That Hurricane

I can't stop thinking about the people in New Orleans and surrounding. Can't stop thinking about them, praying for them, wondering if our inept government can care long enough to offer any significant aid.

I can't really even imagine... If it were me... I don't know. There are only two things, besides myself, that I would have to save: My dog and my icon. Not in that order. But, as I look around I see that the story of my life is told in the things around me. The art I choose, the little things on my desk, all the stuff.

When I lived in Laguna Beach there was a big fire once. I wasn't able to get home and anything I heard on the news made it sound like I very probably didn't have a home to go home to anyway. And, the fire did get very close. Thank God it did not burn my place. Why? I don't know. I know people who lost everything. Why did I escape unscathed?

The night of the fire, though, I drove up to Long Beach to get a little sleep at a friend's house and -- and I remember this like it was yesterday -- as I was falling asleep I thought "What am I apart from my stuff?" That was pretty much the end of my personal age of affulence and consumption. I was secretely relieved, later that summer, when I lost a pair of expensive sunglasses. They had been a visible symbol -- I wore them on my face, after all -- of my success. They told people who I was. Successful. That was me. Identy = your stuff.

Sure, your stuff reflects who you are, where you've been, and your tastes, etc. But, it is not who you are. This was difficult enough for me to grapple with in physical safety and surrounded by friends. Plus, the little hope that you never quite let go of. But, for these people in the South... and it's not just New Orleans, neighborhoods and towns all along the coast are destroyed... I don't know how you deal with loosing the things that reflect and, for some, define who you are.

I just think the psychic fall out from this is going to be enormous. People, and insurance companies, can build new houses and churches and businesses. But, what about those identities, what about the lives reflected by all that lost stuff? That I don't know either.

Give some money to ERD. Give as much as you can.

Problems

Today I thought about my problems. I have a couple of decisions to make in the next week or so. Nothing major.

Then I thought about the problems of my friends who don't have a home at all. They have no job, no business. Somehow they manage a little hope, though I don't know how.

It makes me wonder why I refer to my situations as problems at all.

Today I thought about how quickly our stock can fall. Last week Peter was the rock upon whom the church would be built, keys to the kingdom, and all that. This week he is Satan. To be kicked out of church before it even started... That's worse.

Why, why, why...

Today I mainly thought about why I don't seem to have time to wash my car, vaccum the stairs, do my filing, or a host of other unplesant tasks. -- Honestly, whoever invented stairs probably wouldn't have if he'd only realized that they would have to be vaccumed. -- And yet I had time to watch a burnt orange colored wasp flit from grass to leaf and back again just because it was beautiful. So, maybe the car could go another day.

iTunes

Today I thought about how iTunes for Windows really sucks. I thought about this a lot.

The pericope - Proper 16

Today I thought about why all the commentary for this weeks pericope focus on the "Who do you say I am..." part to the exclusion to the "keys to the kingdom..." bit and that part about "binding and loosing." Could it be that those who profess to hold the keys have done more locking out than inviting in lately? I guess it's getting to the point that they've thrown away so many parishioners that now the church is just a bunch of irrelevant aging priests hoping that they conned the faithful out of enough to sustain their substantial pensions.

Messianic Judaism

Today I thought about Messianic Judaism. I think it's weird.

Anger and sin

Today I thought about anger. If anger is not a sin, then why do I feel so badly about it?

How clever I am

I have a great idea for a birthday present for a friend and all day long I have been thinking about how very clever I am for thinking of it!

My Brother/My Enemy

I can't stop thinking about the Israeli withdrawal from Gaza. It's so bad.-- I mean, politically, I don't know -- Just bad for the people, families, pioneers. They bravely settled in a strange new land and made it their own. Now, the same government that urged their pioneering spirit has ordered them to leave behind the homes and lives they've built. Yet, in some (Palestinian) quarters there is rejoicing over this. It's awful. Just awful, what's going on there. I don't think Sari's laughing now.

FORGIVING AND LOVING

Today I thought about how if you forgive much, you also love much. There's a relationship between forgiving and loving. And so there must also be a relationship between not forgiving and not loving. And forgiveness is so hard. I mean, life is hard. But, why must this one bit of it be so dreadfully impossible?

I also wonder to what extent being angry means you haven't forgiven.