A season for reflection and no small measure of gratitude. Kind of like Thanksgiving with jelly beans.
There’s a photo-essay making the rounds again on the web right now. The one with glorious full-color pix of cacti, complete with superimposed inspirational messages and peaceful music. Have you seen it? One of those life lessons thingies. This one snagged my attention because there are some essential truths in it, along with predictable clichés. But where is it written that clichés cannot double as truths sometimes? For instance, there's stuff in this clip about forgiveness.
The big question dogging my heels lately is how one discerns and then proceeds from the pivot point where consequences and forgiveness come together. Kind of the big, red X, “you are here” markers in our personal, professional and political lives. So what happens when those sometimes diametrically opposite things glide together or collide, depending on the particulars?
There’s a school of thought that holds we need not concern ourselves with figuring this out. That we are called to be vessels of redemptive love – folks who go with the flow and don’t keep score. Maybe so. It’s a lovely concept, really. Personally, I find it quite challenging sometimes. But I do keep plugging away at it.
The flip side is the philosophy that seems rooted in perpetual omni-targeted rage. The place where vengeance is the default setting. Read on, please.
A friend who's a constituent of the on-again, off-again Bart Stupak, received this letter from him re his health care reform vote. He was the Dems' insider pain in the patoot and also rallied his little cadre of troops to press through passage of the bill.
Devil or angel? You decide:
March 25, 2010
Dear :
Thank you for your communication on health care reform legislation, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (H.R. 3590), which passed the U.S. House of Representatives on March 21, 2010. I was honored to witness the signing of this historic legislation by President Obama at the White House on March 23, 2010.
My vote on health care reform was the most difficult vote I have cast during my 20 years as a state representative and a member of Congress. Read on.
The above film clip and the following print excerpt come to us from Talking Points Memo under the headline Man With Parkinson's Who Was Berated By Tea Partiers: 'I Embody The Controversy'
She who does not watch television nor many videos (apart from the past 24 hours) beseeches you to take time to watch the video and read the TPM text.. The clip is part of a longer video filmed earlier in the week by the Columbus, Ohio Dispatch.
Be forewarned that it is intensely disturbing. Not because of physical violence and bloodshed, but rather because it illustrates the depth, breadth and intensity of the great American divide.
I watched the clip several times in horrified silence. I continue to be totally gobsmacked that this is who we are becoming, have become. That there are those among us who think and behave this way.
And my challenge to you, dear reader, is to offer up a viable, legal solution. Because my tiny mind just went tilt and I’m fresh out of ideas.
