Reflections By People Better Than Elon

An Atheist Shares Religious Wisdom

TODAY'S RAMBLINGS

3 Minute Read

Happy Wednesday and who are these people? Give me a moment.

Judging by my inbox being completely stuffed with devoid of feedback on Monday’s satire, you may need a break. It’s just a few sentences away and it involves one of the people above.

But first, a reminder of why I and others are frightened. I remain unclear as to when we may get alarmed?

How about now? Jesus, he’s standing at a lectern bearing our Presidential Seal, on a sacred (although now permanently tarnished) day in our country.

Not in my name, you rich fuck. And watch the video - this is no out-of-context snapshot.

I hope you will see me as a litmus test: I am actively avoiding news of Dear Leader and his oligarchic/Fascist friends like Elonia. For example, I have no comment on what was said on Monday at the event, because I didn’t see it nor have read or heard anything about it. I don’t want to - at all.

But Musk’s hideous salute broke through. As it should have.

Because we can’t ignore their evil. But perhaps we can temper its effect?

That brings us to the promised reprieve from me, although I am keeping it in the family. Most of what follows is from my cousin and our family’s rockstar/matriarch, Lally Darwin Heinz. That’s her and Mr. Perfect - her hubby Harrison - captured on their wedding day in the lead photo, and there’s a reason beyond nostalgia for the Nixon administration.

Lally wrote me on Monday and said, “I would never have imagined I simply could not stomach an inauguration.”

So instead, my cousin gathered a variety of thoughtful pieces and was kind enough to send them along. Each is worthy of your consideration.

Plus, it’s not my blather, so there’s that, too. Thank you, Lally.

Martin Luther King, Jr., as quoted by the theologian Richard Rohr.

“There is some good in the worst of us and some evil in the best of us. When we discover this, we are less prone to hate our enemies.

When we look beneath the surface, beneath the impulsive evil deed, we see within our enemy-neighbor a measure of goodness and know that the viciousness and evilness of their acts are not quite representative of all that they are. We see them in a new light.

We recognize that their hate grows out of fear, pride, ignorance, prejudice, and misunderstanding, but in spite of this, we know God’s image is ineffably etched in their being. Then we love our enemies by realizing that they are not totally bad and that they are not beyond the reach of God’s redemptive love.”

Heck, I don’t even believe in God and I still want to believe all of that.

Next, Lally went all ornithological and a bit more secular on us. She shared a nice piece from Margaret Renkl and The New York Times.

Birds don’t exist to serve as symbols, and yet they can’t help but mean something to the symbol-making species watching them through a window or a storm door. On this Inauguration Day that brings no hope for help from elected officials to address climate change or to protect vulnerable species, including our own, the living world is showing us what to do:

In the dark days already gathering, we will need to do our best to look out for one another and for the creatures we love.

Note that Lally and Harrison are devout Christians. But they are authentically Christian, meaning they live their lives as Jesus Christ suggested, vs. the gross distortions we see by some who claim to.

Along those lines, Lally next shared this, by Bryan Massingale, a Roman Catholic priest in Milwaukee. This originally appeared in the Jesuit magazine America. Bryan is also a Black American.

The ‘Soul’ of White Christianity and U.S. Catholicism

If King were alive today, I believe he would argue that we need to redeem not only the soul of America but also the soul of American organized religion, including American Catholicism. We cannot escape the fact that white American Christians—including a majority of white Catholics—supported Mr. Trump despite his denigration of immigrants and repeated assertions of what former House Speaker Paul Ryan (hardly a liberal) called “textbook” racism.

We also cannot escape the fact that despite what Mr. Trump represents, Catholic bishops and clergy, with few exceptions, kept a conspicuous silence or even expressed overt support.

Lally wrapped up her mindblower of a missive with a 10 minute video from Ilia Delio, a Franciscan Sister. This is a wonderful and peaceful indictment of business as usual.

Undoubtedly, I’ll have much more to say over the next 4 years. But hopefully, it will be about peace and brotherhood, and family and friends.

FROM THE UNWASHED MASSES

Thank you for reading this newsletter.

KLUF

OMFG perfect and Killer. Sorry, Lally - I know you’re playing Mozart.