Despite what Trump voters think, I contend Mr. Trump was extremely lucky. I also know that anyone alive is extremely lucky because bad stuff is just around the corner for anyone. Eight years ago, while writing a newspaper column called “Ask the Thoughtful Pastor,” I received a question about Trump voters. The original column is here, and I will repeat some of it in this column but with updated material. The original question: Dear Thoughtful Pastor: I’ve noticed a lot... Read more
Like many “liberals,” I’ve been hearing horror stories about Project 2025. As a big believer in looking at the source material, I downloaded the whole sloggy 922 pages of it. It’s a straight, white man’s dream. Ah . . . Project 2025. What a lovely, utopian world: almost no Federal Government, locals handle all educational decisions, households all based on the nuclear family, daddy out to work to earn money, mommy taking care of the household, and the children happily... Read more
Just imagine, if you can, that they, the ones not like you, turn to you and say, You are wrong. That One whom the sacred words reveal is like me, not like you. You are only partial. I am whole. Since you cannot be like me, you cannot be like That One. Imagine, if you will, with me for just a moment. Imagine a world where sacred knowledge was written in a sacred book, but in languages not your own.... Read more
Four years ago, I split an overcrowded peace lily (Spathiphyllum). They’re common plants, often sent to funerals, and I’ve had this one for a long time. It desperately needed to be broken apart, rootbound, with no space in the pot to grow while slowly gaining a hard, nearly impenetrable center. The painful process to split the peace lily I gently pulled it from the pot and slowly, ever so slowly, broke it apart. Despite my care, some pieces had to... Read more
When was the last time you tried screaming while being choked by someone bigger and stronger than you? Women can’t fix this; men must step up to the plate. Photo credit: 9877400 | Hand Throat © Pzromashka | Dreamstime.com I was eating breakfast and causally glancing at the Sunday New York Times when I came across this piece. It speaks graphically of the latest trend of teenage sex: the male partner “choking” the female. Here’s a snippet (bold/italics mine): For the past four years, Dr. Herbenick... Read more
Truth: we saw more abortions in 2023 than before the overturn of Roe vs Wade and before states established laws that removed abortion access and punished providers of women’s health care. So what has happened after the pro-life “life begins at conception” group dominated the Supreme Court and resulted in the overturn of Roe vs Wade? Well, after a decade of a significant decline in the rate of abortions, they immediately began to climb upward again. The Wrong Measures By... Read more
Can Democracy and Evangelical Christianity co-exist? I used to think so. Now, I’m not so sure. Democracy does not matter in that world. Here is just one of the many sincerely alarmist articles about some plans that Mr. Trump, with the full support of the Evangelical world, has floated to dismantle many of the safeguards to our democracy should he win the 2024 Presidential election. Sadly, these ambitions have been on display since before the 2016 election. Nearly eight... Read more
While my son, the migrant, and his family had the time and the means to follow all the rules, Jesus, the migrant, did not. Every stranger is an enemy~Primo Levi A number of years ago, I started reading The Complete Works of Primo Levi. Levi was an Italian Jew, a chemist, and a gifted writer who spent the last years of WWII in a Nazi extermination camp–and one of the few who came out alive. In his introduction to his... Read more
Repeal the 19th Amendment if you really want to stop abortions. Women have no biblical right to the vote anyway. The political news, in addition to being dominated by former President Trump’s hate-filled antics, also now overflows with the agony of the GOP’s dawning realization that their campaign against bodily autonomy for women is not exactly winning the hearts of the US voting public. Now, when I write “bodily autonomy for women,” I mean this: women of childbearing age (that... Read more
Let’s face it: Skipping Advent is the real “reason for the season.” The birth of Jesus has nothing to do with it. Immediately after Thanksgiving (and possibly before, but I was not shopping then), walking into a mall or any large store means an assault on the senses with happy, jolly Christmas music, all fine and good when skipping Advent is the goal. Why? Listen to Advent music: It’s pretty well all in a minor key, set to make us... Read more
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