Beltane and the Greenhouse Moon

Sunday gratefuls: Shadow, eater of window cranks. My son and his first week in his new job. Seoah working on the family farm. Guess who’s coming to America: the Jangs! Aug. 1-7. The Morning Service. SPRINT.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Canes

Week Kavannah: Gratitude. Hakarot Hatov. (recognizing the good)    “Who is rich? Those who rejoice in their own portion.” Perkei Avot: 4:1

One brief shining: Days of needed rest after a couple of weeks in this machine, then another, seeing this doctor, then another, driving with a left hip that would rather complain than be helpful, days of leaning into positive news, good news, feeling relief, joy, satisfaction, shabbat for sure, these days of awe.

 

Pain/Cancer coda: In the day after my news I owned a conflation I’d made. A putting together, even though conjectural, of my back and hip pain and my cancer. Natural since my oncologist wanted the MRI to see if I had new cancer in my hips.

However. It also meant that with each twinge of pain from my back and legs a secondary specter emerged. My cancer had spread, gone to the bone, and I was in for a long, slow miserable death. I didn’t believe this. But I couldn’t not believe it either.

I know correlation is not causation, but sometimes, when the pain comes from the same region where my cancer originated, for example, it’s hard to suspend a conclusion, to not skip right ahead to the obvious.

Now that I know this is not the case, thanks to the imaging, I feel much lighter, as if I have life ahead of me rather than endurance and suffering. Facts, contrary to the current political zeitgeist, can set us free.

Thank you for listening over these last few weeks.

 

Just a moment: Crushing Latinos and allies protesting draconian immigration enforcement. Using the National Guard under a law allowing the President to deploy them to quell rebellion.

Here’s a direct quote from an NYT article:

“Mr. Trump’s directive said, “To the extent that protests or acts of violence directly inhibit the execution of the laws, they constitute a form of rebellion against the authority of the Government of the United States.”” NYT

Read that again. If a protest blocks a street, diverts traffic, or should, say, walk on both lanes of a bridge outside Selma, Alabama that can be considered an act of rebellion.

This is not a President enforcing Civil Rights laws; no, this is a President holding the fire hose with Bull O’Connor, standing on the steps of the Alabama capital with George Wallace, holding an axe handle with Lester Maddox.

This is the same as using faux actions against anti-Semitism to punish East Coast Universities.

Orwell called it double-speak. It is real and may be coming to a town or an issue near you.

 

Here’s another quote from the same pages of the NYT: “Southern Baptists plan to vote this week on acting to overturn Obergefell v. Hodges, the Supreme Court ruling that legalized gay marriage 10 years ago this month.” NYT

Jesus Christ. WWJD. Come on. Let’s explore that great commandment: Love your neighbor as you love yourself. Of course, what’s on display here really is a group of folks who cannot love themselves due to all the guilt wanting to take love from people who don’t feel guilty for who they are. Put that in your DEI pipe.