what now?

what do you do on the day you get bad news?

charleston, part III

this may be my the last diatribe on charleston but it may not be.

 

 open letter to the murderer:

 

we are all made in God’s image.  we are ALL His children.  to hurt another human is to disgrace God.  to believe, or at least pretend to believe, that another race (nationality, creed, ideology) is such a threat to you that it gives you the right to wipe them off the face of the earth is INSANITY.  it is hyperbole.  you, white man, are not in danger of becoming extinct.  the cradle of civilization contained brown-skinned people.  you, white man, are the process of evolution and migration. The further north we traveled the lighter our skin became for our protection.  you, white man, are from a darker-skinned tribe.  get over it.  we are all just exactly alike on the inside. what difference, outside of some made-up, fearful, hateful ideology, can it possibly make?

 

to use the language of the lynch mob and declare, “you rape our women” before opening fire on innocents shows your twisted mindset.  guess what, white women aren’t YOURS!  we are not in need of your twisted protection from the black man. the protection we need, not just women, but the world, is protection from the thinking, teaching, violence and hatred in the hearts and minds of people like you!

 

may God have mercy on your soul.

 

may God have mercy on us all.

 

grace and peace

charleston, part II

i have a few more thoughts about what happened this week in charleston: do i think this is about guns?  yes.  i think any time a person in shot down in anger it's a good time to talk about our gun culture and the availability of weapons but i honestly don't see our intransigence crumbling after one more tragedy. and really my point is that this isn't about guns this is about racism (let's call it what it is: hatred).  this is about a man who indoctrinated himself or was indoctrinated by others (i suspect a bit of both) to hate.  it's the classic "us vs. them".  you see, this world is not about "us vs. them". no matter who the "us" or the "them".  this world is not about black vs. white, muslim vs. jew, male vs. female, catholic vs. protestant, sunni vs. shia, gay vs. straight, indigenous vs. pilgrim, urban vs. suburban vs. rural.  this world is about DARKNESS vs. LIGHT (put another way SIN vs. GRACE).

 

choices – that is what this world is about.  good vs. bad, right vs. wrong.  we can choose darkness or we can choose light. God is not in darkness. He is not in hatred. He is not in fear. He IS in the hearts of the families of the viciously murdered when they can, just a few short days later, say that there is not hatred in their hearts for the murderer. He is in forgiveness and love. God is love.

grace and peace

charleston, part I

below is facebook post one regarding the shooting of nine innocent people in a house of worship:

 

i wish i could think of something to say about what happened in charleston last night that would make a difference, that would make people think about racism, gun violence and our culture in a way they haven't before but i have nothing. absolutely nothing. this kind of thing just keeps happening and we just keep doing nothing. we'll shed a few tears, give a few dollars, debate the 'whys' and 'hows' and then the news coverage will fade and we will settle back into our safe,... easy, busy lives until the next mass shooting. then we'll act surprised and outraged that it happened again. we've got one maniac in colorado on trial for a mass shooting in a movie theatre and while that's in motion we get this one on the other side of the country shooting up a church. a church! but it's all the same. it's all hatred and pain and i'm sick of it. let's pray for the families and friends of the victims, let's pray for those shattered by the actions of someone they thought they knew, let's pray for this beloved country of ours that we will do a better job of teaching our children not to hate, that we will take greater care to treat mental illness, that we will pass reasonable gun legislation, that we will treat our brothers as we wish to be treated. all our brothers - the black ones, the gay ones, the muslim ones, the female ones, the poor ones, the homeless ones, the mentally ill ones, all God's children.

 

grace and peace

why i am a straight ally

here’s why i’m in favor of marriage equality:

Obergefell v. Hodges

jim obergefell just wanted to be listed on his partner’s DEATH CERTIFICATE as the spouse.  his death certificate.  they had been together 21 years.  3 months after their wedding jim’s husband died of ALS.  they married in washington DC but ohio wouldn’t recognize their union.  here’s the main problem i have with this:  it’s nobody’s business who decides to spend their life with whom.  Ii’s no one’s business with whom your neighbor sleeps, loves or marries.  just like it’s not your neighbor’s business with whom you sleep with, love or marry. 

i am a straight Christian who will never have to fight to get married (no matter how many times i might marry/divorce/remarry, etc.)  i will never have to beg and cry and sneak around to visit my spouse in the hospital or sue to be recognized on a death certificate.  if you are so sure that gay marriage won’t be recognized by God then why in the world do you care?  if you don’t believe that the second marriage of a person who is divorced with a non-scriptural divorce will be recognized by God then why do you care?  God will be the judge of all of us.  We are not the judges.

God inspired the writing of the Bible but God did not write or inspire the writing of the constitution!  no matter what the Bible says about homosexuality, the Bible is NOT our governing document.  the constitution allows for equal treatment under the law and that means if i, as a straight person, can get married then a gay person can get married as well.

i contend that if more of us were outraged by shows like “the bachelor” and “the bachelorette”, on which people compete for the affections of a mate and the prize is a marriage that is as doomed as a led balloon, we would have more of a leg to stand on when it comes to defending the “sanctity of marriage.”  THIS, we as a society, hold up as entertainment and balk at gay marriage?  how is the former okay with Christians? 

grace and peace and equality

 

the great david letterman

in my childhood it was “M*A*S*H” (11 seasons) then it was “the cosby show” (8 seasons) “cheers,” (11 seasons) “frasier,” (11 seasons) “seinfeld” (9 seasons) and “friends” (10 seasons.)  because all of these live in syndication i’ve not missed them like i will miss david letterman. 

i remember at 9 or 10 years old, on those friday nights spent at my paternal grandparents’ house, getting up to watch while the rest of the house slept.  i’ve always been an insomniac and everyone slept too early for me so i would sneak out of bed at 11:30 with my brother and my cousins sleeping and turn the TV down real low, sit just inches from the screen and watch dave. 

 

i loved it:  larry bud melman and the man under the stairs, stupid pet tricks and paul shaffer, hello deli and biff henderson.  sometimes my brother got up to watch with me.  i loved that too.  i’ve watched dave for 33 years; i’m 41.  i’ve found myself crying every night as i watch his last season.  i cried with him after his heart surgery and i cried with him after 9/11.  i’ll cry with him tonight as he says goodbye.  i’m sentimental so my attachment to a person i’ve never met or seen in person isn’t that odd but because he's the man who made a scared, lonely little girl laugh every single night i desperately mourn his leaving. 

 

for an insomniac late night TV is a lifesaver.  when i was a teenager we didn’t have cable and we only got 4 channels, ABC, NBC, CBS and FOX.  FOX still went off the air at about midnight.  while dave was on NBC, and followed the tonight show, i had those 2 glorious hours to myself while everyone else was out or asleep.  he moved to CBS when i was in college.  i watched every night. 

 

i cannot imagine his absence.  i love stephen colbert and will watch his show but there will always be a part of me that mourns dave.

 

grace and peace and dave

 

 

5 years gone

imagine with me, if you will, something significant that happened to you in 2010:  a special birthday, an anniversary, a birth, death, a book you read, a movie you love; imagine all that's happened to you since then.  now imagine that every day of that time - since that one special day or one memorable event - you have had to relive not that special event but the worst thing that's ever happened to you.  for 5 years every day has been a constant reminder of the worst time in your life.

 

that's the only way i realistically know how to convey what PTSD feels like.  PTSD steals your life, it steals who you are and keeps your brain stuck in the most terrible of moments.  intellectually i know it's 2015 and not 2010 but you can't convince my heart or my gut of that. 

 

may 2 is the hardest day of the year for me in that the calendar is in line with my memory and my emotions.  it's about SO much more that one, long ago, may 2.  the date conjures the aftermath as well as the events of the actual flood.  it's not just the driving through water in my neighborhood and accepting that i would die or sitting on the side of briley parkway waiting to die after my car quit.  it's the shock, the visual of all my soaked belongings piled in my front yard, the cuts, bruises, scrapes, sore muscles, tears, rages, standing in line for 5 hours for a building permit, having to take daddy with me for a tetanus shot, the aches, pains, fears, the begging for money, the paperwork, the 16 hour days rebuilding, the many hours at lowes, the decisions, the  aloneness, the helplessness, the bills, bills and more bills.  

 

i didn't just lose 36 years of things - i lost the things that really matter:  peace, security, comfort, HOME.  i lost returning home at the end of the day to the one place that brings respite.  i don't have that anymore.  5 years later it's still missing.  

 

today i acknowledge and mourn the lives that were lost.  i made it out with my pets and for that i am eternally grateful.  11 lives were lost.  i'm glad i don't know the number of animals lost.

 

i am grateful i had a job to go to today (though i cried for a good deal of the day), i am grateful daddy came to check on me, i am grateful yesterday was payday so i could go to the bookstore after work (today is independent bookstore day - I won't tell how much i spent), i am grateful the pets are safe and happy.  i am grateful that the day is almost over, i am grateful tomorrow i celebrate the birthday of one of my dearest, i am grateful for all i have.  i pray that i never take one single article for granted.

 

don't get PTSD.  it's not worth it.  it hurts.

 

grace and peace.