Now, that the shock and initial grief reactions are over...
Now, that the disappointment in people is passing...
Now, that the disillusionment with government is setting in even more strongly...
Now, that the issues manipulated to create fear in people are silent again...
Now, that the threats to undo any good done in the last six years are growing...
Now, that legislation to benefit the few, wealthy on the backs of the rest of us have resumed...
Now, that there is little chance of compassionate care for our most vulnerable...
Now, that there is little hope of living wages, healthcare, safe environment, justice...
Now, that the country will more quickly be on the return track to THEIR "gilded age"...
Now, that it's too late to talk about voting, as we MISSED that opportunity for change at the polls...
NOW is the time to write, speak, protest, demonstrate and ACT...
NOW... it will be harder, now that we did not vote or vote for the sake of the people...
NOW... it will be uglier, because we chose not to do it the civil way at the polls...
NOW... it will bring more strife, more pain, more loss before justice comes...
NOW... it will be met with violent resistance...
but NOW, it must be done.
There are TOO MANY PEOPLE whose lives are at stake NOW, for us to continue, out of complacency, apathy or contempt, to remain silent in the face of injustice, inequity, inequality, corruptions of greed, abuses of power and the hatred out of fear that brings them.
NOW we must act. NOW. For their sake...
Agape Love demands it. Jesus commanded it. NOW.
Pastor Jamie
Saturday, November 15, 2014
Thursday, November 6, 2014
What can I do?
So, now that the voting is done...
Now that the stage is set...
Now that the powers and principalities are aligned...
What can I do?
I hope YOU are asking that question.
Pray for Peace, Justice, Equality, Equity and Agape Love and Grace to be lived.
Act on behalf of all those who are most vulnerable and hurting.
Do your best to make it, not only for yourself, but for others around you.
Do your best to help them make it.
Be Gracious and Kind in the face of mean-spirited and ruthless people and policies.
Be Generous with your Love, Kindness and out of your abundance for those most in need.
Work, speak, write, demonstrate for justice, peace, equality and equity.
Expose the works of darkness (greed and lust for power), speak truth to them and demonstrate something else in how you live.
Be angry, but don't let the sun go down on your anger and don't let your anger cause you to sin.
Instead, channel it, focus it and use it to bring about the change you see as necessary. But never, out of anger, become what you do not value.
If we want the world around us to be different, then we must put different things out in the world around us than the things that are now there.
In this environment, engaging in social deviance is an act of Agape Love.
Pastor Jamie
Now that the stage is set...
Now that the powers and principalities are aligned...
What can I do?
I hope YOU are asking that question.
Pray for Peace, Justice, Equality, Equity and Agape Love and Grace to be lived.
Act on behalf of all those who are most vulnerable and hurting.
Do your best to make it, not only for yourself, but for others around you.
Do your best to help them make it.
Be Gracious and Kind in the face of mean-spirited and ruthless people and policies.
Be Generous with your Love, Kindness and out of your abundance for those most in need.
Work, speak, write, demonstrate for justice, peace, equality and equity.
Expose the works of darkness (greed and lust for power), speak truth to them and demonstrate something else in how you live.
Be angry, but don't let the sun go down on your anger and don't let your anger cause you to sin.
Instead, channel it, focus it and use it to bring about the change you see as necessary. But never, out of anger, become what you do not value.
If we want the world around us to be different, then we must put different things out in the world around us than the things that are now there.
In this environment, engaging in social deviance is an act of Agape Love.
Pastor Jamie
Wednesday, November 5, 2014
Now what? Post 2014 Election
This is not a prediction. It is more of a prognostication. We have already SEEN these efforts being implemented, their agenda revealed and the foundation laid - clearly...
THE GOOD NEWS IS...
Now, after the people were either duped out of ignorance or caught in complacent slumber, with little to stand in their way, we can expect...
That our black President will be sued and/or impeached, because they hate him so much. He will remain politically impotent for the next two years.
The Affordable Care Act (ACA-ObamaCare) will be repealed (they have already attempted this 51 times, and now have power in both houses)... Healthcare will be privatized again and available only for those who can afford it... some will pay, others will live with their infirmities or die... Medicaid, Medicare, Social Security will all be done in, replaced by for-profit schemes.
Jobs will be shipped overseas, so that our companies can exploit other people and resources. Mass lay-offs will ensue to enhance the profit margins for a few at the top, those who are left working will have to work harder for the same or less pay with no benefits, and will be told to consider themselves lucky to have a job at all. More jobs WILL be created - part time, for minimum wage, with no benefits. Eventually they will kill the minimum wage, as we have heard it discussed. After jobs are eliminated, unemployment will also be cut in both amounts paid out and length of time they are paid, as we have already seen. Public assistance will continue to be cut, fully gutted for the most vulnerable, but Tax breaks for the wealthy individuals and corporations will be expanded. Organized labor will be killed in order to eliminate any possible resistance to unlimited profit for those at the top alone.
Government will be all but eliminated, with only a very few in place to assure that Koch brother-like folks and corporations will run the company unimpeded by the voice of the people. No longer of the people, by the people and for the people, it will be (as it is already being re-defined in the Supreme Court) of the corporations, by the corporations and for the corporations (those few who own them).
Businesses and Banks will be De-Regulated. Monopolies will ensure that unlimited profit is made for the few, mega-companies left. Pollution, destruction and waste of our natural resources, land, water and air will be stepped up for profit, and our national parks will be laid wide open, along with our shores for drilling, fracking, pipelining, etc. (rape). Alternative fuel source efforts will be halted. We will invade other countries to support our military industrial complex and for cheap oil and minerals, even fresh water. Profit for the Few will rule.
Our black, brown, immigrant, LGBT, female, liberal, intellectual and non-Christian citizens will be disenfranchised fully, their civil rights eliminated, and a police state will keep order for the wealthy class as extreme censorship is practiced by the one media conglomeration. Voters will be suppressed from these populations, while being told that they have the right to vote, but being rendered unable to cast their votes due to poll taxes, intelligence tests, equipment malfunctions, lost ballots, etc., as we have already witnessed.
Education will be privatized, efforts toward which we have already seen, so those who can afford to send their children will have wonderful charter-like schools, but those who cannot afford it will not be able to attend, so the working age will be lowered and children shipped off to the farms and factories in order to help feed their families.
Prisons will also be privatized, the beginning of which we have already witnessed, so that prisoners who have been locked up with ever increasing sentences over less and less severe crimes will be enslaved for cheap labor in the same farms and factories so that the prison owners and share holders can make more profit.
We will return to the "Gilded Age", which will be great for the few Oligarchs and Plutocrats, but horrible for the rest of us.
As Slave Traders and Nazi's in the past suppressed voters, vilified the educated, de-humanized minorities, scapegoated opposition, used fear to justify a police state, rationalized military conquest for economic gain, used media control (propaganda) through deceit and misinformation to dupe the masses (even in the church) and eliminated organized labor (May, 1933), we have seen these same efforts recently and will see more of them very soon...
This may seem extreme and alarmist to you, but efforts have already been made in these directions.
Most of these have come from people who claim to be "Christian", but there is no Christ in this - in fact, it is ANTI-CHRIST. They claim to be Americans who love democracy, but in truth they are most un-American and HATE democracy, but love the laissez-faire capitalism that will establish their oligarchic plutocracy, and will defend it at all cost for their own gain (and at our expense).
While some were being duped into voting for them out of ignorance, and others slumbered in their apathy and complacency, these efforts have been systematically engaged in the public sphere... and THAT seems extreme and alarming to me.
THE GOOD NEWS? In spite of this DESOLATING SACRILEGE, Jesus' Teachings and Examples of God's Kingdom Values are (for now) still available in the Gospels, if should ever decide to live them in this part of God's Kingdom, and the people of God stop being complicit in these efforts, stop reflecting the greed and lust for power in the world, and address it with the Good News of Jesus by speaking the truth in Agape Love for those whom Jesus loves and called "the least of these, my brothers and sisters."
THE GOOD NEWS IS...
Now, after the people were either duped out of ignorance or caught in complacent slumber, with little to stand in their way, we can expect...
That our black President will be sued and/or impeached, because they hate him so much. He will remain politically impotent for the next two years.
The Affordable Care Act (ACA-ObamaCare) will be repealed (they have already attempted this 51 times, and now have power in both houses)... Healthcare will be privatized again and available only for those who can afford it... some will pay, others will live with their infirmities or die... Medicaid, Medicare, Social Security will all be done in, replaced by for-profit schemes.
Jobs will be shipped overseas, so that our companies can exploit other people and resources. Mass lay-offs will ensue to enhance the profit margins for a few at the top, those who are left working will have to work harder for the same or less pay with no benefits, and will be told to consider themselves lucky to have a job at all. More jobs WILL be created - part time, for minimum wage, with no benefits. Eventually they will kill the minimum wage, as we have heard it discussed. After jobs are eliminated, unemployment will also be cut in both amounts paid out and length of time they are paid, as we have already seen. Public assistance will continue to be cut, fully gutted for the most vulnerable, but Tax breaks for the wealthy individuals and corporations will be expanded. Organized labor will be killed in order to eliminate any possible resistance to unlimited profit for those at the top alone.
Government will be all but eliminated, with only a very few in place to assure that Koch brother-like folks and corporations will run the company unimpeded by the voice of the people. No longer of the people, by the people and for the people, it will be (as it is already being re-defined in the Supreme Court) of the corporations, by the corporations and for the corporations (those few who own them).
Businesses and Banks will be De-Regulated. Monopolies will ensure that unlimited profit is made for the few, mega-companies left. Pollution, destruction and waste of our natural resources, land, water and air will be stepped up for profit, and our national parks will be laid wide open, along with our shores for drilling, fracking, pipelining, etc. (rape). Alternative fuel source efforts will be halted. We will invade other countries to support our military industrial complex and for cheap oil and minerals, even fresh water. Profit for the Few will rule.
Our black, brown, immigrant, LGBT, female, liberal, intellectual and non-Christian citizens will be disenfranchised fully, their civil rights eliminated, and a police state will keep order for the wealthy class as extreme censorship is practiced by the one media conglomeration. Voters will be suppressed from these populations, while being told that they have the right to vote, but being rendered unable to cast their votes due to poll taxes, intelligence tests, equipment malfunctions, lost ballots, etc., as we have already witnessed.
Education will be privatized, efforts toward which we have already seen, so those who can afford to send their children will have wonderful charter-like schools, but those who cannot afford it will not be able to attend, so the working age will be lowered and children shipped off to the farms and factories in order to help feed their families.
Prisons will also be privatized, the beginning of which we have already witnessed, so that prisoners who have been locked up with ever increasing sentences over less and less severe crimes will be enslaved for cheap labor in the same farms and factories so that the prison owners and share holders can make more profit.
We will return to the "Gilded Age", which will be great for the few Oligarchs and Plutocrats, but horrible for the rest of us.
As Slave Traders and Nazi's in the past suppressed voters, vilified the educated, de-humanized minorities, scapegoated opposition, used fear to justify a police state, rationalized military conquest for economic gain, used media control (propaganda) through deceit and misinformation to dupe the masses (even in the church) and eliminated organized labor (May, 1933), we have seen these same efforts recently and will see more of them very soon...
This may seem extreme and alarmist to you, but efforts have already been made in these directions.
Most of these have come from people who claim to be "Christian", but there is no Christ in this - in fact, it is ANTI-CHRIST. They claim to be Americans who love democracy, but in truth they are most un-American and HATE democracy, but love the laissez-faire capitalism that will establish their oligarchic plutocracy, and will defend it at all cost for their own gain (and at our expense).
While some were being duped into voting for them out of ignorance, and others slumbered in their apathy and complacency, these efforts have been systematically engaged in the public sphere... and THAT seems extreme and alarming to me.
THE GOOD NEWS? In spite of this DESOLATING SACRILEGE, Jesus' Teachings and Examples of God's Kingdom Values are (for now) still available in the Gospels, if should ever decide to live them in this part of God's Kingdom, and the people of God stop being complicit in these efforts, stop reflecting the greed and lust for power in the world, and address it with the Good News of Jesus by speaking the truth in Agape Love for those whom Jesus loves and called "the least of these, my brothers and sisters."
Saturday, November 1, 2014
Voters' Guide
People
of the Way of Jesus VOTER GUIDE
“look
not only to your own interests, but to the interests of others…” Philippians 2:4
Take
care of the most vulnerable and resident aliens – Matthew 25:31-46
WHO IS
MOST LIKELY TO…
Benefit
the poor, working families and the middle class, and not only the wealthy and
powerful?
Fund
education equally for rural, urban and suburban children, and restore the HOPE
scholarships for those who most need them?
Support
EQUAL rights among ALL citizens, in EVERY aspect?
Encourage
the exercising of rights within our democracy equally, and not limit them for
some?
Make
sure that ALL have access to affordable healthcare?
Safeguard
our environment for future generations?
Insist
that those with means ALL pay their taxes?
Ensure
that there is equal pay for equal work, and that all workers have a LIVING
WAGE?
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)