COSMIC POO POO

My living room shrine table

Silver Parnell

copyright (c) 2018

I am politically schizophrenic. I fall on the "progressive" side when it comes to protecting the rights of the vulnerable, feeding the hungry, clothing the naked and being kind to the prisoner, but I fall into the "conservative" camp when it comes to abortion, euthanasia, and the strength of the family as the crucial pin upon which all the cogs of society are attached.

I am not at home on either side of the progressive/conservative divide, except in regard to specific policies. My fractured political leanings are informed by my very cohesive and deliberate religious orientation. I try, to the best of my ability, to adhere to the commandments of Jesus. Whatever Jesus said was a positive good is what I vote for. It can be a challenge, as should be obvious.

My friends and associates are every color of the rainbow, but one thing has made itself obvious. Both conservatives and progressives have developed x-ray vision when it comes to the thoughts and motivations of other people. Isn't that remarkable? (Sarcasm.)

I read a conservative post this morning in which a conservative claimed that "the Left" hates the Constitution and basically wants to destroy America. All lefties are commies. Every progressive cause is funded by George Soros.  I don't know who he is, but will someone tell me his email address so I can get my check? Seriously. I want my check. If you know this topic well enough to be so sure that he is funding all the progressives, you'll have his email address.

A conversation by mostly left leaning people, on the other hand, claimed that the motivation of conservatives is that conservatives want to stop abortions, for instance, because they want to control women! It is all about the subjugation of women. Excuse me, but I know that to be crap. Just crap. Of course, there ARE personalities in the world who like to control others, but that's a different topic. 

In my experience, conservatives want to outlaw abortion because they want to save babies from being killed. They are coming from a position of love, though claiming love as a motive while excusing cruel governmental policies at the same time puzzles progressives. It seems hypocritical. I don't know the answer to that one because this is a complex issue.

At any rate, each side believes the other has evil motives and intentions. This is ridiculous and it has to stop.

I DO know of a few sociopaths who would be delighted to destroy the world, or just enough of it to ensure that only they and their servants are left. That does happen. (I have one in the family, and she scares the crap out of me.) It isn't that these type of people don't exist, it's just that their numbers are small, thanks be to God.

Devotion to the truth, alone, should dissuade us from imputing evil motives to half the population of America. My personal experience, with both the left and the right, have convinced me that nearly everyone wants the best for America. We disagree on method and particular vision.

So, how did this happen? It is probably due to political messaging. Politicians energize their base by stoking animus against their opponents. They claim evil motives. They throw some lies in there to excite our fear or loathing about the other candidate, and we fall for it.

If you only talk to or listen to people who already share the same ideas about the methods of best running the country as you do, you're just sitting in an echo chamber. It might feel good to have your views echoed back to you all the time, but it isn't good for you. 

So, what do we do? Well, I suspect that the first thing is that everyone who is attached at the hip to a particular politician or party needs to attach themselves to Truth instead. Truth has gotten a terrible beating over the last few years, and I'm not just talking about all the gibberish that comes spilling out of Donald Trump's mouth. Truth is not always readily evident, and we have to invest some energy in digging it out from all the social noise. Don't just listen to one radio station or one personality or one group of people.

There is something uniquely peculiar in the case of Fox News, for instance. Donald Trump watches hours of television every day, and he reacts with twitter rants as a direct result of whoever is talking on Fox at the moment. Sometimes, he even announces policies in response! Before the shutdown, he had agreed to sign a funding bill that had already passed the House and the Senate, but when someone criticized him for it on Fox, he reneged on his agreement. That's why we have a shutdown.

Meanwhile, many of his supporters ALSO watch only Fox News and they don't read newspapers - so there is this echo chamber of ideas bouncing around inside that little bubble. Fox is not just "biased." It barely qualifies as news. It is telling the president of the United States what to think. It is telling his supporters what to think. Fox News is running the country.

The odd thing is that what happens on Fox is not reflected on the rest of the news outlets. Some conservatives say that all the journalists in those outlets can't be trusted because they are "biased" and therefore not truthful. Upon examination, it is obvious that this CAN'T be true. You're talking about millions of people having to be "in on" the conspiracy to report something OTHER than the real news. It's just not feasible. And some of the newscasters that Trump says are "liberal" are actually conservative, but they disapprove of his many questionable activities.

I am not saying you should stop watching Fox. I watch it, selectively, but I can't say I get much factual information from it. Most of it seems to be a cheering section for Donald Trump and the Alt Right. Just remember that "news" consists of who, what, when and where. If the outlet is giving you a lot of "why," it is commentary, not news.

I watch many different newscasters, including Fox, and I read quite a few newspapers daily. You may not have the time for quite as much as that, but you can develop your own version of absorbing information across the spectrum.  One day soon, I will write an article about my research techniques. I DO truth-test just about everything I post on Facebook, for instance. 

In the meantime, I suggest that, instead of pretending to be Madam Zelda with the crystal ball who knows the motives and thoughts of millions of people, take the time to talk to someone in the opposing party - not with the idea of converting them, but just in the interest of information gathering.

Now, this will be difficult, because most of us are so angry now that we often fall back onto griping about the other side. I would suggest asking the person what they want for America. What is their vision? Ask people about their motives. Don't assume. Ask.

I will be so glad when this phase has dissipated and I can take some attention off the topic of politics. If the right wing hadn't crowned Trump with the (false) crown of Christianity, I wouldn't be doing this now. It has put a crimp in my peaceful meditation time, and I look forward to eliminating the distraction, but I just can't stand idly by while Jesus is misrepresented so heinously.

I just encourage all of us to devote ourselves to Truth with reverence and discretion, and behave accordingly.

God bless us all.

Silver Rose

What Will History Report?

Winter in Old Town Albuquerque

Copyright (c) Silver Parnell, 2018

It has been a rough few weeks, and I have been knocked off my pins. Two days ago, a robber tried to steal a bicycle near my house, and we were in lockdown for the entire day, while the police and their swat vehicles and boats and horses and all kinds of armored this and thats were camped out in the middle of the street. They didn't catch the guy. For someone with PTSD, this is a particularly stressful situation.

I was already feeling somewhat pressurized because of the misogynistic, bigoted, xenophobic government being pressed into place by the current "leader" of our country, along with his fawning sycophants in the shockingly transformed Republican Party.

Last month, I wrote about how a supermarket employee expressed hostility toward my disabled status, telling me that, "I believe in Trump's law. Unless you've got two arms cut off or two legs cut off, you're not handicapped!" It took several weeks to call him to account for this outrageous verbal attack and, although he was suspended from work without pay for some time, I was left with the stress of having been the recipient of Trump's disgusting animus, through one of his MAGA nuts. I continue to remind the skeptical that the supermarket employee sailed into his diatribe without my having said anything even faintly political. When the president of the United States sneers at, mocks and criticizes disabled people, this is what happens. None of the MONEY trickles down, but the insults and the prejudices sure do!

~Trump mocking a disabled man during a pep rally~

I have had people tell me that I should just ignore what Trump says, that it doesn't have anything to do with me and does no good to say anything, but they are dead wrong. My life has already been directly affected by his nauseating comments and behaviors. He has emboldened and encouraged hateful people who, in turn, inflict their vile bigotry and ugliness on me and others like me. Fat, female, senior, disabled; I've got four strikes against me, in the mind of the Trump supporter who feels entitled to torment me and others like me. In addition, I live in low income housing, and, if it is discovered, is yet another mark "against" me because the alt right wackos claim that all the social programs are rife with fraud (which is a lie.)

Trump supporter

We're in the middle of a government shutdown that is costing 800,000 Americans the loss of their income and is risking their basic survival of food and housing. Our Federal lands are being vandalized and trashed. TSA workers are calling in "sick" at double the customary rate because they aren't being paid for what is, at the very best of times, a stressful, physically demanding job, which makes it all very unsafe for travelers.

Trump is holding us ALL hostage, really. Despite the fact that illegal immigration over the Southern border is at its lowest since the 1960's, most "illegals" are in this country on VISA OVERSTAYS, and the drugs are coming through the standard ports of entry - not smuggled illegally across the border, Trump is fixated on having a WALL, which is a decidedly low-tech method, even if the problem WAS illegal border crossings! But it isn't.

[Note: The source information for this chart comes from the U.S. Border Patrol.]

The problem with this particular issue is that, instead of leaving the method up to the experts, Trump has slapped them aside and is insisting that everyone accept his opinion about the proper method of fixing a problem. The underlying defect, of course, is that, although he bleats constantly about a "crisis" at the border, there isn't one. Illegal entry over the Southern border is the lowest it has been since the 1960s.  Sure, it happens and it has to be dealt with, but there are a variety of measures that the experts recommend.

So, Trump wants to spend billions of dollars for a low-tech solution to a nonexistent problem, and that bit of crazy is why we are all on tenterhooks - conducting our lives under a bleak, dark cloud of foreboding. I'm afraid Trump will start a war, in order to distract us from his crimes, or simply because he bungles his way into it because he doesn't have a clue about how to be presidential and refuses to get counsel from anyone. His followers don't respect experts either. I have given up responding to their hysterical, overblown comments on social media. I just block them when I see another overwrought, lie-filled comment. I can't deal with it.

Our constant sense of apprehension or anxiety is well founded. We have been here before. Trump's fascist, authoritarian tendencies are easily compared with those of dictators like Hitler, who, as I've mentioned before, was also fond of calling the press "fake news" ("Lugenpresse") and was prejudiced against the same minority groups, with the exception of the Jews, who are the darlings of a segment of the electorate that identifies as Christian.

Yesterday, Nancy Pelosi and other representatives were about to board a plane to go to Afghanistan and, at the last second, Trump issued an edict to Pelosi telling her that none of them may go because they should be staying home to negotiate with HIM. Pelosi already did her job and passed legislation through the House that temporarily funds the government until border security issues can be resolved, which then passed the Senate and Trump refused to sign it. There is a remedy for that, but Mitch McConell refuses to follow procedure. Other Senators have tried to bring it before the Senate (again) and McConnell just objects. You get the picture. Trump is acting like a 12 year old. McConnell and the GOP enable him.

A flood of information about Trump's Russian connections continue to flood in from the various cases that have been turned over to the Department of Justice. Although Trump keeps bellowing "no collusion" every time he is the same room as a reporter, we also have a lot of quotes from him from the pre-presidency years when he and his sons bragged about all the money they were getting from Russia. What does this have to do with me?

Well, Russia is the enemy of democracy. It is run by oligarchs who steal all the money they can from their people, and they murder anyone who gets in their way. It looks very much as if Trump is just another "convenient idiot" through whom Putin originally thought only that he would launder his money, but now that he is president, they are making greater use of him.

Trump's longtime attorney has recently testified that Trump ordered him to lie to Congress. One of the many articles about that can be found HERE

Russia would be thrilled if America would leave NATO (which Trump wants us to do) and, I don't know about you, but I rather like democracy and I do not want it messed with.  But it has ALREADY been messed with - during the last elections. It has been confirmed by OUR intelligence agencies, and they are a lot more credible than Trump.

I am astonished that more people are not alarmed, stressed and anxiety ridden. Our entire way of life is under threat.

Winter in the neighborhood

Copyright (c) 2014

So, I don't feel like writing blissful little tomes about the beauty of meditation and prayer this week. Certainly, I am praying and meditating a lot lately. I am in constant communication with the Lord - but He is the Lord of free will. He doesn't force his will on anyone. Occasionally, He chastises. Sometimes He heals. Sometimes He appears. Sometimes He sends his angels. But He doesn't usually force Godless oligarchs to stop attacking democracy, and I am not so surrendered and sanguine that I am oblivious to the dangers.

Christianity is not magic, folks. God doesn't manipulate Heaven and the world in favor of Americans, as if they were His chosen people. We are expected to behave a certain way. Perhaps all of this has been visited upon us because our Christianity has become a sham. I really don't know, as I do not speak for Him, but I do dread the punishment that may come our way.

Know that I am praying, but I hope you are praying also - and also DOING. Spread the word of God's goodness and mercy, yes - but also spread the word about what He expects of us.

God save us all.
Silver

ABORTION

Some people are so preoccupied with the topic of abortion that they talk of little else on social media and elsewhere. Nearly every political and cultural conversation gets hijacked onto this topic, due to the tunnel vision of the abortion-obsessed, and I am tired of continually taking that detour, so I have written this statement of my position on this issue. From now on, every time someone tries to wrestle a conversation from the price of cilantro at my local market to THE HORROR OF ABORTION, I am posting a link to this blog entry and moving on without further comment.

I do not like abortion

I am not in favor of killing babies. I do not "support abortion." Abortion is horrible. DUH.

Nor will I abandon every commandment of Christ in order to vote for people who say or insinuate that they will make abortion illegal. Making abortion illegal was never a successful method of eliminating abortion. When you make it illegal, you only make it less safe. Because abortion has always been available to women and they will resort to it if pushed.

If we really want to eliminate abortion, we could make our country more family friendly and follow the examples of the rest of the industrialized world by making maternity and paternity leave available as well as free child care. Instead, we behave as if each one of us is in competition with every other American. We behave as if we hate one another and must fight each other to the death for limited resources.

We do not have limited resources. It is just that all the resources have been handed over to a tiny number of people while the wages of the workers that create the wealth are suppressed. When asked, women say that they get abortions because of MONEY. They can't afford to raise a child. It is IMPOSSIBLE. Most workers in our country do not receive a living wage.

The right wing uses abortion as a lure to capture voters when their real agenda is to accelerate this enrichment of the wealthy while they torment, starve and further impoverish the poor.

For instance: In the two years Donald Trump has been in office, Planned Parenthood, the biggest abortion provider in the U.S., has been funded by the government something like 9 times. He's seated one truly wretched supreme court judge, whom I firmly believe DID sexually attack Dr. Ford during a party. (In addition to my customary research, I watched all the videos of the hearings.)

The GOP treated Dr. Ford shamefully and, indeed, as I watched the debacle on television, I felt I was witnessing a second rape.

Watching Kavanaugh sputter and riot his way through a decidedly partisan, voluminous defense, his puckery red mouth, wet with the spittle of his outrage, made me want to retch. I vowed never to vote Republican ever again, when everything was said and done. Will Kavanaugh deliver the promised abolition of abortion? He is dishonest enough to renege on his subtle promise in that regard, but he WILL likely save Trump from being thrown into prison for criminal wrongdoing. The whole vile mess makes me sick.

Catholics are not required to vote Republican

The Republican Party, as it is currently constituted, stands for positions that are directly in opposition to everything Jesus advocated. The only quasi-Christian position on their platform is the supposedly "pro-life" position, which actually boils down to a very weak anti-abortion position that only makes it illegal, when illegality has never prevented abortions. It only prevented SAFE abortions.

Anyone that claims that Catholics "have" to vote Republican is lying.

Pope Benedict clarified this during his term as Pope. (See the quote below his picture.)

A catholic would be guilty of formal cooperation

in evil, and so unworthy to present himself for holy

communion, if he were to deliberately vote for a

candidate precisely because of the candidate's

permissive stand on abortion and/or euthanasia.

when a Catholic does not share a candidate's stand

in favor of abortion and/or euthanasia, but votes

for that candidate for other reasons, it is considered

remote material cooperation, which can be permitted

in the presence of proportionate reasons.

~Pope Benedict~

My opinion: Criminalizing abortion does not solve the problem

There is no corroborating research or statistic that supports the idea that making abortion illegal is a working method because, as history has borne out, women get abortions, whether legal or not.

American laws, generally speaking, reflect the will of the majority of the people, in concert with the guiding principles laid down in our Constitution.

Abortion is legal, but it is not mandatory. This isn't china, where parents are only allowed to have a certain number of children and are thereafter forced to abort subsequent children.

If no one wanted an abortion, we could have an abortuary on every street corner and they would be empty, and this fact relates to my central position.

The remedy must address the needs of both mother and child.

Pro-lifers and pro-choicers are equally vehement in their insistence on the rightness of their respective positions. Pro-lifers are advocating for the babies. Pro-choicers advocate for the mothers. It is a furious pitched battle between them, which is why we need a nuanced approach that advocates for BOTH.

How can we do that? Well, first of all, stop obsessing about whether or not abortion is legal. Even when illegal, is it STILL available, and pretending otherwise is just naive and unrealistic.

We must evangelize the culture

As religious people, we need to stop behaving as if we can (or should) try to force other people to obey our moral laws when it comes to sexual behavior.  Sexual immorality and the pregnancies that may result from it are beyond the pale of what Christians can expect to manipulate. We need to remember that Jesus did not force anyone to follow him. He invited them.  We should do the same by working to evangelize the culture to gain the hearts and minds of a majority, which is absolutely within the mandate given us by Jesus.

Thirdly, we have to be realistic about the limitations of the American legal system when it comes to impressing Christian norms on it. The separation of church and state has been a fundamental criterion from the very foundation of our country and, while I agree that the founding fathers probably did not anticipate that many Americans would one day belong to non-Christian religions (or no religion at all), the overriding conception of individual freedoms can't be ignored.

In the arena of abortion, even if the law were to recognize the rights of the unborn child, you cannot divorce the baby from the mother until it is born. The law will never again allow the rights of the unborn baby to circumvent the rights of the mother, regardless of whether or not we believe that an abortion murders a child. That ship has sailed.

If you want to make laws, enact laws that support moms and babies.

It is not logical to stand in the way of legislation that financially supports poor moms and their babies, either through direct money or services such as free day care, and at the same time pretend that we care about the babies that suffer because its parents are poor and we refuse to fund their relief.

Babies need food, shelter, utilities, clothing, transportation and day care. If a young woman does not have the income to give a child those basic things, abortion will be the only way out. Forget adoption. Most women know they couldn't give up their child, once they've given birth, and if they don't have the money to support a child, they don't have the money to get themselves through a pregnancy either.

Women do not "want" to kill their children, either through abortion or, in the alternative, through poverty, illness and disease. They are forced into this decision because financial difficulties are the primary reason women cite for choosing abortion.

Legislation doesn't solve every human issue

People who resent tax dollars being earmarked for the poor are resentful because they are selfish, first of all, but in the case of the American Christian, it is often the mistaken belief that supporting illegitimate babies will 'encourage" young women to have lots of children they can't afford. There is no proof of that and, even if it were true for some, the number would be quite small.

I would remind my fellow Christians readers that if there are a few "extra" babies in the world, it's not a bad thing. Right?

Hear this: There is nothing you can do about anyone else's larcenous heart or grifter tendencies. There will always be a small percentage of people who are like that. You can't do anything about it.

There is also nothing you can do about lazy people. I know a young, healthy woman, only 20 years old, who refuses to get a full time job. She says part time is "enough." When I ask her what she'll do if she has an emergency, she asserts that her mother will have to pay the bill! I wonder if she got her mom's agreement to that? (I know her mother. She has one full time job and one part-time job. I'm guessing she's not happy about any of this.)

In any case, nothing is perfect, and we cannot sacrifice a great good because it can't be perfect. Someone will take advantage of our generosity. Someone will steal. Someone will lie and cheat. We have to do the best we can. Here is what Saint John Chrysostom says about it:

"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~

Obviously, a baby is entirely innocent and, even if I agreed with you that it is a bad thing to encourage immorality by supporting moms who are having sex outside of marriage, for instance, we would still have to support the babies, right? Part of supporting the babies necessitates supporting the mothers. You can't separate the two.

Don't scream at me.

Now, I can hear people screaming at me already, and I haven't even posted this yet. There are some of you who are singularly focused on the fact that abortion is murder, and you can't SEE anything but that, you can't HEAR anything but that, and you can't TALK about anything but that. Just know that, as long as you refuse to see, hear or discuss anything but the fact that abortion kills a baby, you will be a miserable failure in your attempts to win people over to your way of thinking. You cannot sway people over to your side by hitting them over the head with a hammer. That approach does not work.

Stop spreading superstitious lies about pro-choice advocates and talk to them instead.

I am sick of watching the right and the left fling insults at one another and lie about each other. The right says the left just "wants to kill babies." The left says the right "just wants to control women." They are both off base. Instead of imagining the motives of the other side, it is time to listen. Get on the same page somehow and start using the same language to have the discussion.

At present, the pro-choice people are just as disgusted with you as you are of them, and it isn't because they are, supposedly, evil. it is because the anti-abortion people refuse to see the issues that bother those on the left.

The peculiar quandary in which we find ourselves is that both sides think they are arguing for the greatest good and that the other side is malicious. This is an impossible impasse that we must overcome if we are to make any progress in lessening the numbers of abortions.

Somehow we have to arrive at solutions that respect and dignify every human person. The rights of the mothers and the babies have got to be supported at the same time. At present, the pro-choicers advocate for the rights of the moms while the anti-abortion crowd speaks for the babies. We need a comprehensive approach that supports both.

God save us all

Silver Rose

SAINT PASCHASIA AND DONALD TRUMP

WINTER IN MY NEIGHBORHOOD

When I was a nun in the Hindu convent, we didn't have a television or a radio until shortly before I left. A well-meaning devotee gave us an old television on which to watch educational things, and for some of us, it was a problem.

Lunch at the convent.
No television in the dining room!

It was a great, heavy ugly box, and the picture wasn't too good because this was in a big, crowded city and we had no cable for reception - just the rabbit ears. One of the middle aged nuns could not resist the temptation and was often found ghosting around the library, waiting for an opportunity to watch it. It was a real problem when we had overnight guests, because their bed was in that room, and every once in a while a guest would go back to the room to take a nap mid-day, only to find this random nun lolling about.

I never watched that television. I was so in love with the life of being a nun, devoted to God. I couldn't imagine taking my mind off bliss and onto commercials. Now, although I am no longer part of an institution and there is far more quality programming available on television and other screens, I am STILL highly selective. Last night, however, I had to tune in to what what I anticipated would be something embarrassing, at least - and horrifying, at worst.

Trump, during his address to the nation

January 8, 2019

Despite his continuous slander of American journalists, Trump exhibits no shame or sense of hypocrisy when he requests special, prime-time media coverage so he can start his bid for re-election in 2020 with a misinformation campaign calculated to gin up his "base."

Typically, a president will address the people on prime time when he actually has something to announce - something real, but last night, I watched in disgust as Trump lied his way through a smarmy announcement that appeared to serve no perceivable purpose, other than to terrify the unwitting and gain enthusiasm for a wall on our southern border. 

Trump announced a "humanitarian crisis" that doesn't exist and ignored the actual crisis that Trump himself started. He shut down the government in an effort to hold us hostage and force Americans to pay for the wall that he insisted MORE THAN 200 TIMES that Mexico was going to pay for. 800,000 government employees are not receiving their wages because of this. THAT is the "crisis" which threatens to destabilize our economy while it takes food out of the mouths of families and endangers their housing.

Most of us are appalled by all of this, but Trump's supporters resolutely listen only to him and swallow his penny-dreadful, melodramatic version of life, without suspicion or fact checking. He said it. It must be right.

Well, it isn't right by any stretch of the imagination. Wedged between his self-inflated and bogus tales of how he marvelously comforted scores of Americans who've supposedly had their family members murdered by hordes of illegal alien terrorists in gruesome fashion, he inserted some "statistics" that were already disproved by his own government's data! Instead of tens of thousands of terrorists captured at the southern border, there was actually only SIX (6) persons that were suspected of having terrorist ties. I would be embarrassed for him, if he wasn't such a deliberate con artist - which has been  his reputation his entire life.

I long for the days when I could afford to ignore what was happening in our government, when I could proceed through my days with paintings and prayers, while leaving the business of governance to our expert representatives, confident that they would carry out the mandates given them, more or less. Now, I can't help but watch as this political version of a daily 10-car pileup happens on the freeway of American life, because I have to be better informed and prepared for the letters and emails that I thereafter must send to the few government officials who haven't entirely lost their minds in this insanity.

I have a theory that it is much harder to become a saint these days - partly because of all this media: television, kindles, computers, Netflix, Hulu, Amazon. There is a lot of distraction, combined with a rather high degree of comfort. It makes it more difficult to focus than in the early days of the church, for instance.

The Martyrdom of Saint Alban

by

Matthew Paris

If we'd had television or even a printing press when Saint Paschasia was alive, then we might know more about the saint I have chosen for today. There are at least ten saints we celebrate on this particular day, as there are more saints than there are days in the year, so they all have to share.

Saint Paschasia, yet another young virgin martyr for Christ, was killed for her faith in Dijon, France toward the end of the second century. Saint Gregory of Tours later mentioned her, when she had been a saint of constant veneration for many years by that time. Other than that - bupkiss. She was evidently well known, but her fame was spread by word of mouth, and people don't live forever. Eventually, the history of her life fell out of the mouths of the people. It can't be helped. We had the written word, but it was expensive, being hand lettered on animal skins.

Saint Gregory of Tours

stone

by

Jean Marcellin

We take "the media" for granted, but there were more than 1,400 years between the birth of Christ and the invention of the printing press, which was just a faint portent of "the press" that Donald Trump rebukes daily.

There ARE some media outlets, like Fox News, that have a definite corporate agenda, but not all of them do. The really professional news outlets tell us who, what, when and where, i.e., the facts of the matter, and they do try to be as reliable as possible, relying upon proven data and statistics that has been fact checked in several ways before being published. 

Historia Franconum

by

Saint Gregory of Tours

(30 November, 538 - 17 November 594)

If you avoid the cultish purveyors of conspiracy theories and sample all of the big reputable outfits, you'll find the truth about a topic and can feel fairly sure of your conclusions. This is how I know that Trump was lying like mad throughout the entire broadcast last night. I read and watch a wide variety of media offerings these days, and proof of his lies are regularly trotted out for inspection on the news programs that Trump tries so hard to discredit.

We live in an alarming era and I can't afford to ignore the news while I float around the hermitage, singing and praying. The news that I ignored while I was in the convent was not scary news like we have these days.

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

EVANGELIZATION

A few days ago, an acquaintance told me, essentially, that the reason why she would minister to her neighbor is to bring them to Jesus Christ. In her mind, Jesus told us to love our neighbor, not for the sake of the love that mirrors God's love for us, but as a method of bringing that neighbor to the church.

She made it clear that she wouldn't feed the hungry, clothe the naked or visit the prisoner without making a big deal out of the fact that she was there on behalf of Jesus Christ. Actually, she was in a white hot fury when she said it. She went on to insist that, by God, those damn people were gonna know about Jesus Christ, whether they liked it or not.  Hoo boy.

Fortunately, the woman is as selfish as she is misguided, and the closest she comes to actually doing anything for anyone else is flapping her gums after the sermon at the local big box church. She doesn't get a lot of opportunities to give the poor yet another reason to despise the Christians for their hypocrisy, ulterior motives and the way they look upon the souls of the converts as some sort of currency.

My impression of Jesus is that people loved him precisely because he loved them without conditions. He radiated love. He WAS love personified. It didn't matter if they'd been a prostitute or a tax collector. He turned his love on them and BAM!

If you believe that God is just a spiritual merchant, you're going to assume that if you bring him converts, you're going to get something in return and if you are kind to the poor, then God owes you something.

I feel sorry for people who have such a narrow (and false) picture of the Almighty because it means that He is very far away from their hearts.

Here is the fact: If you are close to God, you radiate God's love because that is what naturally happens. You cannot swim in the ocean of God's Love without becoming saturated with Him. Then, when you turn your face onto the poor and suffering, you are turning God's love on them.

God does not say, "I will only love you if you follow me." God is Love, and He loves all his creation.

He DOES say that those who love HIM will follow him and those who follow him naturally go to Heaven because where He is, there is heaven.

Jesus told us that the two most important commandments are to love God and love one's neighbor as much as oneself. The first commandment naturally leads to the second one He mentioned.
         
If we love God, we have already received our reward. We don't need to love our neighbor as a method of obtaining something from God. We have already received everything there is to be had.

This acquaintance I mentioned at the top of this diary entry DOES look upon God as a merchant. She has said, many times, that if she does certain things, then God will "bless" her. It's that stupid "prosperity Gospel" - the modern heresy. I tried to help her see that God is NOT a merchant and that our reward is being able to go to heaven, NOT having enough money to buy a vacuum cleaner. But she refuses to see God as anything but a spiritual merchant. Her relationship with Him is pervaded by sadness and regret because of her misunderstanding about his nature.

Please don't make the mistake of this acquaintance. Jump right into God with both feet. Soak yourself in the Ocean of Divine Mercy and Love. Prayer, meditation, and all the other methods recommended in scripture, help us to do this. Most people are not instantaneously purified when they embark upon the spiritual life. Even the people close to Jesus, in the flesh, were not immediately divested of all their defects. Just look at what Judas did! But, if we would all just follow what Jesus said, taking special care of the first two commandments, then no amount of artifice, double-dealing or ulterior motive will come into play.

We will become more and more like Jesus, as time goes on. Our evangelization will arise out of our very being. But it isn't a business arrangement. It is far more organic and simple than that.

You cannot swim in the Ocean of Mercy without getting wet.

Silver Rose

BRING IN THE NEW YEAR WITH SOME QUIET SAINTS

SAINT EUPHROSYNE

Although today is the Solemnity of the Blessed Virgin Mary, mother of God, there are more than enough books, articles and blog posts about our Blessed Mother, so that I don't feel I have much to offer on that score. But I DO like to highlight the little known saints, as you know - and talk a little bit about them, especially if they are female and monastic, because I relate personally to those stories.

Saint Euphrosyne of Alexandria

As is the case for many saints of the early church, especially FEMALE saints, we know very little about Euphrosyne, other than she was the virgin daughter of Paphnutis, a merchant of Alexandria, Egypt, sometime in the early 5th century. Rebelling against her father, she took to monastic life and went about in the disguise of a monk, in order that no one would know who she was. She used the name "Smaragdus," a name which means "emerald" and which has some significance.

I that think one reason she sought to hide the fact that she was female was that it was particularly dangerous for women to flout societal expectations of marriage and motherhood. Obviously, she did not wish to be caught by her relatives and forced to marry against her will, and the only loose association of monastics nearby was all-male.

Saint Euphrosyne of Alexandria

Euphrosyne fits into the paradigm of a storyline repeated about several of these early female saints, i.e., that her own father didn't know her, her disguise was so expert, and that he consulted with her on many occasions. Finally, as she was about to die, she divulged her true identity to him, and he was so overcome by the revelation and all that it meant, that he took her place in her hermitage after her death and continued as a monastic from that day forward.

This story about her is not considered specifically valid for her, but the underlying paradigm of the wealthy man who seeks and receives spiritual instruction from a person of lesser social status and then becomes confirmed and abandons his wealth to follow Jesus is a type of parable that Christians continue to tell one another since the early Christian era. The message, therefore, is bona fide, even if the details of the story and the participants are not.

An old fresco, depicting portions of Saint Euphrosyne's life

Euphrosyne WAS likely a female hermit of Alexandria. Many other things are inferred, such as her surreptitious taking of the veil without her father's consent, since NO ONE was consenting to their  young daughter throwing away her life (at least substantially shortening it) by devoting herself to a life of prayer and meditation, least of all the fathers of prosperous merchant class families. If Euphrosyne was a monastic, chances are good that her father didn't approve.

The bit about her father becoming a hermit after her death and occupying her monastic cell for the last ten years of his life is what stretches the imagination. Few genuine tales are that neat, and grand spiritual conversions in which the wealthy abandon their money for the sake of God remain few and far between. Even the young, wealthy man couldn't bear to part with his gold and possessions in order to follow Jesus. We aspire to this high spiritual metamorphosis, however, which is why we really like this paradigm and have used it in many stories about the saints.

Saint Euphrosyne of Alexandria

Saint Euphrosyne of Alexandria's story is authentic because it stirs authentic Christian feeling in our hearts and pushes us toward Jesus and away from filthy lucre. It is a "true" story because it is true to the Christian message.

SAINT ZDISLAVA OF LEMBERK

1220-1252

Here is another female saint who is not terribly famous, but a bit more well-known than Euphrosyne of Alexandria, and I am enjoying learning about her. She was ALSO the daughter of a well-to-do and aristocratic family, this time in Czechoslovakia, in the middle ages. 

Like Euphrosyne, she longed to become a hermitess and went to the forest at the age of 7, resolved to do just that, but her family tracked her down and brought her back to the castle, from whence she later married a nobleman, the Count of Lemberk.

Lemberk Chateau

Zdislava and her husband had 4 children, but her domestic life did not dampen her religious ardor, since she received Holy Communion every day, as much as was possible, and she experienced regular ecstasies and visions.

Of special interest for Zdislava was the care of the poor, the sick, and the homeless. Her husband wasn't too thrilled with having to share his personal space with the many destitute people she invited to live with them while she treated their illnesses, and even threatened to throw a sick beggar into the street, on one occasion, but when he approached the beggar's resting-place, all he found was a crucifix among the bedsheets. The beggar was nowhere to be found.

Whether that apocryphal story is accurate or not is also up for debate, but it is cited as the reason why he allowed Zdislave to contribute money to a foundation for the new Dominican convent nearby.

Please note the echo of the similar story to the first saint I discussed in this blog post. A person of lower social stature (the beggar) causes a high-born and/or wealthy person (Count Lemberk) to relent in his persecution of the saint's activities, and even assists the saint in accomplishing some aim, becoming converted to our Lord's work in the process.

Saint Zdislava's resting place

Basilica of St. Lawrence and Saint Zdislava

Zdislava was still fairly young when she died on January 1, 1252, and her husband is said to have experienced a vision of her "in glory" upon her death.

BASILICA OF SAINT LAWRENCE AND SAINT ZDISLAVA

Zdislava's remains are housed in the Basilica of Saint Lawrence in Jablonne, to which they had been transferred in 1731. The Basilica endured many hardships and operates as a type of museum for sacred art.

The Lemberk Chateau, where Zdislava lived with her family, is also located in Jablonne and can be toured during certain parts of the year.

Lemberk Chateau - the home of Saint Zdislava

Zdislava is the patron saint of the Czech nation, and her visage can be seen throughout the country, in various public venues. Here is a picture of her, emblazoned on a well, which I found in Wikimedia.

I hope my readers will pay special attention to this saint, since I hear from many women that they too wish to live a life completely devoted to God, but it is hard to do when the demands of domestic life come into play. My position is that an intense spiritual life is still possible in the bosom of the family. It may not reach the mystical heights of a monk or nun whose entire day is devoted to prayer, meditation, and serving the Lord in a monastic institution, but it can come darn near to it.

Keeping in mind that this particular saint (and others of the upper classes) most assuredly had servants to do the hard work of domestic maintenance. Others were cooking and cleaning, no doubt, leaving time and space for the saint to care for the sick and the poor. We shouldn't be too ambitious for ourselves, as far as establishing monasteries and serving large numbers of poor people.  Experiencing ecstasies and floating around the house like angels are also not reasonable to expect, since most of us live rather pedestrian lives that make ordinary demands upon our time, but we CAN devote every action to the Lord by an action of the will and the heart, reminding ourselves to remain humble in our aspirations.

In my life, these saints help inspire me to stay focused on the Lord and his service, and to develop more kindness to the poor, sick, and disadvantaged. I highly recommend them.

Saint Zdislava, with child

Today, it is snowing in Albuquerque, and it is rather fun, since we don't get much of the white stuff and, when we do, it rarely sticks for long. While writing this post, I saw a large flock of Canadian geese walk across the snow-covered grass in single file, in their own gray version of the yearly Rose Bowl Parade in Pasadena. I prefer the quiet, stately walk of the geese.

House keeping duties of cooking, cleaning and laundry occupy my day, between the prayers, meditations, and episodes of dog walkies.

I pray for a much improved year in 2019, in every respect.

God bless us all

Silver Rose