How are you managing your thoughts and feelings about this weekend's raids?

I don't want any more kids in cages or people frightened of midnight raids leading to deportation. Enough is enough. 

Even City mayors now are resisting and refusing to cooperate with ICE and the ineffective, abusive policies of the Trump administration

 I live in Western NY state where many hispanic farm workers live in fear and panic. I was talking to a friend of mine who works at the Migrant Education Center at our local College at Brockport and she tells me that enrollment is down this summer because parents are afraid to bring their children to town for summer programming. She told me a very sad story about a 15 year old girl in the program who has been sex trafficed by her mother to a 23 year old male for the money at least twice,  and Child Protective Services from the County are reluctant to get involved and twice have returned the girl to her mother. Whether local police have been called because this is statutory rape the person didn't know.

What's going on in our country reminds me of how the Jews were treated under the Nazis, and citizens with integrity are taking steps to hide, and protect the discriminated people among us from the government. If you have to choose statutory rape or your mother's possiblee deportation which would you choose?

We all have little things we can do every day to help people and protect them. I don't thing Pelosi or McConnel or Nadler or Schiff or any other politiicans will help us. We are on our own and we must protect our fellow human beings from the government which increasingly doesn't seem to be  acting in moral ways that I can support.

I am a privileged 73 old white guy and Iam scared where I live in Western New York not for myself but for my neighbors and the people I mingle with in our community.

As a Unitarian Universalist I covenant together with other UUs to affirm and promote justice, equity, and compassion in human relations. The Trump white house administration and his supporters don't support this principle. It seems that we are back to civil disobedience as a means of resisting oppression and immorality.

From The Week, 07/14/19:

Cities prepare for ICE raids

Immigrant communities in major U.S. cities are preparing for raids conducted by Immigration and Customs Enforcement on Sunday, as promised by President Trump on Friday. Trump has said ICE will initially focus on searching for undocumented immigrants with criminal histories, but fears of deportation are widespread, and many people say they are carrying their U.S. passports just in case. San Francisco Mayor London Breed said her city's police will not cooperate with ICE. "If you want to come after them, you're going to have to come through us," Breed said. In some cities, government human-service workers are ready to find foster homes for any children left behind if their parents are detained and marked for deportation. In many cases, adult undocumented immigrants have children who are U.S. citizens. [USA Today, NBC News]

Ask Alexa - Things are so bad in the world. What can I do?

Alexa: If I cannot change other people and many external circumstances what can I do?

You can always change your mind about them.

Alexa: Why did the team throw their team mate off the team?

The person wasn't pulling their weight.

Alexa: I feel powerless when I think about all the problems in the world today.

They say "There is no such thing as a free lunch," but you could make it so if you make yourself two lunches and give one away to a co-worker or a neighbor. It's called "sharing" and some of us learned about it in kindergarten.

Spiritual reading discussion, Maturity by Osho, Article #3, Meditation as a way of undoing the ego

Maturity Article #3

Meditation as a way of undoing the ego.

To me, the first principle of life is meditation. Everything else comes second. And childhood is the best time. 

As you grow older it means you are coming closer to death, and it becomes more and more difficult to go into meditation. 

Meditation means going into your immortality, going into your eternity, going into your godliness. And the child is the most qualified person because he is still unburdened by knowledge, unburdened by religion, unburdened by education, unburdened by all kinds of rubbish. He is innocent.

Osho. Maturity: The Responsibility of Being Oneself (Osho Insights for a New Way of Living) . St. Martin's Press. p. x

Comment:

What does Osho mean by meditation? He means becoming centered and obtaining the state of "no mind," that is, undoing the ego.

In A Course In Miracles, it is taught that "meditation" is a quieting of the mind but the quieting, in and of itself, does very little, without changing one's thought system from focusing on the world of the ego to the world of the Spirit which is the Oneness of God.

A Course In Miracles teaches that the method of changing one's thought system is to rise above resentment, judgment, grievance, blame, guilt, and fear. It is the ego which blocks our awareness of Love's presence which is our natural inheritance.

Osho says that "meditation" means going into your immortality, going into your eternity, going into your godliness. Osho says the child is the most qualified because the child hasn't been burdened by all the nonsense which we think is so important on the ego plane for a happy life.

In the Christian prayer, the "Our Father," it says, "And lead me not into temptation but deliver me from evil" it is referring to not taking the promises of the ego world seriously. In eschewing the temptations of the ego world we rest in the bliss of the Oneness of God.

Osho teaches that the first principle of life is to be brought to innocense again by "meditation," giving up our egoistic ways of resentment, judgement, desire, blame, playing the victim. We have the power to decide to reclaim our innocense by giving up the judgments of the world.

What does the New Testament story of the road to Emmaus have to do with LGBT people?

Trump has them coming for you. Who will be next?

From The Week on 07/12/19

Raids targeting undocumented immigrants loom

Federal agents are gearing up for raids targeting undocumented families set to begin Sunday, The New York Times reported Thursday, citing two current and one former homeland security officials. The details of the project still were not fixed. The raids reportedly have President Trump's support, but have been delayed partly due to resistance from some immigration officials. Democratic lawmakers and activists criticized the plan and reminded immigrants of their legal rights. New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D) issued a statement providing information about a state-supported immigrant legal defense group, while Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) tweeted that "you do not have to open your door" to law enforcement or ICE agents "unless there is a signed judicial warrant." [The New York Times, CNN] Editor's note: Unitarian Universalists covenant together to affirm justice, equity, and compassion in human relations.

A Course In Miracles and Unitarian Universalism - What and where is reason?

T-21.V.4. You do not realize the whole extent to which the idea of separation has interfered with reason.

 Reason lies in the other self you have cut off from your awareness. And nothing you have allowed to stay in your awareness is capable of reason. How can the segment of the mind devoid of reason understand what reason is, or grasp the information it would give? All sorts of questions may arise in it, but if the basic question stems from reason, it will not ask it. Like all that stems from reason, the basic question is obvious, simple and remains unasked. But think not reason could not answer it.

A Course in Miracles . Foundation for Inner Peace. p.457

Comment

We put our trust in faith, perception, belief, and yet it is reason, only, that is dependable and can point us to reality.

Unitarian Universalists covenant together to affirm and promote the free and responsible search for truth and meaning and yet many times seem confused about where that "free and responsible search" should take us and where truth and meaning will actually be found.

A Course In Miracles teaches that truth and meaning are not to be found in the external world of the ego, but in the reason which is in our own mind.

In our search for what we think will make us happy in the world of the ego, we often unconsciously dissasociate our mind from reason putting our trust in "faith," our "perceptions" which are made up of projections, and in out "beliefs" which are based on socialization which has given us the norms, attitudes, biases, and prejudices of the reference groups which surround us.

Truth and meaning are to be found in our reason which is based in our memory of our Divine Source which is the foundation of our inherent worth and dignity which UUs covenant together to affirm and promote, reasoning that inherent worth and dignity belong to all people.

Alexa; What is reason?

           

Reason is beyond faith, perception, and belief and lies with the Holy Spirit which is the innate memory of from whence you came.

Alexa: Am I drunk?

That seems like a loaded question.

Alexa: How can I be kind today?

Offer your company to an elderly relative or a neighbor, co-worker, acquaintance who may be feeling lonely and isolated. Offering ten minutes of your time and attention to join with them in mutual rapport can make a big difference in both your lives. Jesus said, "Where two or more come together and remember love, there my love will be."