A prayer for today

I realize some of my readers are not religious; if this is not your thing, skip it.

All of us are stressed and frankly, grieving at this point re the Gulf Oil Spill. It's a loss: to the environment, our sense of technology's power, and our own moral certainty.

At the same time, we've been forced to come to the conclusion that the long hard war is not with terrorists in another country or another race; the long hard war is with the savagely greedy and willfully ignorant among our own people. We the people must become the government, and yeah, take back our country from...the greedy few who have so much.

If you want to call that socialism go right ahead. (Click here for larger image.)


(PS David Brooks that's what you should have said yesterday, without excusing corporations.)

There is nothing like the hopelessness of grief to turn us to some power higher and stronger than ourselves. We have lost something, and have a tremendous fight ahead of us. Pray? Hell, yeah. Check this one out:


Many people have urged that I call the nation into a single day of special prayer. But because the road is long and the desire is great, I ask that our people devote themselves in a continuance of prayer. As we rise to each new day, and again when each day is spent, let words of prayer be on our lips, invoking Thy help to our efforts.

Give us strength, too -- strength in our daily tasks...And let our hearts be stout, to wait out the long travail, to bear sorrows that may come...

And, O Lord, give us faith. Give us faith in Thee; faith in our sons; faith in each other; faith in our united crusade. Let not the keeness of our spirit ever be dulled. Let not the impacts of temporary events, of temporal matters of but fleeting moment -- let not these deter us in our unconquerable purpose.

Help us to conquer the apostles of greed and racial arrogances.

Lead us to the saving of our country, and with our sister nations into a world unity that will spell a sure peace -- a peace invulnerable to the schemings of unworthy men. And a peace that will let all of men live in freedom, reaping the just rewards of their honest toil.

Thy will be done, Almighty God.


Franklin D. Roosevelt
Evening of D-Day
June, 1944

Prayers for today? What?

[Image stolen from Bay of Fundie]

The "National Day of Prayer" is a silly convention that Washington DC uses to suck up to the constituency that is comforted by such nonsense. If you pray daily this kind of political fellating makes little difference, and if you don't, the National Day of Prayer "reminder" is jingoism, pure and simple.

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On topic, Americans United has a new homepage design and an article on this National Day of Prayer mumbo jumbo -- well worth a click.

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An update to my Kent State Massacre story: the sister of slain student Allison Krause has a blog and a very meaningful post on the anniversary of her sister's death. Check it out. Thanks to Sad But True at Les Enrages for bringing that to my attention.

I get it.

National Day of Reason is a counter-movement to the rather silly if you ask me "National Day of Prayer" that Congress and the White House use to suck up to the constituency that is comforted by such nonsense. If you pray daily this kind of political fellating makes little difference, and if you don't, the National Day of Prayer "reminder" is jingoism, pure and simple.

The Reason movement seems much more geared toward atheists and humanists than the First Freedom First umbrella, which I think is trying really hard (and at least sometimes succeeding) to get all of us, believers or not, working together in favor of First Amendment rights. That's no biggie, God knows (oops, sorry) that there are plenty of believer-only tents out there, which, of course, is part of the problem.

It's hilarious that The National Day of Reason people asked George W. Bush to proclaim a day of reason in 2003, and apparently haven't asked him since.

Yeah, I woulda given up, too.



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Related News: I'm putting final (at least for this year) stuff up this afternoon at the Blog Against Theocracy website. If you contributed a post to BAT, and your blog has NO link at the site, please email me at bluegalsblog AT gmail DOT com. I didn't have time to link each blogger more than once.

This afternoon there will be a badge at the site that you can use at your own blog to show that you participated, as well as ways you can keep helping the cause of separation of church and state. I can't tell you how impressive you bloggers are. I've read almost every post, and there is so much intelligence... Thank you.

A prayer (and a request) for today

[click the image for larger]

I am reading this prayer in tomorrow's podcast, and it's completely on topic, with the totally-serious caveat that here at Blue Gal, we believe that God loves atheists best.

I'm holding a fundraiser, asking my readers to give five bucks, either to the podcast or to me. I'm so grateful for your (please keep it modest in these tough times) support of my writing and broadcasting. Your small contribution makes it possible for me to keep toner in my printer and occasionally say yes to a treat for the kids. Thank you.

Apparently, the "you can't pray at a football game" omgomgomg email is going around again.

My reply is below, as in, Reply All. And honestly, I don't mind not being on these email lists if people want to take me off. But don't wave this stuff in my email box if you don't want me to reply all, because I have a FIRM POLICY of doing so.  This is being forwarded to people from church groups of which I am a part.



It's not illegal to pray at a football game. If the teams playing are at public, taxpayer funded schools, the ruling is that the Principal cannot MAKE students and players say a prayer, or use the public address system to announce prayers to the public school function. Public announcements of religion at these events is Satan's trick to get people to be lazy about their own piety and lack of repentance. Hey, if we're all praying in public, then my own sins are covered. Satan tricks people into thinking if public figures blab about Jesus, we as a nation are all set and don't have to look within at the evil in our own individual thinking. Satan's mission accomplished. 


 Taking it the other direction, football is such a religion in Alabama that students at the private Baptist institution Samford University can get convocation credit (religious service attendance) for ATTENDING a FOOTBALL GAME. Even if there is a prayer at the beginning, what a joke. 


 My own sins keep me busy 24/7/365. I'm either doing them or repenting them, and I pray the good outweighs the bad. But I won't be comforted one bit by anyone in a public office, from a school principal to a presidential candidate, giving lip service to Jesus Christ. They can't bring me closer to God than I already am, but they sure can distract me into thinking that by proxy, I don't have to worry about my relationship with my Lord and Creator. Get thee behind me, Satan!

 Fran

Ep 377 The Professional Left Podcast

Links for this episode:

Louie Gohmert verus Gabby Giffords

@flat Rodney Davis (our cardboard congressman)

Driftglass on Nicholas Kristof

Wonkette on Melania reading The Lord’s Prayer

The Lord’s Prayer and how to say it (via Matthew 6)

The button below allows listeners to throw a contribution specifically towards the Professional Left Podcast. Thanks for your listenership and support!

Prayer for Jill Carroll and others this weekend

Prayer

Teach us, good Lord, to serve you as you deserve:
to give, and not to count the cost,
to fight, and not to heed the wounds,
to toil, and not to seek for rest,
to labour, and not to ask for any reward,
except that of knowing that we do your will.

[Tom Fox did.]
Ignatius of Loyola, soldier and founder of the Jesuits (1491-1556)


No offense intended to the family and friends of Natalie Holloway. I'm just ticked that a cute blonde vacationer gets more attention from F-word News than people who actually want to try to make a difference in a part of the world that thanks to our government, has become hell on earth.

Here's what my dear friend Hedgehog has to say, in an earlier comment to this blog:

Let's pray and send good wishes to all the captives in harm's way. Jill Carroll, Norman Kember, Harmeet Sooden, and James Loney.

Norman Kember's family feels that he will be the next to be killed because he is British. He is 74 years old. He has been abused, as the videos show. He is barely able to stand up straight.

Also, please send your good thoughts to the three women Peacemakers who have refused to leave Iraq, despite immense pressure from the US to do so.

They live among the Iraqis, despite the attempts of the US to force them into "secure" areas and monitor their movements.

They explain that they do not want to die or be taken hostage or die, but they will stay as long as their presence is "more help than harm."

They ask that their pictures not be printed, for reasons of security. Other than that they depend on the trust they have established with the Iraqis to protect them. They do not believe in violence.

They are Anita David age 60, Maxine Nash age 43, and Peggy Gish age 63.

Please keep them in your thoughts. Now that Iraq has descended into chaos we need Peacekeepers more than ever.

[and from her blog] ...please stay away from Fox News. They are poison. They lie. They seek out the worst possible parts of the human heart and cater to them, as Bush does. Don’t torture yourself by eating the poison of their lies.

Tom Fox’s life embodied the teachings of Christ. The kindness, the humility, the love of the helpless and the healing of the spirits of those less able to help themselves. He was a very good man. The people whose lives he touched will never forget him.

Hedgehog

Technorati tag: blogjill

2,300th Post

Took the ten-year-old to his first comic book convention today. OMG. I suspect do not have to worry about drugs when he's a teenager, unless you consider fantasies related to time travel, alien races, and bodacious heroines to be a drug.

I was reminded at church this morning that we must consider our fellow humans to be children of God. I said a prayer not for today's Michelle Malkin, but for the Michelle Malkin of 25 years from now, when the botox and right wing devotion is no longer enough, for her or her audience. Maybe she'll find out then how merciful God is. Maybe we all will. Amen.

Okay, who is most unclear on the concept?

1. Oprah Winfrey's Dad, who apparently thought it would be a good idea to write a tell-all book about how he should have beat her more.

2. The family values Senator who slept with hookers, but whose standards apparently did not run low enough to allow him to support his own state's hooker economy, thereby offending just about everybody.

3. The so-called Christians who tried to shut down an ecumenical prayer in the US Senate because it was not directed at the one true God, Jesus Christ. (a silent tip of the hat to my fellow-Quaker Suzy.)

Prayer and Fasting

Happy Birthday, ICMS, I love you.

It occurred to me this morning, before I even got out of bed, that I need (maybe we all need?) a break from teh internets.

Nice people are showing signs of strain. It's been a very, very, tough week.

I'm gonna close my laptop and tape the word "fasting" on the top. And when I see that word, I hope I will remember to silence my monkey mind* and think about all the breaks Jesus took. Have you ever noticed that? "Asleep on a pillow." "Jesus withdrew."

Matthew 12, Mark 3, Luke 5. HUT!

(Okay, you quasi-agnostic lefty blogospherians don't need to take me too seriously.)

Back Monday or Tuesday, at the latest.

*Monkey Mind. Yeah, that's Buddhism, I'm fruit cocktail when it comes to faith, a little of everything, but Jesus is the maraschino cherries.

Ep 313 The Professional Left Podcast

Links for this episode…

Think Progress:  What the gun lobby learned from the tobacco settlement.

Blue Gal on the Virgin Mary and Planned Parenthood.

“Prayer Shaming” BS in Wapo and The Atlantic

Charlie Pierce on Michael Dukakis

The Article in Vox that you must read.

The button below allows listeners to throw a contribution specifically towards the Professional Left Podcast. Thanks for your listenership and support!

Happy Father's Day

I'm very grateful that both my parents are alive and well. Happy Father's Day, Dad.

And a special prayer for those who've lost their fathers. Today is a day of remembrance and I hope, gratitude for the good. Especially thinking of dear John Amato of Crooks and Liars. The funeral for his dad was yesterday. xxx

[Photo is me with my dad in 1969.]

National Review Online's BlogMother just keeps giving and giving.

I want to state for the record that I just love Katherine Jean Lopez, and not just with the "for the grace of God there go I" prayer I say every single time I hear about her. h/t WhiskeyFire, here she is defending Darryl Issa's panel.  PS. Honestly, Katie, Darryl Issa is not defending Darryl Issa's panel. You can give up now. But no:

Liberal Democratic women ask, “Where are the women?” — ignoring women who have publicly opposed the coercive mandate in hearings and letters and protests of various sorts. And, just for the record, there is yet another answer to their question: Women are in the pope’s prayers.


Yeah, I know exactly how the Pope's prayers for women are going, too.  Emphasis mine, from the best article on the Catholic abuse scandal ever written:

The idea that the Church authorities simply don’t understand what is going on was further emphasized when the Vatican last month [July 2010] outlined its opposition to the sexual abuse of minors by members of the clergy and to the ordination of women in the same document, and threatened greater punishment for those who got involved in the latter than in the former.

Too bad the Pope's*** prayers aren't doing much for National Review Online, who obviously would do well to repeat their threat of last spring:

***most of the commenters at Catholic.com say if you're talking about the specific fabulously shoe-d pontiff currently residing in Vatican City, it should be capitalized.  K-Lo,  I hope the POPE, CAPITAL P-O-P-E, is praying for you to get a new copy editor.

No. I mean it.

No, I don't think it's too early to pray for her. Overdue, actually. I also love this photo. Shows her warmth, which she also showed us at the end of the Austin debate. Her best moment ever, in my opinion.

And I'm not too big on Paul, frankly, but this (with my emphasis) is kinda nice in this context:

I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.

This post is part of a week-long, sincere, support/prayer vigil for the Democratic Party Blogswarm.

Coding, coding....

Over the bloggo bay....

It's taking time in part because I'm reading most of you. So amazing, you are.

Warning. This is a religious post from a religious woman. I thank God for EVERYONE who participated in this blogswarm.

I always cry at least once during the Easter service, in part because I feel so undeserving of Christ's sacrifice, his love, and yet I bathe in it. I bathe in it.

But this Easter was different. I started to cry during The Lord's Prayer, which I say all the time, ya know? But the part that in this particular church goes,

"...forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us."

and I thought about those who trespass against us, the James Dobsons. The Jerry Falwells. The Right Wing Theocrats. I can work on forgiving them. I can do that.

Then I went backwards to MY trespasses. As an American.

Baghdad.
Abu Gahrib.
Guantanamo.
How many secret prisons? How many, Mr. President? To keep me safe? To keep me so I can get GAS for my MINIVAN at under 3 dollars a gallon?

I wept. I absolutely shook with rage and regret at the spoiled American I see in the mirror every. fucking. morning.

I know better, I have matured as a Christian, to know when there is regret and grief and when there is simply worshipping at the altar of my own self-importance. As if I matter. I know. I know.

And I talked with Mr. BG about this on the way home. Cradle Episcopalian, but smart guy, too. He pointed out (standard theology, but still) that I must fight the sin of the world at every turn but not be surprised that it's still there when each battle ends. That's the whole original sin model and I don't buy it but yeah, I get his point.

UPDATE: Mr. BG takes issue with this characterization of his theology, and I can see his point. The tack Mr. BG takes is that humanity is innately self-centered, and in a community/society that is evil. Witness Darfur. Witness Hummer drivers. We are born self-centered, all of us. That is original sin.

And he also pointed out that the rest of the world gets it, really gets it, that George Bush is not Blue Gal and vice-versa. "I've talked with people around the world and they know you and a great many Americans don't support him."

Which is why I think it would be really funny in a sick way if Pammy at Assless suggga got her wish and we elected John Bolton for President next go around. The look on Scandinavia's face alone.

KIDDING! KIDDING!

But look. Here's a poem I wrote about what I believe about God and humanity, and it applies so much right now. To all of you bloggers, whether you believe in God or not (and I really don't give a rat's ass if you do or don't.)

We are artists.
We all are.
All of us.
And spiritual enlightenment
comes from connecting
with the creativity God has sent us to do.
You can be brave
and do it
or you can watch American Idol, chew on numb mindless shit all the live-long day,
and shut it out.
so many people shut it out.
Someone said I'm channeling John Coltrane when I talk like this.
so many never, ever, don't connect.
but when you connect,
the Angels rejoice.
the Angels rejoice.

All these new crazy smart lively amazing bloggers. You. You've done it. You have done it.

Silent on Gaza?

My response to the situation in Gaza: I am getting quiet. That does not mean I have no human concern, outrage, worry, or sense of what is right and wrong. Hardly. Specifically, I want the one side that has dominated our foreign policy for over half a century to stop doing so. I sense with real anguish that things much get much worse for that to happen.

The awful violence in the Middle East is being reflected in the tiny insignificant mirror of certain blog comment threads. Lots of typists screaming and name-calling with no consciousness of their own addiction to outrage, self-righteousness, and moral superiority.

Incidentally, the entire Bush Administration has been a real meth lab for those addictions.

I'm waking up to a sense that all the noise has to stop, at least here in my own head. That's the place I can at least try to control.

A couple of resources I'm finding helpful: J. Brent Bill's Holy Silence (Quaker perspective), and David Cooper's Silence, Simplicity, and Solitude (Buddhist perspective).

Along these same lines, I have no interest in arguing with those who feel prayer and meditation are "doing nothing."

My one thousandth post.

Has gotta have a nun holding a pair of panties. I'm too lazy to photoshop out the cig, too. Thanks BAC at Yikes! for photoshopping out the cig:




And speaking of religiousity stuff I've decided to post most of the religious/personal prayer stuff over at the sister site so if that's you're thang you can go there but if not you can stay here with the panties. Or both. I'll be doing both. I don't think I'm going to allow comments on the religious stuff as it's more personal meditation than an invitation to dialogue. If you want to blog in response send me an email letting me know.

The least we can do is distance ourselves...

I really think the least we can do is banish Bush, Cheney, John Yoo, Gonzales, Rice, and Rumsfeld. Send them with some of their winnings, taxed at 85%, to Bolivia or some other former-Nazi haven to live out their days away from American society.

But I'm dreaming that there will be any accountability and I don't need to discuss my emotional reaction to that.

That's the caution here, folks: Do not indulge the self-talk of how upset this makes YOU. Making a fetish of our own upset, whether it's about 9/11 or Abu Ghraib or Gitmo or Bush or Obama, is taking our eyes off the ball. Pushing for justice requires the vigilance of a calm heart.

Somehow we always forget the serenity prayer. Bloggers are not a serene people, and more than once this week I've smiled to think Obama gave us the gift of further outrage. I'm working with all of that today, praying for discernment, wisdom, patience, acceptance, and most of all, courage. Grateful that praying for this president is SO much easier than praying for the last one. Amen.

Ahem.

Todd McFarland in Liberty Magazine March/April 2007:

A presenter at a conference on religious liberty recently told a story about a woman from east central Texas he met on an airplane. The woman was complaining loudly about the Supreme Court decision prohibiting prayer over the public address systems at Texas public high school football games. He explained to her that he had recently returned from Kazakhstan and assured her that Christians in that predominantly Muslim state would not be excited at all by the government promoting religion. Her response:

"But this is our country."

.

Something more wrong than even Glenn Beck.

...That would be Politico's "DC's Most Eligible Singles".

I resisted all morning blogging this, thinking I could reduce it to a twitter message, but really. Starting off an article with "DC is not Hollywood for ugly people."

And then the list...

Steny Hoyer? Ezekiel Emanuel? Maureen Dowd?

Look at the write-up for Patrick Kennedy:

If you can overlook his occasional stints in rehab, Kennedy possesses a boyish look that keeps him on the radar screens of many.

Holy Shit! The publicity agents who arranged this travesty? Helloooo? Fired very much? If this is an exercise in journalistic cruelty, kudos to Politico. But I'm thinking not.

I had to blog about this, because this quote-unquote "article" is living proof of what is so very wrong with the people who purport to Govern This Nation. The President has absolutely no prayer when it comes to "changing the way Washington operates" when the whole town is buzzing about when can poor Janet Napolitano find time to date.

Never in our history has the DC social scene interfered more with the nation's ability to fix what's wrong with Washington, and Washington's ability to fix what's broken in our nation.

The number one reason we will never see justice for the torture of prisoners under American jurisdiction is that bitterness will ruin DC's social scene. Healthcare? Better make it bi-partisan, you know Andrea Mitchell expects all smiles at next year's prom.

Apparently the DC media cohorts can't cover Steny Hoyer without gasping that the congressman is single and probably straight. If his secretary RSVP's, call the Georgetown caterer and double the mini-quiche order, won't you, dear?

Washington is a horny town, full of young and not-so-young party-goers all of whom find power to be the ultimate aphrodesiac. And they're too busy scheduling the next party, to have any idea how pathetic and disempowering 'power as aphrodesiac' really is.

Why does what Senator Ensign actually did, pay a staffer and her entire family so he could have cheating-on-his-wife sex with her, not lead to his immediate censure and expulsion from not only the Senate, but Washington society? Because if the divorce comes through, he'll have a nice 200 word profile in the next Politico list of sexy Washington batchelors:

If you can overlook his use of party funds to turn an employee into a prostitute, Ensign possesses a handsome "George Clooney" look that keeps him on the names-whispered-while-humping-my-pillow list of Maureen Dowd.

When the doorbell rings and standing in the doorway is a jobless recession "recovery" bringing the no-healthcare reform pizza that John McLaughlin ordered while pretending to go to the bathroom, that's the signal:

It's time for the Stephanopoulos cocktail party to END.

Let's break it up, and move the party over to that new wine bar in Georgetown: I hear their paper napkins are actually cut-up scraps of the Geneva Convention.