get help from our families, but an awful lot of us are not getting crucial needs met and are dying much sooner than necessary, as a result.

While it is common for most bloggers to avoid talking about themselves, I am taking the opposite stance, partly because my previous confessor taught me that my personal experiences can be used to advocate for others in my position.

"He who is gracious to a poor man lends to the Lord,

and He will repay him for his good deed."

Proverbs 19:17

In my own way, I am fighting the prejudices and bigotry that are so endemic in the cruel America of today. I hope to be able to help that segment of American Christians who are mentioned, above, to be able to identify, even a little bit, with those who are less fortunate than they are, and with those who disagree with them politically.

Put yourselves in my shoes, my American brothers and sisters, then survey our land through my eyes and my experience. If you can do that, you may disabuse yourselves of some of your prejudices.

God bless us all.

Silver "Rose"
Sannyasini Kaliprana

TAKE REFUGE IN THE SILENCE

We are living in an era I find particularly unnerving. The right wing cult is obsessed about symbolic issues like whether or not they feel comfortable saying "Merry Christmas" to random strangers who don't respond in kind, whether a football player should stand or kneel during an anthem, and whether I should use the moniker "concentration camps" to describe the cruel treatment of children locked in cages at the border and fed frozen food (still frozen and uncooked)  because the cultist's dear grandpa lived through a Nazi death camp and HIS suffering was real, whereas the suffering of the unrelated brown children is NOT.

I am horrified, not by symbolic insults to my philosophical identity, but by descriptions of real children and babies, forced into cramped, squalid, and harsh circumstance, where they have fallen ill, are not properly fed, are suffering the strain of separation from their parents, and missing any surrogate to take the place of a loving mother. Some of the children have died. The articles describe the trauma of a 2 year-old that has been carelessly thrust on a group of pre-teen girls who were told to care for him. He went days without food, he is ill, missing his diaper, snot from his runny nose covering his dirty shirt - with no mother to hold him. He clings to the little girls who have been randomly assigned his care.

On social media, I am constantly slammed for daring to sympathize with the children. "They broke the LAW!" is what many of the self righteous hotly proclaim, and "this started with OBAMA!" and "abortion is more important!" The justifications and obfuscations are jarring. Jesus weeps.

Numerous sexual assaults on the children have been reported. The cognitive dissonance of the pep rally freak show of Donald Trump in Florida, entertaining his red-hat base, who are keening "lock her up!" in an ecstasy of hate, at the same time that thousands of children are being willfully traumatized at the border is really more than I can bear.

While I am constitutionally incapable of behaving like an ostrich and hiding my head in the proverbial sand, in order to keep from hearing the moans and cries of the real, actual children who are suffering at our hands, I have to take a break now and then and touch base with my source, the ground of all being, my creator. In the midst of the caterwauling chaos, I take refuge in silence.

To truly live in silence, the inner voice must be stilled. Thank God for the meditation instructions, the inspiration of the holy ones, the examples of the saints and sages. To save my sanity, I need to spend some time every day floating in silence. To stop putting out words and thoughts and concepts into the ether, and to wait, instead, for the breath of God, is crucial to the sustenance of the inner life.

Human society is full of horrors. I suppose it always has been. We often make a big deal out of simple kindness, since it is simply rare, in light of the whole picture of human activity. "Fireman saves puppy by risking his own life," the article says, while countless others detail dozens of stories in which not so nice people are doing not so nice things to scores of other humans. There is a cacophony of misery.

Some eras are worse than others. There seems to be an ebb and flow to it. Often, it feels manipulated and deliberate, guided by the hands of a small group of people who have a lot to gain, financially, if they steer the story in a way that tugs at the heart strings or pumps up the volume on the self-righteous rhetoric that gets some people swelling their chests and jumping into causes they do not fully understand.

Today, Trump is flirting with starting a war with Iran after our very expensive, big drone was shot out of the sky. Concurrently, certain right wing extremists are publishing online "news" proclaiming the start of  civil war if Trump isn't re-elected in 2020. In the halls of government in Washington, D.C., obstructionist Trumpist Republicans are desperately trying to drive the hearings away from the corruption and criminal activities of this administration which has indicted 34 of the president's associates (some of whom are in prison), and back onto Hillary Clinton's e-mails, a topic that floats, untethered to any relevant train of thought and definitely has no causal relationship to the challenges at the border, Trump's high crimes and misdemeanors, Trump's willingness to let Russians interfere with our elections (again), or the impending conflict with Iran.

It is all so tawdry and disgusting and petty.

In my little personal world, I find that taking care of an aging and ill body takes up a remarkable amount of time. Housekeeping is interminable. Hauling the detritus from one spot to another more organized spot, washing dishes, washing clothes, watering plants, "walking" the service dog (with my scooter) - on and on. Whilst my day-to-day activities have me dragging my body and possessions back and forth across the land, making little progress in anything useful, other than survival, in my meditations I can soar.

I woke very early this morning and drank at the spring of quietude for some time. I will go back many times today.  At the beginning of each interlude of stillness, I bring all this chaos and lay it at the feet of the Lord, with all the earnestness that my heart can carry. I unburden myself and ask Him for his assistance. Please, Lord, I understand your commitment to free will and all that, but could you step in before things get out of hand?

Confident that God's got this, I dive in.

Peace be with you.

Silver Rose

Contemplating Ananias and Saphira in the light of Epiphany

The Adoration of the Magi

by

Sir Edward Burne-Jones

I am writing this on Epiphany,which celebrates the revelation of Jesus as "the" Christ and the visit of the Magi (the three kings from foreign lands) who came to worship the Christ Child. There are various stories and traditions about the observance of this day, but it has to do with the announcement of Christ to the world, including to the gentiles (which the kings represent, since they are not Jewish.)

So, here I am, a gentile, an adopted daughter of Christ, the Jewish Messiah, looking back upon that time when Jesus was first "announced" to me. I was a nun in a Hindu convent and happened to read works by and about numerous Catholic and Orthodox mystics. At that time, I imagined that Catholics would naturally aspire to the love embodied in Jesus, but in the ensuing years, I have learned that, instead of being holy reminders of Him, some very public Catholics are unholy reminders of what happens when people allow wealthy political animals to manipulate their beliefs and values.

While I have met and do know many beautiful Christians; Catholic, Orthodox, and every other sort, the public persona of the typical Christian is vile because a large segment misrepresent our faith on the national stage and in social media. If we were to believe their version of Christianity, then their Jesus was a mean dude who wanted us to take food away from hungry people and lock up migrant children as a means of disincentivizing the stranger from finding safe harbor among us.

Their Jesus is a liar who spouts constant falsehoods, misrepresentations and misleading comments as a means to an end because he teaches that the ends justify the means.

Their Jesus values money and wealth above all else. Rich people are the good people, in his scenario, and they are the ones that are entitled to all the help - lots of lovely tax breaks and the removal of every obstacle that stands between them and their greed, because greed is a good thing for this jesus.

"You shall give generously to [your poor brother], and your

heart shall not be grieved when you give to him, because for

this thing, the Lord your God will bless you in all your work

and in all your undertakings."

Deut. 15:10

Since every end justifies every means, it is perfectly acceptable to this jesus that the planet, its flora and its fauna, and even other people should suffer and die so that a few people with gold plated toilets can have control of all the money and enslave the rest of us.  Those few wealthy men at the top of the heap are the chosen ones of the god of that disgraceful jesus.

Jesus and the Wealthy Young Man

"One thing is wanting unto thee: Go, sell whatever thou hast,

and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven;

and come, follow me."
Mark 10

Their jesus mocks and despises people of color, disabled people, unattractive women, and old people.  Their jesus only cares about the American economy. The rest of the world sucks.

An odd feature of this counterfeit "Jesus", is a stiff-necked obsession about abortion. The cult that worships this fabricated jesus decided that the only solution to the vast number of abortions being performed was to make it illegal, while at the same time refusing to give assistance to poor mothers and babies, putting poor women and their babies in an impossible bind: kill the babies slowly, through poverty, hunger and disease or kill them quickly in abortion and save everyone the agony.

Bogus Jesus believes that bending people to his will by painful coercion is preferable to any other method of conversion because this sham Jesus enjoys tormenting people who are already suffering. Their Jesus would not consider supporting poor moms and babies as a deterrent to abortion because he wants to punish poor people who have sex outside of marriage.

Jesus at the door of the heart

Fake Jesus doesn't want good, comfortable white Americans to have to sacrifice their hard earned dough for stupid women who don't keep their legs closed or the brats that are born from her. Their Jesus believes that poor women will stop having sex and won't get pregnant to begin with if they just hold the line and make everything as painful as possible.

I don't recognize their Jesus because he sounds an awful lot like Satan to me.

Donald Trump

The fake Christian

Worshipers of Bogus Jesus have gotten behind a contemptible, appalling "political" figure whose personal values and public positions are right in line with their Jesus, and it is horrifying to the rest of us who do not adore the wolf in sheep's clothing.

"He was a murderer from the beginning, not holding to

the truth, for there is no truth in him. When he lies, he

speaks his native language, for he is a liar and the father

of lies."

John 8:44

I have been in an agony of disappointment, fear, rage and apprehension since becoming exposed to the bogus jesus and his lovers.  I've been wringing my hands and my heart daily, in fear that "Christian" supporters of the deceitful, autocratic dictator-wanna-be will aid him and cheer him on, as he throws America into some war or that the turmoil in our culture will reach some tipping point that tumbles us headlong into an even more fascist government than we currently have.

But today, while reflecting on the latest horror from that freak show called the Trump Administration and the public "Christians" that support him, I was suddenly reminded of the story of Ananias and Saphira.

Ananias dies after lying about the money

Among the apostles and their followers, Christians held all things in common. They sold their land and possessions and gave the money over to the community. Funds were distributed according to the need of each person. Ananias and Saphira decided they would hold back some for themselves. They lied about the money and each was struck dead on the spot.

This stark, cautionary tale from the earliest Christian era gives me much comfort because, although an antichrist is currently being worshiped in the public square, our God is not oblivious. While He may not strike down the evildoers on the spot, there WILL be a reckoning of some sort. I am sure of it.

Jesus and the Money Changers

I received a telephone call, in the midst of these ruminations about this faux jesus and his cult. The manager of the grocery store where an employee had claimed I am not disabled because Trump doesn't think I am, called to bring me up to date on the disciplinary action they took. He has been suspended without pay. If there is another problem with him, he will be fired. It seemed a good omen, though on a very small scale. I felt encouraged to relax a little, nonetheless.

While I will not stop protesting and objecting to the harm being done by this spurious Jesus and his mesmerized devotees, my confidence in the oversight of our Good Lord has been restored. We can't get complacent, though. Much prayer and sacrifice are needed. It is necessary to fight evil with Good.

Bless us all.

Silver Rose

THOSE STUPID AMERICANS

Europeans have called us "those stupid Americans" for years, and now we deserve the moniker.

A large number of people no longer believe anything an expert will say. If you're a prominent climatologist with a lot of degrees, awards, and job experience, stupid Americans won't grant you any credibility at all. They'd rather get their scientific facts about global warming from some political know-nothing talking head who has an economic agenda that will benefit the wealthy, the oil companies and big businesses that pollute the world.

If you are a professional economist with multiple degrees in the field, many years of experience in the profession, and a slew of awards, The Stupid Americans will dismiss you as "left wing," which, to them, means everything you say and do is wrong and that you have no facts and nothing to offer. Instead of listening to your expert advice, The Stupid Americans prefer to get their economic advice from know-nothings who have no relevant degrees, experience or recognition in the field.

Donald Trump has consistently demonstrated this by appointing people to his cabinet who are completely unqualified. Take the Department of Education, for one. He appointed a woman who has no education and no experience in the field. What she HAS done is spend a lot of money trying to ELIMINATE the Department of Education. The fox is in charge of the hen house, and The Stupid Americans love it.

Facts don't seem to matter in this culture because our egos have become so inflated that each of us considers ourselves the arbiter of everything that happens around us. Uninformed opinions get the most air time on Fox & Friends, wacky conspiracy theorists are quoted in debates, and your crazy uncle George, whose only platform used to be the once-a-year Thanksgiving Day dinner table, suddenly has a blog and is spewing a daily load of garbage into the world.

Humility, once touted as a positive virtue and something to which the religious once aspired, is now trampled under people's feet as they hurry to jump onto the nearest soap box to loudly belch their opinions.

Catholics are even criticizing our Pope, the leader of the faith. They're behaving as if the Pope is required to answer to THEM, rather than the other way around. These people refuse to be lead by their betters because they are oblivious to the fact that they HAVE any!

Instead of electing a president with experience, dignity, gravitas and good character, we have been saddled with a sex pervert with multiple assaults in his background who brags that he grabs women "by the pussy" and kisses them without asking. He insults every minority group, women in general, and basically everyone except his rich white male cronies, whose benefit he has in mind with every proposal that he trots out. With health care, he pushed a bill that would be more expensive for the poor, the elderly and the ill. With the tax "reform," he cuts 1.5 TRILLION dollars from Medicaid and Medicare (once again hurting the poor, the elderly and the disabled) while giving immense tax breaks to his wealthy cronies. He even criticizes war heroes who had the bad taste to have been captured and tortured for years by our enemies. "Winners" don't get captured, and Trump likes winners.

The Stupid Americans, meanwhile, are so thrilled to have someone in office who doesn't know what he is doing that they defend his every move, his support of the Nazi march in Charlottesville, his every criticism of the poor, minorities, and victims of sexual assault, as well as his constant twitter storm of lies. The gathering evidence of his campaign's treasonous relationship with Russia, though well substantiated, is dismissed by The Stupid Americans as "fake news" because the legitimate, credible prosecutor has a good reputation going back decades and he has a "professional relationship" with someone that Trump fired. Only people who have NO experience or who have a BAD reputation or who don't know anyone in government are given any credibility in the dim brains of The Stupid Americans.

Senate candidate Roy Moore may STILL win Alabama because he refuses to step down after SUBSTANTIAL allegations of pedophilia have cropped up with 4 women he molested when they were barely into their teen years. Substantial proof exists to prove that Roy Moore did, actually, molests these young girls, but the stupid Americans refuse to believe it. Roy Moore, himself, is painting himself as a victim of "political" motives and vows to never give up! Styling himself as some kind of crusader who has been wrongly maligned, he has whipped up his buddies into calling for the PROSECUTION of the girls that he molested! This is why girls are so hesitant to come forward and report their rapists - because society rapes them over and over again in the process.

This is what you get when you reject professionals, when you reject experts, when you reject truth itself.

The stupid Americans are so gullible, that all you have to do is label something "left wing" and, no matter how factual the information from that source, The Stupid Americans will dismiss it entirely. Apparently, they believe that all the employees of all the news outlets and all the top universities and all the experts are "in on" a great left-wing conspiracy to report nothing but false stories. Yep. Millions of people have called and spoken with one another in order to hide "the truth" from the rest of the American people. The only "truth" that The Stupid Americans will believe is that which is illogical, far-fetched, ridiculous, completely devoid of proof, and advocated by someone with no education or experience in the field.

The whole world is watching our system of government disintegrate like a sand castle at high tide. When The Stupid Americans have managed to completely dismantle our government, Russia or China or some other power can step in and take over. Both of those countries are skilled at propaganda.

It would be easy to enslave The Stupid Americans by whispering lies in their ears, like a smooth talking pimp. All the Russians would have to do is tell them how SPECIAL they are, how only THEY know the real truth of life. It worked on Trump. It will certainly work with his devotees!

After they pump up the egos of The Stupid Americans, the foreign power will get The Stupid Americans to put the chains on their OWN wrists and ankles, and then chase down all the other Americans and force them to do the same!

In America, everyone is entitled to their own opinion, this is true. That does not mean, however, that your opinion is worth anything.

Don't take my word for it, though. Get advice from the EXPERTS. I would be happy with that.

Silver Rose Parnell
(c) Copyright 2017
All rights reserved.