Protect democracy

 When voter turnout is low, disproportionately organized & capitalized movements win even when their views are not in the majority or when their agenda is destructive. Democracy is fragile & must be protected, & that's done by every eligible voter casting a vote, for every office, in every election.

Vote.org

Litany of Pride and Healing

For Sunshine Cathedral and spiritual communities that refuse to put conditions and limits on divine love,

Welcoming Grace - HEAR OUR PRAYER

 

For an informed, compassionate, and responsible electorate,

Spirit of Cooperation - HEAR OUR PRAYER

 

For those who have died from homophobic or transphobic violence, and those who mourn, and those who fear they could be next,

Spirit of Indomitable Hope - HEAR OUR PRAYER

 

For those whose governments and religious traditions condemn them, sometimes to literal death, and who experience hell on earth as well as threats of perdition beyond,

Spirit of Compassion - HEAR OUR PRAYER

 

For those who died from AIDS, and those who live with HIV but dare not take their health for granted,

Spirit of Life - HEAR OUR PRAYER

 

For those who know the joy of LGBTQ+ pride, and for those whose hearts cry out, “maybe next year,”

God of the Eternal Now - HEAR OUR PRAYER.

 

Queer Saints in heaven and earth, pray for us, pray with us.

 

AMEN.

--Litany prayed at Sunshine Cathedral on June 30, 2024

The Strange Mixture of Anxiety and Hope

I’m worried. I’m worried about Christian Nationalism, which is really white nationalism, it has nothing to do with jesus.

 

I’m worried about rights being rolled back. The right to support gay and trans kids, the right to talk about LGBTQ families in public spaces, a woman’s right to bodily autonomy, the right to vote,

 

the right to learn history as it occurred even if some of it is ugly, the right to hold even the most powerful accountable for their abuse of power…

 

I’m worried for those who have known discrimination and who are being told they will know more of it if certain agendas are enforced.

 

I’m worried, but not hopeless. Because for now, we can vote. We still have a say in how our future will unfold.

 

Democracy is from the Greek, Demokratia meaning “power of the people.” If we don’t use our power, it will be taken from us, and then democracy gives way to something far removed from Jesus’ dream of a divine kin-dom.  

 

Instead of leaving our fears unchallenged, let’s take Jesus’ advice and seek God’s kin-dom, that realm of peace and justice-love where the last are first and the first are last, where even a widow’s mite is meaningful,

 

where hunger isn’t allowed, where the elderly are safe and children are encouraged and people are never demonized for their love and where the sacred value of all people is recognized.

 

The kin-dom of God is in our hands. We can reject Christian empire and embrace instead God’s kin-dom, the non-kingdom, the anti-empire.

 

I’m asking people of faith to dare to dream Jesus’ dream of God’s universal family making sure that no one is oppressed, forgotten, or left out, and then let that dream inform your participation in our democracy, which if we are as Christian as we claim to be, will look more like Jesus’ dream, and less like empire.

 

May the divine kin-dom come and the divine will be done. Amen.

I Hope You Will Vote

 I hope ppl vote for women's rights. I hope ppl vote for LGBTQ+ rights. I hope ppl vote for environmental protection. I hope ppl vote for the feeding of hungry children. I hope ppl vote for Medicare & social security. I hope ppl vote against autocracy & totalitarianism. I hope ppl vote against felonious candidates. I hope ppl VOTE.

Thoughts on Independence Day

I posted these thoughts on Facebook on July 4 this year:

As we end this day of celebrating freedom & independence, I remember & bless the ratification of the 13th Amendment, the 19th Amendment, the voting rights act, the Stonewall Uprising, & Obergefell. I also mourn the dismantling of the voting rights act, the crippling of Roe v. Wade, misapplication of the 2nd amendment, & recent attempts to ignore the establishment clause. I'm not feeling very apple pie & Yankee Doodle. I am daring to hope that the ugliness, bigotry, violence, & autocratic tendencies represented by red cap wearing insurrectionists will be washed away by voters who will not allow a return to the 1950s. I cling tenaciously to hope while I try to believe our country is better than it seems to be. "I thank whatever gods may be for my unconquerable soul" (Henley). May the nation's soul be also unconquerable, or at least may the phoenix of progressive values rise from the ashes of hatred and fear. (dw)

Time to Give a Damn

The GOP abandoned democracy (& compassion & human kindness) for the hope of an extremist theocracy,

While the complacent sat out election after election,

And when things get difficult a significant numbers of my fellow libs resort to self sabotage (like demanding that someone who has produced record results in 3.5 years stand down bc he's not a debate ninja & be replaced by someone who would have a couple of months to mount a defense against a well funded autocracy machine that has spent 40 years perfecting their demonic agenda...

Folks better start voting and acting like they know that the worst of human ugliness is powerfully on the move.

GOP...abandon never popularly elected, twice impeached, 34x felon, racist, pathological liar Mango Mussolini.

Cult of Apathy...stop it. SCOTUS is lost for at least a generation, Roe is gutted, Voting Rights act is gutted, Affirmative Action is gutted, and presidents now have just been given dictatorial powers ... while we still have some rights (& ps they're toast if Project 2025 is enacted), plz start pretending to give a shit. We've lost more than a free nation ever should. Don't hand what's left to those who are working tirelessly for a theocratic oligarchy.

Liberals...we're good at saying what's wrong & how it should be, and then at strategy time fucking it all up to guarantee we'll always have things to complain about. Support Biden, his team, his record, his organization, and if he drops dead during his acceptance speech there will be a competent and experienced administration ready to move forward that very minute.

Let's see...far right, sit it outs, liberals...yeah, got us all. Now do better. Our lives & liberties (as many as still exist) are literally on the line. (dw)