Leslie Jordan: Gay, Sober & Fabulous

I'm posting this for many reasons: it's positive, it carries some messages that I know some folks need to hear today, Leslie Jordan was great and should not be forgotten, someone out there thinks that they are fighting some battles alone but they're not. I'm also posting it because not everyone in my world is "pro-gay" or inclined to be compassionate about substance abuse disorders and depression. I really want them to listen to this. 

 

Some random thoughts for your journey today

I suppose that I'm thinking that this applies to sobriety as much as anything

 else.  Replace "positive" with "sober" and see if that rings true for you. 

Halushki!

This is easy to make and will fill you up. Don't tell your doctor that you got the recipe here. This goes well with a grilled sausage ore pork chops.

Cook one 12-ounce package of wide noodles. I like using the egg noodles that have a Pennsylvania Dutch theme on the package.

Chop up one yellow onion and brown it in too much butter.

Chop up one small head of cabbage and cook it for about 30 minutes. Some people boil it. I put mine in a skillet and boil-fry it.

When the onions are almost done add a small handful of caraway seeds.

Mix everything together. Season with pepper and salt.

Here is a good introduction to halushki.  

 

Raising Lazarus by Beth Macy and what compassion looks like as policy

The following are some quotes taken from the book Raising Lazarus by Beth Macy. You may be familiar with her book Dopesick or the Hulu series by the same name. I believe that Raising Lazarus is a needed starting point for people who want to do healing and create new policy paths in our communities and in the United States. The crises of substance use disorders and opioid use disorders are linked to other social crises as well. The problems our families and communities are facing every day are linked to one another, making these crises systemic. But if we going to wait to become experts ourselves, or depend on so-called experts and leaders, before taking action things are going to get much worse. Raising Lazarus gives us the starting points that we need. Think of this book as a compass.

One of our primary problems is in our lack of compassion for people who suffer with substance use disorders and opioid use disorders and their families. Many of us hold to the ideas that someone has to hit bottom before they will want or deserve help, that some people are beyond help, that there should be high barriers to people seeking help, that these disorders are moral failings, and that imprisonment is the best and most socially beneficial form of treatment. Macy makes a good point in her book that when we talk in these terms it is often our own trauma speaking and that the decades-long war on drugs and that trauma are costing us our compassion. This trauma and our lack of compassion, then, excuse us from helping others and saving lives. 

Here are some quotes from the book with page numbers given from the hardback edition (Little, Brown and Company; New York, 2022).

Page xiii: Within the first pandemic year, the overdose count was 29 percent higher than the year before, and the numbers kept climbing. By late 2021, it was clear that addiction had become the No. 1 destroyer of families in our time, with almost a third of Americans reporting it as a serious cause of family strife, and drug overdoses claiming the lives of more than 100,000 Americans in a year---more than from car crashes and guns combined.

Page xvii: in a country that spends five times more to incarcerate people with (substance use disorder) than it does to treat their medical condition, progress was stagnant. In 2019, an estimated 18.9 million Americans in need of treatment didn't receive it. That's a treatment gap of roughly 90 percent. Among the lucky few who do get treatment, Black patients were far less likely than Whites to have access to lifesaving buprenorphine...a medicine that blocks opioid cravings...

Page xv: In Charleston, West Virginia, complaints about vagrancy and needle litter outside the public health department's needle exchange led to its closure in 2018, sparking a 1,500 percent increase in HIV.

Page 13: At one community meeting Mathis attended...a historic-district leader complained repeatedly that her neighborhood had been overtaken by people engaging in around-the-clock drug deals. "We need to tear down those houses and abolish the Fourth Amendment so police can do what they need to do," the woman said.

Mathis listened patiently to a range of stigma-inflicted comments. But at the mention of of abolishing the Fourth Amendment she stood..."Y'all, I just have to ask: Do you know the song, 'They Will Know We Are Christians by Our Love'? Well, I'm not feeling the love in this room right now."

Mathis reminded them that that Jesus tended first to people's physical needs because he understood that folks who were tired, hungry, and hurting "wouldn't have ears for what he needed to say." When the civic leader persisted, Mathis politely suggested she fix her neighbors a casserole---people who use drugs sometimes forget to eat, she explained.

Page 72: Fentanyl was present in more than 60 percent of the 2020 overdose deaths reported by the CDC, a quadrupling of the portion it accounted for in 2015. By June of 2021, mortality kept rising as fentanyl and other synthetics were involved in a whopping 87 percent of opioid deaths and 65 percent of all drug overdose deaths.

Page 89: Between 1999 and 2019, the gap between rural and urban death rates almost tripled, growing from 62 per 100,000 to 169.5. That death-rate disparity was bigger now than the disparity between Black people and White people, which academics pinned not just to deaths of despair but also to poor nutrition, lack of exercise, smoking, and uneven access to quality medical care.

Whether they meant to or not, people were literally killing themselves as the hyper-polarized government they hated stood by, and politicians who professed to lead them were engulfed in culture wars about transgender bathroom rights, Stonewall Jackson statues, and critical race theory. "People are making a virtue of going it alone and not depending on anyone, almost as a kind of self-protection," Silva told me.

Or as Nikki put it: "Rigid thinking is what it is, and that's a trauma response."

Page 256: But anyone with walking-around sense now understood that shipping 100 million opioid doses to a county with a population of just 90,000 was not acting in the best interests of that community. Huntington (West Virginia), a small city an hour west of Charleston, had the highest overdose-death rate of any community in the nation.

In 2016, Huntington-based EMS workers had responded to twenty-six heroin overdoses in less than four hours. One in five babies born at the local hospital was exposed to addictive substances. Foster-care placements doubled, and the school system had to install a twenty-four-hour hotline so that the police and schools could communicate about students living in homes where parents had (substance use disorder). The high school now has a dedicated space where traumatized teens can go if they need to talk to an adult or just be alone, no questions asked.

Page 275: People with (substance abuse disorders) are still ignored by policy makers when they often have the most knowledge to offer about their conditions, said Baltimore addiction specialist Yngvild Olsen, who cited a recent survey of 900 people with (substance abuse disorders). Their top three goals, in order, were: staying alive, reducing harmful substance use, and improving mental health. 

Macy provides a few pages of needed policy and political changes at the end of the book. None of them will solve all of the problems quickly, but they all fit together like a jigsaw puzzle. When that puzzle has been put together we will see one another and what is within us more clearly. Policy is a test of faith. Can we raise people from the tombs we have consigned them to or not? Is resurrection possible or is it a fable? Macy and the stone-rollers who she writes about believe in resurrection. Do you?   

  

      

You're trailing a bright pathway that you don't even know about.

 

Leslie Jordan ft. Danny Myrick - "In All Things" (Official Audio)

 I'm continuing to offer videos featuring Leslie Jordan. His recent death has been a great loss.

 

Some random and hopeful thoughts for today

 

Dave Stacy at the Mine | Flight Without an Airplane

I listen to Brother Stacy quite a bit. I appreciate his energy and dedication. This is part of a longer workplace (mine) sermon where he's talking about loving our neighbors and showing compassion. I hope that Brother Stacy works in a union-represented mine, and I hope that some day he's moved to preach social justice. More of us need this power and drive.

     

Moonshine Whiskey Cake

This recipe comes from Sidney Saylor Farr's cookbook More Than Moonshine (University of Pittsburgh Press, 1983). If you can find a copy of that great book, snap it up. More Than Moonshine has set a high standard for Appalachian cookbooks. The author's memoirs that help shape the book give readers an all-around view of the food and the cultures of some people in parts of Appalachia. I have referred to this book many times on this blog. You can live in Appalachia for generations and never know anyone who makes, runs, or sells moonshine.  

The first question we're going to get here is where to get moonshine from. The easy answer is that you can get a basic still and the necessary ingredients to make a passable moonshine over the mail for less than $300. You can ask around and find someone making moonshine these days without much trouble; it's more common than you might think. You can purchase products in liquor stores being marketed as moonshine, and some small-batch distillers do over-the-mail sales. Kentucky Mist in Whitesburg, KY. is one of the better companies, and buying products from that area now will help the community, but I know that someone is going to criticize me for mentioning a company supported by the reactionary Rand Paul. The last and most practical option is to not use moonshine. I'm pretty sure that a brandy will work.

None of this is to say that you should be consuming alcohol. I hardly drink at all these days, and my wallet, my mind, my body, and my spirit can tell the difference. There are plenty of other great cakes that you can make and enjoy without alcohol. I would not consider it good manners to offer this cake to guests unless the host absolutely knew beforehand that their guests drank spirits and did so without problems and in moderation and that someone who didn't touch alcohol was going to get them home. Respect sobriety and build it into our cultures.

You are going to need the following ingredients:

1 pound sugar (2 1/4 cups)
1/2 pound butter
1 pound flour (4 cups, sifted)
2 teaspoons nutmeg
1 teaspoon baking powder
6 eggs, separated
1 cup (or more) moonshine
1 1/2 pounds white raisins
1 pound chopped pecans

(I have known people to soak the raisins in moonshine ahead of time, but the recipe does not call for that.)

Preheat your oven to 300 degrees. Cream the sugar and the butter. Put your flour in a pan and set in a slow oven until its lightly browned. (I have always taken "slow oven" to mean the oven as it is heating up.) Sift your flour with the nutmeg and baking powder. Beat the egg yolks and whites separately. Add your cup of moonshine to the egg yolks, mix that up, then stir in the butter and sugar mixture and beat until well blended. Blend your dry ingredients into the liquid ingredients and fold in the stiffly beaten egg whites. Stir in your raisins and nuts and pour all of that into a buttered and lightly floured tube pan. Bake this for 3 hours. Have a pan of water under the cake for the first half of the baking time.

You can add more moonshine to the cake when it comes out of the oven and is still hot, but don't drown the cake in moonshine. If you do this, do it slowly and carefully. Either way, put the cake in an airtight tin, put the tin in a cool place and out of the reach of the young ones, and leave it alone 'til we have holidays.

This is a sort-of poor person's fruitcake, I guess, but without the weight to it. My grandmother made a cake like this in the summer for Christmastime. She kept her cakes in an outbuilding that had no electricity. My father would get out there and cut a slice once in awhile when he was a boy. One year there was only a tiny square left by Christmas. 

Why I vote for progressive policies and pro-worker candidates...

 

Leslie Jordan ft. Eddie Vedder - "The One Who Hideth Me" (Official Audio)

 

Some random thoughts to consider

Corn Fritters!

This recipe is taken from the "Cooking the Coalwood Way" cookbook from the Coalwood Community United Methodist Church in Coalwood West Virginia. I don't know where the photograph is from.

Corn fritters were a favorite of mine as a kid when they were made by my grandmother and were at least a little greasy, but you don't have to make them greasy.

Mix one-and-one-third of a cup of flour, one-half of a tsp. of salt, two tsp. of baking powder, one tsp. of sugar, two-thirds of a cup of milk, one egg, one tbsp. of melted fat, and one cup of corn in a bowl.

Fry by spoonfuls in deep, hot cooking oil. Makes twelve fritters.

Leslie Jordan ft. Ashley McBryde & Charlie Worsham - "Workin' On A Building" (Official Audio)

This is one of my favorite praise songs when its done right, and I think that it gets done right here. 

 

When I die...

This photograph was taken in Wheeling, West Virginia by Lorie Kash and appeared on the Appalachian Americans Facebook page. It is being used here without their permission, but I'm hoping that that's okay because this photograph says so much to me. I don't imagine that I'll be buried after I die, but if I were to be buried then I want to be buried in West Virginia or Appalachia and in a place where deer could safely rest on top of me and nuzzle against my tombstone and coal would be under me and where people and animals could feel the seasons change.

Church is like a midwife...

I must be the only person in the United States who isn't familiar with Brené Brown, though I see her quoted quite a bit. I don't know about her points of view on other topics, but I do like this.

A profound sermon from Fr. Dennis Parker At St. Paul's Episcopal Church on September 4, 2022

IT’S ALL GOOD – IT’S ALL INTERIM TIME

Let us pray: Holy one of many names, we look for stability and surety in our lives and you respond with upside-down gospel messages of costly discipleship and fractured family relationships. We search for calm and peace in our lives, and you respond with gospel messages of division and commands that we must hate that which we have held most closely in order to be your disciples. We come into your temples seeking to worship and honor your names – and you command us to leave our places of comfort and carry our crosses and follow you. Help us to find in your difficult messages, the kernel of truth and relevance to our lives and our dreams. May we who gather in your name – be always aware of the costs incurred in your call to love one another as you have loved us. Amen

(SUNG) COME GATHER ‘ROUND PEOPLE WHEREVER YOU ROAM
AND ADMIT THAT THE WATERS AROUND YOU HAVE GROWN
AND ACCEPT IT THAT SOON YOU’LL BE DRENCHED TO THE BONE
IF YOUR TIME TO YOU IS WORTH SAVIN’ – AND YOU BETTER START
SWIMMIN’ OR YOU’LL SINK LIKE A STONE, FOR THE TIMES THEY
ARE A-CHANGIN’

The Gospel or ‘good news’ of God in the Christ, Jesus of Nazareth in its retelling by the Author of Luke/Acts account over the past few weeks has not exactly been filled with sweetness and light! This is not the Jesus of the author of John’s account who commands us to ‘love one another as I have loved you’ – rather this is the Jesus who tells us “Whoever comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, and even life itself, cannot be my disciple” – not exactly Dale Carnegie’s suggestions on “How to Win Friends and Influence People”! And yet here we are, listening to the difficult words of an itinerant Jewish preacher/teacher of two thousand years ago calling us to costly discipleship. I think this Yeshuah bin Yousef – Jesus Son of Joseph – savior and redeemer of us all is warning us in a similar way as did Bette Davis’ character in the film All About Eve – to “fasten your seatbelts, it’s going to be a bumpy night”!

The fifth and final book of the Hebrew Torah is titled in English Deuteronomy – a title that has its origins in the Greek title from the Septuagint duteronomion meaning “second law” or “repeated law”. The book is laid out as three sermons or speeches delivered to the Israelites by Moses on the plains of Moab, just before their entry into the promised land. The first and second sermons address the 40 years of wandering in the wilderness that led to this moment of entry into the that land flowing with milk and honey and the reminding of God’s people to follow the laws and teachings that Moses has given them from the hand of Yahweh – and the third sermon telling them that even should their nation prove unfaithful and lose that land – with return and repentance all can be restored into right relationship between God and God’s chosen people. Our reading this morning from the 30 th chapter of that text is taken from this latter sermon message. The sermonic text states in verses 19 and 20 “I call heaven and earth to witness against you today that I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Choose life so that you and your descendants may live, loving the Lord your God, obeying and holding fast to God for that means life to you and length of days, so that you may live in the land that the Lord swore to give to your ancestors to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob” (and I might just add to Sarah, and to Rebecca, and to Rachel and Leah). The Lord God says to the people of God – you’re going somewhere – and it will be good and remember these things before you get there – and you ain’t there yet. This, my friends is a message for the Interim time – the almost but not yet!

(SUNG) COME MOTHERS AND FATHERS THROUGHOUT THE LAND
AND DON’T CRITICIZE WHAT YOU CAN’T UNDERSTAND
YOUR SONS AND YOUR DAUGHTERS ARE BEYOND YOUR COMMAND
YOUR OLD ROAD IS RAPIDLY AGIN’ – PLEASE GET OUT OF THE NEW
ONE IF YOU CAN’T LEND YOUR HAND, FOR THE TIMES THEY ARE
A-CHANGIN.

Our reading from the Christian testament today is a short and poignant letter that the apostle Paul has written to his friend and colleague Philemon on behalf of a runaway slave from Philemon’s house, Onesimus – who after escaping from his master’s house, travels to the big city (Rome) and discovers Paul and the messages of the ministry of Jesus of Nazareth that Paul has been converted to. Onesimus has been serving Paul in his imprisonment, and the Apostle is beseeching his old friend Philemon to accept his former servant back, not as a slave, but rather as a brother in Christ, and return Onesimus to Paul so that he will be useful for the service of the Gospel and the wider movement outside of Colossae where Philemon’s house church was located. Paul, in his ever-diplomatic approach to the issues of his time and society – does not write a searing condemnation of the evils of the institution of slavery – but rather a measured and logical argument that in the love of Jesus the Christ – we have all been set free from the slavery of this world to live in the total freedom and dignity of our lives in God’s Kindom Come Among Us in the Right Here and Right Now.

It (will be) is my distinct joy to welcome to our community this morning The Rev. Christopher Craun, Diocese of Oregon Missioner for Thriving Congregations. The Reverend Mother is a colleague and personal friend, as well as the Diocesan staff person responsible for assisting parish congregations who find themselves in periods of transition. In a Q & A session after the service this morning, she will map out the process for the interim period of the next few months and then the longer interim period to follow as you explore your lives in community and the patterns and challenges living in this community present in your short- and long-term history. One of the lessons I have paid close attention to in my twenty (20) years of ordained ministry in Christ’s One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church is that it’s all interim time – we are born, we live and we die and all of the time in between is interim time. We discern our call, we live out our call and our call comes to its completion – all the time in between is
interim time.

(SUNG) THE LINE IT IS DRAWN, THE CURSE IT IS CAST
THE SLOW ONE NOW WILL LATER BE FAST
AS THE PRESENT NOW WILL LATER BE PAST
THE ORDER IS RAPIDLY FADIN’
AND THE FIRST ONE NOW WILL LATER BE LAST
FOR THE TIMES THEY ARE A-CHANGIN’

Just prior to his sudden and untimely death, author, and mystic/priest/poet John O’Donohue was working on a book that has been subsequently published entitled, To Bless the Space Between Us. I have used that book many times in the past few years, as a source of insight and prayer, as a reference for meditations and retreat reflections and it is filled with insight and understanding of the many ways in which our relationships with God and with each other can be a source of healing and a balm of gentle grace when words can often escape expression of our deepest longings. My friend and clergy colleague whom I lovingly refer to as Holy Mother Church; was the rector of St. Stephen’s in Newport and the Vicar of St. Luke’s by the Sea in Waldport. Susan was the first person who introduced this book to me and she shared with me several poems and blessings from it – as well as many other pieces of poetry that speak to the varied and multiple spiritual experiences of our lives. I would like to share with you one of those “blessings” in the form of a poem from O’Donohue’s book entitled: For the Interim Time

When near the end of day, life has drained out of light, and it is too soon for the
mind of night to have darkened things,
No place looks like itself, loss of outline makes everything look strangely in-
between, unsure of what has been, or what might come.
In this wan light, even trees seem groundless. In a while it will be night, but
nothing here seems to believe the relief of dark.
You are in this time of the interim, where everything seems withheld.
The path you took to get here is washed out; the way forward is still concealed
from you.
“The old is not old enough to have died away; the new is still too young to be
born.”
You cannot lay claim to anything; in this place of dusk, your eyes are blurred;
and there is no mirror.
Everyone else has lost sight of your heart and you can see nowhere to put your
trust; you know you have to make your own way though.
As far as you can hold your confidence. Do not allow your confusion to squander
this call which is loosening your roots in false ground, that you might come free
from all you have outgrown.
What is being transfigured here is your mind, and it is difficult and slow to
become new. The more faithfully you can endure here, the more refined your
heart will become for your arrival in the new dawn.

So in loving and appreciating our neighbor...

 

Two good random thoughts

 

Medicinal Magic Soup

Please click on this to see the recipe.

 

A good introduction to Beau of the Fifth Column

This is a a special post for my white friends in Appalachia who may not be aware of Beau of the Fifth Column. You can catch him on Youtube, and I hope that you will. I think that this video will give you a good introduction to him, and I think that you will be able to see or hear yourself or someone you know in him within a few minutes.

I was not a fan until recently. I have my disagreements with him, but I recently heard that he is giving strong support to the mine workers' strike in Alabama that has been going on for eighteen months now and that made me rethink my position. I like it that he's honest and I like that he's trying to move people without hitting people over the head. I deeply appreciate how he talks about race, guns, LGBTQIA+ people, and violence against women. I like that he's careful with his words and that we don't hear profanity and conspiracy theories when we listen in.

This is a good introduction, but please go to Youtube and dig in.

      

Does everything that we do matter?

The other day I read a reflection by a Christian church that would probably describe themselves as Preterist. Preterism is a major issue in my world just now. I won't take the space here to try to explain it or argue it one way or the other. but the reflection troubled me because it made the point that when Christians study the Hebrew Bible (The "Old Testament" or "Old Covenant") something is lost and taken from our study of the Christian Bible (The "New Testament" or "New Covenant"). This view derives from a "spiritualized" understanding of both texts. For my part, I find the Hebrew Bible important both for how it stands on its own and how it relates to other texts, and for the many calls to social justice within it. If we "spiritualize" the entire text and believe that God's Kingdom will be spiritual then we lose the social justice inherent and the role of historical development in faith that is carried in the text, I think. There is plenty of time for mysticism, and any good Jewish commentary will give you an introduction to that, but we're going to miss the mark by only living with the spiritual and mystical in any text.

This reading of the Torah and the reflection that goes with it by Rabbi Stacy Rigler is not intended to take up the matters that I'm raising, nor should they, but we will all be in a better place if we try to approach texts through the eyes of the people who crafted them long before we found them. The ReformJudaism.org is one of many websites that helps with this, although it also carries its own dear weight and messages. Rabbi Rigler writes:

The only measurement that we ought to take when trying to decide if our actions can help repair the world is to ask - will this bring me closer to another living being? This was the assurance that God gave to Noah, that during hopelessness, chaos, and distribution he would not be alone on the ark. Noah would not be there just with his family, Noah would be there with animals, each of whom contain the spirit of life. Each of us has the opportunity to seek out encounters that have the potential to remind us of this spirit, the chance to engage in tikkun olam.

The Rev. Shyrl Hinnant-Uzzell did an excellent sermon on Nehemiah last Sunday that better expresses my thoughts on how we should engage with the Hebrew Bible. That sermon comes from Greenleaf Christian Church in Goldsboro, NC and represents the kind of advanced theology being done in the Black Church. If you're serious about Bible study, or if you're trying to figure out how social justice and our daily lives fit into understanding the Hebrew Bible and the Christian Bible right now, please give Rev. Uzzell your attention.

The question that is at the heart of everything here is whether everything we do matters or not.

Leslie Jordan ft. Dolly Parton - "Where the Soul Never Dies" (Official Audio)

It seems appropriate to celebrate the life of Leslie Jordan here.  

Consider Who And How You Love

 

Faith Leaders Congressional Briefing | Poor People's Campaign

This was recorded on September 22nd, 2022, when a diverse group of Faith Leaders from across the country gathered in Washington, DC for an urgent congressional briefing to make a moral demand that Congress act on living wages, voting rights, and the reinstatement and expansion of polices that research shows can immediately lift millions of families out of poverty. If we ever needed to vote for democracy and justice, we sure do need to vote now!

Hopeful Meditations From The Rt. Rev. Steven Charleston

I am taking many liberties here by lifting some meditations from The Rt. Rev. Steven Charleston that can be found on the Native American/Indigenous Ministries of the Episcopal Church Facebook page. I find hope here, and in most everything that Rev. Steven Charleston writes. I hope that you will find something here as well that will give you pause or move you. You will find additional meditations from Rev. Charleston if you follow the links provided, but I hope that you will like the Native American/Indigenous Ministries of the Episcopal Church Facebook page and make it part of your daily check-in.

The Episcopal Diocese of Eastern Oregon recently repudiated the Doctrine of Discovery, a major theological and democratic step forward. Please read about it here.

October 26: "I have been out walking with ghosts again, the shimmering images of my ancestors, always present, but barely visible, walking before me in the cool shadows of evening. I know better than to talk too much, for silence is the language of the sacred. Instead I listen, as any youngster should, to the wisdom of those who have seen more seasons than can be counted. I receive their thoughts like a benediction. I hold their vision in my mind like a familiar dream. Do not be afraid, they whisper, as we walk on to find the moon already waiting."

October 25: "Let the birds rise up from the wetlands, pin-wheeling through the salty sea air, sun sparkling on their wings. Let the herds walk majestically by, in long train arrayed, crossing the prairie with a dignity countless years old. Let the fish dart between the cold river rocks, silhouettes of life almost unseen, so suddenly do they turn in their weightless world. Let the human family proclaim, across the breadth of this spinning blue ball, calling out to their kin from every clan of sentient being: we see you, we need you, we honor you still."

October 24: "The door stands open. The sunlight beyond offers its invitation. The clear sky beckons. The path begins with your first step. As light as air. Unencumbered. Joyful. Come out into life with the wonder of a child. What seemed hidden is revealed. What once appeared overwhelming could now fit in the palm of your hand. You are free. Liberation is a gift of the sacred. The Spirit releases us from old constraints, old fears, and blesses us with a renewed sense of hopeful possibilities. The door stands open. Come out and be free once more."

October 23: "If I had to pick a word to describe the time in which we are living I would say: unsettling. Uncertain. Tense with expectation. Where are we going? What will happen next? We are not sure. I am not sure. Like you, I feel as if I am standing on sand. I am working hard to keep my balance. I am determined to hold on to my hope. I am confronting the unknown with something I consider to be a steady truth: human beings who care for one another are more grounded than those who do not. If there is a rock beneath the sand, it is mutual respect. Which leads to mutual learning and mutual cooperation. When we share those things, we can look uncertainty in the eye."

October 20: "I have come here today to do the manual labor of love. I have come to push back the rising mist of despair that seeks to enfold people before they realize it. Those deep shadows can roll forward when we least expect it, riding the winds of sorrow, swallowing up the light of hope. But not here. Not on my watch. I will not let them pass where I stand. I will reach out in the strength of my love to stop them. I will roll them back. I will let the light continue to shine wherever I am. I will do the labor of love for as long as it takes and for as many as I can."

Coopers Rocks, God and Freedom, The New River Valley, And Ola Belle Reed

This photo was taken at Cooper's Rocks State Forest in West Virginia by a young couple identified as Chuck and Cherie on the All Things West Virginia Facebook page. I want to thank them for a series of well-taken photos that touched me. Cooper's Rocks was a special place for me when I lived near there, and the photo above catches some of the beauty of the place. I used to the spot where this photo was taken every News Years Day, sometimes hiking through ten feet of snow to get there. Once there I would have a few shots of plum brandy to mark the moment and then be still with the cold and silence. I can remember it being -7 degrees there without wind-chill, and something like -22 below with wind-chill. I also remember sitting there with one of my hounds and seeing a hawk rise from the valley below and my hound jumping behind me because it frightened him. I think that I learned something about God and freedom there.

I could never go there or to the New River Valley in Virginia without thinking about this song from Ola Belle Reed:
 

Tucker County, West Virginia

I don't know who took this great photograph from Tucker County, West Virginia, but it brings back some great memories.

"We can come into the throne room of God—the division and the separation has been done away with in Jesus."

Spiritual death is the alienation of the human mind from its Creator. To be separated from our source of being is to be dead. Christ reconciled us to God, and the destruction of the Temple in 70 AD was not only a confirmation of the Lord’s prediction but also the declaration that there is no longer any need for a temple or an intermediary. We can come into the throne room of God—the division and the separation has been done away with in Jesus.

(Taken from the Merciful Savior Church Facebook page.)

Some recent posts from Nazarenes United for Peace

 

"One of the most distressing aspects of the current political and social crisis we are experiencing in the USA is the rising passion of White Christian Nationalism. The virulent racism embraced by folks who claim Christ as their savior and lord denies everything Jesus stood for, what he gave his life to overcome, and what he poured out his Spirit to enable in his Church.

White Christian Nationalism is a reincarnation of what the Roman Emperor Constantine foisted on the Church of Jesus Christ 1,700 years ago. He used the Church to attempt to conquer the world, and to eliminate those who opposed him, who were not like those he preferred. It was grotesque, destructive, and utterly unChristian.

When Christians rely on any government to give them permission to “be Christian” something is terribly awry. When we allow people of other races, cultures or religions to be oppressed and marginalized we have become the antithesis of all Jesus taught and lived.

To be holy is to be being perfected in love, for all people, living a transparent holiness, protecting the rights and the welfare of others, even if it is not profitable for us, or if we disagree with their choices.
This was the vision of the Wesleys, the early Nazarenes, and the best of our church around the globe, even now.

Co-suffering love, selfless service to others, robust courage to live Christlike lives in a broken world, and the refusal to demonize anyone who differs with us — that is holiness!!" -- Jesse C Middendorf, General Superintendent Emeritus, Church of the Nazarene.