Religious Freedom IS Essential

For the past few months, our various governments have used the fear of a relatively benign virus to cause all of us to hide in our homes like scared children.  In the meantime, they are taking everything away from us: our parks, our businesses, our schools, and even our churches. 

To me, the greatest loss in all of this has been my loss of faith in the American people to be intelligent and logical, and to stand up against the tyranny of our government and demand their right to choose.  I now believe that my countrymen would sacrifice every freedom our forefathers left us if it meant temporary safety for themselves.   They hoped to gain by their obedience, but in the end, they will loose even that which they thought they had.  

At the core of my despair is the attack on our religious freedoms and the church’s general response to that attack.  Throughout history, the faithful have been the catalyst for great change and social justice.  Martin Luther King and Martin Luther King Jr. both came from places of great spiritual faith, and they brought transitional and positive change.  The pilgrims sought religious freedom, even if it meant death, and it often did.  The Christian faithful created most of the good things we have on this earth; orphanages, homeless shelters, public hospitals, public education, universities…these were all brought about by people who were following the words of Jesus.  These individuals usually did these things in blatant disregard for their governing bodies and most of the time under fear for their own lives.  

Here in America, our churches have abandoned us. They have refused to rise to the challenge and demand our rights to worship be sacred.  I can hide in my house and praise my god, like the Jews in Europe during the holocaust, but I’m not allowed to go stand with my fellow believers.  Instead of rising up and saying, “But religious freedom IS essential,” the churches have in general simply, quietly, closed their doors in fear.

I heard a pastor speak,  one whose doors have not closed, and he said that only one other pastor in the entire city was willing to stand shoulder to shoulder with him and demand that the right to worship in a church be restored.  That makes me sad.  It makes me doubt any reason to go to church or to tithe or to contribute my time.  Why would I continue to support any church who has no strength or desire to support my freedoms?

The Bible tells us multitudinous times not to be afraid.  Yeshua commanded us repeatedly, “Fear not.”  Yet, here we shutter our churches and hide in our homes in fear of a disease that surely our Father can protect us from, should he choose to do so.   Our Father has always demanded his faithful be brave, stand up, do the impossible.  The list of those who obeyed in the face of certain destruction and death is long.  David, Gideon, Hezekiah, Isaiah, Elijah, Esther, and the list goes on and on.  These people were surely afraid of disease and destruction and even death.  But they were in awe of our Father and believed that his faithfulness endures forever.

Here in America, we literally have a country because our founders had faith in a higher power.  They faced death every single day, and never let that fear of their own death keep them from birthing this country into existence.  We all owe them a debt of gratitude.

*I* am not afraid to die of this disease.  *I* am afraid of the world we will leave behind for our children and grandchildren.  *I* am afraid of a government that is being allowed to dictate the terms of our lives, and destroy our economy, and erode our freedoms, while those in fear call evil good and good evil. 

I will not live in fear.  I will not quarantine, and I will not live under house arrest.  I will not wear a mask, and I will not hide in my home to praise my god.  My religious freedoms are sacred, even if the churches and the government do not think so. 

Our pastors, who should be leading the charge for religious freedoms, have overwhelmingly failed us, save a few brave examples.   They have quietly handed their churches over to the state and complied.  Because when you let the state, any state, dictate the terms of your organization, gathering, or building, you are no longer the owner.  The owner is the one with the authority to open or close the building; the owner is the one with the authority to set worship times and make the big decisions.  The one making those decisions for our churches is the state, not the pastors or the congregations.  So who owns the churches?  

Church is not about the building, I get that.  Church is about the people.  When the people are not allowed to assemble for worship, the church building and everything about it becomes irrelevant.  Churches are already in decline in America.  The population grows older and is dying off, and the younger population doesn’t see the need for them.  When the churches could have risen up and been a beacon for hope and the security of our freedoms, they have quietly shuttered themselves instead.  When the churches abandon us, the unfortunate result is us abandoning the churches. 

Roosevelt said, “We have nothing to fear but fear itself.”  Those words were never more true than they are today.  Shalom and blessings.   May our Father protect the faithful from what it to come. 

Indifference is not discrimination

Today, I got accused of being a bigot against gays because I made a joke about gays being assholes and "stealing the rainbow."  The matter pissed me off a little, because it was someone who already knows my actual feelings on gays and gay marriage, and still they tried to paint me out to be a bigot.  I wanted to expound on that and express myself on the matter.

Let me make myself clear.  I simply don't care about gays or gay marriage.  To me, the whole matter is a non-issue.  Truly.  I know it's the popular cause of the day, and society requires that I involve myself, but I simply don't care.  Indifference is not discrimination.

Society assumes that everyone is required to have an opinion on all matters..especially this matter.  I simply don't care who people fuck.  The end is coming and judgement is near. You can have that conversation with the King when that time comes...not my problem.  In the meantime, I wish you all the happiness in the world and I hope you find all the joy that life can bring you, however you find it. 

I care about real issues, not gay wedding cakes.  I care about hunger.  That's a real issue.  I care about religious persecution.  I care about bees dying.  I care about my grandchildren living in a genetically modified world.   I care about the state of the environment.  I care about literacy.  I care about drought in California, and the encroaching danger of Islam among our ranks.  I care about Fukushima, and the effect on our oceans.  I care about Nepal and Baltimore and Ferguson.  I care about 9/11 and Benghazi.  I care about the war in the Middle East.  I care about American soldiers dying overseas.  I care about children being made into slaves and sex toys.  I care about rape.  I care about housing people, clothing people, loving people, teaching people, and feeding people, and providing them medicine.  I care about cultural resources, and protecting them for future generations.  I care about animals and their well-being, and trees, and teaching children how to take care of both.  Who anyone screws is not, in my opinion, an important globally impacting issue.

Yet, my apathy on this non-issue somehow automatically labels me a bigot.  Where did common sense and critical thinking go?  When did apathy become the same as action?  When did it be a requirement that I support the cause of the day?

I have an expression: My cause is not your cause.

I don't expect people to automatically make the things I think are important a priority in their own lives.  I don't expect, standing in line at the grocery store, that the guy in front of me cares about legalization of marijuana, domestic violence, or end times prophecy.  I assume that my cause is not your cause.  Please STOP trying to shove your cause down my throat.  I don't have to care who you fuck, or who you marry, and I don't have to support your rights in that area, and public shaming and peer pressure is not going to force me to change my mind. 

Wasn't it nice when the fashionable causes WERE important matters, like saving lives and saving our natural resources?  Feeding the starving and stopping wars? Providing medical care to children and stopping the spread of AIDS?  Now we live in a country where punishing people because they don't participate in the fashionable cause of the day is considered acceptable.  Way to go, America.  You've rendered yourself useless.

Being Rose

Names are important.  Biblically speaking, names are descriptions of a persons destiny or their actions in this life.  When I think of a person's name, I think of their face, and their smile, and the uniqueness that is them. 

There are people who are somewhat impervious to nicknames.  I have always been one of them.  Over time people have tried to make different ones stick to me, and I have made efforts myself, but the name Sondra doesn't really lend itself to nicknames, and they usually slip away with lack of use.  

To my husband, I am Rose. This is who I am in his phone, on his lips, and in his heart, and it doesn't matter what my driver's license says.  This is what he wants the whole world to call me.  It would bring him joy every day to hear the name Rose on everyone's lips when they spoke to me.

It started with a rosebush called Her Favorite.  It was here when we moved in.  I am infatuated with it.  Before it blossoms, it looks like any other rose plant.  In fact, it's rather bland.  Then the buds start growing.  At first they are tiny, unimpressive, and camouflaged among the sharp thorns and jagged five-fingered leaves.  Then they get bigger, and bigger.  Each one gets so big it seems like the green sleeve that contains it cannot possibly hold it.  Finally, a hot-pink bud will pop through. That's just the beginning.

Roseling's first beautiful bloom

Roseling's first bloom

Over the next two weeks, that single bud will change color and character every single day as it unfolds itself at a leisurely pace in the summer sun.  Every day I step out the door  into the warmth of the sun, eager to view the days changes.  It's like a brand-new rose from the one that was there the day before.  I see pinks and yellows and oranges that I never knew existed.  Each day, I smile in front of that rose bush, in awe of the beauty of it's creation.

The song "The Rose," by Bette Midler, is one of the first songs I can remember that I ever learned the lyrics to.  I used to sing it to my friends.  :)  My husband heard me singing it one day, out tending my roses.  To my husband, I am that rose.  I am the seed that came in the winter, and turned into the love that is us.

In my yard are more than 30 varieties of roses in pots, buckets, giant teacups, and in the ground.  During the summer, no matter which window of my house I look out of, there are beautifully blooming explosions of color and life.  They surround me when I come and go from work, when I go to get the mail, when I step into my vegetable garden.  Storm tends them all.  They require a tremendous amount of work.  They must be groomed, fed, healed of disease, watered, weeded, and loved.  He has made it his job in life to provide me with this beauty for one reason, and one reason alone: it makes me smile.

Rose's Favorite
Roseling

  He gives me the roses to provide us both every day a living reminder of our love, which has had the power to change both of our lives by creating a bond so close that sometimes we get lost where one of us begins and the other one ends.

We have cloned Her Favorite. It's by far my favorite and most adored rose.  It took five years of love and TLC to make it grow. Last summer, it shared it's first perfect, tiny pink buds.  Every single time I look at it, I am humbled by the incredible depth my husband's love for me.  Right now, Roseling sits dormant in it's bucket, beneath a perfect mound of snow, waiting for spring to amaze me again.


 

Yes...Ok...that's what you think...but what are we going to DO about it?

Generally speaking, I am not easily frustrated.  I do not give in to the impatience of life very often.  I'm sure that I learned this through the many years of dealing with the children I have subjected myself to.  That being the case, when frustration overwhelms me, it's usually on issues bigger than the broken microwave or the cat poop under the couch. 

One thing that frustrates me is the argument over Democrat and Republican...or Libertarian...or whatever label you stick on your shirt.  In my mind, this is maybe the most ridiculous and dangerous behavior Americans display. 

I honestly don't give a rat's ass.  If you tell me you're one or the other, I'm probably going to say, "Well, bully for your side."  (It's happened.  Very socially awkward.)  Your being a member of a political party is not only a useless waste of your mental time and loyalty, it's childish.  If you think the bigwigs in Washington give a fig about your politics, good luck with that.

What it says to me is that you are incapable of making a decision about what you think on an issue, or who you trust, unless a whole shit-ton of other people believe it, too.  I don't need you to agree with me to know that my vote for Obama was the biggest mistaken vote I've ever made in my life.  (There have been a few others, but nothing like this!  OY VEY!)  I don't need you to agree with me to vote on who will be in charge, though I probably should make wiser choices.

When people ask me about my politics, I tell them I'm an American.  I don't vote in primaries because I don't care about party politics.  I have tried to make it a policy to never put my name down for a party.  My young adult self might have done it at some point, but frankly, there are certain gaps in my memory, so it's hard to be sure.  ;)

I want to shake my fist at it.  I want to yell and scream and stamp my feet.  Are you an American??  ARE YOU?  Don't you freaking understand what that means?!  You have a better life living in the trailer court and working at the Piggly Wiggly than most of the world will ever hope to be able to imagine.  Most importantly, it means you live in a place where doing those things is even possible to do. 

Why can't we stop talking about parties, and start talking about problems?  Why aren't we discussing the issues instead of the ideals?  Why aren't we looking for solutions instead of pointing fingers?  Do you know whose fault it is?  It's yours.  It's mine.  It's the fault of every, single American of voting age in this country.  Now that that's settled, what the hell are we going to DO about it?