Update Inaguration 2021: A Young Bright Woman of Light The Future of America
***
1 John 2:15
"Do not love the world or anything in the world. Love for the Father is not in them."
***
I am writing to all my friends. The politics of this world has divided us. I am a friend that can no longer be blind to the choices made by some to follow conspiracies that are not about love for others our neighbors. You have chosen to " be in this world" instead of "of this world". A world full of conspiracies only provides the "glasses" that see conspiracies everywhere in our elections, our congress, our opposition leaders, fake news reporting, and ignorance of our Constitution.
***
Romans 12:2
"Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, then you will be able to test and approve what God's will is. His good, pleasing and perfect will."
***
Our country was founded by people wanting democracy to be tempered by spiritual values of justice , equality and liberty for all.
A mob of rioters, intent on harm and destruction came to the Capital to express only their extreme minority views of
"STOP THE STEAL"
They believe not in our democratic process with verified and audited elections or the Constitution. They are filled with anger, and only a love for a country THEY want, that THEY no longer SEE in the faces of many citizens of America. The mob was clearly predominantly WHITE. [Whites will be in the minority by 2050.]
It is our responsibility to pursue the truth and make choices that reflect LOVE not hate for others in any form or venue. We do not have the right to create the truth we want or prefer and then choose the ones we want to believe. It is AMERICAN to love the ideals of "Justice and liberty for all" and to be able to "pursue happiness." These are the spectacles I wear when in the world of politics.
I can understand the 2021 election disappointment when the 2016 election results did not reflect my values or even my candidate. Many friends were so disillusioned they curled up into a ball and withdrew from participation in life. They did not look to others for a conspiricie or riot before the Capital. Even when the antiquated electoral college did not reflect the popular vote win by the opposing candidate.. Approval by the electoral college winner Trump did bring to mind how I remember his outrage of Obamas win in 2012 with the electoral college , and said it was in need of reform.
"The electoral college is a disaster for democracy... a total sham and a travesty..Donald Trump 2012
I would rather see ..simple votes....Trump "60 minutes 'November 2016
1+1=2, not 3, we don't get to choose 2 or 3, what we believe has no bearing on the truth, it just is.
Our responsibility is to search and pursue the truth regardless of what I or others want to believe.
" The receptivity of the masses is very limited, their intelligence is small, but their power of forgetting is enormous. In consequence of these facts, all effective propaganda must be limited to a very few points and must harp on these in slogans until the last member of the public understands what you want him/her to understand by your slogan. .........The great masses of people will more easily fall victim to a big lie than to a small one." [ Qanon is an example of a "Big Lie", " how could it not be true? It is so evil that pedophile democrats [ not republicans?] rule our country and harm children. Who wants to NOT be for the protection of children.]
Mein Kamph by Hitler
"WE won by a landslide....THEY stole the election.....We must fight....I will walk with you.....I love you, you are special.....
HIS TRUTH, THE TRUTH?
I would like everyone to note there were no riots prior to the January 2017 inauguration of Trump. Obama was cordial during the transition. We who lost accepted our democratic election results. Even though the popular vote elected Clinton and previously Gore in 2000. I as an 'independent" have voted for the person, not the party. [ Independents are a third of registered voters and growing in numbers each election. Independents make up to 50% of the tallied Democratic and Republican voters. This results in half or more not being Republican or Democrats...We are 50,000 plus strong and not included in many surveys]
***
This cartoon is an homage to the American Revolution that created this flag. I saw how it can speak for us all in this political climate by adding the capital building being embraced by the snake. It stands for the building itself, the democracy it represents, and also the rioters that feel their America is slipping away. Including the first and second amendments being threatened and a "way of life" being lost. Their vision is in the right, as evidenced and confirmed by the phrase "Make America Great Again"..an America of white Christian faces, unenforced constitutional equality, vigilante just-us, to carry guns for killing openly, and ......? WE have the right to vote and elect representatives and protest peacefully if not being heard., yet clearly our nation is moving ahead of our past filled with bias, discrimination and only the dreams of the wealthy.
The America I can support is one that People the world over responded to after Jan 6. The top democratic nations were broken-hearted by the actions of a few to commit crimes in the name of "Democracy". There were three non-democratic countries that responded with jokes and celebration in the events unfolding from Jan 6. Iran, China, and Russia. This should say very clearly about the TRUTH of these events...Where do you stand about this event?.. Democracy is inclusive of all equally ......I am for the freedom of speech I have to speak my mind and heart as I do today. My dearest friend, a 10 year immigrant from Russia, has been disheartened by these events. She has lived under authoritarian leaders most of her life and can see all too familiar behaviors by some in this country...She did not have a voice to speak up for human rights as we do here. The first amendment does not include incitement to attack the democracy that gives us the freedom to express ourselves politically or spiritually.
My slogan is to "Make America the Best It Can Be" To be a country of inclusion, tolerance, equality, justice for every color of our country's' citizens.
What has love got to do with this event?
It was a selfish love and mislead passion that has been fueled by untruths, fears, hatreds, loss of a lifestyle. and more.
WITH LOVE WILL COME A DESIRE TO FIND A PEACEFUL PATH IN OUR COUNTRY' TO GUIDE US ALL
MAKE AMERICA PEACEFUL AGAIN.
A country dedicated to evolving in a changing world, where we include all who live on this land. Where WE pursue a greater purpose, a higher intention to have opportunities for every citizen, every child of God to be safe, secure, and proud to be involved in making this happen....this is when America and my faith come together.
A three-day harvest in Plymouth was held in the fall. It would take some natives 2 days to walk to the festivities. This is the story told to me in our elementary school textbooks. It tells of natives and colonists sitting down peacefully for a meal of thankfulness for the season's bounty.
This event was followed by attacks, killings of hundreds of natives, and colonists as an expansion upon native lands increased. for decades and eventually, for centuries, killings, genocide, continued until land confined reservations were mandatory for the "first Americans".
Abraham Lincoln designated an official Thanksgiving Holiday in the fall of 1867. It was to celebrate the end of the civil war and all our nation could be thankful for.
***
The native Americans in this country consider this holiday a "Memorial Day" for the many who fought and lost their lives to save their land and the freedom to live on their chosen ancestral lands. this sounds very much the same as our Memorial Day ceremonies all across the nation in May of each year.
How each family celebrates this holiday can be very similar, a turkey, pies, cranberries, and each culture with added treats. My family is chosen and is whoever lives nearby.
Thanksgiving for apartment neighbors 2019 in Port Angeles.
Expanded this year to neighbors on the streets of my neighborhood 2020
"Doc and Bunny my partners in serving our neighbors"
***
This year in a pandemic we are asked to not travel as 60% of citizens usually do to be with family. This year there was only a 20% reduction in travel. We will see the cost for these holiday reunions in the next month to come in total new cases and sadly the new family deaths. Family members that will not attend the 2021 holiday. How can I see the blessings amongst my friends and families when gratefulness is so needed?
***
" I wanna know, have you ever seen the rain.
I wanna know have you ever seen the rain,
comin' down on a sunny day'?
This song by Creedence Clearwater "struck a chord" in me when I wanted to understand why this holiday was so different for me this year. It is easy to point to the pandemic as the source of so much disruption in our routines, traditions, or life as we demand and long for it to be.
This world is now full of frequent storms, fires, and natural disasters. These disasters have come on the eve of this holiday too. Many have no home or family injured or dead. I see nature teaching me, as God wants me to understand and experience, I am not the master of my world. I am the caretaker of this world given to me to enjoy, not destroy. I am grateful for all those that continue to strive for climate change solutions. for the generations to come.
" Someone told me long ago
there's a calm before the storm
I know its been coming for some time
When it's over, so they say
It'll rain a sunny day
I know shining down like water"
***
So, what has love got to do with it?
***
Can I find a way to be grateful, thankful for the rain? Yes, when I know the sun will come up again and even in the sky, both can be seen together as the song says, "shining down like water". A grateful thankful heart comes from love. Can I find a way to be thankful this year, when the rain is relentlessly falling all around me.? I have lost one friend, 92 years old, Adele, to this virus. She was one of the first to die in a nursing home in my state of Washington. The sunny bright spot for me is that I was fortunate to meet her and know some of her stories. Hers was a long life.. Our common friend and my brother, Jerry, 88, is still going strong as ever though many miles from my home.
Jerry as a world traveler
I have the thought that this chaos may actually be a calm before the next storm in my country.. Hunger [ 1 in 6 families 60 million], political divisions, racial equality demands with unrest, and economic inequality [ more trillionaires being created] are festering like an old wound being scratched and reinjured and bleeding again.
Our President-Elect Biden in his Thanksgiving address to the nation on November 25th pleaded that we bring "LOVE" to the political arena... To come together and heal and see the opposition. in our partisan politics, and find our common values moving forward. This is a sunny day to hear these words from our newly yet contested winner. Now it will be each American to follow through [ or not ] and work for the changes needed to slow this coming, [, already here? ] STORM.
"Yesterday and days before
Sun is cold and rain is hard
I know been that way
for all my time
til forever, on it goes."
In this country we live with motos of "The American Dream", " And Equal Justice for All,", " Right to Pursue Happiness", and religious freedom. These can be understood as a luminous sun on the horizon, yet felt by many here as only a dawning reality. The struggles many citizens have in the USA can be felt as a rainy drizzle or a torrent and flooding storm based on their skin color..
My faith has been my guiding light in these dark days. Masks, distancing, and finding ways I can reach out to others at the same time. My blog is one of the ways technology has opened some "lockdown" doors. I look more to music and reading the WORD to find my way. Sometimes it feels like I can find the "light switch " for comfort from my fears and stressful moments. On the pages of the Bible, or in a songs' lyrics, or a smile on a stranger's face or a friendly text or the wagging of a pet's tail.....
Matthew 11:28-30
"Come to me all you who are weary and burdened,
I will give you rest.
Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, For I am gentle and humble of heart, and
[ I have only a couple of poems I have written. Yet I know from where they come from. An experience and a feeling I want to share. It begins in the heart, moves to words, then the words can recreate the experience and hopefully the heart of the poet. Painting is sometimes referred to as a colorful poem. These I have to many to count. Often the response to my painting is "I feel happy when I look at it!" As a person with many long bouts of depression in my life, I was amazed to know my true heart was being seen and felt.}
As you can see I chose a song for the title of my blog.
What has love got to do, got to do with it?
What's love but a second-hand emotion.......
Who needs a heart, when a heart can be broken.
There are so many events in my life where I had wished I could hurt less. There has been so much loss in my life and I reacted in unhealthy ways..definitely avoiding feeling at all.
My first lesson in life about coping with loss was to learn how to feel again. Avoidance of my emotions has fueled the addiction I have spent many years in recovery of.
In this time of isolation, I have listened to more music in my studio as I paint. I have discovered several songs that with a few word changes, have been about my relationship with God. I have found joy in creating "hymn-like" songs for me to sing to myself. The song I first noticed was "You are the Reason". the following is my revised lyrics.
Audio melody only
Lord, You Are The Reason
******
There goes my heart beating cause you are the reason.
I am losing my sleep, pray come back now.
There goes my mind racing and
You are the reason, Lord.
That I am still breathing, I am hopeful now.
I'd climb every mountain and swim every ocean
just to be near you and fix what I have broken.
Oh. you want me to see Lord that you are the reason.
There goes my hands shaking. Lord,
and you are the reason.
My heart keeps bleeding, I need you to know now, oh Lord.
You have turned back the clock
made sure the light defeated the dark.
I will spend every hour of every day knowing I am safe.
I don't want to cry no more
I don't want to hide no more
I don't want to fear no more
come closer now.
Lord, you have climbed every mountain and crossed every ocean.
Just to be with me, to forgive where I am broken.
Oh, cause you want me to see, that I am the reason.
So, I promise to climb every mountain and cross every river.
Just to stay with you and to be forgiven
Cause, you want me to know
Lord, that LOVE is the reason.
Thanks for reading my posts and helping me to feel connected with my friends, my loved ones.
Jesus was asked which is the great commandment in the law? He answered with the one and only laws of Love. To love God , the Creator, and all others as The Lord loves us. All are Gods son's and daughter's, creatures and plants of this garden called Earth.
HEART
First mentioned is the heart. We best understand that Love is an emotion, yet I have many emotions that contain love. Joy, kindness, gentleness, meekness, courage and trust and are all forms of Love and mentioned in the Bible. Fear is also mentioned in the phrase "God fearing'...Proverbs 9:10 exclaims; "The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, and the knowledge of the Holy One is insight." I am understanding from my own life, that all my emotions were given to me to experience. "With all my heart" means all emotions are to be expressed in order to fully give my love to God. So when I am in fear and the emotions of anger, anxiety, depression and frustration arise, this becomes my opportunity to go to God and ask for guidance, for Rest and for Peace. My Creator wants all of me.
SOUL
My soul..it is described usually that we HAVE One. I looked to hebrew for the origins of this word. It was enlightening to find the word for soul is "nefesh". meaning throat and wind, two definitions. Further commentaries reminded me that in Genesis 2:7, "God breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and man became a living soul." Therefor man/woman IS a SOUL. So through the "throat" and "wind" comes a living being. With this image I can see how the trees are my partners. The soul, my breath is one with them. Also as a child in the womb breathes through the mother until that first "gasp of life" brings her soulful being into this world. I have concluded to "love God with all my soul" means with every breath of every minute and each day to be ever so grateful for a new one.
POWER
Next I will point to Proverbs 18:10. "Do not grieve for the joy of the Lord is your strength." Hebrew for strength is koach. Meaning comes from an unused root, to be "firm". My first thought is to have the resolve to not bend away from my relationship with God. To trust in my journey and know God's will is far greater than my own.
MIND
Last is , "from all my mind " and I am not sure I can love God from all my mind on my own. My mental health has affected by a traumatic life as a child and further events as an adult. The result is a mind that has been broken. Therefor my ability to make decisions in my life has been challenging at the least. At my best I have been able to follow my own journey home with help through therapy, meditation, and ultimately knowing who I am. I am not only my mind. My long boughts of depression kept me in the past, full of anger, shame and guilt. Anxiety and panic attacks came from the worry and fears over the future and even if I had one. After my baptism on August 5, 2017, I have come to a place of forgiveness that has shown me how to release the past, have it be complete as it is. My future is promised to me as an inheritance. I will be guided home. Peace and Rest are available to me now. When I accept my mind with all its potential for fear, I give it fully to Him and all is well.
Love thy Neighbor
This commandment is like a mirror of the first or even as a coin has two sides. Both are about love in our relationships, with God and others. My first response to hearing these commandments was, "How can I love this much, I am not able to do this! I struggle everyday just to love myself". So my conclusion is to realize I am struggling to love at all, GOD or others. My prayers are about Gods grace. I have a clue as too how much God loves me and how I can love others, when I surrender to His grace. Only then my eyes are open and my heart knows. Love comes from Emanuel, "god with us". Every page of His Word has Love in every line.
"I am .. I am God...I am in relationship with you...I am love."
As August first approaches, the "Stay at home, be safe" mandate from Gov. Inslee is relaxing a bit...with reopening in some areas causing spikes in cases and deaths, not unlike other areas in our country. The US holds the highest numbers for cases and deaths in the world. [25% of deaths worldwide and USA only 5% of worlds population].
I live in a small coastal tourist town on the northern coast of the Olympic Peninsula. As summer arrived with warmer weather, there is an ongoing influx of non-resident visitors filling the main street of town where I live in an apartment. A strong avoidance of social distancing and mask wearing is evident in only 50% or more of people on the streets below my second floor window.
Being a high-risk target for the virus, I wanted to return to a southern Puget Sound island, only 5 by 6 miles in size..not even one stoplight! A small full-time population and ferry access only.
My goal was to be "safer". Both fear and a desire to "thrive" were my main two motivations..Fear of isolation far from my friends in distance and wanting to thrive with a beautiful wooded landscape and gardening to fill my hours..
As my plans slowly dismantled , one by one, my heart searched for an answer to..
"What has love got to do with it?"
When the fear of living in this chaotic world with a pandemic , note being led by my own country, I made a promise to find and express LOVE for GOD, myself and others.
My answer came quickly and the source was clear.
"I long to dwell in your tent forever and take refuge in the shelter of your wings" Psalm 61:4. .. " nor the pestilence that stalks the darkness..a thousand may fall at your side.( Death toll currently averages 1000 a day in US)..nor the plague that destroys at midday"..Psalm 91 6-7.
God's gift of deliverence is not a vaccine looming in the distant future against my own and others physical pain and possible death.
I have chosen with some courage to be present each day and open each day as a gift from God.. " I am leaving you with a gift, peace of mind and heart. And the peace I give you is a gift the world cannot give so don't be troubled or afraid." John 14:27
And at the end of each day in the evening.."In peace I will lie down and sleep for you alone, O Lord, will keep me safe.." Psalm 4:8
His promise, "Be still and know I am God" , Psalm 46:10 , keeps returning to my mind and heart and what follows is "Joy". Fear has no strength in the face of Love. This lamb's face is full of joy as she was carried in the right hand of the attentive Shepherd, shielded by the Lord's wing forming in the sky overhead. Only the emotions of Love and joy in this world stamp out my covid-19 fears .
As God's word washes over me, like a rolling ocean wave, I will walk through each day as my true heart is slowly revealed by God's grace...
My dear friend Molly Walton drew her last breath on December 14, 2019. A long-awaited day after her diagnosis in early 2013 of terminal breast cancer. Ours was a roller coaster of a ride relationship with her hoarding lifestyle and my restless nomadic search for a home to settle down. Molly lost contact and the affection of a teenage daughter in divorce many years before and this trauma led to an empty heart and home. She proceeded to fill every square inch of it for the following years with all she touched and collected. The empty house, like her heart, was being filled up and each item cherished. My story was the loss of my home of 15 years in Vermont in the housing crisis of 2009. Ten years and seven moves later, with two homeless periods, while waiting for housing to open up , I was always in transition.
She gave her love to me with time during phone calls, any hour and place. She gave me a sense of continuity....of being loved by someone no matter where I lived....a wonderful gift. I absorbed any items I could of her "collectibles" to give her some peace around the slow liquidation process being imposed by her family. Most items I would not be able to use but would pass on and even throw away. One of my moves took me to another state and I would come to visit and need to stay overnight. I was the only person I knew of that Molly let stay at her place or would want to. She would clear a place for me to walk, to an area of boxes covering a stool,so I could sit down. Then a chair and ottoman were uncovered, so I could make a bed for the night in the living room. It was filled halfway to the ceiling at times with boxes she was going through. As an artist, I kept encouraging her to make art with me. She kept dreaming of art projects she wanted to finish. In all the years I knew her, we spent only two hours painting together.
Cancer for Molly was a blessing. I know, how can this be? Blessings are love in action. It brought her daughter back into her life. Molly became full of courage, of heart, to contact her and bring the news and reach out.. to love again. Time was short now. In the seven years that followed two grandchildren were born. First a daughter, next to a son. As the daughter turned five she was identical to Molly at the same age. Molly's life was fulfilled as it should be. Seeing herself live on in the image of a beautiful granddaughter.
Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted. Mathew 5:4
My last visit with her was in the home caring for her in her last days. I was in turmoil over the failure on my part to have a residence for her to come to in these last two weeks. This had been our plan. I had recently lost a house that was suitable and moved to a small apartment in another town. As a trained hospice caregiver I wanted to "walk her home". When I arrived after a four-hour drive, she was conscious but not aware it was me in the room. I was broken-hearted by the lack of care she was receiving. The room was cold, windows open, Furniture pushed up to her bed so she would not fall out. I could only reach her feet and sit in the doorway I prayed for us both to be at peace and asked that Jesus take her hand and walk her home for me. Then the only way I can explain or express it is a feeling of peace and then LOVE filled the room. The next thing that happened was my photo, Molly kept on the window sill flew across the room towards her bed. There was only what Molly and I were to each other. A blessing.
