Saturday, April 3, 2021

And so it goes ............Observations during the week of March 28 - April 3, 2021

 


Week of March 28, 2021 - April 3, 2021

When the corruption and unethical behavior of political office holders  is discovered and broadcast to the public it is, in a democracy, always good to ask, “Who elected these people to represent them?”


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This past week has been for Christians, “Holy Week '' which commemorates Jesus' arrest, trial, crucifixion, burial, and resurrection. The point of the story is lost on most people, especially most Christians who interpret the story as a blood sacrifice to appease a wrathful God when it really is about the inconsequential fact of the body’s temporary existence but the eternal power of Love.


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In heavy traffic this past week, two different people paused to let me in ahead of them. How nice is that? It’s the small things that make one hopeful for the human race and the world.


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The spiritual question of the month is “Are you a body with a soul or a soul with a body?” One person answered “both.” Of course, but which point of focus do you think is most important?


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What we are seeing now in the news every day since Trump was voted out of office is the law of Karma being manifested. As mothers, fathers, therapists, teachers, employers, judges have taught, “Behavior has consequences” or more to the point, “What goes around comes around.”


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Stimulus checks are letting poor people take small short vacations, buy new furniture and TVs and even go gambling at the casinos. Isn’t life grand? Some even are catching up on their back bills and paying their rent ahead a month. The question, of course, is what happens when the stimulus money is gone?


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Unitarian Universalist churches have mistakenly thought that they are social clubs and social justice agencies. They have forgotten or marginalized their primary mission which is to facilitate and nurture spiritual growth.

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Jesus said so nicely “What does it profit a person if they gain the whole world but lose their soul?” Happens plenty of times every day often to the applause of the audience.

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A guy said one time, “My body is nothing without me.” Wow…………………….

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There are winter birds and summer birds and birds passing through in spring and fall. One of the joys of spring is seeing the birds passing through and those that have come north for the summer.

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We find it hard to make progress on developing a more just, equal, and compassionate society when we continue to confuse prejudice, discrimination, and systemic racism. While these components interact, they are not the same thing and we would do well to make the distinction when we consider them if we are to improve the quality of life on our planet.

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Schooling is not the same thing as education. We are learning more about this difference as a result of schools being shut down during the Covid-19 pandemic.

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Being raised a good Catholic boy who was in the seminary for a while, on Friday, I yucked it up good with a joke from my seminary days telling people to have "a good Friday." Have a good Friday on Good Friday, get it?

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Auditing a course this Spring, 2021 semester at SUNY Brockport entitled "Sociology Goes To The Movies" We have to watch and critique seven films. The first was The Matrix, the second is Crash, and the third is Pocahontas. The point of the class says the instructor is “critical analysis” meaning how do films exemplify sociological concepts and theories? It is interesting how pop culture can be thought to operate at two levels: to entertain, and to socially condition the audience.

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