Day 3 of prayer

Dear God,

In Matthew 5:3, at the beginning of the Beatitudes, you told your disciples that the one who is poor in spirit is blessed. 

Please help Donald Trump recognize his poverty of spirit apart from you. 

Please help him see that it is those who are poor in spirit, who recognize their need, that are truly blessed.

Help him to desire the kingdom of heaven and not the kingdom of this world.

I ask this in the name of Jesus, Amen.

Just my .04, adjusted for inflation.

Day 2 of prayer

Dear God,

In 1 Kings 3, you appeared to King Solomon in a dream and told him, ask me for anything and I will give it to you.

Solomon asked for wisdom.

Please give Donald Trump the heart to ask for wisdom from you.  He desperately needs it because he leads our country and what he decides will have consequences that echo down through generations.

James 1:5 says that if anyone lacks wisdom, they should ask God, who gives freely without finding fault, and it will be given to them.

Please help Donald Trump realize this verse and ask you for wisdom.

In 2 Samuel 12, the prophet Nathan came to King David and confronted him about his sin with Bathsheba.

I don't know, dear God, if Donald Trump has a Nathan in his life, one who will tell him the truth without flinching.  If Trump does not, please send him one.  If Trump has a Nathan, please give that Nathan the courage to tell Trump the truth and please give Donald Trump the heart to listen to him.

If a decision Trump has made is a good decision, and he knows it, help him not to back down in spite of any opposition.

If a decision Trump has made is a poor decision, please give him the wisdom to admit it and to say that he was wrong.

Please also give him not only one Nathan, but many Nathans who will tell him the truth.

I ask this in the name of Jesus, Amen.

Just my .04, adjusted for inflation.

Repenting of hate

On Facebook, I have a web page where I post my musings about current events.

Last Friday, I posted that I hated Donald Trump.

I was wrong.

Although it's not a sin to examine his policies and actions and point out where you think he's wrong and where you think he's making serious mistakes  . . . it is a sin to hate the man.  One can critique actions and point out sin without falling into the trap of hate.  Or, like a friend of mine said, going down the road of hate.

I'm very angry and very frustrated about certain current events, and I dislike how some are using those events to divide us further and stir up discord.  The Bible has very harsh words for people who store up discord among people.  (See Proverbs 6:19, among others.).

The Bible is also very clear that we are to love one another (John 13:34-35.). I believe that includes Donald Trump as well.  The parable of the Good Samaritan in Luke 10 follows Jesus' declaration that all the law and the prophets hang on the commands to love God and love your neighbor as yourself. When Jesus was asked, "Who is my neighbor?" Jesus responded with a story about a man who was of a group despised by the Jews that did good to a Jew.

Paul, in I Timothy 2, tells Timothy that prayers and petitions should be made for those in authority. The main person in authority at that time was the Roman emperor, a man considered Lord and, at the least, not a friend to Christians. 

So for the next 30 days, I am gonig to do just that. 

I'm going to post a prayer a day for Donald Trump. 

Would you like to join me?  If you would, I'd love your company. 

Today's prayer:

Dear God:

I was wrong when I said I hated Donald Trump.  I do not want to go down the road of hate.  I am sorry, and I ask for your forgiveness.

Today I pray for the protection of Donald Trump, his wife Melania, their son Barron, and Donald Trump's other children, Donald Jr., Ivanka, Eric, and Tiffany.  May those who seek to do them harm be stopped.  May those who protect them be alert at all times to keep them safe.  May President Trump and his family cooperate with those who protect them.  Help President Trump and his family to also be alert to those who wish to harm them without being paranoid and overly suspicious. 

I ask this in the name of Jesus.  Amen.

Just my .04, adjusted for inflation. 

The illness that may kill

I don't know when I first formulated the thought, "I want to die," but I've had that thought more often than I'd like to admit.

In fact, I had that thought a week ago this past Tuesday, on May 29th.

I felt horrible.  I went about my daily activities, dropped my son off at Bible study, and then drove down to the library down the street and wrote in my journal about how bad I felt and how tempting it was to die.  If someone were to pick up my journal and read that entry, they can be forgiven for believing that I acted on those feelings.

Obviously, I didn't act on it.  I wrote about it, then picked up Matthew and went home. 

I have an illness called depression.  I've had it for many years.  I suspect I may have had it since I was a teenager.  There's many circumstances in my life that I think brought it on; dealing with bullies, dealing with spiritual abuse, dealing with health problems, dealing with autism.  Any one of those would be enough to bring on depression; all of those are enough to overwhelm anyone.  I see a counselor regularly and I told her yesterday that given all I'm dealing with, I'm surprised I'm not more screwed up than I am. :-)  (I also take meds regularly.)

I also suspect that some of my depressive feelings may come from my hormones.  I use a hormone cream and a hormone patch and change them every Tuesday and Saturday.  The Tuesday I felt so horrible, I went home, changed the patch, used the cream, and went to bed.  The next morning, I woke up and felt much better.  I'm due for a meds check soon, and this is a question I plan to ask my GYN, about a link between depression and hormones.

Two of my reasons for living are named Matthew and Frank.  Thinking about them keeps me reasonably sane.  And I have people who would miss me if I were gone. 

I'm thinking about all of this in the wake of two celebrity suicides this week, Kate Spade and Anthony Bourdain. 

Kate Spade was a famous designer, known for handbags and other things.  Anthony Bourdain was a chef with a show on CNN who traveled the world.  People loved what they produced.  People wanted to be them.  How ironic that, apparently, Kate Spade and Anthony Bourdain didn't even want to be.
Did they have depressive illness, as I and millions of other Americans do?  And if they did, did they somehow feel that they couldn't say, "I am depressed," "I have depression"?  Did they fear that, if they expressed that feeling, they'd just hear, "Why are you depressed?  You're wealthy.  People love you.  You have everything to live for!" 

Logic and rationality don't always work on someone who has depression.  Sometimes the illness is all-consuming.  It is chronic and debilitating for millions of people.  Meds keep it at bay, coping skills keep it at bay.  But sometimes, sometimes, the meds, the coping skills, the need others have for you . . . it just may not be enough. 

Depression is a fatal illness in some cases.  It is an illness that kills.

I don't necessarily subscribe to the belief that "suicide is a sin" and that people who kill themselves automatically go to hell.  I believe God is gracious enough to understand that at times, people do do it in a moment of weakness.  People often do it when they see no way out, when the circumstances and problems just seem insurmountable.  It looks and sounds easy.  Usually, my thoughts of "I want to die" aren't "I want to die."  They are, "I want out.  Life is hard and I'm tired.  I want out."  Realizing this gives me strength to keep on going.  And writing this, I realize that those signals might also be saying, you're trying to do too much.  Take a break and cut yourself a little slack.

For those of you who are Christians, even faith isn't enough at times to keep suicide or suicidal thoughts at bay.  Nearly nine years ago, a member of our youth group killed herself.  My own preacher has shared in a few sermons about his struggle with depression.  A close friend of mine, who is also a Christian, deals with depression and is on medication for it.

(Some time back, a person on a Facebook group I'm part of asserted that faith in Christ would heal depression.  When I pointed out that I was a Christian, and I still struggled with depression and even took meds for it, I was told, "Then you're not a Christian."  For the love of all things holy, please do not do this to people.  Please.  I believe God can heal and sometimes He does do so miraculously.  But most of the time, He chooses to heal through people with medical skill and with drugs that those people know how to use properly.  People of faith already feel shamed enough by having depression in the first place.  They do not need to be shamed by other people of faith.  To the person that told me I wasn't a Christian, I said, I find it interesting that you can judge my relationship with Christ from one post.)

Today, my Facebook feed is flooded with articles on suicide, how to tell if someone might be suicidal, where to get help if you or someone you love is suicidal. 

One thing to keep in mind is that the depression that can lead to suicide is an illness, an illness that can kill, and that like any illness, it needs to be treated.  Maybe by meds, maybe by some changes in circumstances, maybe by learning some good coping skills, maybe by a combination of things. 

The Kate Spades, the Anthony Bourdains, the Tina Sewards of this world deal with this illness.  For Kate and Anthony, they've left behind the legacy of what happens when this illness kills. 

For the rest of the Kates, the Anthonys, and Tinas, let's leave behind a legacy of what can happen when we seek help. 

Just my .04, adjusted for inflation.

Rawness, passion, and terror

(This is a somewhat rewritten version of a post I originally wrote back in January.  I'm revisiting this subject because today is the 50th anniversary of Bobby Kennedy's shooting.)

This man is your man

This man is our man
From California
To the New York island
From the redwood forests
To the Gulf Stream waters
This man is Robert Kennedy.

You can hear the raw passion in their voices on this audio, recorded on the night of  June 5, 1968.  (The audio is from the Pacifica Radio Archives and is posted on David Von Pein's YouTube channel.  DVP has hundreds of hours of JFK and RFK-era video and audio posted; I recommend him highly.)

They are exuberant and idealistic.

Their man, Robert Kennedy, is ahead in the California primary, a "winner-take-all" state as far as delegates are concerned.  Later, ABC newscaster Frank Reynolds would comment, there's nothing like an election night when everything is going your way.

The audio goes from singing to the chant of, "Sock it to 'em, Bobby!"

Eight minutes and thirty-one seconds into the audio, their hero enters to an ovation of shouting and the rousing cheers of, "We want Kennedy!  We want Kennedy!"

The first person he mentions is Don Drysdale, the Los Angeles Dodgers pitcher who'd pitched his sixth straight shutout that evening; Kennedy hoped they'd have as good fortune in their campaign.

He ran through a list of people he wanted to thank, including his dog, Freckles . . . and right afterwards -- after explaining that it wasn't in order of important -- his wife, Ethel.

At one point, while thanking the people who worked on the campaign, a young woman's voice yells back, "It was worth it!"

Tapping into the frustration people felt over rising violence and the war in Vietnam, he stressed that people wanted a change.  (Forty years later, another candidate would tap into similar frustration within the United States.)  

He finished his speech declaring that yes, Americans could work together; that we were a great country, an unselfish country, a compassionate country.

The speech ends with the triumphant words, "and now it's on to Chicago and let's win there."  Then, with a thumbs-up to the crowd and a flash of the two-fingered peace sign, he turns away from the podium while the crowd chants, "We want Bobby!"

Less than five minutes later, the screaming starts.

It's not the ovation the crowd gave a victorious candidate.  Rather, it's the screams of terror, panic, and confusion.

A second audio recording, of Andrew West from the Mutual Broadcasting System, also captures the moment:  "Senator Kennedy has been shot, is that possible?" "He still has the gun, the gun is pointed at me right at this moment," "Get the gun, Rafer . . . get his thumb, break it if you have to!"

And of the video coverage from the three major networks, perhaps two clips best illustrate the raw confusion:  1.  A bewildered Terry Drinkwater, CBS reporter, trying to figure out what had just happened (around 15:31 on the clip), and 2. the NBC coverage, about 40 seconds into the tape, showing one of Sirhan Sirhan's shooting victims being carried out of the Ambassador Hotel kitchen.  The NBC reporter speaking insists -- incorrectly -- that Stephen Smith, Robert Kennedy's brother-in-law, had also been shot.

In the first 24 minutes of the CBS video, there were no fewer than 28 pleas for a doctor and no fewer than 36 pleas, requests, and orders to "please clear the room", leave the room, or variations thereof.

These were the moments when panic took over, when terror took over and the raw jubilation of only a few minutes ago turned with fierce suddenness to raw fear.

John Kennedy's assassination also showed how quickly events can turn.  He'd received a warm welcome in Dallas, Texas only to be gunned down by an assassin who took six seconds to fire three shots.  (Oswald acted alone.  Deal with it.)  We saw the panic and terror of the crowds only after the film was developed; we heard the confusion as technicians in master control frantically flipped switches and yelled instructions into headsets offstage.

Five years later, broadcast technology developed to the point where we could see the raw panic, terror and confusion the moment it started happening.

This is life, at it rawest, unedited and unscripted, but captured on film and on audio.

And while the men in the anchor chairs -- Walter Cronkite, Frank Reynolds, Howard K. Smith, Frank McGee, and others -- may have been more polished in their delivery, you can catch their controlled, barely suppressed anger over the event; specifically, the failure of the Congress to pass gun control.

Twenty-six hours later, at 1:44 a.m., Pacific Daylight Time, Robert F. Kennedy died.  About 15 minutes later, his press secretary, Frank Mankiewicz, stepped up to a microphone and made the terse announcement of Kennedy's death.

Perhaps this was the moment that hope in our political system really began to fray, wither, and die. 

Jack Newfield, in his 1969 book Robert Kennedy: A Memoir, ends his book with these words:

Now I realized what makes our generation unique, what defines us apart from those who came before the hopeful winter of 1961, and those who came after the murderous spring of 1968.  We are the first generation that learned from experience, in our innocent twenties, that things were not really getting better, that we shall not overcome.  We felt, by the time we reached thirty, that we had already glimpsed the most compassionate leaders our nation could produce, and they had all been assassinated.  And from this time forward, things would get worse:  our best political leaders were part of memory now, not hope.  

The stone was at the bottom of the hill and we were alone.

Fifty years later, how much has really changed?  Has the raw passion and terror heard and seen that night in the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles morphed into a fatalistic depression about the future?

When Henry Jackson, U.S. Senator from Washington (who later ran for President in 1976), learned of Kennedy's shooting, stated, "The world has gone mad."

The world went mad in the early morning of June 5, 1968, there in the kitchen of the Ambassador Hotel, and fifty years later -- fifty years of violence, of mass shootings, of the murder of school children, fifty years of anger and hate later -- we have yet to regain any semblance of sanity.

Just my .04, adjusted for inflation.

Lather, rinse, repeat.

The pattern is all too common.

School shooting happens.
We react with shock and horror.
We see the news footage.
We send #thoughtsandprayers.
We debate about the shooter's motives, his (and it is always a he) parents, his friends, was he bullied, was he mentally ill?
We hear the reports of 4chan and InfoWars, "false flag," "crisis actors", "hoax".
And always, always, always, there is the debate about gun control.
And nothing changes.
Until the next shooting.

Lather, rinse, repeat.

Max Lucado, pastor and writer, says in this article that "this evil will not last forever".  He means to be comforting and reassuring here, and he is right in that there will be a judgment and that no, evil will not last forever . . . but to be honest, that is not much comfort to the ten families who right now have to decide on a casket or an urn to bury their child in.  Nor is it much comfort to me, because while evil could end in the next 40 seconds, it could also take 40 years or 400 years to end.  In the meantime, I still have to pay the mortgage and put food on the table.

Lather, rinse, repeat.

I also despair of finding reliable sources to determine the truth or fiction about anything anymore.  I have been told that I need to "do my own research" which, on the face, is true, but too often, the words "do your own research" means either, "if you do, you'll agree with me; if you don't agree with me, you didn't do your research," or, "I don't have any proof for what I so confidently assert.  Don't confuse me with the facts."

Lather, rinse, repeat.

CNN states that, on average, there has been one school shooting a week so far in 2018.  That all depends on how you define "school shooting".  (For example, a shooting in Seaside, California happened when a gun was accidentally discharged during a safety demonstration and a student was injured.)  But even one is too many, and there has definitely been more than one this year so far.

Lather, rinse, repeat.

I had a social media meltdown yesterday after hearing of the shooting at Santa Fe High School.  It wasn't my first meltdown and it probably will not be my last.

It's been 19 years since Columbine, 21 years since Pearl, Mississippi, 20 years since Jonesboro, Arkansas . . . and NOTHING has changed.  NOTHING, except people are angrier.

All of our thoughts, prayers, marches, and advocacy has changed NOTHING.

Lather, rinse, repeat.

How many more people -- how many more children, parents, teachers, law enforcement personnel -- how many more people have to die before we DO SOMETHING???

Or will nothing be done, just like a FB friend expressed last night in despair?

We're three weeks away from the 50th anniversary of the death of Bobby Kennedy, who was also murdered with a gun.  His brother was murdered with a rifle.  In the TV coverage of Bobby Kennedy's murder, both Walter Cronkite and Howard K. Smith commented about the gun control bill that was in Congress at that point. 

What has changed in 50 years?

What has changed in 20 years?

Nothing.

Lather, rinse, repeat.

Just my .04, adjusted for inflation.

Mother's Day, twenty years apart

Twenty years ago on Mother's Day, I sat in a church balcony and cried. 

I wanted to be a mother, and I was having problems conceiving.  Earlier that month, I'd taken Clomid in an attempt to help me have a baby.  (One of the side effects was night sweats.)

About three weeks later, I took a pregnancy test and it came up positive.

This Mother's Day, I came to church and found a bouquet of flowers displayed in honor of members' mothers who'd died in the last year.  One of the names mentioned was, "Thelma Sergent, mother of Tina Seward." 

A church member came up to me and said that the first Mother's Day without your mother was always the hardest.  I appreciated her kindness. 

It's interesting how many emotions Mother's Day stirs up.  In the days leading up to Mother's Day, I've seen several reminders about how not everyone remembers their mother fondly.  About how many women want to be mothers but aren't.  About those mothers who have lost children. 

And then, there is the greeting card, gift, and flower industry, ready to shower you with guilt about what you should be doing for your mother on Mother's Day!  I believe Mother's Day is second only to Valentine's Day in terms of flowers delivered, and this week.com article says that in terms of money spent, Mother's Day is third after Christmas and Valentine's Day.

This Mother's Day, I told my husband that all I wanted was chocolate and the day off.  I bought my own chocolate and while I did make lunch for everyone (grilled cheese), I've spent the day relaxing. And my sister and I remembered our own mother.

Twenty years of Mother's Days have run the gamut from crying over what I didn't have to feeling the loss of what I don't have now.  It's part of the circle of life. 

Just my .04, adjusted for inflation.