Losing a Mind

An elderly acquaintance of mine frequently repeated the adage:
Of all the things I have lost
I miss my mind the most.

My wife has been saying it for some time 
but only recently am I beginning to accept the reality 
that I am at the stage of life where I do not remember clearly.  

I resist her diagnosis and I know I am aging 
and in the early stages of CRS (Can't Remember Shit).  
I have tried denial but that is a fantasy.

I can forget between walking from the kitchen 
into the pantry why I am in the pantry.

I can forget in the middle of a task, 
like sorting stamps from my collection into categories
and not remembering the categories.

I am frightened feeling like there is no exit
from the inevitable darkening tunnel in which I find...
and I don't even remember what should come next.

There is no hope.  There is no cure.
I am scared to death that when it comes
death will be a relief, especially for those who care about me.

There have been no diagnoses and I suspect (hope) that most
of this is normal but I also have seen the extremes.

My wife says I am over-reacting yet I know and fear how bad 
senility could become.  However, forgetting provides some relief: I can't remember what I don't remember.  And I don't have to remember some things.  And I don't have to know some things.  I have already begun to reflect on what I used to know but no longer know.

Alzheimer's disease, what a patient once referred to as "that old-timers disease," is primarily a problem for the care givers not the recipients of care.  But if I ever do develop that old-timer's disease I will remember none of this so why worry in advance.

God bless my care givers as I shed a tear of sadness.

GOD, GUNS, and TRUMP

I was in the grocery story this past week and noticed a man wearing a hat with the above declaration.

I was not fast enough with a response or I would have said: “If you believed in God you wouldn’t need guns or that former president.”

UNIVERSAL BACKGROUND CHECKS

This is a requirement for all sorts of positions and privileges in our society. Many jobs require it: from public safety officers to bus drivers; from court judges to nurses to teachers; from Boy/Girl Scout Leaders to US Mail carriers. So what is the problem with having universal background checks for persons desiring to own a gun or a bow and arrows? What is the problem? Resistance to making this a requirement appears to be based upon misunderstanding the notion of freedom and a misreading of the Second Amendment. Politicians appear to be so afraid of gun owners that they back away from anything that might hinder a potential gun owner.

How many innocent children and bystanders have to die before politicians demonstrate some will power to protect us?

Iowa Caucuses Revisited

I have said this before, about 8 years ago, but it needs to be repeated. Those who have been conned by a con man do not accept the fact of their own culpability Their defense of the con man becomes even stronger. To admit to being conned requires a sense of humility and a willingness to admit to being wrong. Thus, the conned Iowans vote in even higher numbers for a Con for President, attempting to assuage their sense of guilty for backing him in the first place. And here we go again.

Passing On History

Of course Trump did not know that Hitler coined the phrase about “poisoning the blood.” To know that would have required that he had read history and he has never done that. I give him a pass. Now, as to his total ignorance about almost everything, I will never give him a pass.

RSV and Me

The first widely used translation of the Bible since the King James Version (KJV) was the Revised Standard Version (RSV) which came into broad usage around the middle of the last century right about the time I was moving from high school to college. Thus, I wanted to use a more modern translation and found the RSV to be a welcome fit. Many of the more traditionalists refused to make that transition, claiming that the KJV was the only authorized translation and should not be abandoned. They were correct, but on whose authority? A self-appointed authority, King James of course in 1611. His authority gave the KJV immense standing the in Anglican Church but that was about it. There were many theological positions that suddenly were set in stone, resting upon questionable practices in translating the Hebrew, Greek, and Aramaic languages. I used the RSV for my entire career and as preacher and educator.

We have a new RSV called the NRSV translation that appeared near the end of the last century that never really caught on although I have a fairly unused one on my shelf. But the 21st century has now introduced us to another RSV which has nothing to do with sacred texts although it does offer some new descriptive language to the human experience of life. It’s Respiratory Syncytial Virus, how’s that for a mouth full.

And I sit here with what my physician calls a mild case. Mild? Okay, no fever, but when lying in bed I will cough incessantly for periods of time and produce nothing. I am taking meds to break up the congestion but they are slow to start that. I am tired all the time and my coughing is keeping wife awake. She, or I, could move to another bedroom but that means moving all the Christmas gifts that are piled on the bed along with baby furniture and clothes (that’s another story). So we suffer together. Another struggle with RSV.

Facts Matter. Truth Matters.

It’s not only a problem in the US of A but also around the world. Here parents don’t know how to explain slavery to their children so the result is they are banning books that even mention it. Yes, that will solve the problem of talking to our children about a dark period in our history when our ancestors owned other human beings. Now there is news that parents in Germany want to have a daycare center renamed so they won’t have to try to explain to their children who Ann Frank was and what their ancestors did to the Jews in during World War II. Not only Germany, we see Israel attempting to eliminate the Palestinians so that they won’t have to explain to their children how their ancestors forcibly removed Palestinians from their land in order to expand their territory. We should be uncomfortable with our history as should Germany and Israel.

Facts matter. Truth matters. Both seem to be in short supply in today’s geopolitical environment where we want to avoid facts that make us uncomfortable.

FREE SPEECH vs. Decently and in Order

Telling followers to murder spouses of members of the House of Representatives, urging fake electors to cast ballots opposite of what the majority of the people wanted, claiming that a $5 billion dollar building in NYC is worth $10 billion dollars are NOT examples of free speech. They ARE examples of an insurrection and should be punished as such, meaning those who have fostered these ideas are guilty of being insurrectionists against the US of A. They need to be punished, not excused for ignorance.

Name-calling

To speak in defense the lives of Palestinian refugees is not anti-semitism. While numerous US celebrities and politicians bemoan the loss of life in Israel, which should not be negated, there should also be cries of alarm for the senseless bombings and attacks which take the lives of thousands of Palestinians and residents of Gaza. Chuck Schumer has pro-Palestinian protestors outside of his home arrested. Why? Because they were speaking on behalf of bombing victims? No, because they apparently were critical of the Israeli attacks on helpless women and children.

The automatic and immediate defense of anything Israeli is clearly another form of anti-semitism. News alert: the millions of Arabs in the world are also, by definition, Semites.

Clearly there are Arab terrorists, but there are also Israeli terrorists, and Christian terrorists. Just be careful what you call someone because it may say more about you than them.

God’s Chosen People

I just spent a few minutes on a site which had folks vociferously supporting Israel as God’s people and labelling the Palestinians as pure evil. These people do not understand the dynamics at play here. The Arabs and the Jews are both from the same root. Their original father was Abraham and the jealousy began thousands of years ago. There has been bloodshed on both sides for centuries.

When Great Britain began the process of creating the state of Israel in the late 1940s the Balfour Declaration stated that the constant battles between the Zionists and the Arabs should be ended and that a separate state of Israel should be created. A date was established for the start and whatever land the Zionists controlled would be called Israel. In the days just before that date Zionists moved into Arab areas, loaded villagers into trucks and took them east across the Jordan. Thousands lost their homes and their property.

When I hear so-called Christian folks declaring that this was God’s will and that these are God’s special people and this is Holy Land belonging to the Jews I only hear ignorance. I believe God cares for all people equally beyond geographical boundaries. No one is outside of God’s grace and mercy. It pains me when there are terroristic attacks from both sides. Israel has virtually. destroyed everything in the Gaza Strip.

Without the military support of the USA and the billions of dollars in financial aid Israel would not exist. Much of this is the result of the guilt we felt following the holocaust in Europe or from a total misinterpretation of the Jewish scriptures. We have continued to provide assistance and aid to Israel. Our systems have destroyed 95% of the rockets fired at Israel before they ever reached the targets while our munitions have turned Palestinian homes, apartment buildings, hospitals and schools into piles of rubble. Our president promises billions of dollars of more aid to Israel. And God feels the pain on both sides.

The current Prime Minister of Israel is an arrogant thug who rules with an iron fist. He has attempted to increase his strangle-hold on governmental power and to weaken anyone who attempts to oppose him. (Sound like anyone we know?)

Just one more tirade. Where did the notion of “God’s chosen people” come from? Yes, from the Jewish scriptures. That would be like someone claiming that the US Constitution is based on the Bible. Oh, wait, that is exactly what the right-wing Christian Nazis claim.

Where the Wild Things Are

While we continue to enjoy our little slice of nature our Yorkies are in heaven. Nothing beats the opportunity to chase the squirrels, who retreat to just beyond the invisible fence where they taunt the dogs, knowing they won’t come any further. Then there are the chipmunks who have burrows all around the house and quickly disappear as the dogs leave the back door, barking all the way down the steps, thinking they might capture one, which they did once. Not to mention the rabbits, raccoons, possums, and birds who frequent the yard’s numerous feeders to visit as well as the garden with fresh plants and veggies. Today we had a flock of wild turkeys strutting in the backyard at the edge of the woods. They looked up from their hunting and pecking, not yet understanding that the dogs won’t continue that far they fled into the woods. I have rarely seen a wild turkey fly but one did and perched in a branch of an old oak tree. And then there are the deer. We have some regular visitors at the feed trough set up about ten feet into the woods; a doe with two fawn appear every evening. We have some young bucks stopping by infrequently as well. The dogs, when they do notice the deer, respond with their usual barks and they deer look up, staring in disbelief, but seldom move away, continuing to eat peacefully.