Today sucked for my BFF.
There are no other words to put it that wouldn't cross the line into being obscene.
Today, her mother-in-law died. She was 90, had lived a long life, and had been in declining health for the last several years. My friend has been a faithful caregiver to her. She had her times when she was tired of the job, when she got frustrated and let off steam; but always, always, she went back and did what she needed to do. Because she loved her, and part of loving her was caring for her.
They'd known since Thursday that this might be coming. My friend's mom in law went back to the hospital after coming home, and little by little, her body just gave out. My friend and her husband were at the hospital when her mom in law died.
My friend had barely slept since Thursday, hadn't showered, hadn't changed clothes. She was not sorry to be there, not sorry to be with her husband and give him the support he desperately needed at that point.
As I write this, they are back home, trying to get some sleep and trying to prepare for what will be a very difficult week ahead. The funeral will be next week. My friend's mom in law will be buried next to her husband.
Losing a family member is bad enough for a day to suck, even when you know it's coming and you're just waiting for it to happen.
That's not the entire reason today sucked.
Not only did they lose a mother and mom-in-law, they lost a family pet at the same time.
Their dog was acting oddly, so my friend's son took him to the vet. And that's when they discovered that the dog had a bleeding tumor in his abdomen.
The vet recommended he be put to sleep.
So he was.
And this was all happening at the same time. Not one happening in the morning and one in the evening, but both in the evening, both around the same time.
It does occur to me that maybe their beagle went to keep my friend's mom in law company.
But that above sentence is poor comfort when you lose two family members, a human and a dog, in the same day at the same time.
My friend said she was reminded of Job wanting to curse the day he was born, because she was tempted to curse today.
I don't blame her.
Today sucked.
Just my .04, adjusted for inflation.
Statcounter
Saturday, August 24, 2019
Wednesday, August 21, 2019
Pig-pen for president!
I have decided who I am going to vote for in 2020.
Pig-Pen.
Yes, THAT Pig-Pen, the dirt-loving character from Peanuts.
Frankly, I can't find a candidate that is worth voting for and who will help bring this country together.
I wrote this morning on my Facebook page that in the last year, I have seen posts from Christians that have made me think that if they met each other in the hallway, they would come to blows. I saw it last year during the Kavanaugh hearings, and this morning, I saw it again between two Christians talking about certain new immigration policies.
Trump isn't the Messiah. Get over it.
Trump isn't the Antichrist. Get over it.
Trump is not the fulfillment of any sort of Biblical prophecy. Please, for the love of all things holy, DO NOT quote me that verse about Cyrus. While it's true that God can use whoever he wants whenever he wants, trying to fit Donald Trump into the verse that prophesies about Cyrus the king is like trying to put a square peg into a round hole. (And while these rocket scientists COULD "put a square peg into a round hole", us trying to do it with Biblical prophecy is a misuse of Scripture. Period.)
And those of you that tell me that Trump is a baby Christian?
I've been hearing that for three years now. I see no fruit of the Spirit. I see no increasing faith, goodness, brotherly kindness, etc.
"But the economy's good!"
How many people said that when Bill Clinton was president as an excuse to overlook his behavior?
"But at least he tells it like it is!"
Uh, there are ways he can tell it like it is without coming off as a total buffoon.
"But at least we have a conservative SCOTUS!"
But at what price?
We are at a level of anger I have not seen in my lifetime. I'm waiting for someone to bring a cane onto the floor of the Senate.
If this is the price that we have had to pay for a conservative SCOTUS, that price is too high.
The Democrats want free stuff for everyone and they want the rich to pay for it.
The Republicans . . . well, I'm not sure what they want, outside of a good economy.
Neither party is doing their job. So my vote is going to Pig-Pen to clean up government!
Just my .04, adjusted for inflation.
Pig-Pen.
Yes, THAT Pig-Pen, the dirt-loving character from Peanuts.
Frankly, I can't find a candidate that is worth voting for and who will help bring this country together.
I wrote this morning on my Facebook page that in the last year, I have seen posts from Christians that have made me think that if they met each other in the hallway, they would come to blows. I saw it last year during the Kavanaugh hearings, and this morning, I saw it again between two Christians talking about certain new immigration policies.
Trump isn't the Messiah. Get over it.
Trump isn't the Antichrist. Get over it.
Trump is not the fulfillment of any sort of Biblical prophecy. Please, for the love of all things holy, DO NOT quote me that verse about Cyrus. While it's true that God can use whoever he wants whenever he wants, trying to fit Donald Trump into the verse that prophesies about Cyrus the king is like trying to put a square peg into a round hole. (And while these rocket scientists COULD "put a square peg into a round hole", us trying to do it with Biblical prophecy is a misuse of Scripture. Period.)
And those of you that tell me that Trump is a baby Christian?
I've been hearing that for three years now. I see no fruit of the Spirit. I see no increasing faith, goodness, brotherly kindness, etc.
"But the economy's good!"
How many people said that when Bill Clinton was president as an excuse to overlook his behavior?
"But at least he tells it like it is!"
Uh, there are ways he can tell it like it is without coming off as a total buffoon.
"But at least we have a conservative SCOTUS!"
But at what price?
We are at a level of anger I have not seen in my lifetime. I'm waiting for someone to bring a cane onto the floor of the Senate.
If this is the price that we have had to pay for a conservative SCOTUS, that price is too high.
The Democrats want free stuff for everyone and they want the rich to pay for it.
The Republicans . . . well, I'm not sure what they want, outside of a good economy.
Neither party is doing their job. So my vote is going to Pig-Pen to clean up government!
Just my .04, adjusted for inflation.
Monday, August 5, 2019
Kyrie eleison ....
"This day is a day of distress and rebuke and disgrace, as when children come to the point of birth and there is no strength to deliver them." -- Isaiah 37:3 (New International Version)
Saturday, while on the computer, my phone alerted me to a shooting in El Paso, Texas. Twenty people died.
And then, shortly after I arrived at church yesterday, I learned of the shooting in Dayton, Ohio, where nine people are dead.
I spoke briefly to my preacher and told him I'd just heard of that shooting; he said he already knew (and at the beginning of his sermon, he asked one of the elders to pray, and he also acknowledged that it had been a hard week in our country.)
All my sorrow, all my sadness, all my frustration over yet another shooting just exploded into two words, one phrase:
Kyrie eleison.
The first song our praise team sang yesterday was "Shout Hallelujah," and although I sang with them and worshiped with them, all I could think was, this is not a time to shout hallelujah.
(That above comment is not intended as a slam on our praise team. I sing on our praise team approximately once a month, and I know the work that goes into practicing and singing. And they had no way of knowing that there would be two mass shootings in less than 24 hours.)
"Kyrie eleison," as I just used it, is not a reference to the wonderfully upbeat Mr. Mister song of 1986. Rather, it is Greek for "Lord, have mercy." It's an ancient prayer dating back to the early days of the Orthodox and Catholic Church. There are places in the Gospels where people cry out, "Lord, have mercy on me." The Canaanite woman with a demon-possessed daughter cried out for the Lord to have mercy on her. Many others cried out for mercy as well.
Lord, have mercy indeed.
This Wikipedia article lists 256 mass shootings in 2019 alone, with 283 dead and 1,057 wounded. I am not exactly clear on the definition they are using as "mass shooting", so I am going to cut and paste the paragraph the article used when talking about the definition of "mass shooting":
No matter how you define a "mass shooting", one is too many.
Already the screaming, blaming, and finger-pointing has started. The usual suspects are being blamed: too many guns, lax laws, mental illness, etc. etc. And "white supremacy" as a cause is also raising its ugly, deformed head, mainly because of a manifesto left by the El Paso shooter which stated that "this attack is a response to the Hispanic invasion of Texas". The El Paso shooting is being investigated as an act of domestic terrorism and as a possible hate crime. In the case of the Dayton shooting, the suspect was taken down in less than a minute after the first shots were fired -- and he still murdered nine people, including his own sister, and injured at least 27 others. There's no known "hate crime" motive in the Dayton shooting as I write this.
Lord, have mercy.
If the usual pattern holds, people will scream at each other on social media, post hashtags, and demand action, and nothing will happen. And then the next mass shooting will happen and the cycle will begin all over again. Over and over, lather, rinse, repeat.
This 1987 song by Richard Marx has a line that sums up our current situation well:
Lord have mercy
For we know not what we do
Lord have mercy
We've forgotten to be afraid of you.
I recently read where Donald Trump kicked off his 2020 presidential campaign "in the name of Jesus Christ." If Donald Trump is really serious about invoking the name of Jesus in his campaign for president, he will call for a national day of prayer and repentance, starting with his own sins.
This is not the time for finger-pointing, screaming, hashtagging, or anything else, for that matter. This isn't even the time to shout hallelujah (as appropriate as that is at other times.)
This is a time of distress.
This is a time of rebuke.
This is a time of disgrace.
This is a time to lament, to fall flat on our faces before the living God and just simply cry out, "Kyrie eleison."
Kyrie eleison
Kyrie eleison
Kyrie eleison . . .
Just my .04, adjusted for inflation.
Saturday, while on the computer, my phone alerted me to a shooting in El Paso, Texas. Twenty people died.
And then, shortly after I arrived at church yesterday, I learned of the shooting in Dayton, Ohio, where nine people are dead.
I spoke briefly to my preacher and told him I'd just heard of that shooting; he said he already knew (and at the beginning of his sermon, he asked one of the elders to pray, and he also acknowledged that it had been a hard week in our country.)
All my sorrow, all my sadness, all my frustration over yet another shooting just exploded into two words, one phrase:
Kyrie eleison.
The first song our praise team sang yesterday was "Shout Hallelujah," and although I sang with them and worshiped with them, all I could think was, this is not a time to shout hallelujah.
(That above comment is not intended as a slam on our praise team. I sing on our praise team approximately once a month, and I know the work that goes into practicing and singing. And they had no way of knowing that there would be two mass shootings in less than 24 hours.)
"Kyrie eleison," as I just used it, is not a reference to the wonderfully upbeat Mr. Mister song of 1986. Rather, it is Greek for "Lord, have mercy." It's an ancient prayer dating back to the early days of the Orthodox and Catholic Church. There are places in the Gospels where people cry out, "Lord, have mercy on me." The Canaanite woman with a demon-possessed daughter cried out for the Lord to have mercy on her. Many others cried out for mercy as well.
Lord, have mercy indeed.
This Wikipedia article lists 256 mass shootings in 2019 alone, with 283 dead and 1,057 wounded. I am not exactly clear on the definition they are using as "mass shooting", so I am going to cut and paste the paragraph the article used when talking about the definition of "mass shooting":
There are many definitions of a mass shooting. Listed roughly from broad to specific:
- Stanford University MSA Data Project: 3+ shot in one incident, excluding the perpetrator(s), at one location, at roughly the same time, excluding organized crime, as well as gang-related and drug-related shootings.[8]
- Mass Shooting Tracker: 4+ shot in one incident, at one location, at roughly the same time.[7]
- Gun Violence Archive/Vox: 4+ shot in one incident, excluding the perpetrator(s), at one location, at roughly the same time.[4][9]
- Mother Jones: 3+ shot and killed in one incident, excluding the perpetrator(s), at a public place.[6]
- The Washington Post: 4+ shot and killed in one incident, excluding the perpetrator(s), at a public place.[5]
- ABC News/FBI: 4+ shot and killed in one incident, excluding the perpetrator(s), at one location, at roughly the same time.[10]
- Congressional Research Service: 4+ shot and killed in one incident, excluding the perpetrator(s), at a public place, excluding gang-related killings and those done with a profit-motive.[2]
No matter how you define a "mass shooting", one is too many.
Already the screaming, blaming, and finger-pointing has started. The usual suspects are being blamed: too many guns, lax laws, mental illness, etc. etc. And "white supremacy" as a cause is also raising its ugly, deformed head, mainly because of a manifesto left by the El Paso shooter which stated that "this attack is a response to the Hispanic invasion of Texas". The El Paso shooting is being investigated as an act of domestic terrorism and as a possible hate crime. In the case of the Dayton shooting, the suspect was taken down in less than a minute after the first shots were fired -- and he still murdered nine people, including his own sister, and injured at least 27 others. There's no known "hate crime" motive in the Dayton shooting as I write this.
Lord, have mercy.
If the usual pattern holds, people will scream at each other on social media, post hashtags, and demand action, and nothing will happen. And then the next mass shooting will happen and the cycle will begin all over again. Over and over, lather, rinse, repeat.
This 1987 song by Richard Marx has a line that sums up our current situation well:
Lord have mercy
For we know not what we do
Lord have mercy
We've forgotten to be afraid of you.
I recently read where Donald Trump kicked off his 2020 presidential campaign "in the name of Jesus Christ." If Donald Trump is really serious about invoking the name of Jesus in his campaign for president, he will call for a national day of prayer and repentance, starting with his own sins.
This is not the time for finger-pointing, screaming, hashtagging, or anything else, for that matter. This isn't even the time to shout hallelujah (as appropriate as that is at other times.)
This is a time of distress.
This is a time of rebuke.
This is a time of disgrace.
This is a time to lament, to fall flat on our faces before the living God and just simply cry out, "Kyrie eleison."
Kyrie eleison
Kyrie eleison
Kyrie eleison . . .
Just my .04, adjusted for inflation.
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