Tag Archives: hope

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The Equality Act passes. Tough two weeks. Romantic Realism.

We’ve hit the post-2020 election wall of reality pretty hard lately— Amazon banned the thoughtful and science-based When Harry Became Sally, singer Demi Lovato declared that gender-reveal parties were transphobic, and Mr. Potato Head came out as gender fluid.

Even Dr. Suess’s books have been cancelled from their featured spotlight at Read Across America Day.

To cap it off, at the confirmation hearing for Biden’s nominee to be #2 at the Department of Health and Human Services, Sen. Rand Paul could not get him/her to admit that children should not be able to make their own decisions to make sex changes with hormone blockers or surgery without parental involvement.

The outrage has lit up social media.

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When “the centre cannot hold”

Thoughts on our taste of tear gas and anarchy in the Peoples' House

“Destruction,” from The Course of Empire by Robert Coles

“Turning and turning in the widening gyre

The falcon cannot hear the falconer;

Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;

Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world…

The best lack all conviction, while the worst

Are full of passionate intensity.”

–from “The Second Coming,” William Butler Yeats, 1919

What a sad, hard week for America; the People’s House breached, lives taken, pandemic ratcheting up and up. Never in my lifetime have the words of Yeats’ most famous poem felt so achingly true. Words written in the wake of the “blood-dimmed tide” of World War I when the Spanish flu was rising, infecting Yeats’ own pregnant wife.

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World-weary? “All Things New” torches our hope

The ultimate fix for culture wars and chaos, pain and loss

You probably saw hundreds of thousands take to the streets in protest for Right to Life and women’s empowerment last weekend. On Capitol Hill the Democrats in their trench shouted, ‘Protect Immigrants!” while Republicans in theirs shouted, “Protect citizens! Protect the military!”

And we watch. War-weary, just wanting these people to do their jobs and run the government. The shutdown shut down, but the “cultural war for the soul of America” as Pat Buchanan first described it, continues—this daily battle over “who we are and what we stand for as Americans.”

Did you hear any of the speeches from the Senate floor? It was as if Democrat Schumer and Republican McConnell each described the shutdown from totally different planets. As my gut tensed I wondered, “How will this war ever end?” It used to be that the war was fought during election season and now it’s fought every day.

Suddenly, unbidden, words and images flooded in…

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A Lament in the Wake of the Republican Convention

Four Things I’m Sad About

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While many were cheering and excited as the Republican convention drew to a close, my heart was heavy. An election is a real-time window on our values in today’s culture.

The communal psalms of lament “express deep sorrow for the travails of a nation.” So, like the psalmist, I open my heart to God and others in response to our pageant of values in play–both what I see being lost and what I see coming.

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Your Response to Gay Marriage: Seething, Fearful or Soothed?

The Supreme Court released its long-awaited ruling on gay marriage Friday morning. By a vote of five to four it’s now legal in all fifty states. We are living through a tidal wave of cultural change. How do you respond?

Supreme court gay marriage

Maybe you are celebrating the news. Relieved that the issue will not need to be fought out state by state. Glad for your friends who are gay. Maybe you are working hard to show tolerance in this new social reality but, under the surface, are you seething? (Or maybe not under the surface…)

If you are angry, sort it out…why?