Let the Sun Shine

Let The Sun Shine In

    http://energy.aol.com/2011/08/13/completely-off-the-grid/?icid=maing-grid7%7Cmain5%7Cdl4%7Csec1_lnk3%7C87592

Here is an article about a guy in New Jersey. Jersey Guy. He found out a way to put solar cells on a roof and

around his yard that makes enough electricity for his personal consumption and 

more to sell to the grid then stores it for the winter and transfers heat into hydrogen

tanks.

Ingenious. American genius. That's what I'm tawkin about.

Why isn't everyone doing it? Well, not everyone has a house (one in eight remember are in some foreclosure stage)

and not everyone with a house has enough yard for huge hydrogen tanks. Also there is something called the

Oil and Gas Lobby and political will on its won't.

Energy security means we don't have to fight wars over fossil fuel. And really folks, we don't. We have

everything we need here, if only we had capacity to harnass it and allocated R&D funding appropriately.

The cells that now cover a whole roof might someday be able to be much smaller capturing more heat...

No telling, but if we have what we all need here, we don't need to be killing anyone or getting killed digging

in foreign sands.

What happened to the plans for the White House solar panels? AND EVERY GOVERNMENT BUILDING???

What is the American public doing paying for electricity when the government has building square footage such

that the roofs support solar powering the entire government. What is the Fed's PEPCO bill that you are paying?

With this debt we can't afford Not to be Green any longer.

GOT GREEN?

A remarkable story.

Share this. it's inspiring beyond words.

http://www.vishay.com/landingpage/zandman/co_drz_video.html

From someone who admits openly

His best secretary is gay.

On her radio show, Dr Laura Schlesinger said that, as an observant Orthodox
Jew, homosexuality is an abomination according to Leviticus 18:22,
and cannot be condoned under any circumstance.

The following response is an open letter to Dr. Laura, written by a U.S.
man, and posted on the Internet. It's funny, as well as informative:

Dear Dr. Laura:

Thank you for doing so much to educate people regarding God's Law. I have
learned a great deal from your show, and try to share that
knowledge with as many people as I can. When someone tries to defend the
homosexual lifestyle, for example, I simply remind them
that Leviticus 18:22 clearly states it to be an abomination ... End of
debate.

I do need some advice from you, however, regarding some other elements of
God's Laws and how to follow them.

1. Leviticus 25:44 states that I may possess slaves, both male and female,
provided they are from neighboring nations.
A friend of mine claims that this applies to Mexicans, but not Canadians.
Can you clarify? Why can't I own Canadians?

2. I would like to sell my daughter into slavery, as sanctioned in Exodus
21:7. In this day and age, what do you think would be a fair price for her?

3. I know that I am allowed no contact with a woman while she is in her
period of Menstrual uncleanliness - Lev.15: 19-24.
The problem is how do I tell? I have tried asking, but most women take
offense.

4. When I burn a bull on the altar as a sacrifice, I know it creates a
pleasing odor for the Lord - Lev.1:9. The problem is my neighbors.
They claim the odor is not pleasing to them. Should I smite them?

5. I have a neighbor who insists on working on the Sabbath. Exodus 35:2
clearly states he should be put to death.
Am I morally obligated to kill him myself, or should I ask the police to do
it?

6. A friend of mine feels that even though eating shellfish is an
abomination, Lev. 11:10, it is a lesser abomination than homosexuality.
I don't agree. Can you settle this? Are there 'degrees' of abomination?

7. Lev. 21:20 states that I may not approach the altar of God if I have a
defect in my sight. I have to admit that I wear reading glasses.
Does my vision have to be 20/20, or is there some wiggle-room here?

8. Most of my male friends get their hair trimmed, including the hair around
their temples, even though this is expressly forbidden by Lev. 19:27.
How should they die?

9. I know from Lev. 11:6-8 that touching the skin of a dead pig makes me
unclean, but may I still play football if I wear gloves?

10. My uncle has a farm. He violates Lev.19:19 by planting two different
crops in the same field, as does his wife by wearing garments
made of two different kinds of thread (cotton/polyester blend).
He also tends to curse and blaspheme a lot. Is it really necessary that we
go to all the trouble of getting the whole town together to stone them?
Lev.24:10-16.
Couldn't we just burn them to death at a private family affair, like we do
with people who sleep with their in-laws? (Lev. 20:14)

I know you have studied these things extensively and thus enjoy considerable
expertise in such matters, so I'm confident you can help.
Thank you again for reminding us that God's word is eternal and unchanging.

Your adoring fan,

James M. Kauffman, Ed.D. Professor Emeritus,
Dept. Of Curriculum, Instruction, and Special Education
University of Virginia

P.S. It would be a damn shame if we couldn't own a Canadian.

jesus saves

and so do these people.

http://www.afsp.org/

Did you know that there is an American Foundation for Suicide Prevention.

They hold walks across the country and they are advertised in the DC -Maryland subway.

Priests might consider joining this effort and promoting it in their parishes.

Run for your Wives!

The Anglican ordinariate married episcopalian priest is

  an "aberation?"    http://www.patheos.com/community/deaconsbench/2011/05/04/married-priests-a-temporary-aberration/

Try telling that one to your wife over dinner. Sorry honey, the Pope says

we are an aberation. pack your bags, I am sending you off to live with

your mother because we can't be 'conjugal' any more. The latent

homosexual cardinali fighting gay marriage litigation don't like it.

    

Yet another reason to like Church-State non establishment principles in 

the US Constitution.  This revenge for Becket's death on the Church of 

England can only travel so far across the pond.

The Mis-Universality of Accommodationism

And the Rules that Bind Unholily

     I go to a parish often that some might call somewhat 'preppy' where the nun wears a suit, 

sometime a nice donated designer suit and the priests wear what you would see anyone

wearing at a yaght club sometimes without their collar, because that is what the rest

of the people they serve wear. It is an accommodation to more easily reach people and

not put distance unnecessarily between them. 

   

  There are other parishes which are largely hispanic where the social hours and festival events

are met with the finest TexMex foods, because that pleases the people and accommodates 

their tastes. Why serve up Lasagna if they prefer Quesadillas?

These people listen to priests who look like traditional priests and have a firmly fastened white collar on.   If you sent one of my yaght going pretty priests to them they might not think he conveys the same authority.

     If you served up Foie Gras, frogs legs and ducks livers to a parish of El Salvadorans or Guatemalans they would think you are trying to poison them or at least, that's not particularly

nice. 

   The communication of God's love for people is culture sensitive. 

The Albigensians who followed an ancient form of dualistic gnostic denial of matter's worth, deeming-- a la platonic realm of the forms, --the material world the creation of the evil master of the universe and the spirit world only the creation of God thus disdained procreation and marriage wouldn't listen to a married priest. So for the sake of 'the kingdom' then, it is appropriate to not be married to missionize to such a group. That particular group. As is the case in lots of institutionalizations, a practice becomes a dogma then even a theology. It is improper  extension of an accommodation into a universality or worse, some universal truth that can then be exploited for institutional ends. 

It is not however a proper or effective communication of God's love to win hearts, minds or souls, of communities prospering in marriage in procreation to plant a priest with firm convictions that the 'kingdom of god' is served only in celibacy. It is a theological mis-transplantation. 

      It is a theological mis-transplantation that has gone around the world. 

Until a former Augustinian Monk decided he had enough and knew it was a crock, and half the Christian world threw it off as inappropriate-you know who he is- Martin Luther. 

   Stop serving Lasagna instead of Quesadillas, he essentially felt.  And he married a former Nun and had five children, and started a reform movement that claims now half of Christendom in some denominational form. 

 Bout time someone woke up there in Citta Vaticani 

     

Lets assume that the verse in Matthew has not be tailed retranscribed by the dominican scribes and is an accurate translation of the eunichs for the kingdom principle that some can accept. It still does not mandate the universality of cross the board eunichfication of everyone serving the kingdom as priests. There is an appropriateness qualifier implicit in it. No one told the Ethiopian eunich that he was the new  model of priesthood. We don't even know his name. He isn't a saint because he is a eunich. 

     Mutiliation is what the prophets of false Baal were famous for.   God had Elijah slay them all.

It mocks circumcism demonically.

  

Albigensian Revenge

You Vil ALL Be Eunichs!!

The Albigensians were a strange lot, some called Cathars in Southern France. They were ascetics who shunned

marriage, were paper thin and engaging in a sort of suicide by starvation. Saint Dominic and his order of Dominicans

sought to convert them to Rome. As anyone who has done any mission work understands, to reach people it is important

to adopt enough custom of a missionizing people so that one is accepted and listened to. Had Dominic showed

up a fat pig eating twice his weight no one would have listened to him. So to an extent the accommodations of

asceticism were adopted by the Dominican order in order to reach the people and convert them. It would be hard to

listen to a sermon on fasting and prayer if someone was incapable of turning down a good steak at all times and

couldn't fit in the pulpit.

The Albigensians, for their fondness of suicide and disdain for marriage might have died out as a group

eventually were it not for the fact that they attracted converts themselves.

Another accommodation that the Dominicans adopted was a fierce adherence to the disdain of marriage 'for the 

Kingdom." What kingdom precisely is that , one wonders where the purported holiest people are wandering

around mutilated- because they also preached the 'resurrection OF THE BODY."

So this eunification of all clerics is really not scriptural, it is not of god, it is an accommodation, in part

to satisfy earthy provisional institutional needs and it was engrained by a false theology of the Dominican,

the 'order of preachers' who preached the fabricated theological underpinings of it effectively so as to

convince everyone that it was somehow mandated by God. It is a crock actually.

And the issue is not going away. A Time article written in 1966 is worth here resurrecting. Because it still is

not going away. Nor should it, until it is corrected. And the libidinally dead octogenerians should not get to

determine it's final say. There should be a committee of priests of all levels between the ages of 25 and 50 who

get to decide the issue. No one over 50 should even get to chime in.

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,899038,00.html

TIME

At each of the four Masses in Eind hoven's Our Lady of the Rosary Church, Dutch Bishop Willem Bekkers mounted the pulpit to tell the parish some startling news: two of their priests were resigning from the ministry, and one of them was planning to marry a widow with five children.

Since the priests had found them selves unable to keep their vows of chastity, explained the bishop, they had applied to Rome for dispensation from all clerical obligations. Bekkers, obviously sympathetic to the priests, asked the congregation not to reproach or condemn them but to pray for them, pointing out that they intended to remain loyal members of the church.

The bishop's bold public announcement pointed up what is, next to birth control, the major unfinished business of the Second Vatican Council. At the fourth session, Pope Paul bluntly told the bishops not to discuss the possibility of changing the church's rule on clerical celibacy, and council decrees strongly reinforced the traditional stand. But Rome has since discovered that the issue will not go away. Last month a group of Italian priests petitioned the Pope to relieve them from the celibacy obligation, arguing that it was an "intolerable burden" and that the rule had no basis in either Scripture or natural law. A similar petition was recently sent to Rome by 33 Brazilian priests, who claimed that they had the support of "hundreds and hundreds" of their fellow clerics. Theologians have continued to speculate on the problem, and within recent months Roman Catholic publishers in the U.S. have put out three books dealing critically with priestly celibacy.-

A Married Pope. At least one of Christ's Apostles-St. Peter-had a wife, and as late as 867, a married man became Pope: Adrian II. It was not until the First Lateran Council in 1123 that clerical marriage was clearly outlawed, and even after that priests, bishops and cardinals continued to skirt the rule by taking mistresses. Alexander VI fathered at least four children before he became Pope in 1492. French Historian Henri Daniel-Rops estimated that in 15th century Burgundy, half the children born out of wedlock were fathered by clerics.

Even now, following the tradition of Orthodoxy, Eastern-rite Catholic priests are allowed to marry before ordination (except in the U.S. and Canada, where Latin-rite Catholic bishops have until now opposed the idea as "giving rise to scandal"). Pope Paul and his two predecessors gave dispensations to a handful of convert Protestant ministers who were ordained in Europe as priests, even though they already had wives and children. Last month the Archbishop of Mariana in Brazil presided at the marriage of Pedro Maciel Vidigal, a former priest who was released from his vows by the Vatican, and is now a member of Congress.

A number of Catholic theologians have argued in recent years that a vocation to the priesthood and a vocation to celibacy do not necessarily exist in the same person. French Dominican Yves Congar, an influential theological adviser at the council, has suggested that a married diocesan clergy might be better able than single priests to enter into the life of the people. Dutch Theologian Rudolf Bunnik says that since there is no convincing reason for a celibate priesthood, it is "an anomaly" to have a church law requiring it.

• 1
• 2

Read more: http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,899038,00.html#ixzz1UvGJ5Hy4

Voila La Tour Eiffel

And other fun french things you can practice saying tonight

    At the deChantal dinner, at which style will be a premium and good gastronomic taste a hallmark as a condon bleu trained cook puts on the Ritz  and the Charles V at Holy Trinity this evening  after the 5:30pm Mass. 

     You can pay the $35. at the door for the all you can eat french fare with unlimited wine. The funds go to a variety of deserving ministries. 

Seriously wonderful and you don't want to miss it.  All religions especially welcome. 

Please send me to seminary

So I can learn which of it is rewritten recreated crap.

     I am convinced that some of biblical writings are scribes with liberal license to pen what they wanted to justify institutional prerogatives over the ages.

  Nevermind that most people couldn't translate aramaic into greek or hebrew. It's like asking someone who is an ebonics master to write in french. Its a miracle that the four gospels all got it close enough and no wonder some accounts differ.

    The stuff written after the fact to justify the church making eunichs of priests because budgeting was hard enough without primogeniture laws taking church lands away from parishes giving it to widows of priests--highly suspect as lacking in real authority-but shall we talk about King Henry II and the assassination of Archbishop Becket now?  Ecclesiastical and Kingly head butting over properties and titles??  not holy. not close.

    Some of the bible I just don't I have to say trust. Like- some people just renounce marriage for the kingdom and that is a good thing. No it isn't. If you don't believe in marriage you shouldn't  be officiating at them. If you don't believe in having your own children what are you doing running a school full of other people's kids. That is the last sort of person I want overseeing my kids- someone who never had their own.

     Some of it is frankly suspect if not outright crap ---which is why it is a darn good thing that we have separation of church and state in this country wherein no one's crappy dogma gets to lock up anyone for begging to differ. 

   Those who can't do teach, and those who can't teach, teach dogma. It's easier to memorize half asleep like the comatose incantation litany of all the saints since corneliaus and syprius.

   

Twofers

And it's Your Lucky Week-end.

Saint Jane de Chantal, a French saint who was widowed in her late 20s after bearing six children, and the wife of a french nobleman is celebrated on August 12th.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jane_Frances_de_Chantal.

Three of her children died very young. She was blessed to meet up with a Francis de Sales (priest and saint) and started an order of religious called The Visitation, after the Visitation to Mary by the Angel Gabriel announcing the birth of Jesus.

August 12 is also Our Lady of Guadeloupe's Feast Day. So it must be a really special day.

You can celebrate Jane deChantal and all things French by coming to the dinner sponsored by the deChantal group at Holy Trinity in Georgetown after the 5:30 Mass Saturday evening.
The deChantal group is open to all singles. This month's themed dinner is appropriately French cuisine and dijon chicken will be served- also appropriate because Jane deChantal was from Dijon, the region after which the mustard is named. These all you can eat feasts with wine are a bargain and the funds go toward worthy causes. For further details please email the co-communicator of the group-
Bob Sauer at RSauer [at] aol.com (You can pay at the door)

Its the funnest best way to spend a Saturday evening I can think of in
DC and always attracts an interesting collection of spiritually seeking people.

More First Amendment Fun

For Your Reflection

   How far is too far. Sticks and stones may break my bones but names can never hurt you?

Apparently a Judge thinks otherwise- and the whole body of Defamation law is premised on the 

fact that names do hurt people ----when they are not true.  Truth is a defense to defamation.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/08/09/the-psycho-ex-wife-free-speech-fight-over-divorce-blog_n_922802.html?ncid=webmail2    

In a recent custody dispute a guy took out his aggression against his x-wife, not by robbing her 

blind, not by filing ugly restraining orders, not by calling the cops on her, but cathartically

writing about it. He got carried away and said some hurtful things about his'psycho x' 

and even their kids are saying Daddy please stop.

     Is it perhaps not nice? Not nice, for sure. Is it illegal cyberstalking? No. 

The First Amendment has limited exceptions. He is hardly inciting a riot. He's just hurt. 

And I would rather have him vent on line than take to stalking his x with a guy named 

Bruno and his pet doberman.   Writing is therapy. Ask any writer.

Neither Cheap Nor Easy

The Most Expensive Date You Will Ever Have.

Ever wonder who the face behind this blog actually is? Here is your chance to sit down and have dinner with the Editor, Washington attorney, Cynthia L. Butler, in----wait for it----the French Ambassador's residence with the French Ambassador to the US and his wife. It is a benefit fundraiser a Maison, the cultural arm of the French Embassy and French-American Cultural Foundation, a US 501(c)(3) nonprofit which supports French inspired arts in the US and puts on a plethora of free programs, concerts, lectures, kids
festivals and french movies in the US in collaboration with the Kennedy Center, the Smithsonian and other arts venues and ventures.
Their concerts have been hailed by the Washington Post as "some of the city's best concerts" and broadcast locally and nationally on WETA public radio and
Sirius/XMSatellite. They host and underwrite the EuroKids Festival, the largest children's performing arts festival in the US with over 200 free events for families and kids. They run a series of French movies at the National Gallery of Art and bring exhibits of photographers and painters to the US regularly.
La Maison, the cultural arm of the French Embassy is simply one of the most energetic arts promoting communities in the country and they constantly seek new partnerships and innovative ideas for promoting the funner finer aspects of French culture.

You can come to an exclusive event with the French Ambassador and his wife for a gourmet dinner like only the french can do at the Ambassador residence.

This blog is hosting a contest open to anyone who can best answer the following question: I appreciate French Culture because:.................and submit via email a photograph to the following email address:
DEMOCRACYTRUTH [at] aol.com by not later than August 29. If you are selected you will get the honor of paying the $10,000. ticket price for two and get to take the author of this blog Cynthia L. Butler to be your guest. The entire price goes to the La Maison and French American Cultural Foundation in America programs. (please email a photo with your entry --as we have to make sure you are not a psycho...you understand.)

The winner will be selected by September 2, 2011.
The dinner is in November.

Good luck ! Bon Chance!
Courage!!

Have Bible Will Travel

Donations Needed.

Every Monday morning a saintly
El Salvadoran priest who feeds bodies and souls a hearty breakfast (all you can eat bagels with cheese for starters---better than any deli in town) and a scripture lesson and discussion hosts from 40-80 guys in the basement of the Cathedral of Saint Matthews the Apostle. It has been going on now faithfully for years. The volunteers range from the saintly 'Miss Mary' who wheels in a grocery cart homemade hot caserole dishes hot out of her oven down the street in Dupont Circle. A paralegal in town they call "Fish" because its his last name drops off a bag of fresh grapes and piles of bananas.
Luz, which means "Light", also hispanic pours a selection of orange juice, grape juice and ice tea for their choosing.
They eat patiently on plastic chairs and wait for the scripture lesson.
They feel validated when someone listens to them they will tell you. There is a professional social worker who sits in the corner and waits for anyone to amble up to her who wants to talk.
The scripture starts with the last Sunday's reading. Then they all start sharing.
"Do you know how to swim? I do. Does anyone know how to walk on water though? It is written in scripture that ' Nothing is impossible with God." Do we really believe that? Nothing is impossible with God. He is the creative force of the entire planet. That creative force loves you and wants to give you a future and a hope.

Some yawn, some get an ahah lightbulb moment, some ask to be prayed for. Isaac asked for a Bible.

I am now asking for donations of Bibles. We need about 20-50 of them to give away.
Please forward to anyone you know who can deliver, anonymously or not, between 20-50 bibles to the basement of Saint Matthews Cathedral Monday morning at 8:00 am, or deliver to the Cathedral of Saint Matthews to Father Evelio marked for the Homeless Ministry. paperbacks work just fine.

(we could also use buckets more cold cuts but first things first)

My body my business

I eat what i want to.

The FTC says no. They don't want people selling you 'cures' they don't think work- like natural herbs. Is it some conspiracy of big pharma to keep you hooked?? No, its really just a bunch of bored attorneys at the FTC looking for the next moral outrage and it spun from the false claims about vitamins curing -when some of them actually can do harm. It has turned into a bit of a First Amendment fiasco when it comes to religiously inspired natural health practitioners. Daniel Chapter One is a sort of a ministry that peddles natural healing herbs. Actually it is totally scriptural that the trees that line the Jordan in Israel and those that lines where the water flowed out of the Temple were 'healing' plants, herbs. So no one should have a problem with healing herbs. But the government does. Where is CATO when you need them?? Stanley????

http://www.naturalnews.com/033265_Daniel_Chapter_One_government_raids.html

Brothers and Sisters

Concubines, free labor and geriatric cougar fantasy wierdos.

Paul addressed the congregations he wrote letters to 'dear brothers and sisters.'
Fellow sojourners. My brothers and sisters in the faith.
Those relationships are special. They support out of filial love.
I have a priest friend who says he has many 'wives' because lots of women need him for...not sure what....emotional support and keeping their kids in line. Priests can provide
this function in environments particularly in poor communities where there is abundant
absence of responsible fathers.
I don't have a problem with him or that concept because he is not engaging in emotional polygamy. There is a difference in that and a cultish leader engaging in emotional polygamy who really does have bonding with multiple wives going on, leading on several people simultaneously into thinking that they are his 'wife' as such. It is a basic bonding need he fulfills variously. Then there are those who actually do have sex with women. Emotionally the former can be just as bonded.
The church, I am convinced knows who these characters are and pimps them out- because if you can lull a bunch of dumb women into thinking this you get all kinds of benefits. There should be a movie "Priests with benefits" like all the free labor you need, as much money as you ask for, free dinner any time, all the free wedding banquet food you can eat, free stays at the summer beach house, and places to put all your traveling visiting priest friends in usually the nicest living quarters in the hood. Not a bad deal.
As for the women? Convince them there is some greater reward to sqandering their fertility in deluded idolization of these characters while they fold altar cloths, follow them around the all you can eat crabfest, and pay the light bill and you have a parish.

The above referenced priest who says he has many wives is cute and doesn't know what he is talking about because he is so sweet and innocent he wouldn't know an intimate interaction with a woman if he found himself stuck in a shower with a naked woman by accident.
Then there is the other kind......and the other kind should be married so as not to waste women's lives in deluded manipulative nonsense for years.

Crash of 2011 have you down?

Get a Fresh Start With A New Office

Fully furnished executive office space available in Class A building in Bethesda, MD.  Conveniently located a ½ block from the Bethesda Metro.  Underground parking available.  Month-to-month to one year leasing options available.  Free reliable unlimited Wifi and VOIP phone service with general office business services available in high end luxury suite. Building also features tenants such as a major international law firm's Bethesda offices and financial services companies. Minutes to Bethesda Row, World Class restaurants and hotels.   We guarantee 25% or more below market rate--professionally managed by attorneys.  Availability starting August 15th. Email ExecutiveAmbassadorSuites [at]  Gmail.com with "Bethesda office rental" in the subject line.  These offices will go soon so don't delay.  

There is life after downsizing. Don't Jump

Always Elegant

French

Style superstar in French design, the new IMF chief.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/08/05/christine-lagarde-style_n_917374.html#s321474&title=April_20_2011

It's called Class. French style.
Smart and Georgeous. Women.

PEACE

THROUGH MUSIC

One Love
We don't need more trouble.

Stand By Me.

Classics- It started with one street busker in Santa Monica- it hasn't ended yet.
Sing a New Song and it will go around the world.
And get this movie -every church -every church leader-every synagogue, get this movie and show it. Wouldn't hurt to show it to the entire State Department either.

http://www.playingforchange.com/

Some Traditions

Are not worth keeping.

Take the abusive polygamy of Mormonism.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/08/06/warren-jeffs-trial-polyga_n_920325.html?icid=maing-grid7%7Cmain5%7Cdl1%7Csec1_lnk3%7C84306


The trial of this character is reflective of a guy who, the article states, --is a product of a culture/religion that has not changed in centuries. And what of your religion? Does it have centuries old traditions worth throwing out so you don't throw out the baby with the baptismal waters?
No one thought when mormonism started apparently that the multiple child bride thing was at all emotionally abusive to women did they? And now- just plain criminal.

Love is....

Not Mere Ethics.

The book of First Corinthians tries to describe the indescribable. What is Love. Love can be seen by its fruits. Love is patient and kind, not boastful, not quick to take offense, not arrogant or rude. It bears all things, believes all things and hopes all things. I add, It operates under the Ignatian
principle of assuming the best intentions of any ambigious statement and giving the person the benefit of an assumption of goodwill. We are all trying to figure it out together.

Yes, it says, if you love me you will do my commandments. Obedience follows from Love, but it is not Love, it is a fruit of love. Following the law and doing obedience can also be done compulsorily with the meanest of hearts not in love just because it pays to be good out of a sense of self interest.

Love is much deeper, much grander, much higher, much holier, because God is Love. Love does not condemn anyone because Jesus didn't come to condemn but to save.
I loved the Bertolini movie I saw at the Italian Embassy this week, Pinocchio in which the good 'Fairy' who is a sort of Blessed Mother analogous figure keeps getting the foppish Pinocchio out of trouble by saving him time and again as he struggles on his journey to become a good real boy rather than a wooden puppet. God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son so that whosoever believed on him should not perish but have everlasting life-God saves and this is Love. God wishes no one should perish.

And yet, the church in parts, usually doctrinaire ideological hardliners want to subsume and reduce Love to a set of canon law moral maxims that must be adhered to or else- perish even, we don't care. Bye Bye. This is not an accurate reflection of who God is. It is not representative of why Jesus came. It is a pathetically puny understanding of the heart of
God, which is found in real people not the stone statues that centrally form a diminished idolization of commandments over their creator. Love is a creative Fire.

Resting in Peace

In his homeland.

correction: The originally announced funeral date for Archbishop Sambi has been changed as a
result of his family requesting his body return for burial in Italy so instead, a memorial Mass
will be held at the Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington, DC on September 14. See the Shrine website for more details www.nationalshrine.com

The False Prophets

of BAAL.

I was speaking to a proudly Jewish man who didn't realize the False Prophets of Baal were in the service of the King of Israel's Court. Ahab was king of Israel after the split of the two kingdoms, Judah and Israel, and was married to Jezebel who consulted foreign false gods and hired false prophets called the prophets of Baal- because Baal is sort of short for Bealzebub, or Satan.
Satanic worship in the King of Israels court when Ahab was king.

This is where famously Elijiah enters the scene with his famous Mount Carmel showdown with the false prophets where he calls the Lord who calls down fire all over a sacrifice while the Prophets of Baal couldnt call down anything from their fake gods but the slashing of their own selves in a deluded frenzy. Elijiah slew ALL the prophets of Baal -some 400 of them, who were in sort of a guild in the employ of the palace of the then King of Israel.

This should tell you that historically being Jewish is no guarantee necessarily that the state is always going to get it right and not go off the rails. It should say that there is something higher than just jewishness that one needs to evaluate in determining goodness- because the test is
whether one is Faithful to the one true God. That is what defines righteousness-
and for a Christian, they see no contradiction in Jesus as trinitarian one with the father and holy spirit being part of the triune God.

Jezebel was a sleazy piece of work. She wanted her neighbors land- classic coveting against one of the top ten commandments. So does she try to buy the guy out for a good price? No, she just plots to kill off the owner.

Was there any emminent domain price paid for expropriated land formerly owned, farmed or occupied by the Palestinians that became the state of Israel?
Was there ever a truth and reconciliation commission that valued land and gave price for it?

The truest most righteous people in Israel are saying- look. To covet land and get it by just killing off the owner is not righteous. Its what Jezebel and Ahab did. And look what happened to them.

Repent

Make a Way Clear for the Lord

Repent has two components. The realization and the amendment. The realization you did something wrong and the amending of the ways. The change will do you good.

There has to be a commitment
to Change or amend the ways.

AA has a 12 step program for people who chronically mis-act. They chronically engage in behavior that is destructive to themself or others. They say the first step is acknowledging the problem. Hi, I am John and I am an alcoholic. The second part is committing to just stop it. Making amends.
Making amends also has two components. Changing the behavior so it does not stop and making it right with anyone hurt by paying back anyone you wronged to try to fix it. If you are an addict who robbed your parents, admit it and pay them back. If you bet the farm and lost the farm on an illegal bet, pay the money back and stop gambling.

When people and societies only do the first part they are not fully repentant and they don't reap the reward of atonement.
If Assad says, gee that was bad, I shouldn't have gunned down a
park full of protesters, and does it again day two, then clearly he isn't repentant. He is what we call blowing smoke.

This translates nicely in personal life also. Folks who blow smoke might get the guilt but don't do anything to change the behavior. They let the Jezebels glare at them for the ego high and don't tell them to shove off so it goes on and on for years. This makes for very strange bedfellows. Their fancy falls for everything their ego needs for a night.
Guilt might make them regretful but repentance is something different. It is a true changing of the ways and making amends. That is the fullness of repentance. And if you are not there yet, why should anyone trust you?

A Good Ruling

Of Course Rumsfeld should be liable for Torture.

So should Darth Cheney and Bush.
Violating international law, geneva conventions, human rights standards and laws everywhere and US law. Why is there any immunity for suspending habeus corpus without basis or probable cause.
Look, half the people or more than half rounded up were innocents ratted on by their neighbors for their land or the $25,000 bounty loot. Do you know how much money $25,000 is to a starving family of Afghanis trying to make a living off land overridden with mines? They could turn in their
cousin for that.
Doesn't give us any right to torture anyone. OBSCENE. Governmental abuse does not end unless
people make it end. The ruling reported by Huffpost below allows Rumsfeld to be personally
liable for Torture---and its about time. Republicans won't clear their collective name and gain the trust of the majority of Americans ever again unless they start holding some people accountable for all of this mess. OBSCENE.


http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/08/04/donald-rumsfeld-torture-lawsuit_n_917966.html

About Time

Good News

The JPII center will not be sold to make condominiums or dormitories for dominican sisters.
Hallelujiah.
It will be a Shrine for JPII- now blessed and likely sainted soon-

The Knights of Columbus have the funds and should turn more of the space into prayer spaces with beautiful internal stained glass like the chapel that is there. There should be places to go and light candles. And of course round the clock movies shown from the DVDs at the CIC.

http://www.kofc.org/un/en/news/releases/detail/jpii_shrine.html

They should get one of those vials of blood- what's a Shrine without a relic.
I am elated at this news- because I love the place. That is where I went to watch his beatification fittingly.

They should hold symposia there on interfaith dialogue from around the world.
They should feature all amazing interfaith peace work he has done. There should be an Asissi room where all the interfaith peace work he did is displayed.

JPII Pray for Us.

"If you don't have anything nice to say....call Rachel Maddow, she needs material."

Here We Go Again

Dueling Marches around Abortion

reported in todays Washington Post. Campaign season heating up already.
Given that the best way to be pro-life is to actually have a baby, or be a guy who supports in a
consistent loving monogamous relationship (lets call it marriage) a woman having a child, I have only so much patience with the pontifications of people who would rather have intimate plural relationships with men. Life, if you are missing the oestrogen you might not get the impulse to propel yourself under an ongoing sixteen wheeler if your man slapped you silly and ran off with your best friend. Or---you may not appreciate housing something that makes you vomit daily only to learn that it is missing half its brain and has all of its major organs swimming somewhere near your spleen. That said---both sides have a point, and if they could sit down long enough to talk to each other they might discover what the point is. If we enter another season of idiotic unkind demonization of the other viewpoint (like how ridiculous that anyone would not appreciate that lack of a basic salary, job or educational opportunity might disincline someone from having a pregnancy to term---throw in your are only 15) I am going to take up watercolors again in the South of France. Because I can't stand it. If you don't look at what A-holes men can be you have totally missed why lots of women have abortions in the first place. No one gets pregnant alone. (or if they did, they did it on purpose and probably want it.)

Equal Time

GOP has perverts also.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/08/02/louis-magazzu-nj-politici_n_916602.html

Another politician bites the dust before biting someone else.
Note to file: its really really stupid to take nude photos of yourself and send them out on line.
Don't do anything you wouldn't want your mother seeing (forget that if you have a creepy mother)-
Don't do anything you wouldn't want your constituents seeing.

You have to be crazy to do something like this ---so crazy I would plead incapacity to legislate by virtue of insanity. In todays world of hackery and malicious viruses (have you not heard of a guy named Murdock and his sidekick Brooke?) you never know who for sure is actually getting your emails. ...or on the receiving end, who really sent it-there is so much 'spoofing- going on now, which looks like- Hi friend, I just landed in London and my wallet was stolen OMG! I don't even have funds to pay the hotel bill please wire immediately !!!
I just got spam of four different phone companies allegedly telling me someone took out a cell phone referenced to my email account and if i only click here and put in my social security number i can find out where the bill is going....riiiiiight.

You send nude pictures into cyberspace and it goes through a server that someone can print out, it goes to a mailbox which may or may not be the person actually intended-and that's if you actually did know the privacy controls and if the person intended actually is real and not some con set up.

So crazy people.

UPDATE

And Thank You Arcbishop Dolan

  The white supremacist gets finally fired. There is an old defunct boarded Wonderbread factory in DC he might like to make his next abode.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/08/01/frank-borzellieri-fired_n_915456.html?icid=maing-grid7%7Cmain5%7Cdl3%7Csec3_lnk2%7C82971

TSA to be bucked in Michigan

TSA- Touch Someone else's Arse  ....pretty please officer.

    TSA is being called out for what it does- it molests people without cause. Searches them without a warrant. 

Touches body parts that would rather not be touched. The TSA has been cited for ripping out colostomy bags flooding

passengers with their own urine, and other aggressive acts that make you wonder if they do any basic IQ testing on these louts. 

Texas calls it molestation and is legislating criminal prohibitions. MIchigan looks like it is following suit:

http://www.NaturalNews.com/032788_Michigan_TSA_molestation.html

   Here is a hint for the guide manuals: A  "C" or "D" cup is not probable  cause for anything but perhaps an 

invitation to dinner. 

You don't get to get to first base just by wearing a TSA badge  (well, maybe if you look like brad pitt or rock hudson or that funny french actor who always plays with juliette binoche). The underwire sends off sensors which is no excuse to

pat me down or get frisky with the frisking. If I slap you I am going to argue self defense. 

      see, the Fourth Amendment to the US Constitution. 

It's unreasonable to believe I can stuff an explosive and my jessica rabbit figure into the same bra.

Dear Google Blogspot

I've stepped on an anthill apparently

  someone has spliced a bug into my design template features so the letters come out

monstrously large posted when I am typing in tiny type. Please invent an anti bug anti virus thing

to function in your blog designer. Please forgive me if you are getting a version that looks like type for the blind or aged magnified a thousand fold. I don't know how to wipe out the stinkbug.

And another thing....

Where Catholics Go Bad

     With regard to the below story wherein a latino loudly accused the church or a priest of

hiring someone who is clearly a racist, there is a lesson learned here. 

He was criminalized essentially for voicing under his First Amendment right to Free Speech 

contrary views to the church party line- he was hit with charges of disturbing the peace unlawfully (disrupting the brain dead coma that allowed this principal to be hired in the first place) and apparently had a knife on his possession- not that he brandished it and maybe it was a pocket switchblade he always carried and forgot he had in his pocket. 

     Let me express here the deepest outrage at the DISGUSTING posture the church took for

someone expressing what apparently everyone was too spineless to either see or confront. 

     It is DISGUSTING to criminalize free speech or dissent with views held. In the Quaker world

this sort of thing is called "a move of the Spirit" and everyone is invited to voice their concerns. 

    One guy taking it upon himself to tell the truth to a congregation is not 

disturbing the peace- he is making a clear path for the way of the Lord, just like John the Baptist who got arrested for nothing. 

   If this gets even papered for prosecution I will be appalled.

The Good, The Bad and the Blind

Blind Loyalties and Bad Judgments

     All Catholics are not a like. The split in the catholic world over those who think O'bama is the 

second coming and those who think he is satan is a pretty sharp divide with all shades of "whatever, who cares" in between. 

    All Catholics in the paid service of the church are not a like either. Some are republicans, some democrats in leanings, some with very poor judgment, some with angelic dispositions. 

Take for instance this principal in New York who is clearly what anyone would call a racist:

http://gothamist.com/2011/08/01/outraged_man_disrupts_mass_at_churc.php

He apparently passed the radar--and clearly holds views regarding darker skinned people

and all latinos generally that anyone in their right mind would consider racist.

You cannot blame all of catholicism on that because there are very fine black and

latino priests and workers who would strongly disagree with him. Just because he

is a principal in a catholic school does not make him right about anything.

The same can be said about some catholic judges, catholic lawyers, catholic priests

and catholic bloggers. Just because someone calls themselves in the service of the church

or is paid running a business catering to catholics, that does not make them sacred

definitionally. They could be whackier than a three dollar bill. Their decisionmaking

might be just wrong. It has happened time and again. Some are downright harmful

or take actions or make decisions that are downright harmful. They are all human.

For example, I do not know how to make much sense of the fact that in the Archbishop

of Washington, DC's main cathedral seat church there is a eucharistic minister that

he commissioned who is openly gay, wears a wedding ring on his wedding finger and

is living with his partner while at the same time blasting gay marriage and spending a

fortune on attorneys fighting litigation and lobbying against gay marriage. There are a number

of openly gay people serving in the DC Dupont Circle parish where the Cathedral seat

is, as it is an area with a concentration of gay people second only to San Francisco. I

am not complaining about the gays in service of the church, I love my gay priest friends

and everyone I ever met gay.

I wonder about the people being paid to blast gay marriage while taking communion from

a married gay guy who looks them in the eye and says "Body of Christ"

I also don't know how to make sense of people who call themselves conservative

republicans who would castrate a priest or drive him out of a parish for falling for a woman while spending

millions of dollars lobbying for 'pro life' pro preborn baby causes while killing potential for

progeny in their priesthood. Not only does it not make sense, it strikes one as

totally evil. Not that I think the pro preborn baby lobbying is wrong, and I fully agree

with it. I wonder about the people who think making eunichs of priests is pro life.

So to be Catholic is not to be brain dead or not to be noncognizant of these

paradoxes. Dissent is the greatest form of patriotism, it is said. I dissent.

And I don't care if you wish to call me Protestant. I would rather be conscious than

blindly loyal to irrationality.

Stunningly touching; Giffords votes

Shot in the head and back to work after some brain surgery. All in a days....

http://www.azcentral.com/news/articles/2011/08/01/20110801giffords-casting-debt-vote-washington.html

Tale of Two Addicts

Betty Ford and Amy Winehouse.

Betty Ford of course led the nation in bringing addiction, especially that of the pill popping bored suburban housewives, to the attention of the nation and founded one of the first comprehensive rehab clinics named after her. It was a national epidemic. She died in her 90s surrounded by a loving family.

    Amy Winehouse died also- it seems even before hitting puberty. And we can't get away from the press about it while Betty Ford who died in dignity got a passing obit and no one seems really preoccupied by it.

The attention paid to one death seems disproportionate to the massive slaughter we are doing in far away lands to preserve our 'national interests.' One rocker chic, with an act laden with 

herion dazed psychobabble reminiscent of keith richards on a binge gets more press than all the dead people in Afghanistan and Iraq put together. Something very perverse about that.

   While no one should malign the dead, one should draw a few lessons. It's not good to teach your kids that it is all right to get high. They could die. No, Auntie Em. we are not in Kansas anymore. Real drugs wreak real havoc on people's bodies. Sometimes there is a tipping point. 

Drugs are slow suicide. Address the underlying malaise.

   http://www.spinner.com/2011/08/01/amy-winehouse-drugs/?icid=maing-grid7%7Cmain5%7Cdl2%7Csec1_lnk3%7C82626