earth roars; sea rises.
animals move to high ground.
humans just stand there.

In their miserable (collective and individual) bodies
the hypocrisy oozes from every pore.
Their jobs are just other people’s hobbies.
Such a cushy job, they are hoping to re-score.

“One-Note-Donny” is failing.
He’s underwater in the polls,
leaving opportunistic politicians flailing.
Will they dump him like a bucket of hot coals?

Most never liked him in the first place
except for a few rabid representatives.
If given the chance, he away they will chase
while unctuously shouting democracy lives.

(The following note was sent to a very good friend who, in light of everything that is perceived as going wrong, wonders where God is in all of it. He, a brilliant guy, is struggling with what we all struggle with from time to time — the theodicy questions. This was my response.)

I hope you will allow me this reflection.

Any time anyone enters into a relationship, that person relinquishes power, in fact, that person, if smart, realizes that he or she has no legitimate power over another person. If such phony power is exerted, it is called “abuse” and “domination,” a word embraced by the president.

At best, the only power we have is persuasion. Why, because we are not the other person and we have no right to exert power over that person. Love certainly dictates that we relinquish any false notion of power in relation to the other. In fact, we realize that the opposite is true for a truly loving relationship. We realize that “giving up one’s self for the other” is the way to true life. What wouldn’t you do for your wife? Yeah, I know. We’ve been cooped up for three months and the bonds have been tested. 😇

I believe this is the “relational” way. It is in the marrow of our bones. God is relational; the very nature of God is relational as metaphorically described in the Trinity. If God is relational and God is Love then God knows that God relinquishes power in relation to the “other.” In fact, God is so smart, God knows that exerting such dominating power would destroy any relationship. And so, God is not all-powerful in the Greek sense of omnipotence. God persuades, God is vulnerable, God gets hurt, God cries, God rejoices, God invites, God sacrifices.

Therefore Jesus, the nobody from nowhere who dies a miserable scandalous death as do millions and millions of others to be forgotten in the annals of history. But Jesus wasn’t forgotten. And therefore, every one of those millions upon millions are not forgotten in the heart of God. The disciples experienced the “aliveness” of Jesus and realized that that aliveness came through suffering and dying “in relationship,” in love for others.

Do I believe that ultimately “all shall be well”? Yes, because of the vulnerability and sacrifice of God to reveal that Love is at the heart of all creation and not raw power. Love wins.

After my late, young wife died in a day, I cursed God for not preserving her life. Then, at some point deep into the grieving process, I saw Jesus on the cross and realized that God was with me in my suffering. I didn’t need a “fixer” as much as I wanted one at that moment. I needed a Cosmic Lover.

Sometimes it would be nice to have a “benevolent” dictator to make everything right by decree. We don’t have that. Thank heavens because such a dictator could become malevolent at any moment. We have the “Window” into the heart of God revealing just how much God loves the creation and every one of us. We have Jesus. And now, we are Jesus — the Body of Christ.

Also, I believe we have the Buddha, Lao Tzu, Confucius, etc. because there are many gates into the garden, but that’s a discussion for another time.

Bob

“I have just three things to teach: simplicity, patience, compassion.” —Lao Tzu

The white couple stood in front of
their mansion with rifle and gun
in hand, clearly panic-stricken.

Black, brown and white protesters
walked along the private road to
let the mayor, in a mansion down

the road, know she should resign.
Yes, the protesters were breaking
the law, but what, just what if the

white couple had invited the pro-
testors in for afternoon tea? And
what if the couple then sold the

mansion, gave the proceeds to a
worthy cause, moved into a tiny
house on a small lot in front of a

beautiful pond teeming with fish
and named the dirt road to the
house Simplicity Lane and then

invited the protesters over for
a fish fry for some and a vegan
picnic in honor of Francis and

Clare for the others and then
gave the tiny house to the pro-
testers and moved into a home-

less shelter? That last part about
giving away the tiny house may
be a bridge over a pond too far

especially if the white couple
love to fish.

*idea from the news and a meditation by Richard Rohr

He reads poem after poem
all having to do with the dire
circumstances of the day. Per-
haps, misery loves company
or perhaps, in saying it often
enough, “it” will lose its power
and then there comes along a
poem that has nothing to do
with the dire circumstances of
the day and it lifts him like a
Fourth of July balloon that
escapes and floats up, up and
away and then he wonders if the
selector of the poem addressed
the dire circumstances of the
day.

In the US the richest 1 percent of the country own substantially more wealth than the bottom 90%; 6 in 10 Americans do not have the resources to come up with $1000 for an emergency such as a medical bill or car repair. World over, 26 billionaires hold personal financial assets greater than 50% of humanity. As for carbon emissions, 10% of the richest people on earth account for 50% of the carbon emissions. Our species is currently consuming 1.7 times what Earth’s regenerative systems can sustain.
— Matthew Fox citing David Korten

The beast devours the gift;
greed consumes all;
avarice causes a rift
between have nots and the cabal.

but what can heal the rift;
what can level the field
so masses won’t be adrift
but all will be healed?

An economy of sharing
where community transcends self
based on mutual caring
where laws are meant to help;

where children are wanted
and the elderly are valued
and earth’s destroyers are confronted
and God’s gifts and resources are haloed.

We will break the chains of economic oppression
so that inequality is never mentioned
and we will rejoice in a rainbow coalition
and see before us here, now — God’s abundant heaven.

i think i remember that white
woman from grade school. did
she ever graduate and head to
high school? honestly, i never
saw her again until i saw the
white person on tv. i thought
this can’t be my classmate, may-
be her granddaughter: “i don’t
wear a mask for the same reason
i don’t wear underwear. things
have got to breathe.” i think
that has to be her because i
remember that she didn’t wear
underwear in grade school.
she had told me she wanted to
play doctor. did i hear correctly
what the woman said? did
she just say that things have
to breathe? it gives a whole
new meaning to tmi not to
mention being tone-deaf to
knees on necks. would some-
one open a window, please?

A hypothetical ethical question
comes to the man as he sits look-
ing out the window after reading
about Hellen Keller. Keller lived
an unbelievably productive life
for any human being let alone
a deaf and blind person. He has
a bad eye, only forty percent
sight. What if he lost all his sight?
He closes his eyes and sees noth-
ing except what he remembers
to be out the window. He wonders
if at his age it would be right to
find purpose in his blindness, or,
given his certain dependence on
loved ones, would the ethical thing
be to just leave or would that be
the coward’s way out? With eyes
closed, he contemplates the differ-
ence between euthanasia and suicide
and wonders if it’s just an exercise
in semantics. He opens his eyes and
sighs.

Something we learned from the Human Genome Project is that the entire 7.5 billion-member human species goes back 7,000 generations to an original population of about 60,000 people. Our species has only a modest amount of genetic variation — the DNA of any two humans is 99.9 percent identical. —- Writer’s Almanac, Friday, June 26, 2020

No, unfortunately, it isn’t something we have learned.
See, it’s still, “Sorry, Charlie.
Equality is something you haven’t earned.”
But Charlie, Marlie and Maisie
are 99.9% silly, sameness crazy.

Yes, out of Africa numbering 60,000
going back generations seven-thousand
we are 99.9% silly, sameness crazy,
dear Charlie, Marlie and Maisie.

Charlie is black and Marlie is white
and they fight each other day and night with all their might.
Crazy Maisie is red, white and sometimes black and blue
and she is we through and through.

So, Charlie, Marlie and Maisie,
our relations have gone upsy-daisy
when we should dance and spin and spin,
because we are actually rainbow-colored identical twins.

The word profane comes from the Latin words pro, meaning “in front of,” and fanum, meaning “temple.” — Richard Rohr

The Inspector of the bunker
violently dispersed peaceful
demonstrators in the park.
Yes, he did it; he called the shots
(no pun intended) through kids
(with a lot of color) wearing
National Guard outfits and a
lot of armor in the park across
from the White House so he could
walk across the park with his lily-
white entourage to a church where
he could have a photo opportunity
with him holding up a bible in front
of the church. Did he not know that
God was in the park, in the protest-
ors, in the colorful kids wearing war
outfits? Was he only thinking of the
upside-down god of the upside-down
bible in front of a building where the
upside-down god was boarded up in-
side? Or was he only thinking about
how nice he would look as his lily-
white daughter told him he would?
He grinned his Cheshire grin and
walked back to the bunker, his
lily-white entourage in tow. Where
did that prop come from and where
did it go?