"Woe to you, bishops, hypocrites!"

 

Today's Los Angeles Times

Whoa, those Catholic bishops are threatening to excommunicate president-elect Joe Biden!

https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2020-11-23/joe-biden-conference-of-catholic-bishops-jose-gomez-abortion-rights-holy-communion

Thank you, Fr. Randall Balmer, for calling this hypocrisy to our attention in today's LA Times.

The bishops were thrilled with Trump's win in 2016, and this year Jose Gomez, Archbishop of the US, congratulated Biden immediately as did Pope Francis. 

But then Archbishop Gomez needed to attend the US Conference of Catholic Bishops, where his rank and file were grumbling about Biden's support of US law that women can have access to abortion--a law confirmed by the Supreme Court.  

Apparently these bishops don't believe in the Constitution, which declares a separation between church and state.  It's not okay for a Catholic president to uphold the law of the land if that law conflicts with church laws.

The archbishop "declared that the president-elect’s support for abortion rights presents the church with a 'difficult and complex situation,'" writes Balmer.

So difficult a situation that the bishops need a task force to reflect on what to do.  Or at least Gomez deflected these perturbed priests into a task force, a place familiar as the graveyard of much righteous anger.

Did they set up a task force on anything Trump believed or did?  

His paying a woman to keep silent or separating mothers from babies at the US border didn't need a task force.  

I guess they figured Trump wasn't Catholic, so he wasn't their problem.  But they stayed on good terms with him--he was helping them out with judges appointed to the Supreme Court.

What would Jesus do?  What would he say to bishops who rarely excommunicate their own priests who abuse children--but get high and mighty about this new president?

We need look no farther than Matthew 23:27--

 “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you are like whitewashed tombs, which outwardly appear beautiful, but within are full of dead people's bones and all uncleanness."

Medicine for anyone lost in grief...

 

How to read this book:

Go to bed and pull up the covers.

Read the poems aloud, irreverently, flat, just skimming until one catches your heart.

Have a colored pen ready to star it for future reading.

And read on.  Take a nap if you need to.

Most of us don’t read a whole book of poetry these days.  It’s a lost art.  It’s like eating a whole jar of olives. 

Occasionally there’s a page of prose from someone’s memoir.  Herself a writer of memoir, Barbara Abercrombie bypasses 200 pages to give you the one golden page.

This book is for anyone with a loss.  If, like me, you don’t have a “love of my life,” skip the sappy readings about lovers and find those that probe the mystery of death: “Where are you now?  …What are you now?  Air?  Mist?  Dust?  Light?” asks Dorianne Laux.

Anyone who has lost a child to death or drugs, perhaps a parent to accident or Alzheimer’s or Covid-19, will tear up at a few points in this book.  One feels less alone surrounded by these open hearts, from Mark Doty to Madeleine L’Engle to Joy Harjo to Rumi and of course Mary Oliver.

Order two copies--give one to a friend.

The Day We Defeated a Dictator

 

This little bear from 2016 wanted to dance too when Dems won today in 2020.   It's been a long four years.

Miss you, Hillary Rodham Clinton! If you had won in 2016, Heather Heier (d. Charlottesville, Aug. 12, 2017) and 250,000 other Americans would still be alive. 

President Hillary R. Clinton would have taken proper steps to stop Covid-19 before it spread so widely in the US.

Van Jones expresses the grief and fear so many Americans have been feeling for four years.

These photos were all taken on Saturday, November 7, 2020, the day Americans defeated the man who succeeded in intimidating so many people from immigrant families to US senators.

8:26 am - Pennsylvania declared that Joe Biden was the winner of that state's electoral votes, bringing Biden's total from 264 to 284 in the Electoral College.

News organizations began making the call so long postponed: "Joe Biden is our President-Elect."

I rushed outside to ring bells and wave the flag that had been flying near my front door.

Shannon and Michael across the street came out to celebrate.

The neighbor kids next door had been walking their dog with their mother, but soon they emerged in red, white and blue to dance and cheer.

They reported that other houses on nearby blocks had also become centers of mini-block parties.

I began calling family and friends, waking many of them up.

Then I went for a jog on the beach, but tremendous winds had attacked the summer's accumulation of sand and created 9 foot cliffs on Santa Monica's wide flat beach.

The colors red, white, and blue were everywhere.

As the sun started to dip beneath the horizon, I walked the dogs while waving a flag 

and wearing a hat that said "Make Tacos Great Again."

I heard honking from major streets, and a few cars began honking when they saw me and the dogs with a flag.  I guess we were a parade.  

A red convertible drove by honking with women waving and holding signs: 

"Ciao, Cheeto" and  "8 years."

Spontaneous celebration broke out everywhere, from my neighborhood 

to West Hollywood 

to Times Square in New York City 

to Independence Hall in Philadelphia.

In London, fireworks lit the sky.

In Paris, cathedral bells rang.  

President Emmanuel Macron said,

"Welcome back, America!"

Stephen Colbert preaches it, abandons monologue

Thank you, Stephen Colbert, for calling on Republican senators and other Republicans to demand that Trump:

accept the voice of the people, 

concede that Biden won the election, and 

set in motion a peaceful transition.

"Qui tacet, consentire," he quotes.

Whoever is silent, that person consents.

This weird feeling

Red, white, and blue... and pride.

I fly the flag on Election Day--or all week if I feel like it. 

Not on the Fourth of July. I don't really like bombs bursting in air, especially if the US is dropping bombs on some country somewhere.

I glanced at my flag as I walked out of the house this afternoon and felt this weird feeling. Pride? 

Yes, I realized with amazement.  I feel proud to be an American.

For all our flaws, still we defeated fascism.

Now all we have to do is tackle COVID-19. 

And racism. Oh, and the environment. And...

May take a few years. 

The Saints We Have Lost...

Day of the Dead masks worn
by two Herchurch members today.

Today is All Saints' Day, November 1, the day we honor those who have died in the Christian community.  (See note below.)

Pastor Stacy Boorn preached on "the Day of the Dead," remembering the 230,000 people who have succumbed to Covid-19 and also sharing a story from her visit to the Kigali Genocide Memorial in Rwanda.  In 1994 some 400,000 Tutsi--or even as many as 800,000 were killed there.  She met a gardener at the memorial who had lost family members and was memorizing the names of many of the victims to honor them.

Pastor Stacy leads Herchurch, a congregation in San Francisco, which is part of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America (ELCA).  These days the church gathers via Zoom, so I am able to participate in southern California.

Afterward she led us in responsive reading of a poem written by Rabbi Jack Riemer and Rabbi Sylvan Kamens published in Gates of Prayer (Shaarei Tefila): The New Union Prayer Book (Reform Judaism).

We Remember Them

In the rising of the sun and in its going down, 

We remember them;

In the blowing of the wind and in the chill of winter, 

We remember them;

In the opening of the buds and in the warmth of summer, 

We remember them;

In the rustling of leaves and the beauty of autumn, 

We remember them;

In the beginning of the year and when it ends, 

We remember them;

When we are weary and in need of strength, 

We remember them;

When we are lost and sick of heart, 

We remember them;

When we have joys we yearn to share, 

We remember them;

So long as we live, they too shall live, For they are now a part of us, 

As we remember them.    

— From Gates of Prayer

Pastor Stacy's congregation recited the refrain "We remember them."

She invited us to remember the persons in our lives who died in 2020.

The persons I'm remembering include:

Karen Gustafson, my cousin's wife, who suffered isolation in a SNF during the Covid shutdown;

Jack Pera, son of my mother's cousin;

Ron Pera, brother of Jack;

Santos Aguayo, my friend and gardener;

Berta Hernandez Torres, my friend in following Jesus, who died of Covid-19;

Virginia Ramey Mollenkott, my friend and author of 13 books;

Sue Horner, my friend in EEWC-Christian Feminism Today.

I'm also remembering people I never met:

George Floyd,

Breonna Taylor,

Brittany Bruner-Ringo, a nurse who contracted Covid-19 in her Assisted Living center;

Celia Marcos, a Covid-19 nurse in Los Angeles;

Li Wengliang and five other doctors of Wuhan Central Hospital, who died of Covid-19.

On this day for remembering our departed, I say to them: "So long as we live, you too shall live, for you are now a part of us, as we remember you."

_________________________

Note:  In the Bible, all followers of Jesus are called "the saints" (sanctified ones), but in Catholic tradition, there are two groups of departed: 1) specially designated saints, to whom we might pray for help and 2) all the other departed ones, some of whom might be in Purgatory.  The "other departed" get remembered or even prayed for on Nov. 2, All Souls Day, the day after All Hallows' Day.  Some Protestants ignore both of these days because those who are departed don't need our prayers (they are already in the presence of God) and we can address our petitions directly to God.  These churches allow people to honor the departed, however, by popular demand.