Yesterday afternoon the announcement came that President Carter had passed into the gates of Heaven and we were all saddened, but in awe of what he accomplished in his 100 years-plus in his life on this planet.
Each day, Jimmy Carter worked to the best of his ability to SERVE others. He did hands on work. He taught. He worked with others to spur innovation and inspire solutions to cure dreadful diseases. He pulled people together to do good work. He lived as a true Christian doing what Jesus Christ taught that many “Christians” have totally missed and messed up.
Jimmy Carter epitomized working for the greater good. His wife, Rosalyn, at his side as long as she could be, shared in doing these same selfless acts – their embodied impact on planet Earth and its people have been widely received and deeply appreciated by those in need. With Habitat for Humanity, the Carters built houses for the homeless across the globe. They worked on disease eradication in Africa. They helped people in Asia and Africa and other continents, learn how to properly farm to get better yields from crops to improve the farming livelihood and impact positively local economies.
He was a civil rights advocate and activist. A broker of peace in the Middle East. A Nobel Laureate. His involvement in politics was brief in comparison to his decades long efforts to make change for the better. To make people aware of the dangers of the direction that political factions are having on human rights and existence especially the rights of women being primary to much of this – this was a large part of his crusade for the improvement of human rights and women’s rights in particular.
I was heartbroken when he stayed alive to cast his vote for what we hoped would be the first woman president of the United States. However, we will take his legacy and be inspired by what he did. The flags will fly at half-staff from yesterday through January 29th at least – to give a backdrop to the state of the nation as it faces four years of uncertainty. May we look upon his passing as a ray of hope that his influence will help inspire us to building a strategy and solutions to throttle and check once again the spread of fascism.
Rest in Peace, Mr. Carter. We will miss you. We hope to see you on the other side.
I just don’t get it. It certainly seems like the world is going bonkers right now. The whole planet. One thing leads to another… As predicted it seems. I’m not as sensitive as some, however…
The Doomsday Clock. Nostradamus. The Book of Revelations. The Farmer’s Almanac? Well maybe not the Farmer’s Almanac… but certainly, enough people are doing crazy stuff as well as our ongoing experience with “the virus” (doesn’t that sound like it’s out of some dystopian movie?)… Finger pointing and blaming. Scarcity. High tensions. Saber rattling. High stress. Anxiety. Good grief, we can’t ask what’s next, because “what’s next” could be really much worse than what was before!
Salvador Dali’s melting clocks always come to mind.
The Persistence of Memory by Salvador Dali
We’ve referred to the weather often on this site.
Because if it isn’t hotter than hell, or what we imagine hell to be in terms of warmth, it’s either raining cats and dogs (sorry cats and dogs!), or snowing like it’s raining cats and dogs and burying everyone in snow, or flooding, and burying people, places and things in muddy silt which is worse than snow because floods pick up all kinds of “nasties” that later get deposited wherever as the water goes away, the mud and sand and literally “shit” stays behind in a toxic goo-like gluey stuff that gets hard and is hard as hell to dig out.
Man oh man. Is there any good news?
I would think that some of the Oscar winners are happy, but then there are always people that go, “oh, she shouldn’t have won that” or “him? why him?” or whatever… Debbie Downers.
There is so much going on that is bizarre, none of it really funny – unless you think wild hog invasions could provide some sort of humor, or pythons coming north… Imagine – pythons getting into New York, then there’s another “hell freezes over event” – uh oh. Frozen snakes! At least they’re not on a plane!
The worst is hearing of kidnappings, and the toddler playing with Daddy’s gun and shooting another toddler in the face, killing him (or her). A three year-old shoots a four year-old. What are these people thinking? They’re not thinking. That’s the trouble. Dumb, stupid, ignorant – pick one.
More tragedy, more politicians deregulating guns, more after effects of deregulation…but, no – they are not truly “de-regulators”, they are regulating vaginas instead, or sexual preferences, or what kids can learn about history, or books related to certain subjects… It goes on.
The cross-pollination of religion and politics. Our founders did not think that the two should mix. I think we know why they thought this.
The people who have co-opted Christianity, taken it hostage, and are holding it for ransom… those who have created the “big friendly” mega-churches with the pastors who ride around in their Cadillac’s, Benz’s, or Rolls, or fly around on their own private jets… We pay for this with our tax dollars! Criminal!
“Cowboy Church” where gunslingers come inside to worship. The most totally bizarre concept ever. Back in the day, there were… wait for it… missions and churches, and nobody called them anything but. What would they say now?
Saying that they are “for the family”, when that is just a code-phrase – they are for THEIR family and that’s about it. The concept that they have in their heads of how they are “protecting life”, when the next moment, children are being slaughtered by crazed angry usually guys with military-grade weapons who can mow down multiple children and adults with them in less than five minutes. This is the complete hypocrisy of what these people who profess to be “conservative” believe. I think that they are master-manipulators, con artists, and snake oil salesmen…
There are a great number of “good” Christians but, they are not in your face or across the news pages… That is not a part of being Christian, the flashy headlines, the constant recruiting, especially the grooming… Just saying.
Something extremely self-righteous and pious about the chronically angry white conservative evangelical males (especially), and holier than though stuffed up Botox faced females (that’s even more irritating)… just rubs me the wrong way. It’s hard not to say something like, “get out of my face”, or “you’re really full of shit”, or just to test them, something in another language that they cannot understand. That’s not Christian behavior. That’s the hard part. Turning the other cheek. Keeping your mouth shut and watching it all.
I know what my grandmother and my mother would both have said – and it’s not nice.
OK, I’m not nice, then. Not about this, for sure. I’d rather just sit it out, the whole regular church-going thing. Holidays, I love to celebrate. I find meaning in those. My church, yeah. But to visit one of “those” churches where the shiny people present themselves as “Christian” yet underneath they are racist controlling awful personalities? Nah. Just to go and walk around and feel awkward amongst people who you don’t know and likely won’t ever – nah, that’s okay. I’ll stay home and avoid the close contact, especially now.
Somehow the lines are not as distinct so much, not supposed to be, rather, but then they are. My mom and grandma would not set foot in a Baptist Church, a Church of Christ, or any of the “evangelical” churches. Only occasionally would they set foot in another non-liturgical church – but, they would go to a synagogue or a Catholic church before they would go to sit with the Baptists. Something must have happened to them one time or another. Something did to me. The taste never wore off after that episode. In my adult life I’ve been in other churches just a few times to weddings or funerals. I just try to avoid the stress and the conflicts that these experiences produce. Plus, they always have their hands out for money. Uh, that would be a no.
Mixing Religion into Politics is a Destructive Recipe
Anyway, religion hasn’t helped much of anything in our world that I can see. Greed has just about destroyed it. And the former president of the USA and several other former presidents of other countries who emulate him (or maybe he them?) are the epitome of all of these horrid character traits rolled up into tangled balls of hot mess.
Right now with these extreme conservative thinkers (that’s an oxymoron for sure), they are hell bent to push their religion on everyone through legislating their morals, yes and it is indeed a weird mix. The combination of “freedom” with the 2nd amendment for everyone having a gun at their disposal no matter what type and who you are, to the high restrictions on women’s ability to control their own health and whether they have a pregnancy or not – this isn’t freedom – nor is freedom to be who you want to be whether you were born that way or not.
These yo-yo conservatives (hah! actually extremists) want only certain freedoms that they want and they are very picky but, for other people not so much. Their interpretation of Christianity is as warped as we’ve seen interpretations – as if the whole time they profess their religion they have fingers crossed behind their backs. As if we’re going back to the dark ages, rolling back the rock to a time when everyone had muskets and women wore long skirts with lots of underwear. It’s truly bizarre with every headline you read, to think that these people are in control of a lot of stuff.
It makes one wonder: if there is a God, what is God thinking about all of this? Is God just waiting until there is a certain point or line or polygon and then…
We don’t know. But, thinking about it makes my head hurt and some days… It makes me feel very crazy – like am I the only one that thinks that all of this is extremely nuts? Hmm? Clowns. A bunch of clowns. And guess what, they really just want the power to push people around. I just want a sign that says, “Our governor is an asshole bully” and be done with it. But, don’t get me started… this time. I’m done here…at least for today.
It’s crazy, still, but it looks like people are coming to their senses that the orange orangutan is radioactive. Slowly. 2023 will bring more to this ongoing saga. For those of us who are in our later decades, we really are stunned at what has happened.
We also have a shocking situation in Ukraine, with a bully madman having attacked in March, trying to seize what they had no rights to seize. Simple land grabbing via military attacks. They are not winning. The Ukrainians are fighters and clever. It is going to be a long bloody war. Senseless. Devastating. Insane.
Eyes on Europe and the UK, where leadership in different countries shift. France remained stable barely. Italy is now under a government that may turn back pages in history. The UK? What a mess. Since Brexit, there has been nothing but an unfolding debacle with monkeys driving the train off the bridge.
Now, the weather.
Wind patterns and temperatures from NASA satellite images and sensors – vectors overlaid
We had our second-most severe cold weather outbreak over Christmas, following a summer of hellish heat. We saw a monster hurricane devastate Florida. We’ve seen fires continuing in parts of the US and we watched Europe suffer horrid heat this year. The planet is changing rapidly as scientists predicted it would, and at a faster rate than predicted. This threatens food supplies, health, and welfare of all people everywhere on the planet.
Politicians don’t do the right thing. Climate deniers block funding for solutions designed to shore up infrastructure that has been damaged or that is degrading due to age. Each time there is a cold snap they retort that climate change is not real. There is a personality pattern that has been identified that shows the complexity of what makes these people deniers. The big question is will they ever relent before we totally destroy our home. It’s not looking positive on that note.
Creepy Disease Outbreaks.
SARS-CO-19
We’ve endured nearly three years of coping and mitigating SARS-CO-19 and all its variants. We are “vaxxed to the max” which has helped us avoid hospitalization with this disease. We’ve seen how miserable and scary this disease can be – and how unpredictable. We still are hearing about the unfolding long lasting effects. With every little ailment, we don’t know if it’s a long symptom or injury from the virus or something else unrelated.
And in 2022, we’ve seen the emergence of influenza and now RSV that not only is attacking kids, but adults, too. It worries scientists and world leaders as the response was not stellar and was variable across the world. This does not help get control early before deaths become widespread. China has failed. Some countries have given up. Some have fared better than others. It’s a story that is a cautionary tale.
What’s Positive?
Always the dragonfly is a symbol of hope and survival.
Hope remains. Living one day at a time, hoping for better times and doing what we can to make those happen. What do we look for? Signs of health. Signs of sanity. Signs of happiness. Signs of peaceful coexistence. Are we idealistic? Yes. Someone has to be. But we are also pragmatic. We are going back to drawing and maybe painting, but beginning with drawing, at least. Got some pastels from Santa – a lovely set of Conte’ pastels. Let’s see what happens.
