Jesus Loves You But I Don't

Sean Harris, pastor of the Berean Baptist Church in Fayetteville, North Carolina, is a man of God. What he is not is a follower of Jesus. Last Sunday Pastor Harris gave a sermon in which he splashed his corrosive hatred of homosexuals onto innocent child children by telling his flock to punch (hit with a closed fist) their four-year-old sons if they are "acting a little girlish" .

He also had some advice for handling daughters who are "too butch."

"So your little son starts to act a little girlish when he is four years old and instead of squashing that like a cockroach and saying, 'Man up, son, get that dress off you and get outside and dig a ditch, because that is what boys do,' you get out the camera and you start taking pictures of Johnny acting like a female and then you upload it to YouTube and everybody laughs about it and the next thing you know, this dude, this kid is acting out childhood fantasies that should have been squashed.

Can I make it any clearer?

Dads, the second you see your son dropping the limp wrist, you walk over there and crack that wrist. Man up. Give him a good punch. OK? You are not going to act like that. You were made by God to be a male and you are going to be a male. And when your daughter starts acting too butch, you rein her in. And you say, 'Oh, no, sweetheart. You can play sports. Play them to the glory of God. But sometimes you are going to act like a girl and walk like a girl and talk like a girl and smell like a girl and that means you are going to be beautiful. You are going to be attractive. You are going to dress yourself up.
You say, 'Can I take charge like that as a parent?'
Yeah, you can. You are authorized. I just gave you a special dispensation this morning to do that."

As you can imagine Pastor Harris' remarks went viral and he is now saying his words were taken out of context. In a letter posted on his blog Pastor Harris wrote the following:

For the record, I want to ensure everyone that I do NOT believe physical force is capable of fixing effeminate behavior or homosexual behavior. Parents should not punch babies or children. (Ultimately only the gospel of Jesus Christ has the power to deliver one from sexual immorality and behavior including effeminacy; )

I would never advocate for such discipline or actions on behalf of a father or mother. I misspoke. Hopefully, you understood that I was speaking in a forceful manner to emphasize the degree to which gender distinctions matter to God; and therefore, must matter to each of us and especially parents.

He then turns his "I don't believe parents should punch their children" statement into a "I do believe parents should punch their children" statement by quoting passages from the bible that he believes support a parent's right to hit their children for acting gay.

He then ends his letter with these words:

The opposition is revealing their complete lack of toleration toward those do not approve of the LGBT lifestyle or agenda. However, we must be tolerantly intolerant. Jesus our Savior provides the perfect example of grace and truth.

Talk about a none so blind as those who will not see declaration. Pastor Harris may not know it but when he writes about a lack of tolerance he is writing about himself.

God save us from the ignorant.

Hope Springs Eternal

Nature often holds up a mirror so we can see more clearly the ongoing processes of growth, renewal, and transformation in our lives.
-Unknown

A Fanatic By Any Name Is Still A Fanatic

Mortification: the subjection and denial of bodily passions and appetites by abstinence or self-inflicted pain or discomfort.
-Merriam-Webster Dictionary


If you followed the link to the article about Opus Die yesterday you learned that some members of Opus Dei practice what are know as corporal mortifications or corporal penances.

...members practice small physical mortifications occasionally, such as giving up certain items of food or drink. Within this spirit, numeraries and associates (celibate members) sometimes practice traditional Catholic penances such as using the cilice and discipline. These are practices that Catholics have used for centuries and are commonplace in the lives of the saints, for example: St. Francis of Assisi, St. Thomas More, St. Therese of Lisieux, St. Padre Pio and Blessed Mother Teresa. The motivation for these voluntary penances is to imitate Christ and to join him in his redemptive sacrifice (cf. Matthew 16:24), and they can also be a way to suffer in solidarity with the many poor and deprived people in the world.
-Opus Dei-FAQ

For those of you who do not know what a cilice is, Father Mike Barrett, a member of Opus Dei, describes it this way, "It's a small, light, metal chain with little prongs worn around the thigh. The cilice is uncomfortable--it's supposed to be--but it does not in any way hinder one's normal activities and there's absolutely no Da Vinci Code gore." As for the disciplines (hitting yourself with a whip) he describes it this way, "Some celibate members use them generally once a week for a minute or two. Again, no blood, no harm, just some short-term discomfort...the real disciplines are made of woven cotton string and weigh less than two ounces."

(For those of you not sure what the hell Father Mike is talking about, this is a leg cilice and this is a light woven cotton discipline rope. I don't know about you but those things look like they would hurt.)

The reason for these practices, as stated above, "is to imitate Christ and join him in his redemptive sacrifice." Opus Dei give Matthew 16:24 as the citation for the practice.

Then Jesus said to his disciples, 'If anyone wants to be a follower of mine, let him renounce himself and take up his cross and follow me.'
-New Jerusalem Bible

How do you get from what is written in verse 24, Chapter 16, of Matthew to what can only be described as masochistic practices done in the name of Jesus? Why because they are, "commonplace in the lives of the saints." Let's face it, saints are the original fanatics. People who Merriam-Webster describe as being, "marked by excessive enthusiasm and often intense uncritical devotion." Although I was taught as a child to look up to the saints I always knew I never wanted to meet one of them. Read their life stories, most of those people are scary and a little nuts.

Not only are corporal mortifications done in the name of Jesus, Opus Dei tells us they are also a way, "to suffer in solidarity with the many poor and deprived people in the world." Since I was once one of the poor and deprived I can tell you right now this self-indulgent "I feel your pain" action is would not have helped me. If you really wanted to help you would give me food or do something constructive to rid the world of hunger and suffering.

Why am I writing about this? Because Rick Santorum is connected with this group. He may not be a member of it as rumored but he is connected to it. That speech he made back in 2002 in which he said he did not believe in Separation of Church and State and that John F. Kennedy made him throw-up was given at a Opus Dei event in Rome. When that speech went public he went on the defensive saying on ABC News:

To say that people of faith have no role in the public square. You bet that makes you throw-up. What kind of country do we live in that say only people of non-faith can come in the public square and make their case. That makes me throw-up.

Oh, please, no one is saying people of faith have no role in the public square. We are saying that people of faith have no right to force their personal religious beliefs on other Americans and, therefore, have no right to make those personal religious beliefs public law. Rick Santorum knows this but like Opus Dei he thinks that if he downplays what is really going by lying about it no one will see him for what he really is, a religious fanatic who wants to recreate the county in his own image.

Dear Republican Candidates

Will you please, please read the U. S. Constitution before you open your mouths and show your ignorance about one of the most important document written by our founding father? Rick Santorum, I'm actually talking to you this morning after your faux pas yesterday when you stupidly insinuated that President Obama was not a real Christian. You, Sir, need to study up on Article VI, paragraph 3 of that document:

The Senators and Representatives before mentioned, and the Members of the several State Legislatures, and all executive and judicial Officers, both of the United States and of the several States, shall be bound by Oath or Affirmation, to support this Constitution; but no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States.

The irony of you as a Catholic not understand this fundamental right would be amusing if it did not show how completely ignorant you are about another Catholic whose religious beliefs were almost a roadblock to his presidential aspirations, John F. Kennedy. In an address he made to the Greater Houston Ministerial Association in 1960, Senator Kennedy tackled this issue straight on saying in his speech:

I believe in an America where the separation of church and state is absolute—where no Catholic prelate would tell the President (should he be Catholic) how to act, and no Protestant minister would tell his parishioners for whom to vote—where no church or church school is granted any public funds or political preference—and where no man is denied public office merely because his religion differs from the President who might appoint him or the people who might elect him.

I believe in an America that is officially neither Catholic, Protestant nor Jewish—where no public official either requests or accepts instructions on public policy from the Pope, the National Council of Churches or any other ecclesiastical source—where no religious body seeks to impose its will directly or indirectly upon the general populace or the public acts of its officials—and where religious liberty is so indivisible that an act against one church is treated as an act against all.

For while this year it may be a Catholic against whom the finger of suspicion is pointed, in other years it has been, and may someday be again, a Jew—or a Quaker—or a Unitarian—or a Baptist. It was Virginia's harassment of Baptist preachers, for example, that helped lead to Jefferson's statute of religious freedom. Today I may be the victim- -but tomorrow it may be you—until the whole fabric of our harmonious society is ripped at a time of great national peril.

Finally, I believe in an America where religious intolerance will someday end—where all men and all churches are treated as equal—where every man has the same right to attend or not attend the church of his choice—where there is no Catholic vote, no anti-Catholic vote, no bloc voting of any kind—and where Catholics, Protestants and Jews, at both the lay and pastoral level, will refrain from those attitudes of disdain and division which have so often marred their works in the past, and promote instead the American ideal of brotherhood.

That is the kind of America in which I believe. And it represents the kind of Presidency in which I believe—a great office that must neither be humbled by making it the instrument of any one religious group nor tarnished by arbitrarily withholding its occupancy from the members of any one religious group.

I believe in a President whose religious views are his own private affair, neither imposed by him upon the nation or imposed by the nation upon him as a condition to holding that office. I would not look with favor upon a President working to subvert the first amendment's guarantees of religious liberty. Nor would our system of checks and balances permit him to do so—and neither do I look with favor upon those who would work to subvert Article VI of the Constitution by requiring a religious test—even by indirection—for it. If they disagree with that safeguard they should be out openly working to repeal it.

I want a Chief Executive whose public acts are responsible to all groups and obligated to none—who can attend any ceremony, service or dinner his office may appropriately require of him—and whose fulfillment of his Presidential oath is not limited or conditioned by any religious oath, ritual or obligation.

So, Mister Santorum, as a Catholic do you feel even a little ashamed about what you said? Knowing ignorance is bliss, I'd guess not.

Three O'clock In The Morning

In the real dark night of the soul, it is always three o'clock in the morning, day after day.
F. Scott Fitzgerald

Sometimes, while watching a movie, I find some bit of dialogue that a screenwriter has written for a character resonating within me. This happen to me earlier this week while I was watching Infamous (2006). Infamous is about Truman Capote and his research into the the Clutter family murders in the small town of Holcomb, Kansas back in 1959. The information he gathered there became his best selling book In Cold Blood.

In one scene of the movie Capote and Nell Harper Lee are standing in field with a farmer who knew Herb Clutter, the head of the Clutter family. The farmer is giving examples of how Herb Clutter was a good and decent man when he pauses and says:

I've always believed that whenever you do something right it gives you a little bit of weight so that you come to feel rooted to this earth, you know? Solid. Secure. Now what scared me is that, well, sometimes, out of nowhere a bad wind blows up. Now it could be cancer, could be drink, could be some woman that don't belong to you. And despite the weight that's holding you to the ground when that wind comes, it picks you up light as a leaf and takes you were it wants. We're in control until we're not. Then we're helpless.

That, ladies and gentlemen, is someone describing the horror of his three o'clock morning moment. And isn't this realization, that we aren't in control of our lives the way we think we are, that in reality we are helpless, every soul's three o'clock in the morning?

Winter Solstice 2011

I have news for you
The stag bells, winter snows, summer has gone
Wind high and cold, the sun low, short its course
The sea running high
Deep red the bracken; its shape is lost
The wild goose has raised its accustomed cry,
Cold has seized the birds' wings
Season of ice, this is my news
-9th century Irish

Jesus Is Real

While driving to and from visiting my husband's cousin this weekend I was both surprised and disappointed by the numerous billboards that line Interstate 70 between Goodland and Russell, Kansas. Former First Lady Lady Bird Johnson would break down in tears if she only knew what has been done to the 1965 Highway Beautification Act that she had worked so hard on.

One of the billboards that caught my eye was a painting of Jesus holding his right hand up with palm facing forward. Across the bottom of the painting were the words, JESUS IS REAL. At first I wondered if Jesus was talking about himself but I'm pretty sure he would never speak in the third person like some egocentric rap star or sports figure so it must have been a statement of fact. Still, it was confusing since it reads like an incomplete sentence. What could it mean?

JESUS IS REAL BUT SANTA CLAUS IS NOT *

JESUS IS REAL BUT THE EASTER BUNNY IS NOT **

JESUS IS REALLY CUTE

JESUS IS REALLY DISAPPOINTED IN ALL THOSE PEOPLE WHO FOCUS ON HIS AND THEIR OWN DEATHS INSTEAD OF FOCUSING ON HIS LIFE TEACHINGS

JESUS IS REALITY

I kind of like the last one, it is so Zen like.



*Santa would like to point out that just like Jesus he is real but unlike Jesus he is not dead. I think Santa is a little touchy about the subject.

**The Easter Bunny would probably refute this statement if he wasn't an anthropomorphized imaginary animal.

Wear Your Love Like Heaven

According to man named Harold Camping the rapture and the beginning of end times is tomorrow. Rapture is the ascension of true Christians into heaven while non-believers stay on Earth to suffer five months of plagues, earthquakes, wars, and famines before the earth is finally destroyed. One billion true believers are expected to escape the horrors that are about to descend on us. That should make driving to work on the freeways in the larger cities a lot easier on Monday.

This doomsday scenario would be very amusing if it wasn't so hard on the families that have members who are non-believers. The New York Times has this article in today's paper about a family in Middletown, Maryland with parents who have believed for the last two years that the rapture is tomorrow. This belief has caused them to stop planning for the future, which has affected their children in many ways.

Tomorrow, when the true believers find themselves earth bound with no sign that the end times has begun they are going to be a confused and disappointed bunch of people. Try not to ridicule them. Instead wear your love like heaven and show them what true Christianity is all about.



Donovan

Color in sky Prussian Blue
Scarlet fleece changes hue
Crimson ball sinks from view

Wear your love like heaven
(Wear your love like)
Wear your love like heaven
(Wear your love like)
Wear your love like heaven
(Wear your love)

Lord, kiss me once more
Fill me with song
Allah, kiss me once more
That I may, that I may

Wear my love like heaven
(Wear my love like)
Wear my love like heaven
(Wear my love)

Color sky Havana Lake
Color sky Rose Carmethene
Alizarian Crimson

Wear your love like heaven
(Wear your love like)
Wear your love like heaven
(Wear your love like)
Wear your love like heaven
(Wear your love)

Lord, kiss me once more
Fill me with song
Allah, kiss me once more
That I may, that I may

Wear my love like heaven
(Wear my love like)
Wear my love like heaven
(Wear my love)

Cannot believe what I see
All I have wished for will be
All of our race proud and free

Wear your love like heaven
(Wear your love like)
Wear your love like heaven
(Wear your love like)
Wear your love like heaven
(Where your love)

Lord, kiss me once more
Fill me with song
Allah, kiss me once more
That I may, that I may

Wear my love like heaven
(Wear my love like)
Wear my love like heaven
(Wear my love)

Karma

Karma

Remembrance of Things Past

I have been in email correspondence with a student at Kenyon College in Ohio for the last couple of weeks. The student contacted me because I had blogged about my Camino walk and she was doing a paper on the subject. She wanted me to answer some questions about my experience and I gladly did so. This morning I received an email from her thanking me for taking the time to answer her questions. While going though the rest of my emails, I also went into my saved file and had a email I had saved in 2007 pop up first thing. This one was from a woman who was just getting ready to do the Camino and wrote to ask me how walking the Camino had affected my life. I wrote back the following:

How did walking the Camino affect my life? I haven't really thought about this and can only say ,at this point in time, walking the Camino has helped me to feel more comfortable with who I am and it has opened my heart and soul to what the universe has to offer.

As Shakespeare wrote in Hamlet, 'There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, Than are dreamt of in your philosophy'. The Camino showed me that this statement is true.How could I not be affected by what happened to me on my walk?

It definitely changed me. I did not feel any different when I got home but my family said I had changed. It was a spiritual experience and it helped me see my mother's death as another spiritual experience. I was there when she died and I now know that my being there was a blessing.

But has it changed my life in any major ways? No, I pretty much live the same life I lived before the Camino. The only difference is I am more at peace with myself than I was before the walk.

I had forgotten I had written this but the words are still true. I am certainly more as peace now that I was before I did the walk- just not as at peace as I was when I first wrote those words. A reminder that I need to work on that?

At Best, Each Of Us Is But A Breath

Bob Bixler
March 19,1921 - December 28, 2010
He loved his God, his family, dogs, horses, and life.

It Came Upon A Midnight Clear

Guru Gumpy

-Be not afraid of growing slowly, be afraid only of standing still.


-Everyone and everything around you is your teacher.


-Life can only take place in the present moment. If we lose the present moment, we lose life.


-Never limit your view of life by any past experience.

Instant Karma's Gonna To Get You

I am sure you have heard of the Westboro Baptist Church, a small religious cult formed by Fred Phelps  whose membership consists of mostly his children and grandchildren. Mr. Phelps message is a message of hatred against Gays, Jews, Catholics, and any organizations, secular or nonsecular, that support the above groups.

When not protesting against organizations that support Gays his group is protesting at the funerals of soldiers who have died fighting in Iraq or Afghanistan. In Mr. Phelps twisted mind our military men are being killed by God because HE is angry at a sinful America for tolerating homosexuality. On Saturday Mr. Phelp's and his family were in McAlester, Oklahoma protesting the funeral of Army Sgt. Jason James McCluskey. When they were finished with their hate filled demonstration a little karmic payback occurred. Read the story here.

When I Woke Up This Morning

you were on my mind.
We Five

Don't Fear Death

Don't fear death in earthly travels.
Don't fear enemies or friends.
Just listen to the words of prayers,
To pass the facets of the dreads.

Your death will come to you, and never
You shall be, else, a slave of life,
Just waiting for a dawn's favor,
From nights of poverty and strife.

She'll build with you a common law,
One will of the Eternal Reign.
And you are not condemned to slow
And everlasting deadly pain.
-Aleksandr Blok


Death Snips Proud Men

DEATH is stronger than all the governments because the governments are men and men die and then death laughs: Now you see ’em, now you don’t.

Death is stronger than all proud men and so death snips proud men on the nose, throws a pair of dice and says: Read ’em and weep.

Death sends a radiogram every day: When I want you I’ll drop in—and then one day he comes with a master-key and lets himself in and says: We’ll go now.

Death is a nurse mother with big arms: ’Twon’t hurt you at all; it’s your time now; you just need a long sleep, child; what have you had anyhow better than sleep?
Carl Sandburg 

Last Night I Dreamed I Was God

I was in a humongous Aztec stone arena surrounded by thousands of people waiting to hear what I had to say. It was kind of like being E F Hutton.

Bigotry May Be Roughly Defined As The Anger Of Men Who Have No Opinions

-G. K. Chesterton

The rising sun can dispel the darkness of night, but it cannot banish the blackness of malice, hatred, bigotry, and selfishness from the hearts of humanity.
-David O. McKay

It was under a solemn consciousness of the dangers from ecclesiastical ambition, the bigotry of spiritual pride, and the intolerance of sects... that it was deemed advisable to exclude from the national government all power to act upon the subject.
-Joseph Story

Bigotry dwarfs the soul by shutting out the truth.
-Edwin Hubble Chapin

Bigotry is the sacred disease.
-Heraclitus

Bigotry murders religion to frighten fools with her ghost.
-Charles Caleb Colton

Bigotry tries to keep truth safe in its hand with a grip that kills it.
-Rabindranath Ragore

Bigotry and intolerance, silenced by argument, endeavors to silence by persecution, in old days by fire and sword, in modern days by the tongue.
-Charles Simmons

Perhaps travel cannot prevent bigotry, but by demonstrating that all peoples cry, laugh, eat, worry, and die, it can introduce the idea that if we try and understand each other, we may even become friends.
-Maya Angelou

In response to the actions of that bigoted religious yahoo in Florida, I have just bought an English copy of the Qu'ran. I will peruse it and then keep it next to my bible.

Mary Had A Baby

You do realize that according to Luke 1:27 through 1:35 Jesus' mother, Mary, became an unwed pregnant teenager when he was conceived, don't you? Why is that thought considered sacrilegious? And none of that that, "Well, she wasn't really since, at that time, a contract to be married (a.k.a an engagement) was just the same as being married." spin.

Just giving you a reason not to be so judgmental and holier that thou toward unwed teen mothers. Instead think of another unwed teenager mother and open your heart and show a little kindness.

"I Dreamed This"

See, what you have to ask yourself is what kind of person are you? Are you the kind that sees signs, that sees miracles? Or do you believe that people just get lucky? Or, look at the question this way: Is it possible that there are no coincidences?
-Mel Gibson as Graham Hess in the movie Signs




I watched the movie Signs (2002) yesterday morning and it got me thinking since it talks about, among other things, predestination, signs, miracles, and dreams. If you have not seen the movie and plan to, stop reading-there be spoilers ahead.

I'm definitely a person who believes there are no coincidences in life and who sees signs but I don't believe in predestination in the religious sense; the belief that God guides the lives of everyone who is destined to be saved. At one point in the movie something happens that makes the lead character, Graham Hess, a lapsed Episcopal priest, believe that his son has been born with asthma so he would be protected when exposed to poison later in life.

Is his son's asthma a gift from God which will save him later because that's what God wants to happen? No, the idea that our lives are directed by a God who is a puppet master pulling the strings of only some of his puppets is an idea that springs from man's egotistical need to be seen as unique and worthy of special treatment. I believe that our lives are directed by the choices we make and that sometimes God steps in to protect us from some of the more foolish ones and that this "stepping in" is what we call a miracle.

So, the miracle is not the boy having asthma, the miracle is he doesn't have his inhaler when he needs it. This is a child who earlier in the film is shown pulling his inhaler out of his pocket and using it which means he is conscientious about keeping it with him. In the basement he doesn't have it. How can that be? It must be God protecting him from a foolish decision.

Are prophetic dreams a sign that God is directing our lives? There is one scene in the movie which I really identified with and that is when the little girl, while watching something play-out in front of her eyes, says, "I dreamed this."
Been there, done that, and had that look on my face. I've dreamed about conversations, houses my family ended up living in and when I got older, jobs I ended up doing. Evidence of Predestination because I am one of the chosen ones who will be saved? No, just glimpses of where my or other people's (my parents) choices were leading me.

God may not direct our lives but I am positive that God sometimes gives us a helping hand.

(For a scientific explanation of Predetermination you might want to read,Signs (2002) and the Predetermination of Destiny, which brings up Freud's theory of psychic determinism.)

A Rose By Any Other Name

Jesus

Allah

Jehovah

Buddha

Yahweh

Krishna

Gaia

Vishnu

Kami

Jah

Ik

Ahura Mazda

Goddess

...is still God.

Where Is Love?

Does it fall from skies above?
-Where Is Love from the musical Oliver!

As someone once asked, isn't the role of religion to create compassion in people? I've always thought so but evidently there are many people who do not agree with this interpretation and the ones who do not seem to be more than willing to share their intolerant religious views with the rest of the world. In the last few months I have been reading about or listening to people condemn others based on their (the person condemning) interpretation of the bible and/or their belief that their religion is the one and only true way to God.

-We have people passing out religious leaflets saying women who dress "provocatively" are responsible for being raped.

-We have FoxNews commentator Brit Hume saying Tiger Wood can only be forgiven for committing adultery if he gives up Buddhism and becomes a Christian.

-We have Christian evangelist Pat Robertson saying that the earthquake in Haiti happened because the people of that country are being punished for making a pact with the devil.

How can people who call themselves Christian and supposedly follow the teachings of "the prince of peace" be so reactionary and judgmental? I think Mark Twain explains it perfectly:

In religion and politics people's beliefs and convictions are in almost every case gotten at second-hand, and without examination, from authorities who have not themselves examined the questions at issue but have taken them at second-hand from other non-examiners, whose opinions about them were not worth a brass farthing.

And where is this leading, you ask? To me writing down my own thoughts about the bible and religion. Starting next week I will begin a series of blog posts called The Gospel According to Colleen in which I will explain my biblical and religious views. I am not sure where this will lead but I do expect it to be interesting....well, at least for me and hopefully for you, too.