Simply

LUKE 6:27

 But to you who hear I say, love your enemies, do good to those who hate you

AND

 bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you.

This is for all of our friends. Liberal, conservative, neoconservative and libertarian.

Feelings of the future

First, doom, doom and more doom, with a side of doom.

I've had 'feelings' about the future. Most would come in the dreams that stuck with me, minus the dream about the pillow sized chocolate bar I dreamed of as a kid. Sometimes as 'feelings', I no better word. I predicted the presidency (of the US) since about Reagan with some fuzziness somewhere around the Bush II years. This year I feel Mr. Trump will be president, even though all signs point to other outcomes.

I also feel that my dear husband will have boys. When he gave me a call about a birthmother wanting to interview us earlier this year, I was excited until I heard that she was carrying a girl. It is not that I want boys over girls, as I think of boys, males in general, as idiotic mobile pee units.  Girls follow directions and sit still more often than boys, or guys or my beloved husband. So I knew it wasn't going to work out but I figured the interview, later interviews, would be a good experience. Maybe that experience will bring me closer to my own loud, squirmy, mobile pee units. Even with the doom.

The Community of Saints

I was listening to a Focus on the Family podcast about perinatal hospice, and the struggle with the family's faith while they prepared for the death of their unborn child. And being a historian I thought about the countless stories in the past of stillborn and infant death and the families in the Anglo speaking world's (sticking with the material I know) pain, suffering and loss; a particular pain that is less felt among middle class Christians in America.

I love the community of saints, those throughout time and space who worship our G-d, who have suffered. Some suffering is unique to their particular place and time, as I doubt few people will have to go through what some of their early martyrs had to endure. But with demands of a bigger and more controlling government over everyday life, I can imagine it could return in another form.

The Christians of the past who maintained the faith provide me strength. So do the saints of the present who point to Christ and help me find my way to him also support my walk. It is not only in their success but mainly in their suffering. I think of Barbara, the mother of my husband's old landlord, who lost her sight after a stroke of some sort.  She accepted this with such grace, saying it wasn't what she wanted but what G-d willed. She remained cheerful and strong through the various other health challenges age brought her family.

Same G-d

In the Sunday Washington Post Magazine there was a piece about an African refugee camp where the residents are trying to escape the violence of the Sudan. One of the photographs was of a barn with benches, well a church, but it looked like a barn with benches. The caption said it was a Presbyterian church. Outside the church you could see children? other people through the wire "windows".

Sunday was my monthly obligation to attend my husband's suburban Presbyterian church.

So in my mind I was comparing the two. Not to go into too much detail and kill too much prose, we are in an earthly heaven. My husband and his fellow congregants don't and probably will not encounter some of the struggles as those Presbyterians in the camp. They both will struggle with sin, envy, adultery, idolatry, and the like. However it would probably express itself differently. Still sin, regardless of the quality of the water. Jesus died for all of us.

Foreign missionaries

I'm still waiting to see missionaries from Africa and Asia to bring the Gospel of Jesus Christ to the heathen westerners.

Judgy Post- There is only one man who defines me and his name is Jesus

I have a small irritation with other women, it is those who define themselves by their romantic relationships. Or worse double down and move in/ shack up with some guy.

Yes, being single can suck. I was a 40 year old bride. I was single for at least 22 of my adult years. I never lived with a boyfriend, and did not date a lot (10 years not dating anyone), so I spent a lot of time not being in a romantic relationship. But on the plus side one of my needs for survival (shelter) was not wrapped up with another person who had no obligations to me. Thinking back to the number of times I broke up with Jochen, it was good that I could just cry about it in my own house, or the house I was sharing with roommates.

Even those not shacked up there is the constant serial monogamy. Just broke up? Find a new guy! The constant up and down roller coaster ride where she never gets off but just switches which car she's in. Yes, guys do it do, where they want you to judge them by the improvement in eye candy he has hanging from his arm. There might not be the same level of pressure to have someone around, so others can judge your worth.

The problem with being in constant relationship mode is you don't have time to really reflect who you really are when you're not trying to please, cajole, react to, placate, or consider a significant other. People are looking for their 'authentic' self, but how do you find that authentic person when you're not alone? How do you love yourself and learn to do so when you're constantly looking for others to do it for you; usually not you, but the idea of you.

I knew my worth, that I was loved and my G-d helped confirm it in the blood of his son. By the time it finally clicked and I understood that deep, deep love of Jesus, I was married..... which makes no sense.

I do love my husband. Trying to make him truly my other half has rubbed against my independent woman self. So independent woman gets the boot for the sake of marriage. But I see other women, not married, throwing their independent selves under the bus for some guy. The only man a woman should sacrifice her self, her life, is for Jesus, because he did it first, and better.

Thoughts about my gay catholic friends

Today we went to the funeral mass of a very beautiful man who even in hospice was full of life and faith. Anthony was 78 years old. With G-d's help he remained sober for 31 years. The same amount of time he had been with his same sex partner.
For the majority of the time I've been attending my church, he attended alone. After the cancer, again, when he began getting weaker, his partner John began showing up. Sitting at his side.
I sometimes joke, in my head, that I attend the "gay" mass, and you can't say that I left the Episcopal Church to get away from gays, because if that was so, I failed miserably. I appreciate their presence, because unlike some others who struggle with the Church, they are at least there. I heard a priest once say that you didn't have to agree with 100% of what the Church teaches but you have to be willing to listen to what she does teach.
Homosexuality is not a burden I bear. I have my own struggles and I try to hear what the Church has to tell me regarding my particular sins and troubles.
Anthony loved the Church, he loved Mother Mary. I believe the saints have a job and that is to point us to Christ, Anthony did that too. If you spoke with him, you'd know this.

Pontius Pilot Bureaucrat

This is probably theologically wrong and I totally accept that.

Over the past few years I have heard the scriptures regarding Jesus' being brought before Pontius Pilate, the one the few humans mentioned in the Nicene Creed.  When I hear Luke 23 and my Lord being treated like a hot potato between Herod and Pilot I cannot but think of two bureaucratic systems doing what bureaucratic systems do, particularly when they have no interest in the person, issue or whatever they are shuffling around.

We probably should be thankful that Pilot and Herod didn't decide to just have my Lord rot in prison, claiming they lost the paper work and that they need to let investigations and processes work their way through the system and they'll get back to the screaming crowds when their main investigator comes back from leave. G-d's will was done. Jesus suffered at the hands of the Roman and local governments, was put to death by the state, so that he may redeem us all.

Federal or local government oppressing you and making you suffer? Our Lord knows your pain.