The Bam of Life

Is this country falling into the pits of life?

Those of you who smile with Trump as he tosses his power through people who are innocent and really don’t know much about power nor how to run this nation, the best credit you need is to take that ex-president and toss him into a tub and lock the door. He is terrifying and just a horrible jerk. Sure, what we see in movies is so often an entree into what is going on around us or is going to show up in the mirror in a few days. Things crawl into corners temporarily with the anticipation that it is going to burst out and, like it or not, will take over this country with a spit and a boom and a few illegal steps that sneak into things to interrupt the honest way of doing things. This is in the spit of someone like Trump who just doesn’t give a damn what happens in this country if he holds the towel that cleans up his feet, currently sloshing through mud.

How many kids in our dramatic city of Memphis are oozing around the streets trying to pick up something that is not theirs but may give them cause to pull out the gun and get rid of someone they don’t know. It irritates them for some reason and doesn’t have an inkling about their life and needs, but bang. Get rid of them. The police, completely booked, may drag in too slowly.

Look what is happening in Israel. Who would have thought that the very holy land which is the base of our faith has been twisted and bombed as various styles of faith are fighting against each other. Jews don’t like Moslems. Hamas is fighting against Zionist projects of Israel, yet they are not against Judaism or Jews.  And reverse. It tosses out a bomb now and then until it destroys good, fine people who cannot get out of the way in time. As bad as it is, the Jews have suffered sufficiently to give up on many things. But they are strong, having made it through the wars and the torture in Germany for so long in the decade’s past, although thousands, maybe millions of the Jews were thrown into pits and transported on trains till there was no way to escape the death charged to them.

Up to now, the Israeli military has killed more than 21,000 people in Gaza.  It’s hard to think about that, and a real trip is to visit the story of the Jews that takes a whole afternoon just to get through, wiping your eyes mostly, and somehow at the end, one breathes, but not well, as they shuffle slowly to the outside room where children are remembered - their names called and the lights making the large room onto a small case of life, remembering those children will no longer be on earth. I pray over and over they are on the lap of God. There is no museum like it.

We cannot forget that the Holy Land is not just those who live in that zone. It belongs to all of us who are believers of the stories of Jesus and the Apostles and those who stood strong and kept building the faith, who had experienced Jesus and the prophets were right and good and kept our type of faith alive. Would I be an Anglican priest today if there had not been Jesus and Paul and Peter and those who were sacrificed or demanded the leaders would bring on the faith in the manner it should be?

Mother Teresa has always been my saint, even before she became a saint. I had visited one of her projects in Uruguay. The women were wrapped in thin but long clothes that didn’t have the option of something warm in the grasps of winter. But when Teresa visited Uruguay, as she did most of her services everywhere, she was determined to give love to those dying or living in pain. Visiting her hospital in India was one of the most amazing and moving places I have ever experienced.  Where women and men suffered in pain, or were close to death, were loved by all the women taking care of them. Mother Teresa had passed. She no longer, at that time, walked and spoke in her amazing grace and she wrote notes, of which one I received and treasure. I believe she was one of Pope Francis’ most divine, beloved, and honorable saints.

I wonder who is walking the walk to become a saint these days. Here in the states, we don’t seem to get much courage to ask who is left to walk the saint road. There are, I’m sure, great saints. Mother Teresa went to the holy ground of sainthood, sent with the personal blessings of Pope Francis. Being there, for me, was a great.

~ Rev

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audrey@audreytaylorgonzalez.com
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