We Are in This Together, Or Are We?

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It is time to stop thinking of this country as the “United State.”  We are not united, the civil war never ended, and we are still north vs south. In addition, we have added west vs east, liberal vs conservative, plus numerous other divisions too many to name. There is not such thing as “My Fellow Americans,” because no one thinks of themselves as Americans anymore.  We are white, black, brown, yellow, Republican, Democrat, liberal, progressive, conservative, Christian, Evangelical, non-Christian, goodness there are so many divisions it would take up the entire post to list them all. Something needs to change before we are doomed to collapse.

We need to begin to consider the dissolution of this country into areas where the many individual groups clamoring for attention can live in peace. Such a plan would require the dividing up of the country into several parts and giving each area their own governing body to address the issues of the area and people.  It might mean a mass removal and resettlement program for each area to have the appropriate people who might, might mind you, live in harmony.

For example, the southern states such as North and South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, and Alabama might be for far-Right conservatives.  Middle of the road conservatives might be resettled in Kentucky, Tennessee, Arkansas, and Mississippi.  Liberals might want the Northeastern States, or the Pacific northwest.  Of course, you would have to taking the division of west vs east there.  You just might end up with 2 liberal or progressive areas.  Of course, resettlement would cause some problems, but the government has plenty of experience in that area.  Given our experience with Native populations, and Asian Americans.

Of course, I am being facetious, on some level.  Not the part about being a “United States” or “dissolution of this country, just about the rest of it.  We are the Divided States of America.  I am not sure I have talked, or read about, anyone calling themselves American first in a very long time.  Everyone has a group, a section of the population that they belong to. All these groups have their own grievances, wants, needs, desires for their little group, and their little group is the most important all the rest are secondary. No one, except maybe a few occasionally, has considered what is best for America as a whole. Why is that? Can we please begin to see ourselves as Americans first and all the other designations as secondary?

Every person in this country is important regardless of their skin color, their gender, their ethnic makeup, economic status, culture, age, or physical ability. Each one adds to the whole of this country.  We need each, and every, person to step up and recognize the value of every other person.  The wealthy need to recognize they are dependent on the people they employ. The workers need to recognize the imaginative abilities of their employers. Shop keepers need people to buy their goods and they can’t sell them if the population has no money.

We are dependent on each other to progress scientifically, economically, and academically. Until we begin to accept that and start seeing ourselves as one people, as Americans this country is doomed to either dissolve, or become an autocracy with people like Donald Trump as our own “Hitler.”  Is that the goal for the people of this country? If Trump should win again, or someone like him this country will dissolve, and the Great American experiment will come to an end. 

We are in this together, every single person in the country. What happens depends on us, on whether we have the courage to be Americans, to draw together and explore and how our individual needs benefit the country, the people of this country, as whole.  Until we see each other as equals, see the individual, or group, as just as important as every other individual and group nothing will change.  Can we do It?  I don’t know and honestly, I have my doubts.

Ruth Jewell, ©January 30, 2022

Image from Bing Images

I’m Saying NO MORE

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NO MORE

    I have given the events of the last few weeks a great deal of thought. It has been a greatly disturbing to watch the witness of Dr. Ford and the lack of respect she has been given by those we have entrusted with power. Saying I am angry doesn’t actually describe what I am feeling. As a victim of sexual assault, I am not just angry, but furious at the dismissal of Dr. Ford’s testimony. The Senate committee has heard her and then pushed her aside because she is a woman challenging their power to do what they want. And, what they want has nothing to do with the good of our country.

Placing Brett Kavanagh on the Supreme Court would aid these greedy, power-hungry men in setting all of our civil, social, economic, environmental, and international advancements back 50 years. Our waters will again be fouled with toxic waste, our air will be unbreathable, women can forget about controlling their own bodies, and those who are not Lilly white or heterosexual will again become anathema to a Republican, Trumpian world.

We know the response toward Dr. Ford’s testimony of sexual assault by Kavanagh was appalling, it wasn’t received by the Senate committee with any kind of respect or belief. Yet, no one had doubted the testimony of men who came forward with their memories of being sexually assaulted by Catholic Priests 35 and 40 years early. (Yes I know they didn’t testify to the any congressional committee, but several of these men did make comments on the testimonies.) So why wasn’t Dr. Ford not believed? The first reason is she is a woman, an untrustworthy, unable to care for herself, no understanding of reason or logic, flighty, and a sexual siren, woman. This is what woman have been told for thousands of years. We have been shammed into believing we, women, are the cause of men’s violence. That our lot in God’s world is to lay down and accept the rule of our bodies to our “male lords.” We are to procreate, raise the young, cook food, keep a clean house, and satisfy our “man.” That is not only slavery, it is treating one-half of the population like domestic animals.

Sexual violence has nothing to do with lust, or sex, it is all about power, about being overpowered. Sexual violence is all about men who believe they have a right use the power of their penises to control and oppress women. Men, like Brett Kavanagh have used women for their personal satisfaction, used their gender to control what a woman does and how far she can go in life, blamed women for their failures, and used those failures to justify their violence towards women. As a victim of sexual violence, I am tired of being told it’s “my fault” I was assaulted, it’s “my fault” that my pay check is lower than a man’s in the same position, and it’s “my fault” that I am a second class citizens.

I am tired of weak, pathetic men apparently believing they have the right to demean women. Who use women to give them their needed power trips, and to make them feel powerful. And, that is the second reason Dr. Ford wasn’t believed she is challenging their power. By their protestations it is obvious they believed Dr. Ford, they just can’t admit it because they would then have to acknowledge their own abuses of power, and of women. Yes, they believe Dr. Ford but their own guilt, greed, and hunger to keep hold of their so-called power prevents them from admitting it.

They also dismiss her because she had the courage to come forward and testify to the truth. How dare a woman challenge them! They have seen how the #METOO movement has affected men in the news and entertainment industries and they have no doubt that the accusations will be arriving at their door as well (at least I hope so).

I am not saying that all men have abused the power they have just because they are male. However, having lived to 71 I have experienced enough to know how men in positions where they control, or influence others are abusive and oppress those who depend on them.

I have also known women who have abused their positions, that is why I know that sexual abuse and gender abuse, is not isolated to one gender and is not related to sex.. Some women who have made it to the top of their field feel they too have the right to be controlling and subject the people who work or live with them to same kind of abuse. Often, they have overcome abuse, pressure, and humiliation themselves to get to where they are. Sadly, some have used those very same tactics to make sure they succeed just as their male counterparts. In those case’s they have as much to lose as a man does if Dr. Ford and the #METOO movement are successful.

My question to those of us, who have so much to lose if the Senate succeeds in their efforts, what will we do about it?

Will we give up the fight and go back to accepting patriarchal rule. Or will we stand up and say no more. While this is not just a woman’s fight, it is women, of every color and culture, who stands to lose the most. Unless we continue to demand restitution for the violence done to our bodies, to our minds, and to our economic security we will not succeed. The male bosses, our male political representatives will not simply grant it to us. We women must defend each other against attacks that serve to demean and humiliate us. We cannot let Dr. Ford and others like her stand alone and be bullied by the bullies in congress or the White House. We have power, especially together we have great power, now is the time to use it. Every woman must vote for the candidate who will advance our cause of equality. Read about them, GOOGLE them, and find out what they have done in their past lives, what they really stand for today. I am not telling you to vote for one party or another, I am saying know who you are voting for. Vote because the lives of your children, especially your daughters and granddaughters, lives depend on how you act today, in November and in 2020.

We women are standing up and fighting back against years or abuse and male control and that is frightening for the male ego. We women are finally saying no to the way it’s “always been done” to the detriment of our lives. Men need to understand we aren’t going back. Both men and women of every color, education, culture, or religious belief, have equal opportunities to succeed in their lives. Those who do not want to work with us, get out of our way, your power is broken. Get used to it.

Ruth Jewell, ©October 3, 2018

A Small, Sad, Little Man

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Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump, Virginia December 2, 2015. Salon.com

 

I have a confession to make, I pity Donald Trump.  I have gone through several stages regarding “the Donald” in the last few years, from repulsion to dislike, to anger, to downright hate.  But in the last couple of days I have surprised myself by realizing I simply pity a sad little man.  A small, sad, unlikable man who wants to be liked.  Yes, I have compassion for this spoiled, paranoid, mentally ill man who has gotten himself into a position he has no idea how to handle and has put us all at risk.  That surprised me.

I have taught tolerance and compassion on this page for several years and now I realize that I need to practice what I teach.  Despite his sexual misconduct, his spoiled little rich boy tantrums, his lies, his bully boy swagger I am called to love this man. Not like, and certainly not support, his behavior or his lies, but, love as Jesus of Nazareth in the Gospels would.  Not the love being taught by those who pervert the Gospel, and there are too many of those in the press right now, but with compassion for someone who is in mental pain, and ill.  I am called to understand that this small little man is unable to understand what being a human being entails because he was never taught how to be a human being.  His examples in life were as broken as he is and he has perpetuated that brokenness within his own family.  That is sad.

Now, Donald Trump is not an easy person to have compassion for.  His mental illness keeps him from recognizing how much damage his lies and actions cause.  His self-centeredness and ego keep him focused only on himself and that prevents him from seeing the world around him as worthwhile and valued, unless it is feeding him.  Unfortunately, he has landed himself in a position he doesn’t understand, making him easily manipulated by foreign powers and those in the GOP who want power.  However, as my mother would say, “you made your bed, now lie in it.”  It is not that I will ever support him or the GOP when they put people, our country, and our world at risk but I will at least try to understand that what he does comes from a background that was devoid of compassion for others.  He may have grown up monetarily wealthy but his life has no richness to it.  He is one of the poorest people on earth.  That is the reason he strikes out at those who have found life with meaning that doesn’t encompass only gold.  That is reason he strikes at President Obama, because he is loved and Donald isn’t, not even by his family.  That makes his heart small, his life small, and that deserves our, my, compassion.

To love someone that is unlovable is hard and I can only say this new practice of compassion and love is a work in progress.  So, expect backsliding. I will continue to resist, protest, letter write, and even tweet at “the Donald.” However, I will temper my statements with as much kindness I can muster at the moment and I will add this man to my prayer list. Jesus said to love the unlovable, the sick, the poor, and the imprisoned and Donald is unlovable, poor, and imprisoned in walls of his own making and the making of his family. But he is one of God’s beloveds and that is all that matters. I am not sure how successful I will be but I will try, so, help me Holy Spirit.

Ruth Jewell, ©March 13, 2017

 

 

2017, A NEW YEAR?

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A new year has begun and I am not sure what it will bring. Usually I have a sense of new beginnings, or I have excited expectations and hope as I pick up from where I left off and start over again. Not this year though. There has been too much acrimony, too much hate, too many lies, too much racism, and too little justice, mercy, kindness, and peace for me to look forward to the coming year. Sad really, because it seems 2017 is already defeated before it is a week old. I am afraid 2017 will just be a year of more hateful speech, more injustice, more discrimination, and more violence.

There is no one person to blame, we all are responsible for the atmosphere of distrust and hate we see every day, in the news, from our politicians, from our neighbors. Let me make this clear, you and I are to blame from the people who fear the changes created in the last 30 years. We forgot that people might not understand, might not be willing to accept those changes. We assumed they would go along “when the discovered how much better they had it.” But they didn’t. No, they felt left out of the process, unasked, and left behind, and they felt their concerns and issues weren’t being addressed.

Yes, they could have become involved and worked with those of us who believed we were working to better the lives of everyone, and the environment. But somehow, they didn’t feel as if they could. Maybe they didn’t believe as we did, maybe they needed to be given more information, maybe they just needed more time to assimilate all the information being thrown at them. Whatever the reason some people became alienated and open to manipulation by those whose agenda is to turn back the clock to a time when only the few profited from the bounty of this country.

Maybe the reason for the divide is that those of us who want to see us progress broke into interest groups who fought over what issue was most important when, in reality, all of it is. No one has ever bothered to look at the larger picture. To try developing a program that would have given equal emphasis to each issue. To bring together the disparate interest groups formulate a policy that would have benefited each area of interest. The modernization of each issue, environment, inclusivity, racism, woman’s rights, children’s right, poverty, immigration, all of them, each is dependent on the other.

What do we do now that we have a president whose only interest is his own personal gain, a congress dominated by old white men bent on preserving white privilege, and the hate and racism propagated during the last eight years by has let loose violence and terror in our communities. Well, to start we work together, all interest groups working together to keep what has been achieved from being lost. Our job now is to stand up when we see abuse or harassment and protect the victims, stopping hate speech when we hear it, and working to prevent injustice wherever we see it. None of this is easy. It isn’t easy to do and it isn’t easy to work up the courage to take a stand. But that is what we are called to do.

I am a person of faith, and 2016 sorely tested that faith. Yet I still believe in what I was taught that we are to act justly and to love kindness, mercy, and compassion. We as a people of many faiths and beliefs are called to care for the disinherited, the lost, the incarcerated, elderly, young, and the stranger. That doesn’t change even though it has become much more difficult at the moment. History moves in many ways and we repeat our mistakes over and over again. We have the possibility to achieve great heights or astounding lows. The choice is ours. Do we repeat history or do we show that we can change history.

Ruth Jewell, ©January 3, 2017

Prayerful Decisions – Prayerful Tuesday

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If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. – 1 Corinthians 13:1

 

Photo by Joe Beck, Unsplash
Photo by Joe Beck, Unsplash

Today is Super-Tuesday, a day when political parties in mostly southern states choose who they want to run as their Presidential Candidate.  So far in this election we have heard the traditional political rhetoric and a great deal of speech filled with anger, hate, bigotry, greed and plan nonsense. My choice of candidate is not important, no, rather what is important is that each of us look carefully at who is running and who has the American peoples best interest.  Not just white, male, and wealthy, but all Americans regardless of socioeconomic status, choice of faith, where they come from, color of their skin, age, or gender identification. All Americans regardless of whether or not they have U.S. citizenship or hopes to attain American citizenship all must be considered equal participants in our society.

In the Gospel of Matthew Jesus says “No one can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon.” We cannot serve the people, the Divines own people, if we serve our own self interests. When we love power, money, and status more than we love the people of God, whoever they may be, pain and suffering will be, has been, the result.  We  who call ourselves followers of the Divine, with whatever faith tradition we  choose, must not let those whose primary interest is greed, hate, and power, and not the American people, or the people of the world be elected into a position where they could destroy the fabric of our nation and world.

So today, offer prayers for those voting, that they think carefully of their choices.  To refuse to let false, hateful and self-serving rhetoric sway them.  Rather pray that all people will stand together to push back the evil we are seeing displayed during this election year.

My prayer:  May the hand of every voter be guided by the desire for a country that holds sacred the lives and well being of all who live in American and beyond.

Ruth Jewell, ©March 1, 2016

Psalms of Lament and Hope – Prayerful Tuesday

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Paris, Beirut, Syria, Iraq, The World God in your mercy, hear our prayers
Paris, Beirut, Syria, Iraq, The World
God in your mercy,
hear our prayers

The only gift I have to offer this week is my sorrow for Paris, Beirut, Syria, Iraq, and all of us.  So I offer the Psalms I go to when I am in the midst of sorrow and pain.  May your hearts be comforted by the words of the psalmist and may you find solace knowing others cry with you.

Psalm 36:1-4 (MSG)
A David Psalm
1-4 The God-rebel tunes in to sedition—
all ears, eager to sin.
He has no regard for God,
he stands insolent before him.
He has smooth-talked himself
into believing
That his evil
will never be noticed.
Words gutter from his mouth,
dishwater dirty.
Can’t remember when he
did anything decent.
Every time he goes to bed,
he fathers another evil plot.
When he’s loose on the streets,
nobody’s safe.
He plays with fire
and doesn’t care who gets burned.

Psalm 42 (NRSV)

1As a deer longs for flowing streams,
so my soul longs for you, O God.
2My soul thirsts for God, for the living God.
When shall I come and behold the face of God?
3My tears have been my food day and night,
while people say to me continually,
“Where is your God?”
4These things I remember, as I pour out my soul:
how I went with the throng, and led them in procession
to the house of God, with glad shouts and songs of thanksgiving,
a multitude keeping festival.
5Why are you cast down, O my soul,
and why are you disquieted within me?
Hope in God; for I shall again praise him, my help
6and my God. My soul is cast down within me;
therefore I remember you from the land of Jordan
and of Hermon, from Mount Mizar.
7Deep calls to deep at the thunder of your cataracts;
all your waves and your billows have gone over me.
8By day the Lord commands his steadfast love,
and at night his song is with me, a prayer to the God of my life.
9I say to God, my rock, “Why have you forgotten me?
Why must I walk about mournfully
because the enemy oppresses me?”
10As with a deadly wound in my body,
my adversaries taunt me,
while they say to me continually, “Where is your God?”
11Why are you cast down, O my soul,
and why are you disquieted within me?
Hope in God; for I shall again praise him,
my help and my God.

Ruth Jewell, ©November 17, 2015

Overwhelmed with Sadness – Prayerful Tuesday

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Band-Aids don't work anymore, Huffington Post
Band-Aids don’t work anymore, Huffington Post

I have been trying to think about what to say about the Umpqua shootings but my heart is breaking and my mind won’t process this.  So I am asking you for your prayer this week to write letters to your legislators about gun legislation, talk to your neighbors about keeping safe, and get involved in your community and/or church youth programs.  Talk kids and get to know your own children and the children they play with. Keep the kids involved with family and community and help them find safe ways to release anger and frustration.  If you need a gun for hunting then talk to every member of the family about gun safety and keep your guns in a secure gun safe when you aren’t using them.  I know that isn’t much but if all of us become more aware and involved in the efforts to regulate guns in a responsible manner than maybe, just maybe we won’t be speechless anymore.

Ruth Jewell, ©October 6, 2015

It is Good?—Prayerful Tuesday

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Garden of Eden, Jan Brueghel, 1612
Garden of Eden, Jan Brueghel, 1612

“And God saw that it was good.” Genesis 1:10b

In the last weeks God’s creation has seemed anything but good.  Terrorist attacks, ambushing of police, and police shootings of unarmed young men continue to rent the very fabric of our society.  Yet God did not create an evil world, in fact God proclaims this world a good world where everyone, and I mean everyone, has what they need to live and be the person they are meant to be.  It is our choice’s, not God’s, that have created a world that is unsafe.

Spending time in silent contemplation with a focus on what we could have been, and still could be, seemed the only way for me to center myself and see the world as good.  So today I offer as our prayer of the week another Visio Divina using the above painting of the Garden of Eden by Jan Brueghel.

Prayer Practice:

1. Study the picture slowly, taking a first glance noting the colors, the placement of the plants, animals and, people.  Remain with the image for one to two minutes. If you would like, jot down a few words about the image.

  1. Take a second, deeper, look. Where is there movement? What relationships do you see? Engage your imagination. Where are you in the artwork? What do you see from that perspective? What deeper meaning emerges? What feelings about the world rise in you? Are there any images that you are particularly drawn too?
  2.  Respond to the image with prayer for the world. Did the image remind you of an experience, person or issue for which you’d like to offer thanksgiving or intercession? Offer that prayer to God.
  3. Find your quiet center. Breathe deeply. Relax your shoulders, arms and legs. Rest in this quiet. Let God pray in you. God prays beyond words.

Please do not let your belief, or non-belief, in the Garden of Eden and the subsequent fall from grace prevent you from seeing the good things in creation. Our world is in need of prayer right now.  All of our people, all of creation is crying and in pain.  Let your prayers go out into the world and let them lead you to be the person God has always wanted you to be.

Peace, Blessings

Ruth Jewell, ©January 13, 2015

 

A Conversation with a Psalmist –Prayerful Tuesday

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Come Lord Jesus, hear our prayer
Come Lord Jesus,
hear our prayer

As I am personally preparing for  Christmas I have been disturbed by the amount of violence and death around the world.  Peace on earth does not seem near. So as part of my morning ritual I have been doing Lectio Divina with the Psalms.  They have brought me some comfort but this Psalm struck a chord within me and I wanted to share that with you.  So this is a little different from most of my postings, as it is part of my journaling during my meditation. I am letting you in on a small part of my conversations I held with the Psalmist and God.  They are my insights of the moment, so if I say something you disagree with please be gentle, it is after all a private conversation you are overhearing.  At the end of my journaling you will find the steps for Lectio Divina.  For your own Lectio Divina meditation you may use the whole Psalm, as I did, or only a verse or two.

Psalm 10, The Message (MSG)

 1-2 God, are you avoiding me?
    Where are you when I need you?
Full of hot air, the wicked
    are hot on the trail of the poor.
Trip them up, tangle them up
    in their fine-tuned plots.

I am in the process of preparing for a Longest Night worship service and in reading this Psalm I was struck by how it matched my gut feelings this Advent.   Every day the news is filled with stories from around the world of someone killing someone one else, often many someone’s.  Just last night news came of a hostage situation in Sidney, Australia, just one more story to add to the Ferguson, New Town, Cleveland, Seattle, Portland, Houston, Afghanistan, and Iraq stories of the last number of years.  The list is too long, too many people have died, and too many children have died.  Like the Psalmist I am left wondering “where are you God.”

3-4 The wicked are windbags,
    the swindlers have foul breath.
The wicked snub God,
    their noses stuck high in the air.
Their graffiti are scrawled on the walls:
    “Catch us if you can!” “God is dead.”

This is supposed to be a time of joy and celebration but I do not feel like celebrating.  Our elected leader’s mouth words from the Bible I read every day, yet, their actions tell me they do not believe what they speak.  Are they wicked?  Are they windbags?  Well the wicked part can only be determined by God but the windbag part . . ..  Yes they are windbags, hoping that we who at least try to live a life of compassion will not notice their plans to take the last ounce of God’s abundance all for themselves.  They write bills and say “try and stop me, from denying the basic necessities to those who cannot help being poor, sick, elderly, or a child.

5-6 They care nothing for what you think;
    if you get in their way, they blow you off.
They live (they think) a charmed life:
    “We can’t go wrong. This is our lucky year!”

These insufferable, so called leaders lie and twist the truth until even the best of us are confused and dazed by the avalanche of untruths they let loose on the public. Whether they are religious fundamentalist, political leaders, in the United States, Afghanistan, Syria, Iraq, British Isles or anywhere they claim the spotlight and they believe no one can stop them.  They are on a role and the rest of us “be damned.”

7-8 They carry a mouthful of hexes,
    their tongues spit venom like adders.
They hide behind ordinary people,
    then pounce on their victims.

9 They mark the luckless,
    then wait like a hunter in a blind;
When the poor wretch wanders too close,
    they stab him in the back.

10-11 The hapless fool is kicked to the ground,
    the unlucky victim is brutally axed.
He thinks God has dumped him,
    he’s sure that God is indifferent to his plight.

The words they spit from their mouths cause fear in those who have minds that are weak and malleable. Letting these poor souls do the violence they pretend to abhor only to turn on them when they caught in their snares.

12-13 Time to get up, God—get moving.
The luckless think they’re Godforsaken.
They wonder why the wicked scorn God
and get away with it,
Why the wicked are so cocksure
they’ll never come up for audit.

We wait for you O God to respond, to let us know you haven’t forgotten us.  We wait and we wait.

14 But you know all about it—
    the contempt, the abuse.
I dare to believe that the luckless
    will get lucky someday in you.
You won’t let them down:
    orphans won’t be orphans forever.

The Psalmist sings of your knowledge of the violence we see every day.  But do you really hear the cries of the children who have lost limbs to bombs, to parents who have watched as their children are killed in front of them, as ISIS hangs those with different beliefs, as children shoot children?  Have we not sent enough children, parents, loved ones to you to serve as a sacrifice?  Do you care?

15-16 Break the wicked right arms,
    break all the evil left arms.
Search and destroy
    every sign of crime.
God’s grace and order wins;
    godlessness loses.

My heart wants to believe as the Psalmist did that you will intervene in the bloodletting of this world, but I know you will not.  It is not up to you, O God, to set this world back on the track of compassion, justice and peace.  That really is our job.  We are the ones who created these people who mock everything you have wanted for all.  We are the ones who must “gird up our loins” and speak out against injustice, violence, hatred, and war.  Only we who believe in justice, mercy, kindness, peace, compassion will change the lives of those who are oppressed, abused, injured, and starved by those who mock the world as you, O God, planned it.  We must stop cowering in our homes and our places of faith and become the prophets, the messengers, the hands, feet and voice that will bring down those who would enslave us to a life of poverty and misery.  Then, and only then, will the Psalmist’s dream come true.

17-18 The victim’s faint pulse picks up;
    the hearts of the hopeless pump red blood
    as you put your ear to their lips.
Orphans get parents,
    the homeless get homes.
The reign of terror is over,
    the rule of the gang lords is ended.

Gracious Spirit I thank you for this time of blessed meditation.  May the words and images I have seen transform my actions into walking with you in greater joy.  AMEN

Practicing Lectio Divina

  1. Choose the portion of the Scripture you wish to pray.
  2. Place yourself in a comfortable position and allow yourself to become silent, focus for a few moments on your breathing.
  3. Read the chosen text through, slowly and gently. Listen to yourself read, let yourself to savor each word and phrase.
  4. Read the text a second time. What words or phrases stick out for you? Remember God speaks to us in silence and in our listening. The words that pop out do so for a reason, pay attention to them.
  5. Read the text a third time. Are there any other words that speak to you?
  6. Sit now in silence, letting the words you have heard, speak to you and for you in your prayer, your conversation with God. What images, ideas, words spring forward?  Or maybe all of them are present in mediation.  Sit with those insights as you experience the presence of God.  Give your insights to God.  Do the insights give you new meaning or transformation of your actions, or prayer life?
  7. Now rest in God’s arms. Let God’s presence give you comfort. Do you feel the pull to return to your meditations? Then begin again. If not close with a prayer of gratitude for the time you have spent in God’s presence and the insights you have received.

Ruth Jewell, ©December 16, 2014

All Means ALL

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All means ALL
All means ALL

My thoughts over the last couple of months have been over whelmed by the violence, the bullying, the tragedy, and the anger that has played across my TV screen, computer, radio and newspaper in the last couple of months.  I have seen the quote by some famous person that reads “those who keep silent in the face of evil are giving their approval,” or the pictures’ displaying one perspective versus another and which one has the greatest validity.  I am left speechless and in pain.  Yes I have heard that even one small act of mercy changes someone and I have used those very words myself many times. Do what you can and ‘wait,’ wait for minds to change, or for hearts to open,  . . . wait for what.

The scripture for Sunday came from Isaiah and begins with “Comfort, O Comfort my people” (40:1), but, I’m sorry I don’t feel that comfort.  I offer prayers, I read, and I listen.  I volunteer at the King County Juvenile Detention Center, here at church, and lead the occasional spiritual retreat and labyrinth walk, yet, except for Juvenile Detention CTR, I feel as if I am “preaching to the choir,” so to speak.  Where in all of these days of suffering, and confusion does the offering come that provides more than my comfort and brings a justly faithful, hopeful, loving comfort to those who do not share my skin color, or language, or culture, or gender, or abilities, or whatever makes them different from the so called “main stream” of the population.

This meditation was intended to be an inspirational moment.  But I am not feeling very inspirational, just too much has happened in the last couple of months.  So I ask your forgiveness for talking through some of my thoughts.  I live in a world that appears to be falling apart as I sit my comfortable, warm home.  I keep asking what will stop the building blocks our lives from tumbling into the abyss.

I am afraid we are headed into a storm of our own making that will destroy us.  We won’t need to be invaded, no; we are doing a grand job of destruction all by ourselves.   Voices of change and compassion, justice, mercy, and peace are drowned out by hateful speech by bullies in high places.  The actions and words of those high placed bullies give permission to those who fear the unknown to be violent and destructive at the ground roots level.  Hateful speech and actions becomes a cancer eating away at our will to fight against justice and mercy.

So I sit in my little home office, offering prayers, and volunteering when the opportunity arises.  I do my small acts that I pray are being added to other small acts, but I don’t know if any of it will be enough. Our denominations GLBQ organization used the slogan “All Means ALL” at our last national General Assembly.  They wanted to get the message across that everyone matters, despite gender identification, skin color, religion, or culture everyone is important.  There are very few slogans I actually believe in, but I believe in that one.  If I can do nothing other than let each and every person know how much they matter in my life, in the life of my Faith Community, and in the life of the greater community we are all part of then I have done the best I can.  That will have to be enough.

Ruth Jewell, ©December 8, 2014