We're up Oak Creek

                     I wanted to write about this yesterday but had to take time to gather my thoughts they were so scattered. The first thing I heard actual news wise about the Oak creek shootings in WI was the interview with policeman saying he had put the guy down that had entered shot 6 people including an officer. I had just got done talking to my husband about oh crap he shot a cop that guy is not making it out a live we will never know why this deranged man did this. Not that anyone can wrap their mind around hate, ignorance and plan crazy that goes into something like that. It urked me at the term 'put down', I know, bad reaction to a way of looking at this. It was so big I could not wrap my head around this happening hours away from me. I heard my friend through Facebook wondering if her brother was in the fire fight and worrying he was the one shot. The interviews started to come out the wailing people and horror of it all crept into my brain. Of being an officer walking into that situation and the families knowing they do. I have thought of that before since my brother in-law is an officer, but I had a weird video game image of walking into the smoke of gun fire and hearing people calling fear pumping because it could be any person there you don't know who the shooter is. Over whelmed but the images of the families waiting for their loved ones and the crying I had to turn it off. It was too much to process for a slow processor like me.

                       It was not till the next day I saw his hateful picture with the Nazi symbol  behind him with vampire teeth on his guitar strap and the new of his hate music being popular made me ill. I am not violent but I was so glad at that moment the officers had done what they had. I was appalled that I could feel the anger I did that a white supremacist was still around and had done such a horrible thing. I pride my self in not judging others and trying to understand but there was no understanding here I was mad and glad he was dead. Then I saw the glaring truth or hate is hate breads more of the same, but my heart knew the second it saw the symbol I hated this man and was ok with that even as in my head I was not. Then I started to hear the explanations from the media of the difference between Sikhs and Muslims as if killing Muslims in hateful rage was ok but to confuse them with others was not.  And knowing that difference would make you not shoot oh lets see.... um let me think.. any of them. Really we are going to debate if he possibly confused one people for another in error like it makes it ok? What does that say to our Muslim neighbors facing this kind of ignorance that we could possibly be ok if he had shot the "right" minority.

not that I am saying it's just fox

                          I have to say this kind of talk I hear  from news people where the fire of hatred are stoked with a wink and smile with a morning zoo crew grin, it bothers me. there has been a tapping into fear and stoking that hate and dissatisfaction of doing something about all this insecurity they are building in certain people done by them that should be held to account. The weak minded and prone to violent people hear these messages too about the Mexicans taking advantage of us and our systems and the Muslims trying to take over with Sharia law and make us all were burkas and do the hokey pokey or what ever the message is from the latest fear monger. They see nothing being done about a threat made up to keep people on edge so they can easily take rights or make questionable policies based on race. Without being called a bigot. so these unstable people besides in ignorance to "do something about it." and wham everyone is shocked that in a land where the discourse between the top running presidential candidates could be at best described as infantile some idiot takes it upon him self to take out "unwanted" people. Words are powerful thoughts have a strength that does not go away when is someone going to hold this stoking of unrest and fear of those not like us accountable for the actions brought by it.

                               Then we wait to see if the "christian" they choose to voice will come out on the side of they are attacking our religion and right to worship or it is God's judgment for us: abortion, gay rights, or parking closer to the store when we could walk if want to leaving the places for those who need it. This bothers me so much, I am a follower of Jesus believe it or not. (I am not going to debate if I am christian enough with you in the comments so save your breath) SO this what God is doing these days? Guess he missed the whole punishing those for genocide, war crimes, sex trade, letting people starve so we can make a profit, and raping of women as a weapon of war, but these things is what he is cracking down on now. Wow really I have to say this you do not speak for me! Stop giving these dicks a microphone and a platform to speak on they do not represent Christ or those that follow him.

                             And now we start the talk about guns and how they do not shoot people and it being disrespectful to the victims to talk about guns so close to the incident. "Only people who follow laws will follow the law so if we regulate the automatic bad ass gun it will just leave them in the hands of the criminals". Followed by the please of people just to talk about it, followed by a "do you want the government to run over you? when our founding fathers had their muskets...." sigh,  the same talk you don't even have to have the actual conversation any more it drones on,  hit repeat and repeat as more psycho men gun down good people. All bought legally within days of the event. Since our Founding Fathers did not have bombs and tanks to worry about... they are regulated. I am fairly sure talking about this will be ok and actually having a new actual conversation not trying to make shocking statement that slam prove your point and your done out of here unproductive chatter we have been seeing.

All this goes on while the victims sit an suffer.  My heart goes out to them, those who lived the shooting and their families seeming to be forgotten in all this those that follow their belief and are now living in fear of hate taking them out. You are not forgotten. To the Muslims in the US it would not have been ok if it had been you. We need to start holding those using this fear for their gain in our government accountable. We should be holding the new corporations accountable for the dumb way they cover this kind of thing and we should be reaching out in love to those around us. You can't educate hate like if a Nazi guy understands the difference between the two religions it makes any difference, No, it is his hate of others that is the issue. I think until this changes we will see more of this unbalanced hate needing a target and innocent people paying the price. We must be better than this. America, we must stop this decent in thought we have been going on we must speak up, we must learn about and embrace our neighbors so that they do not live in fear but know acceptance and we all can gain from each other rather than missing out on who we could be. Lets be the nation we once were. Holding those ideals true for all in our nation not just the few the while the like us. Lets live what that document every bigot in America is hold up as a shield and Let All Men Be Treated As Equals.

 I leave you with the words of the pastor's son and wife as interviewed by Anderson Cooper.
 http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/08/07/anderson-cooper-wisconsin-sikh-temple_n_1751874.html?utm_hp_ref=media

How did that happen?

                        I have a hard time alining my self with being a christian most times. Not because I  do not love Jesus or am not a follower of his way but because of what the word has come to be associated with. I was watching a show on PBS about our founding fathers and their struggle to write the constitution of the US and the times and reasoning around that. For a people who came from a land where the monarch and the church aligned under pain of death letting people worship as they wished was a bold dream never before given to a people. A boldness that was fallowed by an out poring of the holy spirit. Also accompanied by a crack down of the established churches of the time as they feared this freedom.

                      I know a few of the things fallowing the ways of Jesus has Effected the world. The right for women to vote and be heard in the public arena, fighting against abuse on women and children, end of slavery, the humane treatment of prisoners, care for widows the poor,  orphans , and the ill, stopping child labor in the US, the red cross and salvation army still care for the poor and those in war and disasters, the YMCA, and laws that are for all people where previously they had been power birth right influenced. So why is this such a contradiction to what it is seen as today. Where people shout at others holding offensive signs and are known more for what they are against than what they are for.

                                         I a world full of red faced talking heads shouting against this and against that . UGh who needs it. There is that annoying christian saying that goes if you stand for nothing you will fall for anything.  What about standing for love standing for the oppressed standing for people. I love people people are the best people I know. Since when does loving someone mean you have to agree with everything they say and do. If that is a requirement we would be very lonely people or just not know each other very well if this was the case.
                                      

                                         I look at the raging debate over gay marriage and all I can see is cherry picking of verses you do not understand mixed with homophobia that pushes people God loves further from him. How would you feel if you are constantly told someone hates you. If you were thinking about the person rather than who they love or how they do that the behavior see today would not happen. I look at the history of marriage and just less than a generation ago my marriage would be illegal, being interracial. I had an uncle who was with the same partner for years they loved each other so much you could tell even as a child I knew they loved each other it did not scar me to know this. If they had the choice I do think they would have gotten married it pains me to think they could not. Talking the religion out of it they are Americans they pay taxes my religious right should not stop them from having their civil rights.

                                   I am not sure that this did much as far as a post if I made any points or not or even if this is a coherent string of words it just has been simmering in me a long time. I long for followers of Jesus to be known for what he was about freeing the enslaved , loving your neighbor, and  the fierce rebellion against the oppressors. After all it is what they tried to kill him for.

Why am I still so surprised?

                                    I was watching "Who do you think you are?" on Friday and Helen Hunt was the person they were researching. She had found out her great great grandmother had been a part of the Christian Women's Temperance movement and had a big reaction to it. In our Day being christian has become more about being against stuff than for things. The image and things said on a large scale in our nation we deserve that reaction. Today it made political news that Jimmy Carter left the Baptist church because of their view on women and what that view breeds in that church culture. I mourn that Christ the One who came to bring freedom and healing has been seen so much as the one who brings bondage and harm.

                                      Later in the show when Helen looked into what the organization stood for she was very proud of what it did. The Women's Christian Temperance movements were where women had a voice before they did, they stood at a time of rampant alcoholism from wounded men coming home alcoholics from being traumatized by war and all kinds of abuse against women and children. bringing light to dark hidden places saying it was wrong.  This movement turned into the suffrage movement gaining women the right to vote be counted as worthy of their opinion mattering, helping men overcome addictions and find healing and getting children out of factories. So why is it over one hundred years later Women in the church looked at with unequal eyes?


                                       Our culture has had to do the job of seeing women as worthy and abuse as wrong. I'm tired of strong smart christian women having to make apologies for their brains and positions they earned and are qualified for in the church. I have been reading Bio's on church pages of the male and female pastors both are qualified with the degrees but only one has felt the need to make the descriptions of themselves into but I cook and garden too. Trying to prove that even though they're competent and deserve their job but they are girly too. It's the equivalent of the smart pretty girl acting dumb so the boys will like them. "But I love to garden and cook. Oh and chocolate, lets not forget the chocolate, not that I eat to much of it have watch my girly figure". Pay no attention to the degrees competence and brain behind the curtain. Why are there no strong women held up from the Bible in the church? or if they are, their strengths are muted on  how God used them, they  are shushed. Where are the volumes about Deborah the judge who ruled and lead the armies into battle?, or even the Proverbs women actually being a savvy business women of her day not the parts held up for women to emulate or passages that declared our equality saying that we are neither slave nor free male or female.


                                       It is not just the men-women. It is time we stop apologizing for our strengths or accepting the negative words assigned to a strong women. Humility is not saying "I am a worm, I am a worm" It's standing in the truth of who we are, good and bad,  accepting our skills and talents and not making them seem more or less than they are. We are more than capable to run more than potlucks and child care. Women's groups can be dynamic places where we tackle life and get real with the grit of it. It is time for the women to stand and be equal,  Why is this such a threat? I will never know. The mousy women that holds her toughts and minds her place while being a chef in the kitchen, Really? Is that our ideal?

                                   Why is it that there are never sermons on men manning up and accepting their wives,  girlfriends and daughters that are being capable and intelligent women that need support love and encouraging to stand in the shoes God gave them? There is all this back story being thrown at men about all they need is the respect of a women, really? I know a few women that want to be disrespected, and I do not think God said anything about respecting men as his goal. God says He loves them, God says He is no respecter of men. I think it's crap. I think respect is built into love in the true from on the word the dictionary defines respect as esteem for or a sense of the worth or excellence of a person, a personal quality or ability, or something considered as a manifestation of a personal quality or ability: I have great respect for her judgment. I think esteeming a person's worth and other things is mandatory in love. 

                                        Even in the way we talk about abstinence it is all about the women, every christian movie has a dad standing up and fighting for his daughters purity. Where is the movie about the son?  Or teaching respect for women.  Why is there no strong mother fighting to teach her son to respect himself and women? Not saying it is not happening but Why is that not being held up as an ideal? Why is it in every christian blog the end is for their kids even though they were strong headed as young kids it prepared them to be a missionary? Why did it not position them to take on other jobs a lawyer a  crusader for the rights of people with AIDS? being bullied by the system because none stands up for them, a Police Officer fighting for our community every day, or a Physical Therapist who helps those hurt get back into action or just a Therapist who helps heal the mind. 

                                             I think it's high time we the church start living and reading what the Bible actually says within it's culture rather than letting people tell us what it says within our own. As modern people we look at the passages about slavery and can detach from that as a cultural reference for the time it was written. we do that with so many things written there but pick a few things out to  be outraged about.  Not many keep a Kosher home nowadays.  I am not sure this post has strung together anything more than my frustration in seeing women diminish themselves to secure their position without intimidating insecure men. We all are stronger and better people when we lift one another up. there is enough for everyone, Your gifts, even if they are similar to another; your gifts with your twist on them and your bent, no one else can do what you specifically can do. We are made to fit together not by making one less so you seem to stand out but by shinning in our love.