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How Long Can This Go On?
 What in this world is important to God? Especially in these strange, indescribable days of late.
The Jews shouted out to the heavens to get attention for their wish to resolve the war that has been tossed back and forth like an off-kilter basketball. It’s not good for anyone. I’d rather put myself on a new tennis court and get my heart a puffing and remembering how I once played and ran around that court when the heart was younger. Now my grandchildren are on the edge of giving birth to whatever God sends to this shore.
Are we just a bunch of angry people trying to outdo or be better than the ones across the street - or trying to dominate the ignorant so they can vote in such a way that everyone is crushed and gone forever or is there some possibility that God knows where the poor folk are, the weak animals and crawling ants that no one likes, and yet, when I walk the beach in Carmelo, I often see a whole tiny parade of minuscule, almost invisible black ants, a long line of them, crossing the rather crude tight sand that’s kind of useless because not many people go over or step on that, since it is rare when people cross or avoid that line in the sand. Is one just as important as the other?
Does God sit there and wonder why humans, who are so obsessed with money, power, even soccer and basketball and brutal American football both college and professional levels, and somewhere in there we spend a moment of preparation for the nights exotic sushi or the incredible cat fish at Soul Fish - crunchy fried catfish being the first or the highest or the most attractive or throwing out the best ideas that might solve the problems that are destroying everything going on in circles, like the early morning traffic crowds, or the lines at Starbucks where so many (mostly younger than older) stop in and get a Frappuccino with variants, and, hey, one can even get an egg, bacon and sausage wrap to go along with the high calories drink. If you pass through Brazil, don’t miss the cheese balls in that too long airport that has their own Starbucks cook. It shares a bit of peace, for a minute. It’s funny that we think of as a satisfaction of the stomach, and no matter where one is in the world - even in Egypt or Israel - there is a Starbucks. It’s fascinating that coffee is probably the most popular drink in the world, and I wonder, thinking way back, when I lived on a coffee plantation in Tanganyika (it became later Tanzania) if that was the birth of Starbucks. There was no such thing. And now we can’t live without it. (Seattle - Mar 30 1971) I was a new pleb on the Memphis Press Scimitar. Did we ever dream it would take over the world? Think about it. I didn’t even drink coffee in those days. See how I change the subject so fast?
The middle of the Mid-East on our map is twisting and praying and defending and defending the things that were going for too many mornings. Nothing was safe. They don’t even play US football in that part of the world, but “futbol” and rugby can build strong men who may or may not have good souls and they call on God when unneeded war begins to crawl out of the wrong side of the road, and their life is on the edge of destruction. Usually one was the enemy - in this case the enemy lives behind tall walls that had been built to keep them from interrupting the lifestyle of those who don’t want to live behind those walls. It’s similar to the walls in New Mexico, Arizona, Southern California trying to keep out the Latinos, the Mexicans, the Guatemalans, the people who work so much harder than we do, because they need to feed their children, and their skills become outstanding and praiseworthy; but, they are still illegal and their lives are often escaping from the border police if they don’t have a permit.
Such a horrible thought. Can you believe the many honest people who give their lives just to get a job in the fields of California, while the crooks, the mafia, the people end up in jail alongside of the innocent people who came across the border just to earn a salary to feed their families. The purpose is always dependent on the immigrant. What do we do with the honest people who are desperate and miserable as they work till, they can send their earnings home in other countries so their children can eat. And they too are devout Christians who trust God will get them in the right place where they are needed and can be honest.
It’s funny that what we think of as a satisfaction of the stomach, not the soul, and we think we just downed a boost to carry us through the day - when all we really have to do is do a quick view of the blue sky or the heavens rumbling with gray thunder - and we can confirm that God is up there, out there, and right in the middle of us, probably guiding our decisions although we don’t know it because we so much want to be the victor or creator of heaven - forgive me - having destroyed the dreams or hope of someone on the other side of the wall, the bloc, the street, who defied what was once beautiful, a pile of laughter, a hope in prayer, banging on the Wailing Wall, hoping it isn’t too late to say one more prayer, stick in one more folded prayer of white paper.
Does any of this matter? Is God surrounding you with His words, His feelings, His guidance, His efforts to bring war and rumors of war to a halt? It has not been very successful in the very land where My God, Your God, the People’s God made this first stand, sending down His Son to make things happen in such a way that people knew what God wanted from us, even though we failed to put it on the plate of life. So tragic we seem to be while power Mongols sent God’s son into the desert on a donkey and in the arms of his mother. There was nothing easy about His Life. His Task. His Sandals that took him over Jerusalem, and its environment as he tried to put His spirit into the souls of all of those saw Him, heard Him and said “Yes I agree and I want to know You Jesus, all of you and please hold my hand as I try to get to the other side as long as I can serve and love you in the best way possible.“
Then 2,000 years later, your people, your sons and daughters, are slaughtering each other. The Jews have not thought of goodness when they encounter anyone but another Jew. Remember back in 1967 five years after I had covered most of Africa which was opening its doors for their own presidents and dictators and residents to have in their own way, their own country, no longer dominated by royalty or bosses from other European nations. Africa was becoming Africa. It was a joyous thought.
We Americans have the excruciating memory of 9-11, when Arabs who hate us or were told to hate us slipped through on airplanes as they were set up with delight to send into the two Twin towers to mess up reality and the good lives that Americans and foreigners and children and police and business men and actors who had made a good life in a charming city with so much to do that was original and about life in a big city. The sun had scattered away any clouds, so the sky was blue, and the city was a busy, creative, congestive paradise. And then there was the day 9-11. And our whole concept of life and freedom took a new turn, a terrible turn, a deadly turn that we never thought anyone had the power to destroy the holiest space on earth.
And it seems unbelievable that Fear showed up again when the holy lands of Israel and Gaza and Hamas and anyone anxious to kick the giant bucket of faith became the victims or victors of a new kind of war where religious faith was twisted and turned and tossed around like garbage and death walked in to disrupt life and, like 9-11, something occurred that once again meant that life cannot go back again, and starvation spit out its power and created a problem, of course, that strangled the availability of food, and Aids, and fuel, and in Tel Aviv Jews woke up to see who is and is not their friends. They think Oct 7 was a post extolling the Hamas paraglides who slaughtered Jews at a music festival: Jewish Voice for Peace. Gaza casually figured from a health ministry run by Hamas, and they were relying on figures produced by the Russian Government. They described this murdering Jewish settler… who murders babies and kidnapped elder women as fighters or militants. I HATE To think that we belong to anyone but some sort of reason and right thinking - and wearing a healthy walk so that all men and women can be equal and that we can toss the dime in the air and pick the one that comes down first, needs us first, and can shake hands with other competitors and the USA and the major nations on this planet.
~ Rev
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audrey@audreytaylorgonzalez.com
www.audreytaylorgonzalez.com
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