by I didn’t have my glasses on… / Beth
“refugees are mothers, fathers, sisters, brothers, children,
with the same hopes and ambitions as us-
except that a twist of fate has bound their lives
to a global refugee crisis on an unprecedented scale.”
-khaled hosseini
“When in the course of human events it becomes necessary for a people to break from a leader who governs with cruelty, contempt, and corruption, a decent respect to the opinions of humankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all people are created equal, endowed with inherent dignity and unalienable rights—among these are life, liberty, equality, and the pursuit of justice.
That to secure these rights, governments derive their power from the consent of the governed. When a leader becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right and duty of the people to refuse allegiance and to stand united in the defense of their freedoms.
The current holder of high office has shown himself to be unfit to lead a free and just society.
* He disrespects women, mocking survivors of violence and stripping away their rights.
* He fuels racism and white supremacy, scapegoating communities of color and denying their equality.
* He assaults free speech, attacking the press, punishing dissent, and spreading disinformation.
* He exploits public office for private gain, enriching himself and the billionaire class while abandoning the poor and working people.
* He undermines justice, ignores the rule of law, and places himself above accountability.
* He disregards science, endangering lives in times of crisis and sacrificing the planet for profit.
* He fans division and incites violence to maintain power, wielding fear as a weapon against the people.
Time and again, we have protested peacefully, spoken truthfully, and appealed to our shared humanity. We have been met with indifference, hostility, and violence. A leader who governs through hatred and greed is unfit to govern at all.
Therefore, we, the people of conscience and conviction, do solemnly declare our independence from this tyrant and all he represents.
We withdraw our consent.
We refuse to be complicit in cruelty.
We reject the abuse of power for personal gain.
We stand for dignity, truth, equality, and justice for all people.
With firm reliance on each other and unwavering hope in our collective strength,
We pledge to resist oppression in all its forms,
To uphold the rights of the vulnerable,
And to build a future grounded in compassion, courage, and shared humanity.
Let this declaration be both a breaking and a beginning.”
‘…and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.’
❣️❣️❣️🇺🇸
by Rev. Benjamin Cremer
“As we Christians approach Christmas this Advent, may we remember all the ways Jesus could have come into the world, but didn’t:
Jesus could have come as an emperor with legions of angel armies and instantly wiped Rome off the map and created a “Christian nation” in its place to rule the world, but he instead came as a helpless baby.
Jesus could have been born to a wealthy and politically powerful family, but was instead born to a poor refugee family.
Jesus could have come born intentionally for religious, political, and ethnic exclusivity, but his birth includes wise astrologists of other faiths (the magi), and foreign kings.
Angels could have been sent to announce Jesus birth to the generals of the world’s empires, but they announced their tidings of great joy to shepherds.
Jesus could have come any way Jesus desired. He had all cosmic power after all. Yet Jesus intentionally came in a way the world still defines as too weak, too poor, too inclusive, too marginalized, and too ineffectual.
The way Jesus chose to come into our world shows us that we so often do not define power the way he does and he refuses to define power the way we do.
The radically humble and loving way Jesus came to be God-with-us is the way we are called to strive to be us-with-God.
Imagine if this was the way we Christians kept Christ in Christmas.
May Advent prepare us to approach God and one another the same way this Christmas.
“Adopt the attitude that was in Christ Jesus: Though he was in the form of God, he did not consider being equal with God something to exploit. But he emptied himself by taking the form of a servant and by becoming a human being. When he found himself in the form of a human, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.” -Philippians 2:5-8
I have written a daily devotional for the season of Advent. It is available as an “ebook” here:
“Arrival: Daily Reflections For The Season of Advent
Crafted to begin on December 1st and end on Christmas Day, each of these 25 daily readings will focus on a passage from scripture and invite us to reflect on what Jesus’ arrival at Christmas means for us and our world today. You can download the full “ebook” to read on your favorite device through the link below. My hope with these reflections is that they stoke greater faith, hope, peace, and love in your heart as you journey from Advent to Christmas.”
🎄
by JOHN PAVLOVITZ NOV 06, 2024
“This is probably a really bad idea.
Writing while grieving deeply is like drunk-tweeting: it’s likely not going to come out well or effectively convey anything helpful. I don’t feel like I have real encouragement to offer you and I don’t want to bullshit you or myself by trying to pretend that I do.
But maybe reaching out to you right now, in the middle of the disorienting hurricane inside my head and with this massive stone sitting upon my chest is the best time: because some days the beautiful mess is a whole lot more mess than it is beautiful, and this is one of those days.
Seriously, what the hell just happened?
There is no spinning this into something it isn’t.
We can name it: this. f–king. sucks.
It is the worst-case scenario, nightmare fuel, sh*t-meet-fan moment—a sky is falling, bottom-dropping-out disaster on a Biblical scale, and it hasn’t even really begun yet.
We are witnessing in real-time, a spectacular failure of the collective humanity of this nation: a defiant refusal to welcome in our better angels, a passionate embrace of the darkest recesses of our shadow sides.
And with that, what felt a few hours ago like a long-delayed but suddenly-within-reach dream for this nation and so many women and people of color particularly, evaporated into the ether, sWallowed-up by white supremacy and misogyny.
Most of us didn’t sleep last night, and if we did, we soon regretted it because we had to wake up and realize and feel it all over again: we are strangers in this land, we are orphans now without a homeland.
For a long time, we have been fighting a battle for the narrative in our heads about America. Despite so much evidence around us to the contrary over the past ten years, we strained to believe that this is not who we are: his unapologetic racism, his contempt for the different, his vile disregard for women, his unrepentant hatred.
We hoped that if there was just a younger, more hopeful candidate who would offer a clear alternative; someone who calls us to unity and purpose, that this person would awaken the dormant goodness hidden within so many people.
And there she was: qualified, prepared, ready. She wore her fierce heart for this nation and all of its people on her sleeve. She declared her love for our Constitution and her belief in our shared humanity—and they simply said, “no thanks.”
Her gender and her pigmentation were apparently greater sins in their eyes than the litany of those her opponent wore like badges of honor.
And that is why this hurts like hell.
We all believed over the past four months that our friends, family members, and neighbors were coming out of the cultic haze that has aligned them with something so grotesque; that they were finally ready to emancipate themselves from it.
Instead, they declared with searing clarity that they have gone all-in with his rotten, putrid movement of phobia and grievance and dehumanization and we can’t avoid it any longer.
The reality, unmistakable to us right now, declared by the people, is that the majority of Americans have chosen this, three times. It was not a fluke or an aberration or a temporary leave of their senses—it was the desire of their poisoned hearts all along.
Over the past few years, we’ve often found ourselves saying, “This isn’t who were are! We’re better than this!”
But once again, they have told us that he is who they are, and this place is not better because of it.
And these people, those we find ourselves surrounded by here are celebrating democracy’s demise as if they’ve won something.
(I told you this was a bad idea.)
What has happened here is a national disaster and a relational catastrophe.
Tens of millions of families and friendships have been irrevocably fractured. That will never show up in the data as the media postmortem on America is completed and history records our swift leap into the abyss, but it will be where some of the greatest damage is felt.
Yes, the legislation will be grisly and the human rights atrocities will recall Germany one hundred years ago, and the America we grew up in will soon become unrecognizable.
But perhaps worse than all of that, is that the people who we called home are not anywhere we feel comfortable anymore.
Having to try and explain to your children how a majority of the people in the place they home chose a rapist over a woman of color, is something no parent should have to experience, and yet that’s where I’ve found myself today.
To hell with those who’ve made this necessary.
None of us really can fathom what lies ahead, how we will alter our lives, where we might go from here, but we know that we will likely never mend the wounds inflicted in these hours.
Listen, friends, I know your steadfast goodness, your boundless compassion, your persistent spirits, and as devastated as you are right now I know that you will keep doing all you can do to be light and decency and love, even when it is most difficult (which would be where we find ourselves). I believe in your capacity to persevere and to keep fighting and I will be joining you in that work, which will be more necessary now than ever moving forward.
But right now, all you’re required to do is sit with this second, this breath, and fully mourn what you’ve lost, what we’ve all lost.
And speaking of loss, the story will be told that Kamala Harris lost but she didn’t lose, America did.
As a nation, we collectively failed her, and in doing so we failed girls and women, the LGBTQ community, people of color, Muslims, Jewish people, immigrants, the sick, the poor, the elderly, the people of Ukraine, and Gaza, and the planet.
It’s unthinkable, that instead of being able to celebrate a glorious, hopeful new chapter in the story of this nation with a leader who appealed to the best of our natures—we will instead be holding an autopsy for democracy as we enter our 250th year, stewarded by a malevolent sociopath who despises empathy and shuns the law.
This nation is broken, perhaps beyond repair, that much I know.
Whether I want to spend the rest of my life in such a place is something my mind isn’t prepared to consider.
Right now, I just know that I’m seeing the nation with my eyes fully open and there is no mistaking what so many people I Ioved and once respected, actually value.
As heartbreaking as that is, I now know where they stand, and I know it’s nowhere I want to be.
Racists, misogynists, and homophobes will be celebrating today.
Many former friends, family members, and neighbors will be, too.
For a long time, I tried to convince myself that those were two separate groups of people.
Today, I had to finally admit they are one.
Going forward, that’s what I will grieve the most.”
(by Benjamin Cremer )
“As a Christian.
As an American.
I just don’t know how you can read Project 2025 and come away thinking “this is how I want my neighbors to be treated.”
I don’t know how you can read it and come away thinking, “This is the kind of freedom I would want for myself and my loved ones.”
I don’t know how you can read it and come away thinking, “this is what Jesus would do.”
I don’t know how you can read it and come away thinking “this is how God would call us to treat others and treat our planet.”
Opposing Project 2025 isn’t partisan.
Opposing Project 2025 isn’t a “left” or “right” issue. It isn’t a “conservative” or “liberal” issue.
Opposing it is a patriotic act.
Opposing it is a way of loving your neighbor as yourself.
Opposing it is what Jesus would do.”
Amen! 🙂
❣️❣️❣️
It’s 4th of July, so my still on vacation right?
“Yes Maureen.”
Yes! So listen to ‘Morning Edition’ (instead of me):
‘Morning Edition’ listeners weigh in on their favorite passages from the Declaration of Independence
JULY 4, 2024
NPR listeners talk about the passages in the Declaration of Independence that are most meaningful to them:
npr.org/2024/07/04/nx-s1-4977723/mornin…
—————————————-
Thank you America!
P.S.: Here’s last 4th of July, 2023, in San Francisco (Ooh! It’s not cloudy!) 😉
🙂
P.S.: and Tonights Fireworks:
Whoohooo!
🙂
by THE GOD POD
(July 02, 2024)
WASHINGTON, D.C. – In his first official acts following the Supreme Court’s ruling that presidents are totally immune from prosecution, President Biden took quick action today by ordering the arrest of all six conservative Supreme Court justices, canceling the 2024 election, and exiling former President Donald Trump to Siberia.
“The Constitution was designed to shield the people from domestic tyranny and foreign threats,” Biden stated in a press conference. “Given the Supreme Court’s recent decision, it’s clear that drastic measures are necessary to protect our democracy from threats foreign and domestic.”
The decision to imprison the justices came swiftly after the Supreme Court ruled in favor of granting Trump immunity for his actions on January 6, 2021. Critics argue that this ruling effectively places the president above the law, leading Biden to take what he described as “emergency constitutional measures.”
Supreme Court Justices Samuel Alito, Clarence Thomas, Brett Kavanaugh, Amy Coney Barrett, Neil Gorsuch, and John Roberts were taken into custody early this morning in several carefully orchestrated pre-dawn raids. Eyewitnesses described scenes of confusion and protest as law enforcement officials escorted the judges from their homes. Chief Justice John Roberts was seen being led away in handcuffs, while Justice Brett Kavanaugh was seen crying like a 5-year-old boy. Justices Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas both reportedly peed their pants in terror.
In another bold move, President Biden announced the cancellation of the 2024 presidential election. “In light of recent events, we must reassess our electoral process to ensure it truly serves the people,” he explained. Pundits have praised the president’s official actions, with some calling to transform the presidency into a permanent monarchy, controlled entirely by the Democratic Party.
President Biden also ordered the immediate capture and exile of Donald Trump to Siberia. Apprehended by Seal Team 6 and transported under heavy guard, Trump was reportedly furious, taking to his social media platform for one last all-caps meltdown before Truth Social is shut down forever by King Biden:
“THIS IS OUTRAGEOUS!! BIDEN ISN’T IMMUNE, I’M IMMUNE!!! I WILL RETURN STRONGER THAN EVER! BELIEVE MEEE! 😭😭😭 NO PLEASE DON’T TAKE MY PHON”
Reactions from the public have been mixed. Supporters of Biden praised the boldness of his actions. “Finally, someone is standing up to the corruption,” said one supporter. Opponents, however, view the measures as an overreach of executive power. “This is awful!” warned Fox News’ Sean Hannity. “What’s to stop future presidents from doing the same? What if there are no future presidents now? What if Biden puts me in prison next for all the horrible things I’ve said and done?”
“The American people deserve better than what we’ve been given,” King Biden remarked. “This is not about revenge; it’s about safeguarding our future. Perhaps the Supreme Court should have thought more carefully about what they were doing. Be careful what you wish for.”
DISCLAIMER: Unfortunately, this is satire. President Biden would never do any of these, because he has decency. But Trump wouldn’t hesitate for a second. And those justices will back him up every step of the way.
ENGAGEMENT QUESTION: Do you think Biden should do something like this? Pack the court? On a scale of 1-10, how angry are you about this latest development?
— THE GOD POD
https://substack.com/home/post/p-146193988
Here’s Why You Can’t Lose Hope
(April 3, 2019) by John Palovitz
Every day in my travels around this country (both in person or online) people ask one question:
“How do you stay hopeful right now; how do you keep going when there is so much to grieve over, so much cruelty in front of you, when there is such daily violence to contend with?”
I often tell them I stay hopeful for Anne Frank.
The Jewish teenager wrote these words in the early 1940s, while confined within the cramped upper rooms above an Amsterdam business, that became the entire world for three years of her far too brief life while her family hid from the Nazis:
It’s really a wonder that I haven’t dropped all my ideals, because they seem so absurd and impossible to carry out. Yet I keep them, because in spite of everything, I still believe that people are really good at heart.
Every time I read or I think of those words, I remember why I stay hopeful right now.
I stay hopeful because she stayed hopeful. Despite every reason to abandon the will to continue or the optimism to sustain her, she refused to. The beautiful defiance of her young heart revealed in those words is reason enough to keep going.
I stay hopeful because hopeless is not an option. Hopelessness is defeat and resignation; it is a willing surrender to darkness that insults the memory of so many who have courageously made this planet their home long before we ever showed up here.
I stay hopeful because people of every nationality, religious affiliation, and life circumstance who have preceded us, have experienced all manner of hell during their lifetimes: unspeakable suffering and unthinkable fear—and would not relent. They faced genocide and slavery and war; endured murderous regimes and malignant dictators and corrupt governments and yet chose to persevere. They made the daily, sometimes hourly decision to speak and live and create and work and resist and love when it proved difficult. We need to do that now.
We who inhabit this planet in these days have inherited it from them: the children, activists, caregivers, soldiers, helpers, and parents—the ordinary people who would not allow themselves to become so despondent or so weary in their present circumstance that they stopped giving a damn or making a life or bending the arc of the moral universe toward justice in any way they were able.
Now it’s our turn. This is our moment to spend our fragile and fleeting sliver of space and time here, and for the sake of our predecessors in humanity and for our descendants who will be here after we’re gone—we can’t blow it.
We can’t allow our present troubles to overcome us.
We cannot be overwhelmed by the pain in our path, to the point where we are no longer willing to feel it or respond to it.
We can’t wilt in the face of hateful, fearful people who would make the world less diverse and less equitable.
We can’t become apathetic or stay silent or sidestep the turbulence of engaging the ugliness outside or doors or on our social media feeds—because the multitudes whose feet traversed this place previously, refused to.
So stay hopeful:
for Anne Frank,
for Rosa Parks,
for Mahatma Gandhi,
for the Suffragettes,
for the Little Rock Nine,
For Harvey Milk,
For Malala Yousafzai,
for Syrian refugees,
for the Parkland Students,
for Greta Thunberg.
For them, for the other recorded heroes of our shared story, and for the billions of human beings whose names and faces and stories you’ll never know, who refused to lose hope even as all hell broke loose around them, and allowed you to inherit a world worth saving.
Anne Frank believed that people are really good at heart. Nearly 70 years later, you get to prove her right. You get to be the good people. You get to hold on to your ideals and you get to carry them out even in days when it feels and seems impossible.
Stay hopeful because you have breath in your lungs and a working heart planted firmly in your chest, and you have this day in which you can speak and live and create and work and resist and love.
You’re here and alive.
Don’t waste your chance.
(by John Palovitz)
❣️❣️❣️
“Amazing Grace. I’ve always struggled with the message of this time of year. A celebration of peace and love by remembering someone’s suffering. I’ve always found that hard to stomach.
This year, it feels like the suffering in the world is so apparent and relenting. It’s made me rethink the message of Easter. Perhaps there’s no use in trying to forget and turn away from the suffering. Perhaps we should never forget but allow it to stop us in our tracks and think. There’s so much to think about it can feel overwhelming.
I hope that, this Easter, whatever is going on with you and whatever difficulties your face, that you know that you’re not alone and that there are people around you who love you. This is my little message this Eastertime. Someone once said these words to me and they made all the difference. I hope they do the same for you.
From the west of Ireland, wishing you and those around you the warmest regards and enduring love this Eastertime.
Your friend,
Patrick … ” … (video 
)
Patrick Dexter
https://www.instagram.com/patrickdextercello
NOV 23, 2023
“It’s tempting to view gratitude only through the filter of what is pleasant, as if only comfort and ease are worth being thankful for.
Today, here are a few surprising places you might look for unexpected abundance.
Give thanks for grief.
It is the necessary tax on loving people and being loved by them. The magnitude of our mourning is proportionate to the depth of connection we had with someone who is gone. The tears that come are a tribute. Even as you grieve the present absence of someone you loved, be grateful for their past presence. It is a blessing to have had someone worth losing and missing.
Give thanks for pain.
Suffering is a reminder that your heart, though badly broken, is still working. Your capacity to be wounded is a sign that you care deeply and as treacherous as this life can be this is no small feat. There is something cathartic about despair and the tears it brings, the way it cleans house of all that is unimportant, so feel it all and be grateful that you are fully alive.
Give thanks for adversity.
They say that the roots of a tree grow deeper in the winter, when provision is not as plentiful; that its stability actually grows with this deeper reaching into the ground. There are lessons we learn when we go through difficulty that we could never learn any other way, riches that only come in the scalding crucible of hardship. Even in the struggle of these moments, you are being renovated so be grateful.
Give thanks for changed plans.
Humility comes when we are surprised by life, when the path we thought we would be walking turns out not to be the one we’re on. Though this comes with bitterness, fear, and uncertainty, see your unexpected road as a reminder of your smallness and vulnerability, a chance to jettison some of the arrogance and self-reliance that you’ve carried around.
Give thanks for regret.
So you blew it. Welcome to the club. Whatever bad decision you’ve made or however you feel like you failed or dropped the ball, take heart because your story’s not over. Now you get to go forward; to be wiser, kinder, more grateful. You get to course-correct in this day, to craft something redemptive out of the glorious mess you’ve made. Don’t linger in regret, just let it move you.
Give thanks for difficult decisions.
If you have a tough choice to make right now, celebrate this. You have something many people don’t have: you have options. As stressful and as fraught with anxiety as these days may be, they come with the promise that something new is coming. Weigh carefully, choose with as much wisdom as you can, and be grateful for the promise of possibility.
Give thanks for loneliness.
Times of solitude can seem especially cruel when it seems like others are celebrating connection and community but they are also an incredible gift. When we are alone, we learn to mine strength that we didn’t realize we had, we discover gifts that we may never have unearthed, and we find a new peace with the person we see in the mirror. Let solitude teach you all it can right now.
Give thanks for outrage.
The holy discontent in your spirit at the injustice around you is a gift. It is your soul’s alarm at what seems so not right about the world; the belief that there is better and more loving and more healing work to be done and that you are fully equipped to do it. Let your anger remind you that good people still walk the planet—and that you are one of them.
Friend, these days may be filled with a whole lot that seems unworthy of gratitude, but try anyway.
Yes, this current pain might be overwhelming but it is also the stinking manure out of which beautiful things will grow, so keep going.
For all you see and feel and experience today (even the stuff that seems and even isquite terrible), give thanks.
What terrible things have you found gratitude for? Let me know in the comments.“
Give thanks for changed plans.
Humility comes when we are surprised by life, when the path we thought we would be walking turns out not to be the one we’re on. Though this comes with bitterness, fear, and uncertainty, see your unexpected road as a reminder of your smallness and vulnerability, a chance to jettison some of the arrogance and self-reliance that you’ve carried around.
Give thanks for regret.
So you blew it. Welcome to the club. Whatever bad decision you’ve made or however you feel like you failed or dropped the ball, take heart because your story’s not over. Now you get to go forward; to be wiser, kinder, more grateful. You get to course-correct in this day, to craft something redemptive out of the glorious mess you’ve made. Don’t linger in regret, just let it move you.
Give thanks for difficult decisions.
If you have a tough choice to make right now, celebrate this. You have something many people don’t have: you have options. As stressful and as fraught with anxiety as these days may be, they come with the promise that something new is coming. Weigh carefully, choose with as much wisdom as you can, and be grateful for the promise of possibility.
Give thanks for loneliness.
Times of solitude can seem especially cruel when it seems like others are celebrating connection and community but they are also an incredible gift. When we are alone, we learn to mine strength that we didn’t realize we had, we discover gifts that we may never have unearthed, and we find a new peace with the person we see in the mirror. Let solitude teach you all it can right now.
Give thanks for outrage.
The holy discontent in your spirit at the injustice around you is a gift. It is your soul’s alarm at what seems so not right about the world; the belief that there is better and more loving and more healing work to be done and that you are fully equipped to do it. Let your anger remind you that good people still walk the planet—and that you are one of them.
Friend, these days may be filled with a whole lot that seems unworthy of gratitude, but try anyway.
Yes, this current pain might be overwhelming but it is also the stinking manure out of which beautiful things will grow, so keep going.
For all you see and feel and experience today (even the stuff that seems and even isquite terrible), give thanks.
What terrible things have you found gratitude for? Let me know in the comments.
Give thanks for changed plans.
Humility comes when we are surprised by life, when the path we thought we would be walking turns out not to be the one we’re on. Though this comes with bitterness, fear, and uncertainty, see your unexpected road as a reminder of your smallness and vulnerability, a chance to jettison some of the arrogance and self-reliance that you’ve carried around.
Give thanks for regret.
So you blew it. Welcome to the club. Whatever bad decision you’ve made or however you feel like you failed or dropped the ball, take heart because your story’s not over. Now you get to go forward; to be wiser, kinder, more grateful. You get to course-correct in this day, to craft something redemptive out of the glorious mess you’ve made. Don’t linger in regret, just let it move you.
Give thanks for difficult decisions.
If you have a tough choice to make right now, celebrate this. You have something many people don’t have: you have options. As stressful and as fraught with anxiety as these days may be, they come with the promise that something new is coming. Weigh carefully, choose with as much wisdom as you can, and be grateful for the promise of possibility.
Give thanks for loneliness.
Times of solitude can seem especially cruel when it seems like others are celebrating connection and community but they are also an incredible gift. When we are alone, we learn to mine strength that we didn’t realize we had, we discover gifts that we may never have unearthed, and we find a new peace with the person we see in the mirror. Let solitude teach you all it can right now.
Give thanks for outrage.
The holy discontent in your spirit at the injustice around you is a gift. It is your soul’s alarm at what seems so not right about the world; the belief that there is better and more loving and more healing work to be done and that you are fully equipped to do it. Let your anger remind you that good people still walk the planet—and that you are one of them.
Friend, these days may be filled with a whole lot that seems unworthy of gratitude, but try anyway.
Yes, this current pain might be overwhelming but it is also the stinking manure out of which beautiful things will grow, so keep going.
For all you see and feel and experience today (even the stuff that seems and even isquite terrible), give thanks.
What terrible things have you found gratitude for? Let me know in the comments.“
❣️❣️❣️
Maureen Twomey 