Root&Source
http://rootandsource.org/feed.xml
2023-06-24T17:00:20.865000Z
Werkzeug
Or Else
http://rootandsource.org/post/or-else
2023-06-24T17:00:20.865000Z
2023-06-24T16:16:05Z
Rev. Nathan DeMay
<div>I heard a sermon yesterday that I found to be meandering, and a little off-putting. It was very macho, and made for a very macho God. God is powerful, ergo we must respect Him (sic) or else!</div>
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<div>This is not my theology. I have decided to start writing more about my theology, and in doing so I will reference the Rev. Charles Voysey's book "Theism, Or The Religion of Common Sense" (with apologies for archaic language, masculine presumptions about God, etc.).</div>
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<div>Voysey writes, </div>
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<div style="padding-left:40px;">"Power and skill, however vast, do not necessarily inspire the human soul with feelings of reverence and adoration."</div>
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<div>A God whose only attractiveness lies in its might--its power--is a God who encourages us to hide from it, to lie to it, to find loopholes, to avoid. We don't turn to it for comfort--we turn away in fear. Eventually we learn that it can be repurposed as a weapon. Believe or burn! Believe or be run through with a sword. Believe and all our social problems go away--for God is a needy teenager, who with appropriate appeasement will grace us with much favor.</div>
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<div>People either become like this needy and macho God, or they become so turned off that the word God is forever imputed with those characteristics. </div>
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<div style="padding-left:40px;">"If all we know of God was that He was possessed of unlimited power and matchless ingenuity, we should not of necessity love and worship him, for He might be malignant towards us, or altogether indifferent to our moral welfare...So my readers would do well if they pressed me for the proof, which I have promised, that God is one whom we may trust and love.</div>
<div style="padding-left:40px;"><br/></div>
<div style="padding-left:40px;">Bibles and churches give no proof except in a very roundabout way. At best, they come to us at second-hand. They are not God's thoughts, but only records of men's thoughts about God—sometimes good and lofty, at other times bad and degrading. Accepted as final authorities, they represent God now as holy and loving, now as unholy and vindictive; now as man's friend, now as man's foe."</div>
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<div>For me all scriptures must be subjected to reasonable thought. A person who is kind today and vicious tomorrow is not an emotionally stable person. They are not worthy of adoration.</div>
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<div style="padding-left:40px;">"The principle laid down by Theism—by common sense in thinking about God—is that the <b>mind</b>, or disposition, or <b>moral character </b>of God can only be inferred from His works and products, and inasmuch as man, in his highest aspect as a moral and spiritual being, is the noblest work of God of which we know anything by actual experience, our search for the moral attributes of God <b>must be prosecuted chiefly in examining the higher part of man's nature.</b>" (Emphasis mine)</div>
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<div>Or to really drive it home, </div>
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<div style="padding-left:40px;">"And we must bear in mind at every step of our enquiry this Theistic axiom: <i>God must be at least as good Himself as the best of His creatures."</i></div>
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<div>In other words, God is at least as good as the best person you know. Anything less than that is not God.</div>
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<div>More to come...</div>
With Age, Wisdom
http://rootandsource.org/post/with-age-wisdom
2023-05-12T16:34:57.779000Z
2023-05-12T16:13:43Z
Rev. Nathan DeMay
<div>Or so the old saying goes. </div>
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<div>I’m currently in a minor conflict with a…let’s say colleague? who has decided that I am Satan incarnate because…well I don’t know actually. She has a reputation for being terribly unpleasant. It’s sad because I see someone who, at the last phase of life, is miserable and in some kind of pain…emotional or physical or psychological or maybe a combination. </div>
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<div>In the days of my youth I would have eviscerated her via email outlining the many ways she’s wrong and has incorrectly accused me of things that she, actually, is responsible for. But now I just don’t have the same interest in defending and proving myself. For the most part I will simply ignore her, an idea that came to me from one of my favorite stories about the Buddha. </div>
<div><br/></div>
<div><a href="http://bodhilights.com/buddha-how-not-to-accept-others-anger">http://bodhilights.com/buddha-how-not-to-accept-others-anger</a></div>
<div><br/></div>
<div>Worth a try!</div>
Zarathustra Boostah (for democracy)
http://rootandsource.org/post/zarathustra-boostah-for-democracy
2023-05-12T16:34:59.254000Z
2022-11-06T14:56:01Z
Rev. Nathan DeMay
<div><div style="padding-left:40px;"><br /></div></div>
<div>From Zarathustra's Gathas, with a good amount of editing on my part (for clarity):</div>
<div style="padding-left:40px;"><br /></div>
<div style="padding-left:40px;"><span style="color:rgb(0, 0, 0);">Both the Lord (secular) and the Leader (religious) are to be chosen because of their </span><b><span style="color:rgb(0, 0, 0);">ethical character</span></b><span style="color:rgb(0, 0, 0);">. These two choices should be made with clear thinking, so that the acts of life are done for Wisdom, and the community of God in which the elected persons are appointed as the Rehabilitators of the oppressed is then well established, </span></div>
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<div style="padding-left:40px;"><span style="color:rgb(0, 0, 0);">Ethical character is the best good. It is radiant happiness. Radiant happiness comes to the person who is ethical for the sake of being ethical alone.</span></div>
<div><span style="color:rgb(0, 0, 0);"><span style="--en-markholder:true;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div style="padding-left:40px;"><span style="color:rgb(0, 0, 0);">May we join meritorious people in merits. May we be far from harms of the harmful. May we join the good people of the seven continents of the earth.</span></div>
<div style="padding-left:40px;"><span style="color:rgb(0, 0, 0);"><span style="--en-markholder:true;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div><span style="color:rgb(0, 0, 0);">These ideas are at least 3,000 years old. But we need reminding. America, vote for what is good, right, loving, helpful, and decent on Tuesday.</span></div>
The Star Chamber’s Wife’s Coup Attempt
http://rootandsource.org/post/the-star-chambers-wifes-coup-attempt
2022-06-24T17:33:03.670000Z
2022-06-24T17:06:01Z
Rev. Nathan DeMay
<div>I’ve been on an autobiography kick lately, or rather binging biographical documentaries. I’m fascinated by people’s lives, famous or otherwise, but famous people tend to get the attention. </div>
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<div>As we in America stand at the crossroads of modernity/democracy/progress and regressive authoritarianism, it’s easy to get dejected and to feel like there’s no point in fighting for the future. I’m an expert pessimist so this is almost always my natural response. If I were able to find a country on earth that satisfied my values I’d have moved decades ago. Alas, we must roll up our sleeves. </div>
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<div>What the documentaries I’ve watched have in common is the tale of people who did not give up. In spite of great obstacles, much of the progress of the last 50 years came from their hard work. And I do mean hard—it wasn’t convenient and easy to stand up for women’s equality or LGBTQ rights. It wasn’t a pleasant experience to constantly demand your humanity be respected regardless of race. I’m sure that they, like me, would much rather spend their life enjoying every minute, but that’s not going to be the way. </div>
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<div>So I recommend as we all wrestle with the troubles of the times to spend time getting to know the ones who’ve paved the way for us, and who are counting on us to take up the baton. </div>
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<div>On Netflix I recommend:</div>
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<div>The Death and Life of Marsha P. Johnson</div>
<div>Hating Peter Tatchell </div>
<div>Feminists, What Were They Thinking?</div>
<div>I Am Not Your Negro </div>
<div><br /></div>
<div><br /></div>
<div>On PBS:</div>
<div>Just A Girl Who Decided to Go For It</div>
<div>Amy Tan: Unintended Memoir</div>
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Pride Goeth Before A Fall (of Oppressive Forces)
http://rootandsource.org/post/pride-goeth-before-a-fall-of-oppressive-forces
2022-06-02T01:09:12.422000Z
2022-06-02T01:04:54Z
Rev. Nathan DeMay
<div>Today begins Pride Month and it is especially relevant this year, as SCOTUS prepares to destroy foundational support of human rights, as hate-fueled monsters massacre innocents to satisfy their gun-lust, and America is struggling to remain a modern democratic republic.</div>
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<div>A (very) short history lesson:</div>
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<div>On June 28th, 1969 after decades of police harassment, LGBT New Yorkers defended themselves as the police raided the Stonewall Inn. In those days many parts of this country had draconian laws against the community. The police and mafia extorted patrons of the Stonewall and similar establishments. The breaking point had been reached, and three drag queens (I’m not entirely certain how they identified, I will correct this labeling if better ones are given) lead the pushback, one of whom was Marsha P. Johnson, a black probably gender non-conforming warrior. </div>
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<div>So as we celebrate Pride, let’s not forget that it was <b>black</b> and <b>non-white</b> drag queens/gender non-conforming/trans people who lead the way forward. They put their lives on the line for <b><u>all of us</u></b>.</div>
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<div>I try to live a nonviolent life. But non-violence is not the same as complicity. </div>
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<div>As my great friend and spiritual mentor <a href="https://revjerrymaynard.org" rev="en_rl_none">Rev. Jerry Maynard</a> said:</div>
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<div style="padding-left:40px;">I believe in an active, disruptive peace. </div>
<div style="padding-left:40px;">I believe in a peace that disturbs the comfortable and soothes the afflicted. </div>
<div style="padding-left:40px;">I believe in a peace that takes risks for others. </div>
<div style="padding-left:40px;">I believe in a responsible peace that says, "I got you". </div>
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<div style="padding-left:40px;">Peace begins with me and it will never be achieved with fists or guns. </div>
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<div style="padding-left:40px;">Be better. Do better. </div>
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<div style="padding-left:40px;">"Blessed are the peacemakers for they shall be called Children of God" -Jesus, Sermon on the Mount</div><img src="https://cdn-images.postach.io/d75069e9-5c71-4121-ac7e-c18dbe27331d/c56183cf-5879-09e4-ba00-8b87590637c0/62c95602-c4f1-e28d-9d1d-96efb50f60de.jpg" style="--en-naturalWidth:474; --en-naturalHeight:707;"/><div><br /></div>
Requiem For Values
http://rootandsource.org/post/requiem-for-values
2022-05-16T19:08:18.981000Z
2022-05-16T19:01:33Z
Rev. Nathan DeMay
<div>Black bodies are not targets. </div>
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<div>Black people are not pawns in your scheme for power and profit.</div>
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<div>Black children are not sacrifices to your new Moloch. </div>
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<div>Black lives are human lives, and are sacred. </div>
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<div>Racism, and all other forms of oppression and violence against marginalized people are evil; these are truly sinful and wicked things.</div>
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<div>Human solidarity is sacramental. </div>
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<div>Black Lives Matter.</div>
<div><br /></div><img src="https://cdn-images.postach.io/d75069e9-5c71-4121-ac7e-c18dbe27331d/207f27de-2801-1315-80fd-c637bc312cbb/aa17f60f-88ab-32d1-f069-2a4133908925.jpg" style="--en-naturalWidth:567; --en-naturalHeight:671;"/><div><br /></div>
Aliveness, With Pleasure
http://rootandsource.org/post/aliveness-with-pleasure
2022-05-11T00:04:42.643000Z
2022-05-10T23:55:49Z
Rev. Nathan DeMay
<div>…I think that each of us will be fully human only when we recognize the full Alive-ness of all Creation, and act on that recognition, when we learn to "speak to that of God in Everything," and to humbly admit our dependence upon that great Web we call Creation. Hear the words of Old Jack, an elderly farmer in one of Wendell Berry's novels: </div>
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<div style="padding-left:40px;">…We are members of each other. All of us. Everything. The difference ain't in who is a member and who is not, but in who knows it and who don't. Lisa Lofland Gould, 1999 </div>
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<div>— Plain Living: A Quaker Path to Simplicity by Catherine Whitmire</div>
<div><a href="https://a.co/jevGiUO">https://a.co/jevGiUO</a></div>
<div><br /></div><img src="https://cdn-images.postach.io/d75069e9-5c71-4121-ac7e-c18dbe27331d/32fab9cd-24e9-6e62-6aac-f0c1a6c1efd9/b403d30e-e353-a96f-7d89-81e9912e4a46.jpg" style="--en-naturalWidth:4032; --en-naturalHeight:3024;"/><img src="https://cdn-images.postach.io/d75069e9-5c71-4121-ac7e-c18dbe27331d/32fab9cd-24e9-6e62-6aac-f0c1a6c1efd9/5a4d08ee-c349-ddb0-c135-a8477cc27ffb.jpg" style="--en-naturalWidth:3024; --en-naturalHeight:4032;"/><img src="https://cdn-images.postach.io/d75069e9-5c71-4121-ac7e-c18dbe27331d/32fab9cd-24e9-6e62-6aac-f0c1a6c1efd9/5d618fe6-1700-0e6f-7709-a4c1b3673edd.jpg" style="--en-naturalWidth:3024; --en-naturalHeight:4032;"/><div><br /></div>
May, I?
http://rootandsource.org/post/untitled-note
2022-05-05T16:32:43.399000Z
2022-05-01T16:07:07Z
Rev. Nathan DeMay
<div>One of my early memories involved making little baskets out of paper or plastic cups, with pipe cleaner handles. My mother and I would make them, fill them with little pieces of candy and maybe a trinket then we’d top them off with picked flowers from the area (wild, nothing stolen from anyone’s garden). We would put the baskets on neighbors front door handles or steps, ring the bell, and like two pixies fly away to the next house.</div>
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<div>Apparently the May Day Basket tradition was particularly popular in the Midwest, where I grew up, but may have ties to older European pagan practices welcoming the coming of summer. It declined in popularity to the point that I wonder if anyone does it anymore, and indeed I don’t remember if we still made them after my two younger brothers joined the family. </div>
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<div>I hope the tradition makes a comeback, it’s a simple way to get in touch with nature and share a small gift with friends and neighbors. </div>
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<div>Anyway, I offer you a virtual May Day basket, enjoy!</div>
<div><br /></div><img src="https://cdn-images.postach.io/d75069e9-5c71-4121-ac7e-c18dbe27331d/cd7694b5-4a53-51ab-3a1a-182bf51a47ea/521bf3d8-4675-5aab-2b8c-2ac98cbac95a.jpg" style="--en-naturalWidth:358; --en-naturalHeight:540;"/><div><br /></div>
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Stuck In the Middle
http://rootandsource.org/post/stuck-in-the-middle
2022-04-30T22:55:41.982000Z
2022-02-22T17:37:19Z
Rev. Nathan DeMay
<div>During this most unpleasant liturgical season, Pandemic Time, I have become even more of a TV series consumer than before. Which is saying something.</div>
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<div>I've watched all of Downton Abbey, Succession, and I'm caught up with Golden Age. Something I've noticed in all three is the drama that is entirely human-made, and which serves no real purpose other than to drive the story/indulge the character's personality issues.</div>
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<div>Plenty of theologians from across traditions have postulated that the afterlife is an experience based on our minds; Pope John Paul II postulated that Hell is the absence of God's love, and heaven is its full presence. It is a condition that is self-imposed. </div>
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<div>That's an idea that has stuck with me for a while, as it is counter to the populist understanding of Hell as a place of endless torment, with cartoonish devils poking and prodding and boiling and whipping the souls of the damned.</div>
<div><br /></div><img src="https://cdn-images.postach.io/d75069e9-5c71-4121-ac7e-c18dbe27331d/41fffeba-a713-59e8-f465-8a4c9ae18329/02d71514-4b63-005e-fde2-c0fac1daa349.jpg" style="--en-naturalWidth:600; --en-naturalHeight:802;"/><div><br /></div>
<div>I find the self-imposed idea even more relevant as I watch these TV shows about class, power, and privilege. In Succession for example, every episode is centered on someone threatening to take down the company, and then a struggle/machinations ensue amongst the Roy family as to who will unseat their patriarch and take over. So far, after three seasons, Logan Roy, their Cronus, is undefeated.</div>
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<div>What strikes me about the Roys, or the Van Rijns or the Crawleys is how much of their lives are set in opulence that <b><i>they cannot enjoy</i></b> because they're fighting some self-imposed crisis. This person isn't good enough to marry into the family because he's only a sub-baronet and not a full earl marshal, but I'm pregnant by him whatever shall we do? This scheme to keep our outlandish way of living going is ruinous, but we must try it or else we might be relegated to only a few servants. These folks across the street have a new and imposing palace, but because they haven't been here as long as us they're not quite good enough so I'll have my servants run over and make fun of theirs. </div>
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<div>This is not a life I want to live; this is not heaven, despite the mansions and gilded streets. The truth is most middle-class people live far better lives than the old aristocrats and monarchs did. If I want to change the temperature in my house, technology allows me to do so easily. I have machines that clean just about everything. I even have lights that turn themselves on and off. Forget social status, I'm comfortable and safe and I have never worried about missing a meal or having no home. My house is not tiny, but it's not so large that I'm wasting money on space that's never used. I have enough, and what I have is awesome. </div>
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<div>Now...how might we apply this to the afterlife? What if THIS is the afterlife? What if we're in a purgatory, or heaven or hell right now of our own making? I don't know of course. And there's many reasons why this is a troublesome idea. But it makes me think...</div>
<div><br /></div>
<div style="padding-left:80px;"><span style="color:rgb(24, 24, 24);">"I sent my Soul through the Invisible, </span></div>
<div style="padding-left:80px;"><span style="color:rgb(24, 24, 24);">Some letter of that After-life to spell: </span></div>
<div style="padding-left:80px;"><span style="color:rgb(24, 24, 24);">And by and by my Soul return'd to me, </span></div>
<div style="padding-left:80px;"><span style="color:rgb(24, 24, 24);">And answer'd: 'I Myself am Heav'n and Hell" </span></div>
<div style="padding-left:80px;"><span style="color:rgb(24, 24, 24);">― </span><b><span style="color:rgb(51, 51, 51);">Omar Khayyam</span></b></div>
Inside, then Out
http://rootandsource.org/post/inside-then-out
2022-04-30T23:14:35.307000Z
2021-09-11T16:52:57Z
Rev. Nathan DeMay
<div><div style="padding-left:40px;">Eternal Spirit, who gives wisdom, show us how much of what we pray for in the world about us is waiting to be found within ourselves. A. Powell Davies</div></div>
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<div>I'm writing this on the 20th anniversary of the September 11th terrorist attacks. I'm tired-tired of the lip service paid to "change" and to national solidarity and the bumper-sticker troop support. I'm tired of sending citizens off to die, then ignoring them if they return alive, or ignoring their survivors. I'm tired of the stupid, the selfish, the ignorant. </div>
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<div>In those two decades we've wasted trillions of dollars on "wars" that had no discernible mission (other than to transfer tax money to the military-industrial complex). We've seen an Administration that reacted to this threat after the fact, rather than proactively address it, one that did its best to move us to address other pressing national issues, and one that barely failed to destroy the country from within. In just twenty short years.</div>
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<div>It's ironically fitting that there's also a renewed interest in combatting Hindutva, the radical Hindu Nationalist movement that currently rules India. There's a conference on it this weekend. Hindutva is a movement that is hostile to Muslims, and at best lukewarm to the many other religions of India. In response to the conference, Hindutva supporters are launching a campaign against jihad and sharia because of course. </div>
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<div>What do all of these things have in common? Dehumanization. Domination. Supremacy.</div>
<div><br /></div><img src="https://cdn-images.postach.io/d75069e9-5c71-4121-ac7e-c18dbe27331d/923c15aa-f46b-8ea0-bbc4-94aec914ad21/e292da8a-24e6-a2a3-08de-04e8ba9a1f3b.jpg" style="--en-naturalWidth:474; --en-naturalHeight:710;"/><div><br /></div>
<div>Hijacking planes and killing thousands of people while also setting up your co-relgionists (in theory anyway, I don't know many who would claim you as part of the Umma) for an increase in hostility is dehumanizing. Sending idealistic youth to die so your oil company or private security firm or whatever corp can make money from tax payers is dehumanizing. Insisting that your religion is the One True Faith and that the government is right to be governed by it at the detriment to other faiths, is dehumanizing.</div>
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<div>All this leads to a predictable cycle of suffering. It doesn't have to be this way; we can always choose to live peacefully, to respect that our neighbor may have a different idea about the Great Questions than we do. We can take a minute to grasp the easy concept that terrorists don't equal the whole of a Religion. We can disengage from our selfishness and see taht human societies are all corrupt, and that attacking another one before straightening up your own is hypocritical.</div>
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<div>Inside, then out. </div>
I Hope You Like This Gift
http://rootandsource.org/post/i-hope-you-like-this-gift
2022-04-30T23:19:46.789000Z
2021-08-30T14:58:20Z
Rev. Nathan DeMay
<div><br /></div>
<div><b>We Bring Our Troubles</b></div>
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<div>We bring before You, O God: </div><img src="https://cdn-images.postach.io/d75069e9-5c71-4121-ac7e-c18dbe27331d/5d1409d9-bf20-e4bb-f752-b7f67b9f9a70/5f3e9f35-b3e3-e985-9104-9e9c20ceba6c.jpg" style="--en-naturalWidth:1920; --en-naturalHeight:1280;"/><div>The troubles and perils of people and nations, </div>
<div>The sighings of the sick, </div>
<div>The sorrows of the bereaved, </div>
<div>The necessities of strangers, </div>
<div>The helplessness of the weak, </div>
<div>The despondency of the weary, </div>
<div>The failing powers of any age.</div>
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<div>May each of us draw as near to You </div>
<div>As You are near to each of us.</div>
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<div>St. Anselm</div>
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<div>Excerpt From: Herbert F. Vetter. "Prayers of Power." Apple Books. <a href="https://books.apple.com/us/book/prayers-of-power/id493611236" rev="en_rl_none">https://books.apple.com/us/book/prayers-of-power/id493611236</a></div>
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<div>I like altars. They're tables where humanity and the Divine sit down together, meeting for important business. In Christianity they serve as the supper table for the Eucharist. In other faiths, they are used like a wedding gift-table. In most cases they are a stage for transformation. The ordinary bread and wine are transformed into the body and blood of Jesus. The flowers and fruits stacked before Krishna become manifestations of devotion, gratitude and love. </div>
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<div>By placing them on the altar, real or proverbial, we are offering to God something we need to have transformed. This includes difficult things too-troubles, problems, or even characteristics we want to change in ourselves.</div>
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<div>Find a space to serve as your altar-what would you put on it? How does it feel to "meet" God there?</div>
Absolutely Nothing (say it again)
http://rootandsource.org/post/absolutely-nothing-say-it-again
2022-04-30T23:22:41.494000Z
2021-08-18T16:46:41Z
Rev. Nathan DeMay
<div>On Monday President Biden addressed concerns about his decision to end the American military operations in Afghanistan. </div>
<div><br /></div>
<div>Twenty years, and 2 trillion dollars later and the Taliban is back in charge.</div>
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<div>The internet is full of people who are suddenly both 1. Interested in this issue and 2. Foreign policy experts. I suppose I'm one of them.</div>
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<div>Afghanistan is an old place. Its history as a center of human civilization is complex, stretching from Zoroastrianism's beginnings in antiquity to a recent Empire ruling over parts of Pakistan, India and Iran. The empire ended in 1919 when King <span style="color:rgb(32, 33, 34);">Amanullah Khan began a process of modernization that included a constitution which called for compulsory education and women's rights.</span></div>
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<div>Some are accusing Biden of victim-blaming because he was frank in telling us that the Afghan armed forces, on whom the 20 years and $2T were ostensibly spent, have essentially given up.</div>
<div><br /></div>
<div>I can understand this sentiment, though I disagree with it. It infantilizes the people of Afghanistan and it smells very imperialist/paternalistic. The Taliban is not made of up Martians; it's made up of Afghans. It's a civil war-an internal conflict between different factions of the Afghan people, who are ethnically diverse and largely organized into tribal units. </div>
<div><br /></div>
<div>I am deeply sympathetic with the ordinary people of Afghanistan. I believe the Western powers who spent two decades camped out there should commit to and get theTaliban to agree, that anyone who wants to leave the country can do so safely and swiftly.</div>
<div><br /></div>
<div>Violence breeds violence until someone is strong enough to stop it by refusing to feed it. Sadly in human history that often means being willing to give up one's own life. We talk about this noble action in a cliched manner, but I don't know that I'm strong enough to have done it had things gone differently on January 6th of this year. So I can understand why soldiers might be tired of the years of violence. It's fatiguing. </div>
<div><br /></div><img src="https://cdn-images.postach.io/d75069e9-5c71-4121-ac7e-c18dbe27331d/5806daab-7bca-ec78-c9c4-742a8b60e974/ac161f43-334f-ce0f-b513-7d37cce2ecb4.jpg" style="--en-naturalWidth:474; --en-naturalHeight:474;"/><div><br /></div>
<div>I want everyone everywhere to live in a society where human rights are guaranteed and protected, where want and poverty are eradicated, where we all can enjoy our Creator's greatest gift-life. But war is never the way to this. </div>
<div><br /></div>
<div>One day I hope we trust in God (not just on our currency, not just as a slogan in our courtrooms) enough to realize we <b><i>can </i></b>have peaceful, prosperous human societies.</div>
<div><br /></div>
<div>Until then, we will continue to pay in blood and dollars.</div>
<div><br /></div>
<div>Here are some good resources to learn more about the history of the country, and some take-aways from this latest debacle.</div>
<div><br /></div><ol><li><div><a style="--en-preferPlainlink:true;" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T6usr-C3lcQ" rev="en_rl_none">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T6usr-C3lcQ</a></div></li><li><div><a style="--en-preferPlainlink:true;" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T6usr-C3lcQ" rev="en_rl_none">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T6usr-C3lcQ</a></div></li><li><div><a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/aug/19/what-lessons-should-the-west-learn-from-the-defeat-in-afghanistan" rev="en_rl_none">https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/aug/19/what-lessons-should-the-west-learn-from-the-defeat-in-afghanistan</a></div></li></ol><div><br /></div>
<div style="padding-left:40px;">They will beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks. Nation will not take up sword against nation, nor will they train for war anymore. <b>Isaiah 2:4 NIV</b></div>
A Man's Home is His Castle, Even if It's Dilapidated And Radioactive
http://rootandsource.org/post/a-man-s-home-is-his-castle-even-if-it-s-dilapidated-and-radioactive
2022-04-30T23:23:49.649000Z
2021-07-10T16:37:43Z
Rev. Nathan DeMay
<div>Property rights have become a convenient way to punish people beyond the scope of their actual transgression.</div>
<div><br /></div>
<div>The Kings Bay Plowshares 7's recent sentencing shows this plainly.</div>
<div><br /></div>
<div>Built in 1978, Kings Bay is a US naval base in the state of Georgia and serves as the U.S. Atlantic Fleet's home port for U.S. Navy Fleet ballistic missile nuclear submarines. These subs are capable of being armed with Trident missile nuclear weapons. </div>
<div><br /></div>
<div>I grew up during the end of the Cold War, the unwinding of the Soviet Union and its satellite states. We had requisite drills in school to prepare for a possible nuclear attack. Somehow school desks would protect us from debris and radiation. Talk about safety theater...</div>
<div><br /></div>
<div>Since the 90's the big nuclear weapons powers have steadily reduced their stockpiles. This is not such a great accomplishment, as we still have enough weapons on the planet to destroy humanity and much of the life on earth. </div>
<div><br /></div>
<div>I've never understood the strategy behind these weapons-if they annihilate huge populations and destroy the planet, what exactly is being defended by them? If you burn down the castle, to save the castle's inhabitants, where will they live? It's irrational.</div>
<div><br /></div>
<div>Back to Kings Bay-a group of Catholic peace activists, the <a href="https://kingsbayplowshares7.org" rev="en_rl_none">Kings Bay Plowshares 7</a>, attacked the naval installation in April 2018. By attacked I mean that they quietly entered the premises, with hammers, bottles of their own blood, crime scene tape and a statement indicting the government of being violent. They painted the sidewalk, splashed their own blood, and hammered away at a monument.</div>
<div><br /></div><img src="https://cdn-images.postach.io/d75069e9-5c71-4121-ac7e-c18dbe27331d/2fc97259-2965-5c34-5200-479b5b48e0e4/e99c8e24-c5a8-149e-2057-eea1da027c4c.jpg" style="--en-naturalWidth:1920; --en-naturalHeight:1276;"/><div><br /></div>
<div>Yes, that's right-they spray painted a slogan and chipped a statue! Heavens! Boomers really are the worst. Time to rethink death panels?</div>
<div><br /></div>
<div>Don't worry though-no devastating, unjustifiably expensive weapons of total destruction were harmed. *sign of the cross* just a sidewalk and a monument and probably some fencing.</div>
<div><br /></div>
<div>Now this tremendously offensive action against the most powerful nation on earth by a handful of old peaceniks was not merely treated as a violation of property, restitution for which could be measured in dollars, nay, the all-wise Judge Lisa Godbey Wood has incarcerated these miscreants. She stated to Fr. Kelly, 71 years, in what I assume is a deeply reasoned judicial way unencumbered by her political affiliation or previous career:</div>
<div><br /></div>
<div style="padding-left:40px;">"<span style="color:rgb(64, 65, 65);">Father Kelly, it has been clear to me you are sincere in your beliefs, however, I would be remiss to discount the nature of the offense that we're looking at today and the risk to safety that you knowingly undertook." </span></div>
<div style="padding-left:40px;"><span style="color:rgb(64, 65, 65);"><span style="--en-markholder:true;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div><span style="color:rgb(64, 65, 65);">Good, too many Catholic priests are <s>molesting and abusing their flock </s> living out the principles of peace taught by their religion.</span></div>
<div><span style="color:rgb(64, 65, 65);"><span style="--en-markholder:true;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div><span style="color:rgb(64, 65, 65);">All 7 were found guilty by the jury of the four most heinous crimes: Conspiracy, Destruction of Property on a Naval Station, Depredation of Government Property, and Trespass. So that's 3 property violations, and one conspiracy charge which just means they planned to do the thing. They also have to collectively pay $33K in damages.</span></div>
<div><span style="color:rgb(64, 65, 65);"><span style="--en-markholder:true;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div><span style="color:rgb(64, 65, 65);">So $33K in property damages and a hodgepodge of prison sentences later, let's recap:</span></div>
<div><span style="color:rgb(64, 65, 65);"><span style="--en-markholder:true;"><br /></span></span></div><ol><li><div><span style="color:rgb(64, 65, 65);">A Judicial system which has as part of its creed "In God We Trust" has imprisoned seven elderly Catholic peace activists for the level of vandalism that was a rite of passage in my High School.</span></div></li><li><div><span style="color:rgb(64, 65, 65);">The Judge and jury have sent the clear message that property may not be tampered with, not by blood or minor hammering or even spray paint (I don't know yet about feces, guns, or bison horns). We must defend our federal property so that it can serve the larger goal of destroying all property everywhere on earth!</span></div></li><li><div><span style="color:rgb(64, 65, 65);">By taxpayers footing the bill for this egregious gang of ne're do wells to be housed in our massive prison system, it protects us from minor annoyances to our planetary destruction systems. We've already paid $170,200,000,000 so we better get some bang for our bucks.</span></div></li></ol><div><br /></div>
<div> We really are the stupidest animal.</div>
Hopey Changey Part Deux
http://rootandsource.org/post/hopey-changey-part-deux
2022-04-30T23:06:13.222000Z
2021-01-20T16:54:44Z
Rev. Nathan DeMay
<div>I’m already seeing folks on the left and right start up with their bull. But many many people need a rest for today, a little indulgence in hope, happiness and renewed promise.</div><img src="https://cdn-images.postach.io/d75069e9-5c71-4121-ac7e-c18dbe27331d/2319b0c1-6b2f-0b2b-044c-219c106b3c75/87dbdaa3-b2ed-3fe5-a081-e1c387b0f1ef.jpg" style="--en-naturalWidth:1920; --en-naturalHeight:1280;"/><div>No one person is going to save America from its problems. Democracy is not an occasional act, every couple of years. It’s an enduring duty for citizens. The list of issues to address and FIX is long. We must be prepared to engage with the new administration and Congressional leadership to move America forward, toward justice and peace and universal prosperity, to upend the systemic racism and misogyny baked into the country.</div>
<div><br /></div>
<div>So take some time today to celebrate. Exhale. Enjoy the clear difference between yesterday and today. Tomorrow we roll up our sleeves and get to work.</div>
<div><br /></div>
<div style="padding-left:40px;">How blessed are those who keep justice,</div>
<div style="padding-left:40px;">Who practice righteousness at all times!</div>
<div><br /></div>
<div style="padding-left:40px;">Source: https://bible.knowing-jesus.com/Psalm/106/3</div>
<div><br /></div>
<div><br /></div>
Les Dieux D'Osier
http://rootandsource.org/post/les-dieux-d-osier
2022-04-30T23:06:35.080000Z
2020-08-07T17:35:30Z
Rev. Nathan DeMay
<div>One of the things any kid growing up in an Abrahamic faith will remember learning about is idolatry. We got ancient stories of golden calfs and children sacrificed in a fire, and then our teachers would segue into modern times and how today’s culture worships money or fame or sex as idols. </div>
<div><br /></div>
<div>A basic introduction to world religion teaches us that few, if any, religions teach that an inanimate object is itself the Divine. Mostly icons and statues and other sacred objects are just that-sacred objects, artistic expressions of spirituality. </div>
<div><br /></div>
<div>This doesn’t mean that idolatry isn’t a real problem-on the contrary I think it’s a bigger problem than we realize.</div>
<div><br /></div>
<div>During the COVID pandemic I’ve seen a few Christian leaders whine that they can’t hold services in person. They decry this is an attack on Christianity by godless liberals/communists working behind the scenes in government. </div>
<div><br /></div>
<div>A particular strain of this thinking that surprised me comes from the Orthodox Christian community. I was watching a video by an Orthodox priest on YouTube, and he lamented that Greece was keeping churches shut even during Easter (he doesn’t know that viruses are notoriously disrespectful of religious holidays, I guess). </div>
<div><br /></div>
<div>The argument wasn’t that Christians were not allowed to celebrate-technology has kept congregations in tact and even given them a larger reach. It wasn’t that Christians were being forced to renounce their faith. It wasn’t anything but a complaint that the church <span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">building</span> itself was unavailable to them. </div>
<div><br /></div>
<div>Had these prelates been around in the early days of Christianity, it would have died out ages ago.</div>
<div><br /></div>
<div>The demand for opening religious buildings is an example of real idolatry. Idols are things we worship or adore, but which are empty of inherent divinity; idolatry is the belief that a created thing is so sacred that it is more important than human life or human wellbeing. I argue that If God is love, and we are to love our fellow humans, then placing these other things above loving our neighbors is true idolatry. </div>
<div><br /></div>
<div><img src="https://cdn-images.postach.io/d75069e9-5c71-4121-ac7e-c18dbe27331d/facb5358-5444-4f6d-b5d1-8998e8747cf9/3dd4d83d-4695-4d73-aef8-b283dca2539e.jpg" /><br /></div>
<div><a href="https://pixabay.com/photos/burning-man-caravansary-festival-558243/">Photo by bculliton0 on Pixabay</a></div>
<div><br /></div>
<div><br /></div>
<div>Scriptural literalism is another example. The <span style="font-weight: bold;">Book</span> and its particular interpretation are more important than the people they’re harming. The cathedral and its colorful gilded appointments are more important than preventing the spread of an untreatable disease. Paying obeisance to the flag or the anthem instead of loudly broadcasting the message that our country is <span style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: underline;">literally murdering black people with impunity </span>is a particularly wicked example.</div>
<div><br /></div>
<div>Instead of gilded cows and baby bonfires, the new idols worshipped today’s are: country, flag, song, book, building, law & order, political ideology and personality. </div>
<div><br /></div>
<div>These idols are not alive, and so they can never be sated. They cannot be engaged with in a personal way and so they are always demanding more sacrifice, more attention, more worship. They take and take and give us nothing but trouble.</div>
<div><br /></div>
<div>Just as the company we keep tells us about our character, so does the object of our worship. </div>
Not the Stonewall Chit-Chat (Redux)
http://rootandsource.org/post/not-the-stonewall-chit-chat-redux
2022-06-02T01:03:11.108000Z
2020-06-01T15:55:42Z
Rev. Nathan DeMay
<div>Today begins Pride Month and it is especially relevant this year, as SCOTUS prepares to destroy foundational support of human rights, as hate-fueled monsters massacre innocents to satisfy their gun-lust, and America is struggling to remain a modern democratic republic.</div>
<div><br /></div>
<div>A (very) short history lesson:</div>
<div><br /></div>
<div>On June 28th, 1969 after decades of police harassment, LGBT New Yorkers defended themselves as the police raided the Stonewall Inn. In those days many parts of this country had draconian laws against the community. The police and mafia extorted patrons of the Stonewall and similar establishments. The breaking point had been reached, and three drag queens (I’m not entirely certain how they identified, I will correct this labeling if better ones are given) lead the pushback, one of whom was Marsha P. Johnson, a black probably gender non-conforming warrior. </div>
<div><br /></div>
<div>So as we celebrate Pride, let’s not forget that it was <b>black</b> and <b>non-white</b> drag queens/gender non-conforming/trans people who lead the way forward. They put their lives on the line for <b><u>all of us</u></b>.</div>
<div><br /></div>
<div>I try to live a nonviolent life. But non-violence is not the same as complicity. </div>
<div><br /></div>
<div>As my great friend and spiritual mentor <a href="https://revjerrymaynard.org">Rev. Jerry Maynard</a> said:</div>
<div><br /></div>
<div style="padding-left:40px;">I believe in an active, disruptive peace. </div>
<div style="padding-left:40px;">I believe in a peace that disturbs the comfortable and soothes the afflicted. </div>
<div style="padding-left:40px;">I believe in a peace that takes risks for others. </div>
<div style="padding-left:40px;">I believe in a responsible peace that says, "I got you". </div>
<div><br /></div>
<div style="padding-left:40px;">Peace begins with me and it will never be achieved with fists or guns. </div>
<div><br /></div>
<div style="padding-left:40px;">Be better. Do better. </div>
<div><br /></div>
<div style="padding-left:40px;">"Blessed are the peacemakers for they shall be called Children of God" -Jesus, Sermon on the Mount</div><img src="https://cdn-images.postach.io/d75069e9-5c71-4121-ac7e-c18dbe27331d/0be69cea-d8f5-189c-bc25-aec009fcdaca/4b7f3c45-ca8c-a8c1-0269-e319ffa5cfaf.jpg" style="--en-naturalWidth:474; --en-naturalHeight:707;"/><div style="padding-left:40px;"><br /></div>
They Died For Amazing Savings
http://rootandsource.org/post/they-died-for-amazing-savings
2023-05-26T20:52:50.607000Z
2020-05-25T15:26:52Z
Rev. Nathan DeMay
<div>Every year I find myself cringing whenever most holidays roll around. Thanksgiving is plowed through to the great Black Friday celebration of cheap crap. Christmas is feted earlier each year as retailers try to increase our piety towards our greatest faith, Materialism. </div>
<div><br/></div>
<div>I’m especially grumpy when Memorial and Veteran’s Day roll around. We don’t take war seriously, for most of us it’s a thing that happens to other people far away, and if we clap when we see military personnel walking through the airport or attach a bumper sticker to the car that’s our part done.</div>
<div><br/></div><img src="https://cdn-images.postach.io/d75069e9-5c71-4121-ac7e-c18dbe27331d/1b92860e-1d58-4f4c-863d-f8e01192db20/e2469485-be30-4249-b57f-53599951e85b.jpg" style="--en-naturalWidth:1920; --en-naturalHeight:1280;"/><div><a href="https://pixabay.com/photos/gun-united-nations-violence-nyc-3958780/" rev="en_rl_none">Image from Botana at Pixabay</a></div>
<div><br/></div>
<div>Memorial Day is not about <i>all</i> military personnel (but it’s easier for us to just sort of make it a generic military appreciation day), it’s for the remembrance of those who served and have <b>died</b>. Death and war and the incredible difficulties that accompany military service are not as pleasant as mattress sales and long weekend TV marathons. But as long as we refuse to reckon with the ugliness of war, and the lasting affect on those who experience it directly, we will continue down a path of self-destruction. Ignorance may be bliss, but it’s a bliss that will lead to a massive debt coming due.</div>
<div><br/></div>
<div>Take time today to remember those who have given their lives in military service. Think about those for whom war was an unwelcomed intrusion into daily life—threatening children, houses of worship, destroying homes and bringing famine. Really spend time thinking about the suffering that war causes-for all involved. </div>
<div><br/></div>
<div><br/></div>
<div>Then commit yourself to ending it and caring for its victims. </div>
<div><br/></div>
<div><br/></div>
<div style="padding-left:40px;">Micah 4:3</div>
<div style="padding-left:40px;">He will judge between many peoples and will settle disputes for strong nations far and wide. They will beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks. Nation will not take up sword against nation, nor will they train for war anymore.</div>
The Unbearable Heftiness of Poverty
http://rootandsource.org/post/the-unbearable-heftiness-of-poverty
2022-04-30T22:55:52.062000Z
2020-01-29T21:54:04Z
Rev. Nathan DeMay
<div>I’ve been writing about a local working poor woman, Susan, and since I first encountered her in early December, every day is a new challenge. Every day I get slightly more annoyed (I’m being honest!) and I just want to find a way to blame her, or put off her requests hoping she’ll find another way. I hate asking people to give me money to give to someone they don’t know. I hate pleading her case to people who are suspicious. </div>
<div><br /></div>
<div>Why do I feel like this? Am I a bad person?</div>
<div><br /></div>
<div>Possibly! </div>
<div><br /></div>
<div>I’m no saint. But I think it has more to do with the difficulty we have in society in general comprehending the multiple dimensions of poverty. </div>
<div><br /></div>
<div><img src="https://cdn-images.postach.io/d75069e9-5c71-4121-ac7e-c18dbe27331d/505fd822-999a-48ef-b447-19a9c2ebc383/9f3fce77-73d4-4e1e-ae17-69f67045d224.jpg" /></div>
<div><br /></div>
<div><br /></div>
<div><a href="https://pixabay.com/photos/trouser-pockets-empty-jeans-1439412/">Image courtesy of schuldnerhilfe on Pixabay</a></div>
<div><br /></div>
<div>A quick recap: </div>
<div><br /></div>
<div>Susan is a mother of two young boys, recently transitioned into an apartment from a motel, one son was hospitalized this month for flu, followed by his younger brother getting sick. She has no car. She has little in the way of public transit options. She gets some help with food stamps and some rental assistance. She works full time. She’s desperately waiting for a tax refund to give her a little cash to get right side up.</div>
<div><br /></div>
<div>And now her mother has died.</div>
<div><br /></div>
<div>On top of it all-being a half step away from homelessness, struggling to care for her kids, working…her mother who has been in a coma for some time, just died. She lived in Savannah, about 4 hours away.</div>
<div><br /></div>
<div>Susan can’t go to be with her mother; she has too much precariousness in her life to go on a trip. She didn’t get to say goodbye to her mother. Her mother died without any family there with her. </div>
<div><br /></div>
<div>It’s 2020 and people in the richest country to ever exist can’t spend the last minutes of a loved one's life with them because of poverty. If she did go, Susan would be homeless by the time she got back from the funeral. Imagine! Every dime counts. I’ve commented on how she is keenly aware of the difference between what she asks for and what I give her, even if it’s in her "benefit." </div>
<div><br /></div>
<div>Every damn dime.</div>
<div><br /></div>
<div>Her sister is on the way to Savannah. From Houston. By car. Because she can’t afford a plane ticket. The distance from Houston to Savannah is 966 miles, or 14 hours. Without traffic, which is almost certainly guaranteed to hinder her travels anywhere in North America. </div>
<div><br /></div>
<div>Think about what this does to the psyche! How constant threats of collapse hang over you. How the smallest things, like a son’s school field trip, can throw your budget off. That was eleven dollars.</div>
<div><br /></div>
<div>Every damn dime.</div>
<div><br /></div>
<div>And this brings me back to my response; surely she could have planned for this. Surely she had a chance to prepare for her mother’s death. Why doesn’t her sister have a plan in place? Why do they insist on being poor? </div>
<div><br /></div>
<div>This is an automated response that is part of my deep need to "solve." I want to solve the problem and part of that is finding the root of the problem. And if it were just a series of bad decisions and irresponsibilities on her part, that would be easy. But the root of this problem is tangled and messy. It’s deeply set in the soil of racism, privilege, and generational struggle. </div>
<div><br /></div>
<div>I value the power of identifying the root cause of issues, it’s served me well. But it’s not always as easy to discern in every situation. Our society is fundamentally broken, and until we sit down and face the tangled ball of roots that have planted us there, we will not change. It’s a lot of work. It will require a lot of cooperation. We will make mistakes, but if we are truly committed we will repair the damage done. </div>
<div><br /></div>
<div><span style="caret-color: rgb(113, 178, 201); font-variant-caps: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; color: rgb(113, 178, 201);"><font face="Arial" style="font-size: 14px; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); --inversion-type-color: simple;">Whoever oppresses the poor shows contempt for their Maker, but whoever is kind to the needy honors God. — Proverbs 14:31, <a href="https://www.compassion.com/poverty/famous-quotes-about-poverty.htm" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); --inversion-type-color: simple;">NIV</a></font></span></div>
<div><br /></div>
<div> </div>
With Opression and Lawlessness For Most
http://rootandsource.org/post/with-opression-and-lawlessness-for-most
2022-04-30T22:55:53.151000Z
2020-01-27T18:54:07Z
Rev. Nathan DeMay
<div>I’m exhausted. I’m sure you are too.</div>
<div><br /></div>
<div>That feeling is part of the concerted effort, whether it’s from Russia or corporate oligarchs, to wear us down. As norms are increasingly attacked and refuted in the face of undeniable evidence, the end goal is to make us complacent by way of exhaustion.</div>
<div><br /></div>
<div>The impeachment trial is a perfect demonstration of this. Trump has gone on television, not a mic slip, not a secret sting operation, but he chose to go on television and to confess his crimes. If he had videotaped the acts, he would have shown them too because the Republican Party will go to absurdist lengths to protect him.</div>
<div><br /></div>
<div>You and I don’t have this option. If we are called to court for a speeding ticket, we have to comply.</div>
<div><br /></div>
<div>If we are arrested for stalking someone and planning their assassination, we are put on trial.</div>
<div><br /></div>
<div>If we are put on trial, we don’t get to block testimony from witnesses just because we don’t like what they might say.</div>
<div> </div>
<div><br /></div>
<div>If we are on trial, the defense is not in charge of the rules of the trial. The judge is not beholden to the defense team. Can you imagine if it were that way? Can you imagine going to court for jury duty and being told that the defense has it all sorted out, just go along with what they say? </div>
<div><br /></div>
<div>In the real world, this would result in disbarment, possibly further charges for the defendant, and a completely damning demonstration of the contempt of the defendant and their legal team for the court.</div>
<div><br /></div>
<div>Our society is based in part of the setting of precedents, which guide and inform us about how to address an issue as it was addressed before us. </div>
<div><br /></div>
<div>The Republican Senate has abandoned all precedents, including those <b>they</b> used during the last impeachment trial.</div>
<div><br /></div>
<div>They are, as far as I’m concerned, setting the clear precedent that lawlessness is allowed, justice is undesirable, and that the constitution is a nuisance to be ignored. Might makes right, and they have enough might to drive the country off a cliff.</div>
<div><br /></div>
<div>Justice is an integral part of a functional human society. Without it, the entire system of law is suspect, weak and unable to serve the interests of the people. This will inevitably lead to people taking things into their own hands. Blood feuds, revenge porn, extortion, vigilantism. That’s what you get without justice.<img src="https://cdn-images.postach.io/d75069e9-5c71-4121-ac7e-c18dbe27331d/a0a827dc-d84e-4fd6-b9a6-f11c51f532c7/499c10e1-91fc-42a1-8000-ed89b7e23778.jpg" /> </div>
<div><a href="https://pixabay.com/users/PDPhotos-16/">Image from PDPhotos /455 Images at Pixabay</a></div>
<div><br /></div>
<div>What does the lack of justice do to our souls? Quotes from various religious sources give us clear guidance:</div>
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<div><span style="font-weight: bold;">Pope Paul VI:</span> </div>
<div><span> </span>"If you want peace, you must work for justice."</div><h1><font style="font-size: 14px;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">Proverbs 21:15</span><span style="font-weight: bold;"> </span><span style="font-weight: bold;">English Standard Version (ESV)</span></font></h1><div><p style="box-sizing: border-box; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Verdana, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; text-indent: 0px;"></p><div><span style="font-weight: bold;"><span> </span>15 </span>When justice is done, it is a joy to the righteous<span style="-en-paragraph:true;"> </span><span style="-en-paragraph:true;">but terror to evildoers.</span></div></div><h1><font style="font-size: 14px;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">Isaiah 1:17</span><span style="font-weight: bold;"> </span><span style="font-weight: bold;">English Standard Version (ESV)</span></font></h1><div><p style="box-sizing: border-box; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Verdana, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; text-indent: 0px;"></p><div><span style="font-weight: bold;"><span> </span>17 </span> learn to do good; seek justice, correct oppression; bring justice to the fatherless, plead the widow's cause.</div></div><h1><font style="font-size: 14px;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">Micah 6:8</span><span style="font-weight: bold;"> </span><span style="font-weight: bold;">English Standard Version (ESV)</span></font></h1><div><p style="box-sizing: border-box; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Verdana, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; text-indent: 0px;"></p><div style="margin-left: 40px;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">8 </span>He has told you, O man, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness,[<a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Micah+6%3A8&version=ESV#fen-ESV-22657a" title="See footnote a">a</a>] and to <span> <span> <span> <span> </span></span></span></span>walk humbly with your God?</div></div><div><br /></div><h1><font style="font-size: 14px;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">Psalm 37:27-29</span><span style="font-weight: bold;"> </span><span style="font-weight: bold;">English Standard Version (ESV)</span></font></h1><div><p style="box-sizing: border-box; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Verdana, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; text-indent: 0px;"></p><div style="margin-left: 40px;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">27 </span>Turn away from evil and do good; so shall you dwell forever.</div>
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<div style="margin-left: 40px;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">28 </span>For the Lord loves justice; he will not forsake his saints. They are preserved forever, but the children of the wicked shall be cut off.</div>
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<div style="margin-left: 40px;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">29 </span>The righteous shall inherit the land and dwell upon it forever.</div>
<div style="margin-top: 1em; margin-bottom: 1em;"></div>
<div style="margin-top: 1em; margin-bottom: 1em;"></div><h1><font style="font-size: 14px;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">Proverbs 24:24-25</span><span style="font-weight: bold;"> </span><span style="font-weight: bold;">English Standard Version (ESV)</span></font></h1><div><p style="box-sizing: border-box; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Verdana, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; text-indent: 0px;"></p><div style="margin-left: 40px;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">24 </span>Whoever says to the wicked, "You are in the right," will be cursed by peoples, abhorred by nations,</div>
<div><br /></div>
<div style="margin-left: 40px;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">25 </span>but those who rebuke the wicked will have delight, and a good blessing will come upon them.</div>
<div style="margin-top: 1em; margin-bottom: 1em;"></div>
<div style="margin-top: 1em; margin-bottom: 1em;"></div><h1><font style="font-size: 14px;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">Proverbs 28:5</span><span style="font-weight: bold;"> </span><span style="font-weight: bold;">English Standard Version (ESV)</span></font></h1><div><p style="box-sizing: border-box; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Verdana, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; text-indent: 0px;"></p><div style="margin-left: 40px;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">5 </span>Evil men do not understand justice, <span style="-en-paragraph:true;">but those who seek the </span><span style="-en-paragraph:true;">Lord</span><span style="-en-paragraph:true;"> understand it completely.</span></div>
<div style="margin-top: 1em; margin-bottom: 1em;"></div>
<div style="margin-top: 1em; margin-bottom: 1em;"></div><h1><font style="font-size: 14px;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">Matthew 7:12</span><span style="font-weight: bold;"> </span><span style="font-weight: bold;">English Standard Version (ESV)</span></font></h1><h3><span style="font-weight: bold;">The Golden Rule</span></h3><div style="margin-left: 40px;"><span style="font-weight: bold;-en-paragraph:true;">12 </span><span style="-en-paragraph:true;">"So whatever you wish that others would do to you, do also to them, for this is the Law and the Prophets.</span></div>
<div><h1><font style="font-size: 14px;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">Colossians 3:25</span><span style="font-weight: bold;"> </span><span style="font-weight: bold;">English Standard Version (ESV)</span></font></h1><div style="margin-left: 40px;"><span style="font-weight: bold;-en-paragraph:true;">25 </span><span style="-en-paragraph:true;">For the wrongdoer will be paid back for the wrong he has done, and there is no partiality.</span></div></div><div><br /></div>
<div><a href="https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Qur%27an" title="Qur'an">Qur'an</a> <a href="http://www.usc.edu/dept/MSA/quran/005.qmt.html#005.008">5:8</a></div>
<div>Be ever steadfast in your devotion to God, bearing witness to the truth in all equity; and never let hatred of any-one lead you into the sin of deviating from justice. Be just: this is closest to being God-conscious. And remain conscious of God: verily, God is aware of all that you do.</div>
<div><br /></div>
<div>Ahunavaiti Gâthâ</div><div title="Page 33"><span title="Page 33" style="-en-paragraph:true;">Song 6 - </span><span title="Page 33" style="-en-paragraph:true;">yathâish ithâ
</span></div><ol><li><div><span title="Page 33" style="-en-paragraph:true;">According to the Primal Laws of Life, the leader shall do full justice to the
wrongful and to the righteous, as well as to the person whose falsity is combined
with his probity.
</span></div></li></ol><div><br /></div><div title="Page 52"><span title="Page 52" style="-en-paragraph:true;">Spentâ Mainyu Gâthâ
</span></div><div><span title="Page 52" style="-en-paragraph:true;">Song 15 - </span><span title="Page 52" style="-en-paragraph:true;">kat moi urvâ</span></div><ol start="2"><li><div>How, Wise One, shall one seek the joy-bringing world, when one wishes it
to have settlements, with the honest living in righteousness in a fully sun-bathed
region? I shall, with all clarity, settle down among the houses of justice.<br /></div></li></ol></div></div><div><br /></div>
<div>Justice is an indispensable element of the righteous life. It is a divine attribute. Rejecting it is to embrace a demonic principle. This trial will end in acquittal because the Republicans don’t value justice. It is up to us to bring them to it. It is especially poignant today on the 75th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz. The Nazi regime was devoid of morality, completely uninterested in justice. They were brought to it by the Nuremberg Trials, by people who were devoted enough to what is right to hunt down the monsters who ran the Holocaust, and make them account for their actions. </div></div><div><br /></div>
<div>We need to be those people today, here in the United States or our country will collapse. Keep pressuring your Senators and your Representative. Find out who their biggest donors are, and <a href="https://www.opensecrets.org/elections/">go after them too</a>. </div>
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<div><span style="font-weight: bold;">Elie Wiesel:</span> "There may be times when we are powerless to prevent injustice, but there must never be a time when we fail to protest."</div>
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<div><br /></div>
Hello Mr. Nathan
http://rootandsource.org/post/hello-mr-nathan
2022-04-30T22:55:51.762000Z
2020-01-20T16:05:22Z
Rev. Nathan DeMay
<div>Poverty is an expensive lifestyle.</div>
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<div>I wrote in December about a local woman named Susan (OK not her real name) and the struggle she had at the end of last year as a working-poor single mother.</div>
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<div>She greets me as "Mr. Nathan" when she texts me, although I feel a bit odd about it. It makes me feel like I’m playing the role of white savior or benevolent master. I’m not. </div>
<div><br /></div>
<div>Since that first post in mid-December, her life has changed a lot. She was able to move her family out of the extended stay motel and into an apartment. She had a good Christmas with her boys thanks to the <b>generosity</b> of my friends and colleagues. But she’s also had an endless chain of challenges.</div>
<div><br /></div>
<div>Because her apartment wasn’t ready when it was supposed to be she stayed longer in temporary housing than originally planned. She’s needed help with groceries because her food stamps haven’t kicked in. She’s needed money for transportation because she has no car and so relies on taxis, Uber, or coworkers (who aren’t exactly 1%ers).</div>
<div><br /></div>
<div>A couple of weeks ago her eldest son was hospitalized with the flu. You might think that the hospitalization itself might have been a financial issue, but it’s actually the parallel expenses that add up. Money to get to and from the hospital (from home, from work). A babysitter for her youngest son, so he’s not alone all the time when she’s at work or the hospital. Unexpected prescriptions that aren’t covered by insurance. Food. And no time off.</div>
<div><br /></div>
<div>Happily her son was discharged and is recovering at home now. But as is normal with kids and flu, his brother is now sick. More meds. More baby-sitters. More money for running around to get necessities. </div>
<div><br /></div>
<div>To date I estimate we have given her <b>$2500</b> in cash and gift cards. </div>
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<div>To date is…45 days. </div>
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<div>Remember, she’s <span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">not</span> unemployed. She works at least 40 hours a week. She raises two kids. I believe she even volunteers at a food pantry. </div>
<div><br /></div>
<div>The times she asks me for money are almost always to supplement what she can afford. For example, she’s got $40 of $60 needed for medication or she needs $20 to buy a used mattress for her kids, but she’s only got $15.</div>
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<div>Hard work paying off! MAGA</div>
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<div><img src="https://cdn-images.postach.io/d75069e9-5c71-4121-ac7e-c18dbe27331d/22a9e3a6-4ef8-4058-8660-3f8874c3094e/46a81e91-4848-4cd5-a3ba-33f0fe94f240.jpg" /></div>
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<div><a href="https://pixabay.com/users/cocoparisienne-127419/">Image by cocoparisienne via Pixabay</a></div>
<div><br /></div>
<div>Atlanta has an uncountable number of social service agencies and charitable organizations. People keep asking me if Susan has talked to XYZ organization. Yes. They don’t help with prescriptions. Or they don’t provide rental assistance anymore. Or they don’t have any money. I’ve checked with many groups myself, and they’re all seemingly strapped for cash, or they have a very narrow mission. It’s understandable but extremely frustrating. I have long believed that there are massive redundancies and inefficiencies in that world and that we would all benefit from some consolidation. But that’s another story.</div>
<div><br /></div>
<div>I grew up in a completely normal middle class family. There were challenges from time to time, but never did we go without food, never did we worry about housing. We have a large extended family and we all help out with each other when needed. None of us is going to fall through the cracks.</div>
<div><br /></div>
<div>I was taught, indirectly by society in general, that welfare was an unfortunate thing. I knew kids growing up who didn’t get breakfast at home because their families couldn’t afford it. I saw my school bus driver bake a cake more than once for kids whose birthdays would have been otherwise uncelebrated. So while I have seen poverty before, like most people I believed that a combination of government programs and charities helped to keep people afloat. Why else do I pay taxes and make donations? </div>
<div><br /></div>
<div>And if I’m honest, there’s always been a part of me that turns to that great Anglo-American myth of "well you did bring this on yourself." Maybe people do. Probably people do. But while we all make bad choices, we don’t all get caught up by them. Like unplanned pregnancy and HIV infections, most of us have skated close to a dangerous line but didn’t get what we "deserve." If we reflect on this, then we ought to be both grateful and extremely generous. Yes, personal responsibility is a part of the overall issues, but that too is a story for another time. </div>
<div><br /></div>
<div>Our society is built on the myths of hard work will get you what you deserve, and if you don’t have a good life it’s your own damn fault. Every man is an island, and if your island is sinking well sorry, paddle harder. This is the reality of the working poor-juxtaposed between those who are destitute and those who are at least lower class, a precarious position that opens them up to a complete collapse if they get sick. Or their kid gets sick. Or the organization who is helping you runs out of money. All while working hard. Just like they’re supposed to.</div>
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<div>In fact the organization that helped Susan get her apartment and was supposed to cover rent for six months had to change the agreement because they’re running out of money. </div>
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<div>In the meantime we have a federal (and in my case state too) government that is bought and paid for by feudal corporations that give just enough of a democratic patina to keep us mostly docile as we play with our devices and enjoy home food delivery so we can binge a streaming service. Those corporations and their captains are gorging themselves on tax dollars, tax loopholes, and other shady manipulations with impunity. I love Apple products, but does Apple need more money than…some <a href="https://www.investopedia.com/news/apple-now-bigger-these-5-things/">countries </a>have? At what point are American CEOs going to read <i>all</i> of Adam Smith? How can we have no money for universal healthcare, but we can afford to lavish <a href="https://www.americanoversight.org/investigation/trump-cabinet-officials-office-renovations">cabinet members </a>and <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/jan/09/steven-mnuchin-democrats-trump-secret-service-spending">Trumpkins</a> with trips and cash and benefits galore? </div>
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<div><b>WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH US?</b></div>
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<div>Seriously America. You have got to get it together. You have got to wake up and stop going along like everything is ok. It’s not. We are a broken society, and we will kill ourselves if we don’t make major changes to how we operate. All feudal systems collapse in on themselves, violently. We don’t have to go down that path, but you have to get active if you want to avoid it.</div>
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<div>Here’s a list of organizations working on these issues. Go, get involved. </div>
<div><br /></div><ol><li><div><a href="https://www.poorpeoplescampaign.org">https://www.poorpeoplescampaign.org</a></div></li><li><div><a href="https://www.forreparations.org">https://www.forreparations.org</a></div></li><li><div><a href="https://ncbaclusa.coop">https://ncbaclusa.coop</a></div></li><li><div><a href="https://spiritualprogressives.org">https://spiritualprogressives.org</a></div></li></ol><div><br /></div>
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Goodwill Hunting
http://rootandsource.org/post/goodwill-hunting
2022-04-30T22:56:11.384000Z
2019-12-30T16:03:36Z
Rev. Nathan DeMay
<div>I’ve been deeply angered by the recent spate of anti-semitic attacks in the US, the attacks on churches, the attacks against Muslims, the murder of trans people.</div>
<div><br /></div><div style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-variant-caps: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; margin-top: 1em; margin-bottom: 1em;"><span style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-variant-caps: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px;-en-paragraph:true;">The other day on Twitter I said to my Jewish friends that I don’t have elegant words, but that I’m here to help in whatever way they need.
</span></div><div>I’ve done some more thinking since then, and I’ve decided that I do have <i>more</i> words-maybe not elegant-but heartfelt. </div>
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<div>I believe humans have inherent rights, and value.</div>
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<div>I cry when a synagogue is an attacked because it is an attack on humanity. An attack on a black church is not only an attack against black Americans (and I do not want to diminish its impact on black Americans) but it is also an attack against humanity. A murderous assault on a gay bar is an attack on humanity. Putting brown kids in cages is an attack against humanity.</div>
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<div>This is why we call our most serious crimes crimes against humanity. It’s why the Nazi regime was not only held accountable to its direct victims, but to all of humanity.</div>
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<div>We are forgetting this truth.</div>
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<div>As humans we have a paramount right to peacefully assemble and worship as we please, without danger of government or citizen violence in response. </div>
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<div>But this principle is not limited to this country; it is a universal human principle. The Uyghurs in China, the Muslims in India, the Rohingya in Myanmar, the LGBT community in Russia, the Palestinians-all are enduring assaults against humanity. </div>
<div><img src="https://cdn-images.postach.io/d75069e9-5c71-4121-ac7e-c18dbe27331d/a694da0a-e35d-4ee3-bfcb-8bd2274a26db/48e8dafa-92f1-40ef-b1f6-2dd1d6213f4d.jpg" /></div>
<div><span style="caret-color: rgb(25, 27, 38); color: rgb(25, 27, 38); font-family: "Open Sans", sans-serif; font-size: medium; font-variant-caps: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: nowrap; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Image by </span><a href="https://pixabay.com/users/skeeze-272447/?utm_source=link-attribution&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=image&utm_content=647050" style="color: rgb(25, 27, 38); cursor: pointer; caret-color: rgb(25, 27, 38); font-family: "Open Sans", sans-serif; font-variant-caps: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: nowrap; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; text-decoration: underline; outline: 0px !important;">skeeze</a><span style="caret-color: rgb(25, 27, 38); color: rgb(25, 27, 38); font-family: "Open Sans", sans-serif; font-size: medium; font-variant-caps: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: nowrap; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> from </span><a href="https://pixabay.com/?utm_source=link-attribution&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=image&utm_content=647050" style="color: rgb(25, 27, 38); cursor: pointer; caret-color: rgb(25, 27, 38); font-family: "Open Sans", sans-serif; font-variant-caps: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: nowrap; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; text-decoration: underline; outline: 0px !important;">Pixabay</a></div>
<div><br /></div><div>We citizens of the Earth must be clear about our opposition to these attacks against us. We must let our friends and family, our politicians, the leaders of corporations and anyone else in a position of authority know that this is unacceptable. <span style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-variant-caps: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px;-en-paragraph:true;">Write letters, emails, social media posts. Protest. Boycott. Whatever it takes.
</span></div><div><br /></div>
<div>For my fellow clergy, it is imperative to be the prophetic voice in the world, especially when the voice of evil is so loud. In my opinion, it is the fundamental responsibility of our profession.</div>
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<div>I’m tired. I’m sure you’re tired too. We seem to have an endless list of human ills. None of us can, singularly, fight every fight. We are stronger together. We can be tired and take a break when needed if we work together. As one of us rests, another can take up the mantle. </div>
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<div>Humanity, assemble!</div>
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<div> </div>
Rev. DeMay, Professional Goy At Your Service
http://rootandsource.org/post/rev-demay-professional-goy-at-your-service
2022-04-30T23:27:20.209000Z
2019-11-12T21:18:27Z
Rev. Nathan DeMay
<div>A couple of months ago, I officiated a wedding between a young couple. It was a simple service, they explicitly wanted NO religious elements, and it was held at a small historical home in the area. Each member of the family seemed to arrive with a new and frankly stunning plate of deserts or food. This is the way weddings were not too long ago-my parents didn’t have a big catered event that cost more than a house, it was small and dignified and probably someone they knew made the cake.</div>
<div><br /></div>
<div>Anyway back to this couple. We hadn’t met ahead of the ceremony, which is not typical but they told me they were just starting out, money was tight, and they just really wanted to get married. It was a little awkward going into a wedding without even knowing what the bride and groom look like, but we got it sorted soon enough. I wore a blue thobe which made it clear I wasn’t just any old guy off the street but while it had great embroidery there was nothing religious about it. With it, I word my nondescript blue stole, which also has no religious symbology on it at all.</div>
<div><br /></div>
<div>The bride asked me to remove it.</div>
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<div>I did.</div>
<div><br /></div>
<div>The vows they exchanged-one did English, one did Spanish-were so genuine and heartfelt I was truly impressed. But I still couldn’t get why they were so opposed to any whiff of religion. </div>
<div><br /></div>
<div>It all went off without a hitch and I didn’t think about them again until a few weeks later when the bride texted me, telling me her brother was also getting married soon and she told him to contact me. Wow! My first referral. I was grateful and a little (happily) shocked.</div>
<div><br /></div>
<div>Similar situation-no religious elements. Wear a suit (the brother specially asked for that). Didn’t know what they looked like until I got there. They were married at a different building across the street from the first couple’s venue. A really nice park and historical area, I have to say that it’s an excellent set of venues. There are several places one can rent for events on the property.</div>
<div><br /></div>
<div>This time though, the groom asked if I would allow his father to speak before I did my part. No worries! I introduced him, expected him to speak about love and how great it was for his kids to both marry this year etc. </div>
<div><br /></div>
<div>He went on a fifteen minute homily about <b>biblical</b> <b>principles</b> for marriage. The <i>man</i> is the head of the household, etc. Marriage is sacred and shouldn’t be ended. All of this was in Spanish. </div>
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<div>I was surprised. I don’t know if they knew that I could follow along, but I smiled politely and kept my composure in a way that would make Elizabeth proud.</div>
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<div>I happened to glance at the paper he was reading from, and having memorized the title at the top of the page after the ceremony I set out to see if he was reading a prepared script. He was-sort of-it was clear he had crossed some things out and added notes. I wasn’t surprised to find his script online.</div>
<div><br /></div>
<div>I <i>was</i> surprised to find out it was a Jehovah’s Witness wedding script.</div>
<div><br /></div>
<div>Wait-I thought these folks were anti-religion? </div>
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<div>Then I learned that JW’s tend to get married by a specially ordained elder, which apparently are in short supply, or by a civil authority outside of their church (properly called a Kingdom Hall). No crosses, no statues, no mandalas, no stars of David or Solomon. Simple and dignified but totally devoid of "pagan" symbols. </div>
<div><br /></div>
<div>And then I realized, I had become a JW goy.</div>
<div><img src="https://cdn-images.postach.io/d75069e9-5c71-4121-ac7e-c18dbe27331d/800d912d-1dfc-462e-abfb-502ef03ce8d5/b35e28c0-73cc-4a11-aed5-70eb888db5c4.jpg" /></div>
<div><span style="caret-color: rgb(25, 27, 38); color: rgb(25, 27, 38); font-family: "Open Sans", sans-serif; font-variant-caps: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: nowrap; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Image by </span><a href="https://pixabay.com/users/coombesy-416447/?utm_source=link-attribution&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=image&utm_content=433625" style="caret-color: rgb(25, 27, 38); color: rgb(25, 27, 38); font-family: "Open Sans", sans-serif; font-variant-caps: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: nowrap; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); cursor: pointer; text-decoration: underline; outline: 0px !important;">coombesy</a><span style="caret-color: rgb(25, 27, 38); color: rgb(25, 27, 38); font-family: "Open Sans", sans-serif; font-variant-caps: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: nowrap; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> from </span><a href="https://pixabay.com/?utm_source=link-attribution&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=image&utm_content=433625" style="caret-color: rgb(25, 27, 38); color: rgb(25, 27, 38); font-family: "Open Sans", sans-serif; font-variant-caps: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: nowrap; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); cursor: pointer; text-decoration: underline; outline: 0px !important;">Pixabay</a><span style="caret-color: rgb(25, 27, 38); color: rgb(25, 27, 38); font-family: "Open Sans", sans-serif; font-size: medium; font-variant-caps: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: nowrap; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> </span></div>
<div><b><br /></b></div>
<div><b>A what?</b></div>
<div><br /></div>
<div>Among some strict Orthodox Jews, there are many things prohibited on the Sabbath. <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shabbos_goy">So they hire a gentile (or in Yiddish, a goy) to do the things they cannot. </a></div>
<div><br /></div>
<div>Similarly this JW family had sought me out (I’m more flexible than a judge, a former governor, the current governor, a magistrate or a city recorder...all of whom are legally able to conduct a marriage ceremony in Georgia).</div>
<div><br /></div>
<div>I had to laugh to myself, at all this hoop-jumping. In my mind I thought this family must have a very interesting background to have so many secularists. No one attending had even the smallest cross or saint medal or anything. I mean the couples I could understand, but what are the chances that aunties and grandmothers are also atheists? </div>
<div><br /></div>
<div>I wish these two couples had just explained to me their needs. I’m very open about serving everyone, regardless of faith of lack of faith. I’d have learned more about their tradition’s rules and would have accommodated them as best I could. In hindsight, I’m glad they trusted me at all to let me in and let me help them.</div>
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<div><br /></div>
Doing Justice
http://rootandsource.org/post/doing-justice
2022-04-30T23:27:26.922000Z
2019-11-03T19:20:34Z
Rev. Nathan DeMay
<div><h3 style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-variant-caps: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px;"><span style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-variant-caps: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px;">Doing Justice
</span></h3><div style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-variant-caps: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; margin-top: 1em; margin-bottom: 1em;"><span style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-variant-caps: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px;-en-paragraph:true;">I came across the podcast</span><span style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-variant-caps: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; font-style: italic;-en-paragraph:true;"> </span><a href="https://almostheretical.com/episodes/danya-ruttenberg" style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-variant-caps: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; font-style: italic;-en-paragraph:true;">Almost Heretical</a><span style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-variant-caps: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px;-en-paragraph:true;"> by accident (or, perhaps "accident") and listened to an episode featuring Rabbi Danya Ruttenberg. I’m a fan of </span><a href="http://danyaruttenberg.net/" style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-variant-caps: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px;-en-paragraph:true;">hers</a><span style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-variant-caps: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px;-en-paragraph:true;">, and I’ve learned so much just following her on Twitter.
</span></div><div style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-variant-caps: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; margin-top: 1em; margin-bottom: 1em;"><span style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-variant-caps: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px;-en-paragraph:true;">After listening to Rabbi Ruttenberg’s episode, I ("coincidently?") listened to an episode of </span><a href="https://interfaithradio.org/Archive/2019-September/The_Death_Penalty_and_The_Divine__A_Conversation_With_Sister_Helen_Prejean" style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-variant-caps: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; font-style: italic;-en-paragraph:true;">Interfaith Voices</a><span style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-variant-caps: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px;-en-paragraph:true;">, which had done an episode on the death penalty and the work of Sister Helen Prejean to end the practice in America (and really across the world).
</span></div><div style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-variant-caps: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; margin-top: 1em; margin-bottom: 1em;"><span style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-variant-caps: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px;-en-paragraph:true;">The episode also featured a short interview with </span><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Tooley" style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-variant-caps: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px;-en-paragraph:true;">Mark Tooley</a><span style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-variant-caps: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px;-en-paragraph:true;">, president of the conservative think tank (I hate that term) the Institute on Religion and Democracy. He’s all about the execution.
</span></div></div>
<div><img src="https://cdn-images.postach.io/d75069e9-5c71-4121-ac7e-c18dbe27331d/15a054af-6b0b-4325-a489-afcd30a785a8/7e623c42-d1bf-4a47-86a9-8ff26c1c1b4d.jpg" />Image by <a href="https://pixabay.com/photos/monument-statue-sculpture-172774/">David Mark</a> from Pixabay</div><div style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-variant-caps: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; margin-top: 1em; margin-bottom: 1em;"><span style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-variant-caps: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px;-en-paragraph:true;">Brandt Jean, the brother of slain civilian Botham Jean, made news recently when he publicly forgave his brother’s murderer, former police officer Amber Guyger. I’m sure you are familiar with the situation and I won’t pontificate on how ridiculously and incompetently evil this all was (at least not now), but I feel that Brandt’s forgiveness was his alone. It’s not a panacea for racism, it’s not applicable for Guyger’s responsibility to other, as Rabbi Ruttenberg says, "secondary victims." I won’t tell Brandt how to process his response to his brother’s murder and murderer. But this kicked off a lot of conversations in the media about the concepts of forgiveness and justice.
</span></div><div style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-variant-caps: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; margin-top: 1em; margin-bottom: 1em;"><span style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-variant-caps: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px;-en-paragraph:true;">These two podcast episodes were rich and clearly intertwined. Some of the truths I took from the first podcast were:
</span></div><ol style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-variant-caps: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px;"><li><div>In our society, forgiveness is often cheap (Rabbi Ruttenberg quoted Bonhoeffer who called it "cheap grace") and seems to be a means of alleviating the discomfort of guilt. I feel bad that you feel bad, so I’ll forgive you and we can just ignore all of this messiness.</div></li><li><div>Forgiveness is elevated above other concerns, like justice and repentance and repair. (Read this again.)</div></li><li><div>Judaism has some different ideas about forgiveness and repentance (outlined below).</div></li><li><div>Our culture often conflates what a person does with who they are (racist act vs. racist ideas). This leads to a disconnect for the victims who may have been harmed by actions regardless of the perpetrator’s intent. We might punish someone for "being racist" by labeling them such, but we don’t address the "doing racism."</div></li><li><div>An overarching Christian idea that this world is a lost cause, and we should focus on the next life as an escape from this one, rather than doing the work required here and now.</div></li></ol><div style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-variant-caps: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; margin-top: 1em; margin-bottom: 1em;"><span style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-variant-caps: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px;-en-paragraph:true;">Rabbi Ruttenberg outlines a Jewish process (based on the teachings of Maimonides) for redressing wrongdoing. She said there are five steps, I’ve found different online views that say there are four, and some that list six. Such is the dynamic nature of Judaism!
</span></div><div style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-variant-caps: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; margin-top: 1em; margin-bottom: 1em;"><span style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-variant-caps: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px;-en-paragraph:true;">I’ve decided to go with </span><a href="https://www.paulkipnes.com/6-steps-of-teshuvah/" style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-variant-caps: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px;-en-paragraph:true;">six</a><span style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-variant-caps: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px;-en-paragraph:true;">:
</span></div><ol style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-variant-caps: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px;"><li><div>Regret: Understanding what you did, and why you did it, and what the resulting harm is.</div></li><li><div>Renounce: Own it, name it, shame it. Admit that you did wrong and endeavor to do better.</div></li><li><div>Confess: tell those you’ve hurt that you take responsibility for what you’ve done.</div></li><li><div>Reconcile: Start with a sincere apology and continue working with your victims until there’s healing. If they want it. If not, don’t bother them! Really, it isn’t about YOUR feelings at this point.</div></li><li><div>Amends: Make it right. Repair the damage if possible. If you stole something, give it back or pay for it. If you told a lie, tell the truth. Restore the breach.</div></li><li><div>Resolve: Consciously choose a better path the next time you have the option to do so. Don’t make the same mistakes again.</div></li></ol><div style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-variant-caps: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; margin-top: 1em; margin-bottom: 1em;"><span style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-variant-caps: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px;-en-paragraph:true;">This approach seems wholesome and healthy. It’s not a quick fix. It’s not a cheap grace. It’s potentially hard work, with potential for great payoff for all involved, and it has nothing to do with asking God for a magic dispensation for our failures.
</span></div><div style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-variant-caps: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; margin-top: 1em; margin-bottom: 1em;"><span style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-variant-caps: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px;-en-paragraph:true;">Something is lacking though.
</span></div><div style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-variant-caps: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; margin-top: 1em; margin-bottom: 1em;"><span style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-variant-caps: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px;-en-paragraph:true;">Punishment.
</span></div><div style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-variant-caps: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; margin-top: 1em; margin-bottom: 1em;"><span style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-variant-caps: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px;-en-paragraph:true;">Punishment is often how we understand justice. You stole something? OK, off to jail. What about the victim? What about the rehabilitation of the criminal? Not important, just make sure they feel pain. Suffer! Punish. It’s another cheap antidote to the discomfort we can feel when tasked with facing reality. Besides, Jesus is coming back any minute and we’ll all go to a perfect place so why bother?
</span></div><div style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-variant-caps: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; margin-top: 1em; margin-bottom: 1em;"><span style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-variant-caps: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px;-en-paragraph:true;">I’ve been especially aware of our cutlure’s love of punishment in my interaction with incarcerated folks who are likely in prison because they (sometimes violently) took something to pay for their drug addiction.
</span></div><div style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-variant-caps: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; margin-top: 1em; margin-bottom: 1em;"><span style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-variant-caps: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px;-en-paragraph:true;">They don’t get treatment for their disease.
</span></div><div style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-variant-caps: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; margin-top: 1em; margin-bottom: 1em;"><span style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-variant-caps: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px;-en-paragraph:true;">They don’t get the opportunity to reconcile with their victims.
</span></div><div style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-variant-caps: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; margin-top: 1em; margin-bottom: 1em;"><span style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-variant-caps: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px;-en-paragraph:true;">They don’t learn to own their actions.
</span></div><div style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-variant-caps: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; margin-top: 1em; margin-bottom: 1em;"><span style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-variant-caps: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px;-en-paragraph:true;">They get punished. And you and I pay (a small fortune) for it. We house them, we feed them. Inadequately (punishment, remember?!). But it still costs taxpayers a lot. It doesn’t come close to addressing the harm done or how to fix it.
</span></div><div style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-variant-caps: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; margin-top: 1em; margin-bottom: 1em;"><span style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-variant-caps: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px;-en-paragraph:true;">And here I come the argument made by Mr. Tooley. He believes it is appropriate for Christians to support the death penalty because (example murder) the taking of a human life is a right belonging to God alone. So if you take a life, you must have yours taken.
</span></div><div style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-variant-caps: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; margin-top: 1em; margin-bottom: 1em;"><span style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-variant-caps: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px;-en-paragraph:true;">Yes, that’s what he said.
</span></div><div style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-variant-caps: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; margin-top: 1em; margin-bottom: 1em;"><span style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-variant-caps: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px;-en-paragraph:true;">I’m unclear where in the Gospel this point is made, and he certainly doesn’t (to his credit) try to put those words in Jesus’ mouth. He insists that God alone can take human life </span><span style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-variant-caps: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; font-weight: bold;-en-paragraph:true;">AND</span><span style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-variant-caps: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px;-en-paragraph:true;"> that it is the longstanding purpose of governments (as understood by Christians) to punish and </span><span style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-variant-caps: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;-en-paragraph:true;">execute</span><span style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-variant-caps: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px;-en-paragraph:true;"> humans. Which is like being a little pregnant. Either you are or you aren’t. Either God </span><span style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-variant-caps: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;-en-paragraph:true;">alone</span><span style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-variant-caps: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px;-en-paragraph:true;"> can take human life, or </span><span style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-variant-caps: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;-en-paragraph:true;">we</span><span style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-variant-caps: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px;-en-paragraph:true;"> can decide to take it via our elected government. Or perhaps he believes that God is government? Vice versa?
</span></div><div style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-variant-caps: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; margin-top: 1em; margin-bottom: 1em;"><span style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-variant-caps: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px;-en-paragraph:true;">I feel that despite his profession, he understand neither religion nor democracy.
</span></div><div style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-variant-caps: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; margin-top: 1em; margin-bottom: 1em;"><span style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-variant-caps: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px;-en-paragraph:true;">Mr. Tooley is both wrong and unable to make a coherent argument for his position. But it really comes back to the importance of punishment as salve for </span><span style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-variant-caps: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; font-weight: bold;-en-paragraph:true;">our</span><span style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-variant-caps: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px;-en-paragraph:true;"> discomfort.
</span></div><div style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-variant-caps: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; margin-top: 1em; margin-bottom: 1em;"><span style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-variant-caps: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px;-en-paragraph:true;">I understand that murder is horrible. I’m not confident enough in our system, however, to allow the state to execute people. It’s not about the criminal-it’s about the rest of us. I met a murderer a few years ago at a conference on justice reform. I was suddenly flooded with all kinds of complex and conflicted emotions and ideas. Why is he free? Why am I shaking his hand? What more should he have to do? How much murder is too much? Too little? I haven’t yet answered all those questions, but I’m at least aware of them and how they play into my spiritual life.
</span></div><div style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-variant-caps: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; margin-top: 1em; margin-bottom: 1em;"><span style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-variant-caps: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px;-en-paragraph:true;">At the same conference another person was doing forty years of probation. Forty years. I think she embezzled.
</span></div><div style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-variant-caps: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; margin-top: 1em; margin-bottom: 1em;"><span style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-variant-caps: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px;-en-paragraph:true;">One of the great defects of our system is that the injustice itself is not repaired. It’s punished. Those are two different things. Our system is like a store that charges random prices. Today a candy bar is a million dollars. A pack of gum is fifty cents. Tomorrow that can of coke is a billion dollars, but today it’s just three. If you’re black, that coke will cost you your entire income.
</span></div><div style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-variant-caps: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; margin-top: 1em; margin-bottom: 1em;"><span style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-variant-caps: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px;-en-paragraph:true;">I’ll end this post (but I have SO much more to say about this topic and will do so) with the Biblical </span><a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Micah%206:8&version=NRSV" style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-variant-caps: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px;-en-paragraph:true;">quote</a><span style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-variant-caps: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px;-en-paragraph:true;"> from my last article (different translation).
</span></div><div style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-variant-caps: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; margin-top: 1em; margin-bottom: 1em;"><span style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-variant-caps: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px;-en-paragraph:true;">This time, give deep thoughts to what it really means in our everyday lives. Incorporate it into your daily spiritual practice. See where it crops up in your awareness.
</span></div><blockquote style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-variant-caps: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px;"><div>He has told you, O mortal, what is good;
</div></blockquote><blockquote style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-variant-caps: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px;"><div>and what does the Lord require of you
</div></blockquote><blockquote style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-variant-caps: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px;"><div>but to do justice, and to love kindness,
</div></blockquote><blockquote style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-variant-caps: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px;"><div>and to walk humbly with your God?
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This Nonviolent Life: The Work
http://rootandsource.org/post/this-nonviolent-life-the-work
2022-04-30T22:56:26.150000Z
2019-09-10T15:01:54Z
Rev. Nathan DeMay
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<div><span style="font-family: "Courier New"; -webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%;"><img src="https://cdn-images.postach.io/d75069e9-5c71-4121-ac7e-c18dbe27331d/9854c41f-96d9-4eb1-9cb2-7e69c5bc1064/62d8b2c3-14ff-4dcb-82cd-0641668808cd.jpg" title="Attachment" width="1242"/>Tuesday September 10, 2019</span><br/></div>
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<div><font face="Courier New">"We must therefore ask ourselves: How do we work with our thoughts and our beliefs in ways that nurture the dignity of all life? How do we ensure justice without fostering generations of harm and hate internally and externally? How do we comfort our own raging heart in a sea of racial ignorance, ill will, and violence? And how can our actions reflect the world we want to live in and leave to future generations? These are questions about how to respond with both heart and mind, while being awake and wise."</font></div>
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<div><font face="Courier New">—Ruth King</font></div>
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This Land is (Not) Your Land
http://rootandsource.org/post/this-land-is-not-your-land
2022-04-30T22:56:33.853000Z
2019-07-30T19:33:57Z
Rev. Nathan DeMay
<div>Last year I had the great pleasure of attending the Parliament of World Religions in Toronto. It will always stay with me as an amazing experience, a vibrant example of Interfaith and Interspiritual principles in action.</div>
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<div>During a number of events, speakers would begin with an introduction to who they are, and then to acknowledge that they were on or from occupied Indigenous land. They were specific, this is occupied Ojibwa land, I am from occupied Lakota territory, etc.</div>
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<div>I hadn’t noticed this practice before. I began to see this crop up in other venues, such as Twitter bios, and at events I’d watch on YouTube.</div>
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<div>At first, I felt that acknowledgement of the ancestral lands on which modern Toronto, for example, stand was respectful and an act of respect. But as I came across this more often, it felt like it had devolved into a liberal lip service towards indigenous people. </div>
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<div>That might sound cynical. Maybe it is. But until I see people do more than learn who lived on their locale hundreds of years ago, I suspect my feelings will remain the same.</div>
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<div>The truth is that European-based countries in the Western Hemisphere have made and broken, or ignored, a number of agreements with indigenous nations. I can’t speak for indigenous people but I would certainly find the recognition of my people’s ancestral claims inadequate. If progressives genuinely care about indigenous issues, we need to work to ensure our governments are honoring agreements, renegotiating when appropriate, and giving indigenous voices a boost. <br/></div>
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The S Word, Revisited
http://rootandsource.org/post/the-s-word-revisited
2022-04-30T22:56:29.860000Z
2019-07-17T16:19:53Z
Rev. Nathan DeMay
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<div>As the United States slides into another seemingly endless presidential election cycle, we are inundated with the use of the words "socialism" and "socialist" especially as we discuss our absolutely broken, disastrous healthcare system.</div>
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<div>For many folks, socialism/ist are terms that are shorthand for "I don’t like you, you’re un-American." It’s a scary term, something that foggily refers to the USSR or some high-tax Nordic country. It’s antithetical to our principles of making money and becoming a gazillionaire. Never mind that the loudest people flinging this term will likely not even become millionaires, or perhaps not even hundred thousandaires, still, like hitting the lottery, they believe deeply that they’re time <span style="font-weight: bold;">will</span> come.<br /></div>
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<div>On the other side we have people trying to make socialism less scary by making the point that we have a socialized military and highway system and fire and police…<br /></div>
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<div>None of these descriptions really captures what socialism is. If you want to spend time understanding all the various iterations of socialism, Wikipedia is probably a good source. The most popular form is the European social democrat model, in which the country’s citizens pay the state a large percentage in taxes in exchange for services that many would not otherwise be able to access. <br /></div>
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<div>What we’re really talking about is a concept central to modern democratic countries-shared responsibility for shared services. The military is an excellent example of this; in centuries past every two-a-penny noble had an army. Mostly it was made up of unwilling peasants who farmed his land, and as you can imagine this made for less-than-enthusiastic soldiers. Eventually someone figured out that paying and training people to be soldiers professionally might just be a better option. <br /></div>
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<div>Now it’s the norm. No intelligent person would dare suggest our military needs could be covered by, say, the corporate conscripts from Amazon, or Google, or Apple. <br /></div>
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<div>All of our allies, all of the other modern western democracies, have taken a similar approach to healthcare. Just as every citizen pitches in for defense, and for the country’s roadway system, we should also provide healthcare to everyone. What is the point of having a state-of-the art defense if the country we’re defending is full of sick and bankrupted people???? <br /></div>
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<div>And lest anyone be tempted to decry the horrors of a government bureaucracy…have you never interacted with the bureaucracies of insurance companies and hospitals? I once had an insurer who told me a procedure I had done was both covered and not covered. Schrodinger’s policy I guess?<br /></div>
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<div>Congress has made it ILLEGAL for us to shop around for medical treatment. That’s as far from "free market healthcare" as you can get without any discernible patient benefit.<br /></div>
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<div>Part of the problem is that Americans have a strongly held myth about taxes, that they are punitive and should be avoided at all costs. As I said in an earlier post, taxes are actually like a gym membership, or HOA dues. They are the price of being part of a larger thing-a res publica (public thing) and not a penalty for making a living. If you want to live in a low, or zero tax world, get yourself a plot of land and declare independence. Good luck!<br /></div>
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<div>This myth serves politicians well because they can use taxes as a never-ending topic to divide and herd citizens into neat groupings. The question we never seem to answer is, what do I get for my taxes? What am I supporting? <span style="font-weight: bold;">Who is benefitting and who is left out?</span> In an HOA community, home owners know what the budget is for the year and where the money goes, and some at least bother to understand just what they’re paying for. <br /></div>
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<div>How many of us do this with our local, state or federal governments? <br /></div>
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<div>So I hope to inspire people to ask this question, and hold politicians accountable. We would never dream of turning our finances over to an accountant who won’t…account for where the money is going. <br /></div>
Thoughts on War by Howard Zinn (z'l)
http://rootandsource.org/post/thoughts-on-war-by-howard-zinn-z-l
2022-04-30T22:56:34.313000Z
2019-05-28T00:32:22Z
Rev. Nathan DeMay
<div><font face="Courier New">Below is an email I received from the Network of Spiritual Progressives and Tikkun.</font></div>
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<div><font face="Courier New">Editor's note: It was a great honor to be able to publish some of Howard Zinn's reflections in Tikkun and for me to have his enthusiastic endorsement of my book The Left Hand of God. You can see why I felt such a great loss when he died almost 9 years ago. May his memory be a blessing for all of us--and read what he says below about Memorial Day. —Rabbi Michael Lerner, <a dir="ltr" href="mailto:rabbilerner.tikkun@gmail.com">rabbilerner.tikkun@gmail.com</a></font></div>
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<div><font face="Courier New">Memorial Day will be celebrated … by the usual betrayal of the dead, by the hypocritical patriotism of the politicians and contractors preparing for more wars, more graves to receive more flowers on future Memorial Days. The memory of the dead deserves a different dedication. To peace, to defiance of governments.</font></div>
<div><font face="Courier New">In 1974, I was invited by Tom Winship, the editor of the Boston Globe, who had been bold enough in 1971 to print part of the top secret Pentagon Papers on the history of the Vietnam War, to write a bi-weekly column for the op-ed page of the newspaper. I did that for about a year and a half. The column below appeared June 2, 1976, in connection with that year’s Memorial Day. After it appeared, my column was canceled.</font></div>
<div><font face="Courier New">Memorial Day will be celebrated as usual, by high-speed collisions of automobiles and bodies strewn on highways and the sound of ambulance sirens throughout the land.</font></div>
<div><font face="Courier New">It will also be celebrated by the display of flags, the sound of bugles and drums, by parades and speeches and unthinking applause.</font></div>
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<div><font face="Courier New">It will be celebrated by giant corporations, which make guns, bombs, fighter planes, aircraft carriers and an endless assortment of military junk and which await the $100 billion in contracts to be approved soon by Congress and the President.</font></div>
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<div><font face="Courier New">There was a young woman in New Hampshire who refused to allow her husband, killed in Vietnam, to be given a military burial. She rejected the hollow ceremony ordered by those who sent him and 50,000 others to their deaths. Her courage should be cherished on Memorial Day. There were the B52 pilots who refused to fly those last vicious raids of Nixon’s and Kissinger’s war. Have any of the great universities, so quick to give honorary degrees to God-knows-whom, thought to honor those men at this Commencement time, on this Memorial Day?</font></div>
<div><font face="Courier New">No politician who voted funds for war, no business contractor for the military, no general who ordered young men into battle, no FBI man who spied on anti-war activities, should be invited to public ceremonies on this sacred day. Let the dead of past wars be honored. Let those who live pledge themselves never to embark on mass slaughter again.</font></div>
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<div><font face="Courier New">"The shell had his number on it. The blood ran into the ground…Where his chest ought to have been they pinned the Congressional Medal, the DSC, the Medaille Militaire, the Belgian Croix de Guerre, the Italian gold medal, The Vitutea Militara sent by Queen Marie of Rumania. All the Washingtonians brought flowers .. Woodrow Wilson brought a bouquet of poppies."</font></div>
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<div><font face="Courier New">Those are the concluding lines of John Dos Passos angry novel 1919. Let us honor him on Memorial Day.</font></div>
<div><font face="Courier New">And also Thoreau, who went to jail to protest the Mexican War.</font></div>
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<div><font face="Courier New">And Mark Twain, who denounced our war against the Filipinos at the turn of the century.</font></div>
<div><font face="Courier New">And I.F. Stone, who virtually alone among newspaper editors exposed the fraud and brutality of the Korean War.</font></div>
<div><font face="Courier New">Let us honor Martin Luther King, who refused the enticements of the White House, and the cautions of associates, and thundered against the war in Vietnam.</font></div>
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<div><font face="Courier New">Memorial Day should be a day for putting flowers on graves and planting trees. Also, for destroying the weapons of death that endanger us more than they protect us, that waste our resources and threaten our children and grandchildren.</font></div>
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<div><font face="Courier New">On Memorial Day we should take note that, in the name of "defense," our taxes have been used to spend a quarter of a billion dollars on a helicopter assault ship called "the biggest floating lemon," which was accepted by the Navy although it had over 2,000 major defects at the time of its trial cruise.</font></div>
<div><font face="Courier New"><br/></font></div>
<div><font face="Courier New">Meanwhile, there is such a shortage of housing that millions live in dilapidated sections of our cities and millions more are forced to pay high rents or high interest rates on their mortgages. There’s 90 billion for the B1 bomber, but people don’t have money to pay hospital bills.</font></div>
<div><font face="Courier New"><br/></font></div>
<div><font face="Courier New">We must be practical, say those whose practicality has consisted of a war every generation. We mustn’t deplete our defenses. Say those who have depleted our youth, stolen our resources. In the end, it is living people, not corpses, creative energy, not destructive rage, which are our only real defense, not just against other governments trying to kill us, but against our own, also trying to kill us.</font></div>
<div><font face="Courier New">Let us not set out, this Memorial Day, on the same old drunken ride to death.</font></div>
<div><font face="Courier New"> </font></div>
<div><font face="Courier New">Published by the Boston Globe • June 2, 1976</font></div>
<div><img src="https://cdn-images.postach.io/d75069e9-5c71-4121-ac7e-c18dbe27331d/f7836368-a4ef-477b-aa7b-94632089ccb0/2a33f6a1-9789-4749-a942-aace0f6d94af.jpg" title="Attachment" width="594"/></div>
<div><br/></div>
Prescription for the Disillusioned
http://rootandsource.org/post/prescription-for-the-disillusioned
2022-04-30T22:56:31.560000Z
2019-04-17T20:17:33Z
Rev. Nathan DeMay
<div><div style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: UICTFontTextStyleTallBody; font-size: 21px; font-variant-caps: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.301961); -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><br/></div></div>
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</div><div style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: UICTFontTextStyleTallBody; font-size: 21px; font-variant-caps: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.301961); -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="-en-paragraph:true;">by Rebecca del Rio</span><br/></div>
<div style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: UICTFontTextStyleTallBody; font-size: 21px; font-variant-caps: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.301961); -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="-en-paragraph:true;"><br/></span></div>
<div style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: UICTFontTextStyleTallBody; font-size: 21px; font-variant-caps: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.301961); -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 21px; font-variant-caps: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.301961); -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; font-style: italic;">Come new to this</span><span style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 21px; font-variant-caps: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.301961); -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; font-style: italic;"> </span></div><div>
</div><div style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: UICTFontTextStyleTallBody; font-size: 21px; font-variant-caps: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.301961); -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 21px; font-variant-caps: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.301961); -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; font-style: italic;">Day. Remove the rigid</span></div><div>
</div><div style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: UICTFontTextStyleTallBody; font-size: 21px; font-variant-caps: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.301961); -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 21px; font-variant-caps: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.301961); -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; font-style: italic;">Overcoat of experience,</span></div><div>
</div><div style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: UICTFontTextStyleTallBody; font-size: 21px; font-variant-caps: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.301961); -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 21px; font-variant-caps: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.301961); -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; font-style: italic;">The notion of knowing,</span></div><div>
</div><div style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: UICTFontTextStyleTallBody; font-size: 21px; font-variant-caps: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.301961); -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 21px; font-variant-caps: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.301961); -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; font-style: italic;">The beliefs that cloud your vision.</span></div><div>
</div><div style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: UICTFontTextStyleTallBody; font-size: 21px; font-variant-caps: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.301961); -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px;"><span style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: UICTFontTextStyleTallBody; font-size: 21px; font-variant-caps: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.301961); -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; font-style: italic;"> </span></div><div>
</div><div style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: UICTFontTextStyleTallBody; font-size: 21px; font-variant-caps: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.301961); -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 21px; font-variant-caps: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.301961); -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; font-style: italic;">Leave behind the stories</span><span style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 21px; font-variant-caps: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.301961); -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; font-style: italic;"> </span></div><div>
</div><div style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: UICTFontTextStyleTallBody; font-size: 21px; font-variant-caps: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.301961); -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 21px; font-variant-caps: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.301961); -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; font-style: italic;">Of your life. Spit out the</span></div><div>
</div><div style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: UICTFontTextStyleTallBody; font-size: 21px; font-variant-caps: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.301961); -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 21px; font-variant-caps: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.301961); -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; font-style: italic;">Sour taste of unmet expectation.</span></div><div>
</div><div style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: UICTFontTextStyleTallBody; font-size: 21px; font-variant-caps: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.301961); -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 21px; font-variant-caps: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.301961); -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; font-style: italic;">Let the stale scent of what-ifs</span></div><div>
</div><div style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: UICTFontTextStyleTallBody; font-size: 21px; font-variant-caps: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.301961); -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 21px; font-variant-caps: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.301961); -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; font-style: italic;">Waft back into the swamp</span></div><div>
</div><div style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: UICTFontTextStyleTallBody; font-size: 21px; font-variant-caps: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.301961); -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 21px; font-variant-caps: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.301961); -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; font-style: italic;">Of your useless fears.</span></div><div>
</div><div style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: UICTFontTextStyleTallBody; font-size: 21px; font-variant-caps: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.301961); -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px;"><span style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: UICTFontTextStyleTallBody; font-size: 21px; font-variant-caps: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.301961); -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; font-style: italic;"> </span></div><div>
</div><div style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: UICTFontTextStyleTallBody; font-size: 21px; font-variant-caps: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.301961); -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 21px; font-variant-caps: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.301961); -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; font-style: italic;">Arrive curious, without the armor</span></div><div>
</div><div style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: UICTFontTextStyleTallBody; font-size: 21px; font-variant-caps: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.301961); -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 21px; font-variant-caps: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.301961); -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; font-style: italic;">Of certainty, the plans and unplanned</span></div><div>
</div><div style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: UICTFontTextStyleTallBody; font-size: 21px; font-variant-caps: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.301961); -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 21px; font-variant-caps: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.301961); -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; font-style: italic;">Results of the life you’ve imagined.</span></div><div>
</div><div style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: UICTFontTextStyleTallBody; font-size: 21px; font-variant-caps: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.301961); -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 21px; font-variant-caps: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.301961); -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; font-style: italic;">Live the life that chooses you, new</span></div><div>
</div><div style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: UICTFontTextStyleTallBody; font-size: 21px; font-variant-caps: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.301961); -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 21px; font-variant-caps: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.301961); -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; font-style: italic;">Every breath, every blink</span></div><div>
</div><div style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: UICTFontTextStyleTallBody; font-size: 21px; font-variant-caps: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.301961); -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 21px; font-variant-caps: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.301961); -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; font-style: italic;">Of your astonished eyes.</span><br/></div>
<div style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: UICTFontTextStyleTallBody; font-size: 21px; font-variant-caps: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.301961); -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><i><img src="https://cdn-images.postach.io/d75069e9-5c71-4121-ac7e-c18dbe27331d/bcb3e021-593c-4dc9-8a73-0c05f25e9f24/ae5e3140-3789-43e2-b3c9-96ee50adea78.jpg" title="Attachment" width="1242"/></i></span></div>
A Web of Spirit
http://rootandsource.org/post/a-web-of-spirit
2022-04-30T22:56:39.083000Z
2019-04-08T17:18:20Z
Rev. Nathan DeMay
<div>I was walking my dogs outside, and the grey sky juxtaposed with the green and purple and blue and other bright colored flowers, buds, and shoots struck me. I am always struck by the darkening rain-anticipated sky and the brightness of spring. I feel enmeshed-it’s a $10 word, but it seems to be the one that comes to my tongue. Enmeshed by Spirit, pulsing through the new displays of life and the coming of life-giving rain. And so I try to carry myself today with that knowledge-that I am enmeshed in Spirit, and thus connected to all other things.</div>
<div><br /></div>
<div>And I am grateful.</div>
<div><img src="https://cdn-images.postach.io/d75069e9-5c71-4121-ac7e-c18dbe27331d/b78e5087-e7d0-4aae-a265-b4292a784477/76916060-0953-469c-b58e-38c3158af33d.jpg" /><br /></div>
<div><br /></div>
Your Nose is Cutoff
http://rootandsource.org/post/your-nose-is-cutoff
2022-04-30T22:56:28.164000Z
2019-03-27T19:15:33Z
Rev. Nathan DeMay
<div><span style="font-size: 14px;"><span style="font-size: 14px; font-family: Arial; font-stretch: normal; font-style: italic; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: bold; line-height: normal;">Yet your face is not spited.</span></span></div>
<div><font style="font-size: 14px;" face="Arial"><br/></font></div>
<div><span style="font-size: 14px; font-family: Arial; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; line-height: normal;">The political and religious establishment in the United States is hellbent on opposing common sense, scientific actions to combat climate change. Climate change which, by an overwhelming consensus, the world’s leading scientists have determined is caused by human activity. Which means we can act to stop, mitigate and maybe even reverse it.</span></div>
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</span></div><div><span style="font-size: 14px; font-family: Arial; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; line-height: normal;">
Inevitably every argument against fighting climate change comes from entrenched business interests who would rather reap profit now than plan for a future in which they will continue to exist, and thrive. Penny wise and pound foolish is a hallmark of their thinking. It’s absurd and self-defeating.</span></div><div><span style="font-size: 14px; font-family: Arial; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; line-height: normal;">
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"But!" They will protest "I don’t even live near any water/forest/ocean/whatever."</span></div><div><span style="font-size: 14px; font-family: Arial; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; line-height: normal;">
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Imagine which room in your house you would be willing to dedicate to dumping all your garbage into and setting it on fire. Which room do you choose? That’s what the people of Earth are doing right now. We’re burning the trash in a room of our house and pretending that neither the stench nor the flames will get us. Because, hey, we hardly even use that room.</span></div><div><br/></div><div><span style="font-size: 14px; font-family: Arial; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; line-height: normal;">
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Of course fire spreads easily, and would consume not only the garbage but the flooring, the walls, the ceiling and continue to spread unabated until it has exhausted itself with your home, loved ones, and possessions as its dinner. </span></div><div><br/></div><div><span style="font-size: 14px; font-family: Arial; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; line-height: normal;">
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No sensible person is suggesting we return to candles, smoke signals and riding donkeys around town. The United States has prided itself on being a culture of innovation, and yet the very outdated fossil fuel and related industries are driving us off a cliff, all while Americans (and others around the world) are offering innovative ways to have our cake and eat it too.</span></div><div><span style="font-size: 14px; font-family: Arial; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; line-height: normal;">
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Frankly, opposition to making meaningful environmental progress is an affront to American ingenuity, the health of our fellow humans, the beauty which we extol in our patriotic songs (no one sings of the rusted grey army of oil derricks and exhausted holler fills, no, we sing of amber waves of grain and purple majestic mountains). The opponents to caring for our home (!!) is being irrational, opposing the progress of technology and business in order to protect a feudal system of corporate overlords. While preaching free markets, they consistently work to protect intractable fiefdoms in exchange for a bit of the coin. </span></div><div><br/></div><div><span style="font-size: 14px; font-family: Arial; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; line-height: normal;">
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But who is going to buy your products when they’re spending all their money to keep the sea at bay? Or relocating to places less hostile? Who is going to pay for energy when food skyrockets to unprecedented premiums? How strong can economy of sick, impoverished, houseless workers be? </span></div><div><br/></div>
<div><span style="font-size: 14px; font-family: Arial;">We need to, staring </span><span style="font-size: 14px; font-family: Arial; font-style: italic;">this</span><span style="font-size: 14px; font-family: Arial;"> minute, vote with our pocketbooks-you don’t want to deal with plastic waste? Fine, Mega Corporation, we won’t buy your products. You won’t vote to protect our national parks, and our citizens’ health? Fine, Senator Corporate Shill, we will buy ourselves a government that will. </span></div>
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<div><span style="font-size: 14px; font-family: Arial;">Let’s go!</span></div>
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<div><img src="https://cdn-images.postach.io/d75069e9-5c71-4121-ac7e-c18dbe27331d/691d2165-e56e-494e-99f5-b7451b0f82c1/3e706e20-6d62-4a73-92e3-dc1a530a2f65.jpg" title="Attachment" width="1920"/></div>
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Prayer For Humanity
http://rootandsource.org/post/prayer-for-humanity
2022-04-30T23:39:51.697000Z
2019-03-25T17:29:04Z
Rev. Nathan DeMay
<div><br /></div><img src="https://cdn-images.postach.io/d75069e9-5c71-4121-ac7e-c18dbe27331d/a5bbf09f-ec15-40c3-b231-27424ccfdfa5/5589549f-4b79-d35b-a7be-5c2d4c6d0748.jpg" style="--en-naturalWidth:6016; --en-naturalHeight:4000;"/><div>Oh God, <b>Root and Source</b> of all good, open us to your wisdom, compassion, mercy and intelligence. Help us to choose Truth over Lie, Help over Harm, Integrity over Greed. Make us desire to emulate You, the Infinitely Good. </div>
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<div>Amen.</div>
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<div>-Reverend Nathan DeMay </div>
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A Tale of Two Socialisms
http://rootandsource.org/post/a-tale-of-two-socialisms
2022-04-30T23:31:28.055000Z
2019-03-18T17:38:42Z
Rev. Nathan DeMay
<div><br /></div><img src="https://cdn-images.postach.io/d75069e9-5c71-4121-ac7e-c18dbe27331d/97a7351f-4986-4192-9c20-d79a4c500810/4ca2ff0a-80d4-0aba-3ab3-adce2d78e4dc.jpg" style="--en-naturalWidth:1920; --en-naturalHeight:1280;"/><div><b><i>Or, How I learned to Sort of Embrace Taxation and Occasionally Stop Complaining</i></b></div>
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<div>Many people in North America live in subdivisions, carved out spaces in suburbia where houses are deposited quickly and cheaply on the landscape like eggs from a giant bird.</div>
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<div>In my subdivision, my neighborhood, we have a gate. We are a gated community. This sometimes sounds fancy to people who don’t know better, but what it really means is that we have an expensive and often annoying traffic flow device disguised as something stately.</div>
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<div>In Georgia, this gate means that the roads in my neighborhood are private ones. Your tax dollars do not pave my streets. If they turn into bleached trails with potholes, you don’t have to worry about them unless you move here, or we dismantle the gate.</div>
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<div>This also means that the homeowners, the HOA, are responsible for the roads. Snow? We have to remove it. Sinkhole? We have to fill it (or whatever one does). The home owners’ association in such a community is a nice microcosm of democracy, rights, responsibilities and one variety of socialism.</div>
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<div>Socialism is like the word dessert; it can mean just about anything. Mango slices are dessert, pie is dessert, profiteroles…you get my point. </div>
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<div>If you’re pro socialism, it refers to an idyllic life where everyone is healthy and educated and we’ve finally managed to eliminate poverty, racism, sexism…all the bad isms. If you’re con socialism, it’s a hellish nightmare of long bread lines, subpar cars, concrete apartment blocks, bloated bureaucracy and a fundament assault on your divinely instituted personal aristocratic way of life.</div>
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<div>And a bunch of other definitions in between.</div>
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<div>But many of the things we in America think of as "socialism" are really a <b><i>shared responsibility</i></b>, including costs, to provide for our community (or as they are called when they grow up, country) and its people. We share the burdens so more of us can share in the rewards.</div>
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<div>Think about highways or the military. No one goes around describing our "free" military. Or how they visited the grandkids by traveling the "free" interstates. We don’t shake our fists at the "free" stop signs and stop lights that dot our roadways. </div>
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<div>For some reason…or lack of reasoning, healthcare is treated differently. Unlike the abandonment of personal feudal militias for professional, national defense, we have clung to a patchwork system that insists that while it is not your job to pay for a soldier directly to protect your home and hearth, it is your responsibility to pay for the cancer that may attack the same. We see folks deride "Free Healthcare" as if that were an actual thing.</div>
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<div>Back to the HOA.</div>
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<div>In an HOA community, you don’t pay taxes, you pay dues. Or rather, the taxes you pay are called dues. The HOA itself is really a tiny parliament made up of one owner-representative from each house in the community. From among themselves, the HOA members choose a select number to serve on the board (and the board members select officers from themselves). In parliamentary terms the board is a government, and the HOA President is the Prime Minister.</div>
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<div>In my neighborhood once a year we have a session of the HOA; or as we call it, an HOA meeting. Every house is called on to send an owner-delegate, though anyone can attend, only one vote per owner per house. In recent years it’s been easier to find a smart Trump than to get a good turnout. Yet every year people complain about this or that and those of us who have been on the board, or served the community in other capacities have to gently (??) remind them that they too can participate in the governing of the community’s daily affairs. </div>
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<div>So dues…are set at the annual meeting, as part of the budget process. We pass a new budget for the coming year, and that includes the amount of taxes we need to raise per household to cover our expected expenditures and also prepare for future expenses. They ca go up, down or stay the same. Where this differs from, say, the federal budgetary process is that dues-payers know what they are paying for. And if they are unhappy with anything, they can address their issues at the meeting or through the online mailing list. If enough people concur, the board will change landscapers or water companies or the gate company or whatever. </div>
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<div>While we all pay the same amount, we don’t all necessarily benefit equally. Houses on the end of a building (we’re a townhouse community) typically have more direct access to landscaping. The rows of houses at either end of the community have special needs because of their locations, needs that we all pay for even though I don’t get a closed-in back yard with occasional mud slides, or the lovely stench of the retention pond. But we do this, shoulder the responsibilities, because we are all affected by the issues.</div>
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<div>Bad landscaping makes our neighborhood look bad. And that makes selling our homes harder. A broken detention pond can ruin the pipes and erode the soil on which the houses sit. Potholes can make us pay more in insurance.</div>
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<div>When I was President, the board decided to recoat the asphalt. This is the cheapest and quickest way to refresh the look of our private roads. To do this we needed to levy a special one-time assessment of $90 per household. Some folks balked. We insisted. This was right before the housing crash last decade, and there were something like 4 or 6 houses on the market in our neighborhood, houses that hadn’t sold in 9+ months of being on the market. They were dragging down the values of all homes. After the refreshing of the asphalt, they all sold within a few months.</div>
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<div>The balkers retracted their objections and praised the board for the work done, and marveled at how nice it was to drive on crisp black asphalt instead of grey gloomy asphalt. We had to raise taxes-but we did so in a way that proved beneficial to all and was demonstrably so. If you get thousands more for your house after investing less than a hundred, that’s a win kids.</div>
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<div>In the larger world, this is not how our attitude towards taxation works. We have been taught some mushy harebrained nonsense about the British King being too taxy and that’s why the 13 colonies got rid of him. *Insert massive eye roll here.*</div>
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<div>This is a convenient myth for politicians because we ordinary folks believe in it so deeply that we begrudgingly pay our taxes, complain, but still do it, while politicians use that money for all sorts of non-essential, non-beneficial-to-the-common-good things, all the while being paid under the table by big corporations whose lobbying nets them a tiny or non-existent tax bill.</div>
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<div>Why aren’t we asking, "what do I get for my taxes?" Why aren’t we asking this of every Presidential, HoR and Senate candidate? Why aren’t we demanding that our political parties make clear commitments to the financial stewardship of the country? Oh sure, sometimes we’re told that our taxes are high because we are supporting so many people on a luxurious welfare system (see the second version of socialism above) and yet anyone familiar with the reality of welfare programs knows they aren’t easy to get, they aren’t usually sufficient, they demoralize and demonize people who may find themselves with a big stinky detention pond that they never bargained for. On top of this old welfare queen trope (and the recent "brown caravan of doom" racist bullshit), the entire federal mechanism is intentionally murky and shady in hopes that we’ll just get tired and go away. Back to work, you’ve got Senators to pay to make life easier for MegaAmericaCorp! </div>
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<div>Because unlike the HOA of a small townhome community, we are distanced greatly from our "democracy." So we can’t stop the President while we’re walking the dogs and ask why we’re paying so much in landscaping and our bushes are still dying? Or, why are we paying so much for a military that is oversized and not enough on infrastructure? Just spitballing here. But this isn’t the way it should be. I should be able to have a reasonable conversation with my representative and Senators, without paying a bribe. And they should listen to our concerns and work on them instead of engaging as double agents for big business.</div>
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<div>As with the HOA, the power is in our hands; it is past time we take control, and insist that our government fix the landscaping, and the roads, and the gate, and the roofs…for all of us, not just the few privileged.</div>
New Zealand Terrorist Attacks
http://rootandsource.org/post/new-zealand-terrorist-attacks
2022-04-30T22:56:35.652000Z
2019-03-15T12:17:43Z
Rev. Nathan DeMay
<div>I don’t have words. I’m sorry for all the victims and their families. I pray that the victims be at peace and that the survivors may find their way to peace.</div>
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<div>To all my Muslim friends, I am here for you if you need to talk. And I am with you in solidarity against hatred and violence.<br/></div>
<div><img src="https://cdn-images.postach.io/d75069e9-5c71-4121-ac7e-c18dbe27331d/93019313-0ad6-418c-80b7-6906d35d8f73/0f59a9a0-0183-4014-94d8-9132304550bf.jpg" title="Attachment" width="1920"/></div>
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Primacolores
http://rootandsource.org/post/primacolores
2022-04-30T22:55:38.053000Z
2019-03-12T16:44:50Z
Rev. Nathan DeMay
<div><br /></div><img src="https://cdn-images.postach.io/d75069e9-5c71-4121-ac7e-c18dbe27331d/7fcab81a-25a5-4dcf-9941-823e1c0a918a/7499d9d4-f9d3-49b3-b711-d571c2439db3.jpg" style="--en-naturalWidth:1920; --en-naturalHeight:1280;"/><div>Spring doesn’t officially start for another week plus, but the trees are already teasing with hints of color. The leafless, mucky, dinginess of winter’s end is slowly being swept away. People complain about winter, but it’s not a bad thing to me. It’s a necessary time to rest, slow down, and pause with the earth to simply be. Winter gives us a chance to enjoy the pleasures of coziness, hot chocolate, new sweaters and the sun shining on new snow.</div>
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<div>Goodbye winter, thank you for the visit. See you soon, spring.</div>
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<div style="padding-left:40px;"><b>Spring</b></div>
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<div style="padding-left:40px;">We should celebrate</div>
<div style="padding-left:40px;">This wildest</div>
<div style="padding-left:40px;">Erupting</div>
<div style="padding-left:40px;">In Spring.</div>
<div style="padding-left:40px;">With colours recklessly</div>
<div style="padding-left:40px;">Splashed everywhere</div>
<div style="padding-left:40px;">In this the season of new</div>
<div style="padding-left:40px;">Daily episodes</div>
<div style="padding-left:40px;">Of wonder</div>
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<div style="padding-left:40px;">And delight…</div>
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<div style="padding-left:40px;"><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 14px;"><a href="https://worshipwords.co.uk/springwords/" rev="en_rl_none">Ross Kingham, Australia</a></span></span></div>
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Brandon, Full of Grace
http://rootandsource.org/post/brandon-full-of-grace
2022-04-30T22:56:43.051000Z
2019-03-08T19:02:08Z
Rev. Nathan DeMay
<div><img src="https://cdn-images.postach.io/d75069e9-5c71-4121-ac7e-c18dbe27331d/a5bafe8d-a053-4c2b-9529-5eb6586f8cec/4417adba-65ed-4977-915c-e9f9e8d4f8ed.jpg" /></div>
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<div>Grace is an important concept, especially in religion and most especially in Lutheran Christianity. You can study that particular strain of thinking on your own, it would engulf all of my blog.</div>
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<div>Simply stated, grace is <span style="caret-color: rgb(34, 34, 34); font-size: 14px; letter-spacing: normal; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); color: rgb(34, 34, 34); font-family: sans-serif; font-variant-caps: normal;">the </span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); color: rgb(34, 34, 34); font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 14px; font-variant-caps: normal; caret-color: rgb(34, 34, 34); letter-spacing: normal; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px;"> free and </span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); color: rgb(34, 34, 34); font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 14px; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">unmerited</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); color: rgb(34, 34, 34); font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 14px; font-variant-caps: normal; caret-color: rgb(34, 34, 34); letter-spacing: normal; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px;"> </span>favor<span style="caret-color: rgb(34, 34, 34); font-size: 14px; letter-spacing: normal; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); color: rgb(34, 34, 34); font-family: sans-serif; font-variant-caps: normal;"> of </span>God. In other words, we don’t deserve it; not to say we’re bad and we therefore deserve something less, but rather, for me, I mean that we are given the beauty of a sunrise, the smell of a baby’s head, puppy breath and laughter not because we can demonstrate that we have invested any of our own efforts, but because at the core of it, God is GOOD. And generous.</div>
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<div>I have thought about this idea a lot lately, as I have been working with my peers to help raise enough money to erase the legal assistance debts of a prisoner we’ve ministered to in Georgia.</div>
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<div>Does he deserve this? No. He has been, at times, rude and insulting. He has lied to us. He has abused the privilege of having an outsider communicate with an inmate. He has literally done nothing which could <b><i>merit</i></b> this action on our part.</div>
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<div>By erasing his debt, we can send him money directly. In prison, inmates are often underfed or fed poor quality meals. To supplement their food, outsiders can send money to their commissary accounts. But if the account has a negative balance, the money goes to that first. Because prison is a place where there is no grace.; no real justice. Just rules, often arbitrary, sometimes criminal in themselves, immoral and inhuman. Maddening (literally) holes of despair often run by people who are themselves caught in a life of desperation and gracelessness. Ultimately overseen by people who profit off human misery because, if we are stark and honest, they can’t find anything useful to offer so they manipulate, take advantage, and gather money by unethical means.</div>
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<div>So why do we pay off his debt? Because we can. Because it is the right thing to do, regardless of his actions. Because <b>grace</b> is a value we hold, a <b>divine</b> <b>quality</b> we attempt to emulate in honor of God, who has been abundantly gracious to us.</div>
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<div>If you want to help, please make a donation:</div>
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<div><a href="https://www.gofundme.com/prisoner-legal-fees?sharetype=teams&member=1701990&rcid=r01-155207330256-43fed56d69e4405f&pc=ot_co_campmgmt_w">https://www.gofundme.com/prisoner-legal-fees?sharetype=teams&member=1701990&rcid=r01-155207330256-43fed56d69e4405f&pc=ot_co_campmgmt_w</a></div>
The Methods of the Methodists
http://rootandsource.org/post/the-methods-of-the-methodists
2022-04-30T22:56:41.085000Z
2019-02-14T16:49:27Z
Rev. Nathan DeMay
<div><img src="https://cdn-images.postach.io/d75069e9-5c71-4121-ac7e-c18dbe27331d/3223dcfb-7c4f-476f-b6f8-7d81067dd3f4/28a086c9-8123-4dde-9cef-5f5f3be9f043.jpg" /></div>
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<div>For the umpteenth time in its existence the united Methodist church is once again coming together (February 23) to discuss and determine how it will deal with LGBTQ people. Currently its Book of Discipline states that homosexuality is incompatible with Christian practice.</div>
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<div>When my grandparents got married my grandfather, Catholic, and my grandmother, Methodist could not marry in the Catholic Church because the Catholic Church at that time, or at least certain elements of it, were not keen on Catholics and protestants marrying.</div>
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<div>They were married in a Protestant ceremony, to which my grandfather‘s parents, staunch French Catholics, refused to attend. Since that time my grandmother has always harbored a somewhat poorly hidden dislike for the Catholic Church and its ways. She was nominally Methodist until she decided after the Church took a stance on the Elian Gonzales situation, that the Methodist Church was too liberal. It’s hard to imagine that the Methodists are too liberal.</div>
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<div>I know that Episcopalians/Anglicans like to think of themselves as being in the middle way in Christianity, but in fact I think that it’s the Methodists that are really the middle way. They are a reformation of Anglicanism. They have maintained some episcopal elements in terms of polity-they have bishops-but they’ve also implemented certain changes which are reflective of the Anglo American world in which the denomination developed. They use saints in to name their churches, but as far as I know there’s no Methodist spiritual practice around saints. </div>
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<div>They maintain some Sacramental theology; central is communion and baptism which they take seriously, though they may not understand them in exactly the same way as Anglicans, or Lutherans, or Catholics do, they do hold them in a higher regard than the average Bible Based non-denom church. Methodists have always seemed like a reasonable middle Road in American Protestant Christianity.</div>
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<div>As a child I was raised Catholic but I did have on occasion exposure to Methodist worship through my mother‘s mother. For example some years we would attend the service on Christmas Eve or attend relatives’ marriages and so it’s not an entirely unfamiliar world.</div>
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<div>I’ve been somewhat disappointed in recent years that the UMC has struggled so painfully, so energetically, with the issue of homosexuality. Why this issue is so powerful that it bars people from full participation in the Church is beyond my comprehension. Even assuming that homosexuality is a sin, is it so insidious that it disables a person’s ability to minister? What is the scale for sins? What is the menu on which we can read the sins that ministers across the church can engage in and still be compatible with Christian teaching. For example I’m fairly certain that there is not a single member of the United Methodist Churc’s clergy who is not a liar. I’ve known several United Methodist clergy who are serial adulterers. I’m fairly certain that a number of them have engaged in theft of one kind or another or doing any one of 1 million other things which are prohibited in one scripture or another. Why can United Methodist clergy eat shellfish but cannot engage in homosexuality? What about those who take the Lords name in vain? What is the impact on one’s ministry if one for example blasphemes the Holy Spirit, whatever that means? My point of course is that it is absurd to latch onto this one issue and to exalt it and then empower it so much so that it is "incompatible with Christian teaching" and bars people from engaging in ministry.</div>
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<div>Soon delegates from around the world will meet for a special General Conference of the UMC. They will debate a number of plans for how to address the issue of homosexuality, amongst these plans three standout. I’ll refrain from going into details, the internet has all you may need.</div>
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<div>What I find immensely unbelievable is the amount of time energy, effort, and money that has gone into debating this issue. The specific language on homosexuality in the book of discipline was adopted I believe in 1972. So for my entire life Methodists have been wrestling with this challenge, trying to find a way through it or around it or over it and that just seems ridiculous to me. Our understanding of human sexuality has evolved by leaps and bounds in the past couple of decades. People who want to continue to cling to the taboos of ancient societies are free to do so if that’s really what speaks to them, but I would be willing to bet that their spiritual life is pretty dry,pretty rigid, and more focused on following rules and regulations and it is about encountering and experiencing the living God.</div>
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<div>In any case whatever happens at this special General Conference it is likely that some congregations will be unhappy with the outcome and they will leave the denomination. This is the inevitable fate of any religious organization. There is something that splits the larger community and is irreconcilable and that’s why we have 40,000 different forms of Christianity about a dozen forms of Judaism and I don’t know how many forms of Islam. </div>
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<div>And I think that that’s OK. I think that it’s healthy to let people go their own way, especially in a society where we have the guarantee of religious freedom where people can worship how they like what they like where they like without interference from the state. If that’s what it’s going to take to bring peace to this situation then that’s what has to be done. I’m fairly certain the people who have a traditionalist view of sexuality will never come around, they will never be comfortable even being remotely associated with an organization that treats LGBTQ people as people. </div>
<div><br /></div>
<div>But for my friends who are clergy in the UMC and for my friends who are faithful members of the UMC I hope and pray that whatever the outcome is that they can find their way to a peaceful resolution and truly truly find a way forward.</div>
<div><br /></div>
The S Word
http://rootandsource.org/post/the-s-word
2022-04-30T22:56:38.054000Z
2019-02-06T19:34:14Z
Rev. Nathan DeMay
<div><img src="https://cdn-images.postach.io/d75069e9-5c71-4121-ac7e-c18dbe27331d/c3201b0b-c034-41ca-9c73-c03e545858e4/488aa6f3-8ba4-4137-9463-31bf877d9565.jpg" /></div>
<div>In modern religion we sometimes shy away from the word "sin." Personally I claim and use it often, not to note the breaking of taboos but rather serious moral failings.</div>
<div><br /></div>
<div>Diana Butler Bass, a Christian scholar and writer, speaks well to why and how we ought to keep this term, especially as it applies to America’s great sin-racism.</div>
<div><br /></div>
<div>Read her thoughts here: <a href="https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1093206703351480321.html">https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1093206703351480321.html</a></div>
Lilac Inferno
http://rootandsource.org/post/lilac-inferno
2022-04-30T22:56:37.954000Z
2019-01-30T18:17:43Z
Rev. Nathan DeMay
<div><img src="https://cdn-images.postach.io/d75069e9-5c71-4121-ac7e-c18dbe27331d/adf695ec-62ad-4e64-8fad-a9763dba8559/9a3b76c8-11d1-4e3c-b99e-1e2982bb9c8d.jpg" /></div>
<div><span style="font-family: Arial;">The recent extreme cold in the United States has taken the lives of some homeless people, and pushed cities to enlarge their offerings to help the overall homeless population.</span></div>
<div><br /></div>
<div><span style="font-family: Arial;">That 10 homeless people died in Chicago from this cold is deeply sad.</span></div>
<div><br /></div>
<div><span style="font-family: Arial;">But it reminds me, and I hope to remind you, of the complexities of homelessness. Homelessness is not just the lack of a home; it is often part of serious medical issues, namely mental health and addiction. And often mental health and addiction are twin afflictions. </span></div>
<div><br /></div>
<div><span style="font-family: Arial;">I don’t know what the answer is to this issue. I am hopeful that we can find a way to do better for our fellow human beings. </span></div>
<div><br /></div>
<div><span style="font-family: Arial;">In the meantime, give to your local food bank, homeless shelter, or other assistance programs for those who are struggling with poverty and homelessness. It’s not a perfect solution, but it’s better than nothing.</span></div>
<div><br /></div>
<div style="margin-left: 40px;"></div><h1 style="text-align: left; caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); letter-spacing: normal; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; margin-left: 40px;"><span style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); letter-spacing: normal; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px;"><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-variant-caps: normal; line-height: 1.35em; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13px;">Distillation Of Solace</span></span></h1><div style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); letter-spacing: normal; text-align: left; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px;"><div style="white-space: pre-wrap; word-wrap: break-word;"><div style="font-size: 14px; margin-left: 40px;"><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-variant-caps: normal; line-height: 1.35em; font-size: 14px; font-family: Arial;">Burnt up lilac inferno blazes forest</span></div>
<div style="font-size: 14px; margin-left: 40px;"><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-variant-caps: normal; line-height: 1.35em; font-size: 14px; font-family: Arial;">Homeless wingers endeavor, build the new nest</span></div>
<div style="font-size: 14px; margin-left: 40px;"><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-variant-caps: normal; line-height: 1.35em; font-size: 14px; font-family: Arial;">Skyscape descends, inundates smoky ether</span></div>
<div style="font-size: 14px; margin-left: 40px;"><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-variant-caps: normal; line-height: 1.35em; font-size: 14px; font-family: Arial;">Nature in ashes.</span></div>
<div style="font-size: 14px; margin-left: 40px;"><br /></div>
<div style="font-size: 14px; margin-left: 40px;"><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-variant-caps: normal; line-height: 1.35em; font-size: 14px; font-family: Arial;">Flame of anger perforates mental terrain</span></div>
<div style="font-size: 14px; margin-left: 40px;"><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-variant-caps: normal; line-height: 1.35em; font-size: 14px; font-family: Arial;">Ember notion revengeful, outlook sightless</span></div>
<div style="font-size: 14px; margin-left: 40px;"><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-variant-caps: normal; line-height: 1.35em; font-size: 14px; font-family: Arial;">Serene essence distillates sedate solace</span></div>
<div style="font-size: 14px; margin-left: 40px;"><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-variant-caps: normal; line-height: 1.35em; font-size: 14px; font-family: Arial;">Consciousness frozen.</span></div>
<div style="font-size: 14px; margin-left: 40px;"><br /></div>
<div style="font-size: 14px; margin-left: 40px;"><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-variant-caps: normal; line-height: 1.35em; font-size: 14px; font-family: Arial;">January 29, 2019</span></div>
<div style="font-size: 14px; margin-left: 40px;"><span style="white-space: normal; font-size: small; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-variant-caps: normal; line-height: 1.375em; font-family: Arial;-en-paragraph:true;">Copyright © </span><a href="https://www.poetrysoup.com/poems_poets/poems_by_poet.aspx?ID=88514" style="white-space: normal; font-size: small; font-variant-caps: normal; line-height: 1.375em; color: rgb(51, 102, 204); font-family: Arial;-en-paragraph:true;">Subimal Sinha-Roy</a><span style="white-space: normal; font-size: small; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-variant-caps: normal; line-height: 1.375em; font-family: Arial;-en-paragraph:true;"> | Year Posted 2019</span></div></div></div><div style="margin-left: 40px;"><div><br /></div>
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A Prayer for Contentment
http://rootandsource.org/post/a-prayer-for-contentment
2022-04-30T22:56:38.647000Z
2019-01-28T19:06:48Z
Rev. Nathan DeMay
<div><img src="https://cdn-images.postach.io/d75069e9-5c71-4121-ac7e-c18dbe27331d/4d6646e8-50ab-4310-bbe3-7099ef8a8dec/9c3d5f23-31d0-4358-8737-3798161f6bc7.jpg" /></div>
<div>In 2019 I am working on minimizing my life’s clutter, physical, mental and spiritual. Part of this is the practice of gratitude, and certainly that includes an appreciation for what I have. I believe Marie Kondo and other such proponents of decluttering are helping us to come to positive terms with our things, to know them in a way that makes us appreciate them rather than indulge in endless consumerism.</div>
<div style="margin-top: 1em;margin-bottom: 1em;-en-paragraph:true;"></div>
<div style="margin-top: 1em;margin-bottom: 1em;margin-left: 40px;-en-paragraph:true;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">Be content with what you have</span> — <span style="font-style: italic;">Joyce Dent, Hampshire UK | </span><a href="https://worshipwords.co.uk/be-content-with-what-you-have-joyce-dent-hampshire-uk/" style="font-style: italic;">Worship Words</a></div>
<div style="margin-top: 1em;margin-bottom: 1em;margin-left: 40px;-en-paragraph:true;"><span style="-en-paragraph:true;">Creator of the Universe,</span></div>
<div style="margin-top: 1em;margin-bottom: 1em;margin-left: 40px;-en-paragraph:true;"><span style="-en-paragraph:true;">Lover of all that you make,</span></div>
<div style="margin-top: 1em;margin-bottom: 1em;margin-left: 40px;-en-paragraph:true;"><span style="-en-paragraph:true;">We thank you for this marvellous world</span></div>
<div style="margin-top: 1em;margin-bottom: 1em;margin-left: 40px;-en-paragraph:true;"><span style="-en-paragraph:true;">Which you have given us for our home.</span></div>
<div style="margin-top: 1em;margin-bottom: 1em;margin-left: 40px;-en-paragraph:true;"><span style="-en-paragraph:true;">Help us to show our gratitude</span></div>
<div style="margin-top: 1em;margin-bottom: 1em;margin-left: 40px;-en-paragraph:true;"><span style="-en-paragraph:true;">As much by our lives as by our words.</span></div>
<div style="margin-top: 1em;margin-bottom: 1em;margin-left: 40px;-en-paragraph:true;"><span style="-en-paragraph:true;">We acknowledge that so often</span></div>
<div style="margin-top: 1em;margin-bottom: 1em;margin-left: 40px;-en-paragraph:true;"><span style="-en-paragraph:true;">Our best efforts are tinged with greed,</span></div>
<div style="margin-top: 1em;margin-bottom: 1em;margin-left: 40px;-en-paragraph:true;"><span style="-en-paragraph:true;">The desire for more and different things;</span></div>
<div style="margin-top: 1em;margin-bottom: 1em;margin-left: 40px;-en-paragraph:true;"><span style="-en-paragraph:true;">And, at our worst we wholly disregard</span></div>
<div style="margin-top: 1em;margin-bottom: 1em;margin-left: 40px;-en-paragraph:true;"><span style="-en-paragraph:true;">The needs of others in this world.</span></div>
<div style="margin-top: 1em;margin-bottom: 1em;margin-left: 40px;-en-paragraph:true;"><span style="-en-paragraph:true;">Our greed is nothing less than theft</span></div>
<div style="margin-top: 1em;margin-bottom: 1em;margin-left: 40px;-en-paragraph:true;"><span style="-en-paragraph:true;">From those who have no power against us –</span></div>
<div style="margin-top: 1em;margin-bottom: 1em;margin-left: 40px;-en-paragraph:true;"><span style="-en-paragraph:true;">People, animals and nature’s store.</span></div>
<div style="margin-top: 1em;margin-bottom: 1em;margin-left: 40px;-en-paragraph:true;"><span style="-en-paragraph:true;"> </span></div>
<div style="margin-top: 1em;margin-bottom: 1em;margin-left: 40px;-en-paragraph:true;"><span style="-en-paragraph:true;">So much we once have done in ignorance;</span></div>
<div style="margin-top: 1em;margin-bottom: 1em;margin-left: 40px;-en-paragraph:true;"><span style="-en-paragraph:true;">In these days we have no excuse.</span></div>
<div style="margin-top: 1em;margin-bottom: 1em;margin-left: 40px;-en-paragraph:true;"><span style="-en-paragraph:true;">Continue, Lord, to open our eyes</span></div>
<div style="margin-top: 1em;margin-bottom: 1em;margin-left: 40px;-en-paragraph:true;"><span style="-en-paragraph:true;">To the enormity of our deeds,</span></div>
<div style="margin-top: 1em;margin-bottom: 1em;margin-left: 40px;-en-paragraph:true;"><span style="-en-paragraph:true;">And our hearts to the suffering and despoiling</span></div>
<div style="margin-top: 1em;margin-bottom: 1em;margin-left: 40px;-en-paragraph:true;"><span style="-en-paragraph:true;">Which those deeds have caused.</span></div>
<div style="margin-top: 1em;margin-bottom: 1em;margin-left: 40px;-en-paragraph:true;"><span style="-en-paragraph:true;">We ask forgiveness, Lord, from you;</span></div>
<div style="margin-top: 1em;margin-bottom: 1em;margin-left: 40px;-en-paragraph:true;"><span style="-en-paragraph:true;">From the children, women and men</span></div>
<div style="margin-top: 1em;margin-bottom: 1em;margin-left: 40px;-en-paragraph:true;"><span style="-en-paragraph:true;">Whose hurts have come from us;</span></div>
<div style="margin-top: 1em;margin-bottom: 1em;margin-left: 40px;-en-paragraph:true;"><span style="-en-paragraph:true;">And from every animal, plant and rock,</span></div>
<div style="margin-top: 1em;margin-bottom: 1em;margin-left: 40px;-en-paragraph:true;"><span style="-en-paragraph:true;">The skies above and the good earth itself,</span></div>
<div style="margin-top: 1em;margin-bottom: 1em;margin-left: 40px;-en-paragraph:true;"><span style="-en-paragraph:true;">Which nourishes and sustains us all.</span></div>
<div style="margin-top: 1em;margin-bottom: 1em;margin-left: 40px;-en-paragraph:true;"><span style="-en-paragraph:true;">By the power of your Spirit</span></div>
<div style="margin-top: 1em;margin-bottom: 1em;margin-left: 40px;-en-paragraph:true;"><span style="-en-paragraph:true;">May we change the way we live,</span></div>
<div style="margin-top: 1em;margin-bottom: 1em;margin-left: 40px;-en-paragraph:true;"><span style="-en-paragraph:true;">And follow again your path of healing,</span></div>
<div style="margin-top: 1em;margin-bottom: 1em;margin-left: 40px;-en-paragraph:true;"><span style="-en-paragraph:true;">Creator of the Universe,</span></div>
<div style="margin-top: 1em;margin-bottom: 1em;margin-left: 40px;-en-paragraph:true;"><span style="-en-paragraph:true;">And Lover of all that you make.</span></div>
<div style="margin-top: 1em;margin-bottom: 1em;margin-left: 40px;-en-paragraph:true;"><span style="-en-paragraph:true;"><span style="font-style: italic;">Joyce Dent is a member of the Andover United Reformed Church in Andover, Hampshire UK. Joyce has encouraged the Andover Church to an active Eco-Church.</span></span></div>
A Long Way to Go
http://rootandsource.org/post/a-long-way-to-go
2022-04-30T22:56:46.331000Z
2019-01-21T16:05:23Z
Rev. Nathan DeMay
<div><br/></div>
<div>Today we remember Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. His words, his challenges to us to align our lives with our professed values are, obviously, yet unrealized in full.</div>
<div><br/></div>
<div>I will let him speak for himself on this day, may we listen to him often, review our own lives, and work towards that Beloved Community.</div>
<div><br/></div>
<div><a href="https://youtu.be/U0uEVTh0ios">https://youtu.be/U0uEVTh0ios</a></div>
What Can a Man Get?
http://rootandsource.org/post/what-can-a-man-get
2022-04-30T22:56:38.146000Z
2019-01-17T22:15:07Z
Rev. Nathan DeMay
<div><img src="https://cdn-images.postach.io/d75069e9-5c71-4121-ac7e-c18dbe27331d/935b82be-288a-4e1a-af94-1e50923ff898/f09819dd-dc00-40c3-a746-8eaaead5651c.jpg" /><br /></div>
<div>Recently Gillette ran an online ad challenging toxic masculinity, that is to say, groping, raping, violence, dehumanization etc.</div>
<div><br /></div>
<div>The gist was that these activities are not, to be old fashioned, gentlemanly. I would like to think that this is a pretty easy thing to agree to-rape is bad. Groping is bad. Spousal abuse...you guessed it...bad.</div>
<div><br /></div>
<div>Some objections to the ad are predictable; there is a subset of society bent on attacking and complaining about anything approaching basic decency as being "PC." Men, you see, are the real victims. White Christian men. Hashtag All Lives Matter (But White Guys Matter a Little More). And have you listened to my podcast or bought my book or watched my YouTube channel? Click to subscribe! </div>
<div><br /></div>
<div>Their motivation is to get attention which the hope to parlay into money.</div>
<div><br /></div>
<div>Other objections however are based on the lack of basic listening skills. Seeing the term "toxic masculinity" has some men assuming that it’s a condemnation of masculinity itself as toxic, rather than describing a subset of masculine behaviors. So again, ever the victims (but always proud of being un-PC) these burly men vow never to buy Gillette products again. Because, men.</div>
<div><br /></div>
<div>I’ve watched the ad. It’s about as controversial as teaching your kid to hold the door for others, clean up their room or be a team player. In short, it’s an old fashioned call to return to gentlemanly behavior because SURPRISE women are full human beings too. </div>
<div><br /></div>
<div>SURPRISE! </div>
<div><br /></div>
<div>Women. </div>
<div><br /></div>
<div>Are. </div>
<div><br /></div>
<div>Full. </div>
<div><br /></div>
<div>Humans. </div>
<div><br /></div>
<div>Too.</div>
<div><br /></div>
<div>So if you’re a man, remember this simple yet often ignored truth. </div>
<div><br /></div>
<div></div>
<div><br /></div>
Seeing, Believing
http://rootandsource.org/post/seeing-believing
2022-04-30T23:30:29.896000Z
2019-01-14T16:20:51Z
Rev. Nathan DeMay
<div><br /></div><img src="https://cdn-images.postach.io/d75069e9-5c71-4121-ac7e-c18dbe27331d/a47ab582-3863-4ad7-a334-bc75688e8cf7/ada95d0b-414f-c43c-cf31-9c93c926f29f.jpg" style="--en-naturalWidth:1920; --en-naturalHeight:1282;"/><div>Yesterday I recounted a spiritual practice I sometimes use, inspired by the Buddhist metta meditation (<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mett%C4%81?wprov=sfti1" rev="en_rl_none">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mett%C4%81?wprov=sfti1</a>).</div>
<div><br /></div>
<div>We all carry anxiety and judgment within us, and I’m certainly no exception. One way we express this "shadow self" is to mentally judge people we engage with. Driving home and someone crosses the street and we think "what a fat and ugly person he is" or "why would she wear that?" Standing in line at the store "I can’t believe anyone would be so stupid to buy THAT and eat it, how gross."</div>
<div><br /></div>
<div>Whether we know it or not, this negative narrative in our heads is harming us more than anyone else. The people who are the focus of our disdain can’t read our thoughts, so they don’t know. But we do, and it sits in our brain like a burr, stinging our better nature.</div>
<div><br /></div>
<div>So my take on metta meditation is, when I notice this negativity running around my head, I try to look at everyone through God’s eyes. How does God see the person I just mentally dismissed? Fat? Ugly? Stupid?</div>
<div><br /></div>
<div>Or precious. Unique. Flawed like me. Loved by God as they are. </div>
<div><br /></div>
<div>This is not meant to induce guilt, but instead it’s an amazing and freeing experience. That negative energy is extinguished and replaced with an active, life giving compassion. Anxiety is replaced with a centered calm, and a camaraderie with humanity. I invite you to try it.</div>
<div><br /></div>
<div style="padding-left:40px;">THE ESSENCE OF DESIRE by St. John of the Cross </div>
<div><br /></div>
<div style="padding-left:40px;">I did not</div>
<div style="padding-left:40px;">have to ask my heart what it wanted,</div>
<div style="padding-left:40px;">because of all the desires I have ever known just one did I cling to</div>
<div style="padding-left:40px;">for it was the essence of</div>
<div style="padding-left:40px;">all desire:</div>
<div><br /></div>
<div><br /></div>
<div style="padding-left:40px;">to hold beauty in</div>
<div style="padding-left:40px;">my soul’s</div>
<div style="padding-left:40px;">arms.</div>
<div><br /></div>
<div style="padding-left:40px;">Excerpt From</div>
<div style="padding-left:40px;">Love Poems from God</div>
<div style="padding-left:40px;">Various Authors & Daniel Ladinsky</div>
<div style="padding-left:40px;"><a href="https://itunes.apple.com/us/book/love-poems-from-god/id361926565?mt=11" rev="en_rl_none">https://itunes.apple.com/us/book/love-poems-from-god/id361926565?mt=11</a></div>
<div style="padding-left:40px;">This material may be protected by copyright.</div>
<div><br /></div>
Humpty Drumpty
http://rootandsource.org/post/humpty-drumpty
2022-04-30T22:56:37.569000Z
2019-01-11T15:16:58Z
Rev. Nathan DeMay
<div><br /></div>
<div>About ten years ago I was president of my HOA board. I live in a gated community. For the first year and a half of living in the neighborhood, we had no gate because construction was ongoing. </div>
<div><br /></div>
<div>After the last house was finished, the gate went in. It often had problems operating, and there was a push by some residents to rip it out. But others insisted it stay, because the gate was one of the things that attracted them to the neighborhood, and the safety of the gate was important to them.</div>
<div><br /></div>
<div>The problem is that the gate doesn’t provide much security. And it’s expensive. We’ve replaced the whole system once, after spending a lot of time and money trying to fix the original gate.</div>
<div><br /></div>
<div>Every house has a gate code, and a remote to open the gate. The code can be punched in at the call box, or people can call from the call box and a homeowner can buzz them in. Everyone gives their gate code out-to the delivery companies, to the cleaning services, to their friends and family. And the gate is set up so that it allows a car to go through, but if another car is close to entering the gate stays open. Otherwise it would be opening and closing incessantly.</div>
<div><br /></div>
<div>Behind my part of the neighborhood is a small wood and a ravine. We have a decorative fence that delineates where the hill leads to the ravine, although some of our property actually extends into the wood itself. As marked by another fence.</div>
<div><br /></div>
<div>One day as I was watering plants on my deck, I saw something stirring in the wood. I figured it was a deer or something else caught and afraid.</div>
<div><br /></div>
<div>It was a man. A white man, with his jeans on backwards. Climbing over the fence in the ravine and then over the decorative fence. He told me he had lost his wallet in the wood and was looking for it. I as...doubtful. </div>
<div><br /></div>
<div>My obvious and long winded point is that fences and walls and gates can slow things down, and maybe keep out the lazy but the determined will get in. I’ve seen another man come out through the same area of the wood. Never mind that the front of the neighborhood has two hand gates, aligned with the automatic gate, and leading from the sidewalk outside the community to the sidewalk that passes by the first two rows of houses. There’s even enough room outside the gate to park and then walk right in. In short, the gate doesn’t keep us safe. It’s expensive and at most serves to control traffic flow, but it doesn’t keep anyone out. </div>
<div><br /></div>
<div>Now imagine wasting five billion dollars on a structure that is as ineffective. And which contravenes the legal right to seek asylum. And which cuts off humans in need of help simply because they were born in a different part of the continent.</div>
<div><br /></div>
<div>Trump’s wall is a stunt, an expensive and pointless racist beacon to his immorality and gross stupidity.</div>
<div><br /></div>
<div>So for this Root Recommends I recommend making noise to your elected officials and tell them #NoWallNotNowNotEver</div>
<div><br /></div>
<div><br /></div>
<div><img src="https://cdn-images.postach.io/d75069e9-5c71-4121-ac7e-c18dbe27331d/82aaf8fd-a83f-412d-90d0-d884e2975092/6bdcb29c-119a-4576-b62e-5037e7e77d29.jpg" width="1415" title="Attachment"/><br /></div>
<div><br /></div>
Happy New Year, Ain Freends
http://rootandsource.org/post/happy-new-year-ain-freends
2022-04-30T22:56:52.225000Z
2019-01-01T04:09:13Z
Rev. Nathan DeMay
<div><br/></div><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px 1em; padding: 0px; border: 0px rgb(67, 70, 74); font-family: -apple-system, HelveticaNeue; font-variant-caps: normal; font-size: 18px; background-image: none; background-color: rgb(39, 41, 45); caret-color: rgb(248, 249, 250); color: rgb(248, 249, 250); letter-spacing: normal; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.2); -webkit-text-size-adjust: 125%; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; -webkit-touch-callout: none !important;"/><div>Should auld acquaintance be forgot, </div>
<div>and never brought to mind? </div>
<div>Should auld acquaintance be forgot, </div>
<div><span style="-en-paragraph:true;">and auld lang syne?</span></div>
<div><span style="-en-paragraph:true;"><br/></span></div>
<div><span style="-en-paragraph:true;">(Nae, bairns!)</span></div>
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Friday Root Recommends: Will He Like Me?
http://rootandsource.org/post/friday-root-recommends-will-he-like-me
2022-04-30T22:56:47.462000Z
2018-12-14T15:42:35Z
Rev. Nathan DeMay
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<div>I had the pleasure of reviewing Philip Chaffin’s newest album, "Will He Love Me?"</div>
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<div>You can read my review here: (and be sure to grab a copy!) <a href="https://bit.ly/2EvZNRL" style="caret-color: rgb(163, 170, 174); color: rgb(163, 170, 174); font-family: proxima-nova, "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15.600000381469727px; font-variant-caps: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px;">https://bit.ly/2EvZNRL</a></div>
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Monday, Monday
http://rootandsource.org/post/monday-monday
2022-04-30T22:56:49.445000Z
2018-12-10T20:53:28Z
Rev. Nathan DeMay
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<div>Another week begins, a new chapter in my life also starts.</div>
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<div>Earlier this year we lost our female beagle, Nala. It’s been difficult-she had such a presence, such a personality that her absence has been visceral.</div>
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<div>We’ve toyed with getting a cat, or a puppy, or something else so that our other beagle, Cody, wouldn’t be alone. But nothing seemed to be in the cards. Until a few weeks ago...when the local beagle rescue group put out a call for a little guy named Barry. He had twice been surrendered by the same people, who had a hoarding problem, and now approximately seven years old he had been removed from their "care" for good. He had lived his life outdoors-and was so neglected that most of his teeth had to be pulled out. He’s still a little skinny, but he’s also mixed with another breed that gives him a sleeker body.</div>
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<div>Anyway, we adopted him yesterday and rechristened him Charlie. He’s taken to our home very easily, and Cody, finally a big brother, is equally content. Charlie is still a little skittish, but he’s learned how to let us know that he needs to go out, he’s decided that snuggling on the couch IS a good thing, and he snuggled with me all night. </div>
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<div>Older animals need homes too; puppies are a LOT of work, but they’re also tremendously irresistible 😍 Nevertheless a seven year old can also be irresistible, and given a real chance, with a loving family, I believe he will thrive.</div>
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<div><img src="https://cdn-images.postach.io/d75069e9-5c71-4121-ac7e-c18dbe27331d/b791ad89-d173-4fe7-a10c-6fe7dccd604c/fd84473d-dc98-4f80-b114-18b16557ca8b.jpg" title="Attachment" width="4032"/><br/></div>
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Today I recommend
http://rootandsource.org/post/today-i-recommend
2022-04-30T22:56:45.354000Z
2018-12-01T00:18:09Z
Rev. Nathan DeMay
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<div>Not getting sick. I think I have the flu, thus no posts this week. Be grateful for your health and take care of yourself. ✌️🦠</div>
Friday Root Recommends: Stitched Glass
http://rootandsource.org/post/friday-root-recommends-stitched-glass
2022-04-30T22:56:53.185000Z
2018-11-24T00:18:17Z
Rev. Nathan DeMay
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<div>While I was at the Parliament of World Religions earlier this month, one of the things I found really amazing and insightful was an installation by Kirk Dunn. I can’t do his work or the thinking behind it justice, so I will simply point you to his site: <a href="http://www.kirkdunn.com/knitting-pilgrim/">http://www.kirkdunn.com/knitting-pilgrim/</a></div>
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<div>Enjoy, and if you ever have a chance to see his work in real life, take it!<br/></div>
<div><img src="https://cdn-images.postach.io/d75069e9-5c71-4121-ac7e-c18dbe27331d/f49cd674-4a08-4b29-bfcb-6a3f3c8d2f46/8bf83d09-1978-4b17-a188-54221f053b88.jpg" title="Attachment" width="2048"/></div>
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Gratitude As Daily Practice
http://rootandsource.org/post/gratitude-as-daily-practice
2022-04-30T22:56:45.353000Z
2018-11-22T16:58:34Z
Rev. Nathan DeMay
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<div>In the United States today is Thanksgiving Day. Rooted in English harvest and thanksgiving prayer practices, it is a day which is also tied to colonialism. But as with anything, this day is what we make of it. I choose to make it a day of thankfulness while also being grateful for this land, stolen, but now in my care. May we make today a special day as well as incorporating gratitude into our daily lives.</div>
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<div><a href="http://worshipwords.co.uk/thanksgiving-prayer-ana-gobledale-uk/">http://worshipwords.co.uk/thanksgiving-prayer-ana-gobledale-uk/</a></div>
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<div><img src="https://cdn-images.postach.io/d75069e9-5c71-4121-ac7e-c18dbe27331d/3c8b7e3c-2c64-4f2f-930b-14f91dbe5968/e1dd9e05-5ff6-4b3c-b52f-39d93ccf2890.jpg" title="Attachment" width="1242"/><br/></div>
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Transgender Day of Remembrance
http://rootandsource.org/post/transgender-day-of-remembrance
2022-04-30T22:56:53.685000Z
2018-11-20T18:24:09Z
Rev. Nathan DeMay
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<div>I will never understand the desire to kill another human because they’re different from oneself. I am grateful for colleagues who continue to work for the rights of all people, and to ensure that God’s love is shared with all.</div>
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<div><a href="https://worshipwords.co.uk/prayer-for-transgender-day-of-remembrance-thandiwe-dale-ferguson-usa/">https://worshipwords.co.uk/prayer-for-transgender-day-of-remembrance-thandiwe-dale-ferguson-usa/</a></div>