This is a hot topic that I never address publically, but has been a burr in my side.

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There has been a lot of divisive rhetoric on the issue of women’s reproductive rights especially as it clashes with political polarization. I want to offer my bias perspective as a man, to beg for transparent wording on the issues:

Reproductive Rights: is purely a euphemism and masks the issue at hand. “Reproductive” means simply to reproduce. It does not mean anything else other than that. Reproductive Rights seems to imply that abortion legislation will interfere with a woman’s right to reproduce. This cannot be further from that reality. In every way, we protect the right of woman to reproduce. Reproductive Rights then, has never been the issue, pro-choice legislation is trying to protect the right to an abortion. It masks as “Reproductive Rights, ” “Women’s Health.” and the right to choose. The right to freely choose to terminate a pregnancy, not the same right reproduce. Women have the right to reproduce.

“Pro-Choice” is protecting the right and choosing to terminate a life. Be honest with the messaging.

More later….needed to put my random thought in words.

If you didn’t do your job, would it make a difference?

How do we live with purpose in a world of futility? (in reflection of King Solomon in Ecclesiastes 1:2-3)

I often hear that “death was not part of God’s original design…” If that was the case, over 117 billion people have been born*. Could our world’s ecosystem support that? There are 36 billion acres on earth. Just thinking

https://info.nicic.gov/ces/global/population-demographics/how-many-people-have-ever-lived-earth#:~:text=This%20major%20change%20in%20our,ever%20been%20born%20on%20Earth.

Hope is not a plan- Hope is what you have when you have a plan. (I think I was the originator of this.).

One of my Facebook friends, Sovann Penn asked, “What are the  or skills of growing up for 20 – 35 year olds?”  My response…

1. Develop a Personal Mission Statement

2. Identity 2-3 essential skills or areas of expertise that one can develop.

3. Understand personal finance management (savings, no-debt, giving).

4. Invest in a consistent (spiritual) community.

5.Involvement in a civic/community/NPO.

6. Learn how to cook.

I think this could be a seminar or book!

As a minister, would you do a wedding for a couple who you know pretty sure that the marriage wouldn’t last?

As a minister, would you do a wedding for a couple who were not believers?

As a minister, do you do funerals for people who are unbelievers?

As a health care worker, would you treat someone who you knew wasn’t going to live?

Well I did…My friends would have gotten married anyway.  I even counseled the woman to really consider “do you know what you are getting into?” Or pretty much knowing that this would not last…   Now I am mediating so the couple can have the best divorce possible.   There is so much anger and fury between them. I am a divorce counselor trying to have them play like adults with two young kids in the balance.

If I did not do the wedding in the first place, they may have not had any guidance at all.  I am not surprised with this outcome…I am thankful that I can speak truth into their lives.

By the way, as a former medic…I felt it was my duty to treat someone even though I knew the outcome was grim.  It is not my call to walk away from someone even though the outcome was bleak.

From POC (People of Color), which I am one, I hear a lot of juxtapositions of thought and ideas.  Recently, here are two:

Visible or Invisible?

Where are you from? What is your country of origin?  What is your ethnic background.  POC often claim that this offensive because non-POC are accused of only seeing the exterior of race or an accent to determine otherness of a person.  We feel the burden of the perpetual foreigner.

However, when someone says, “I don’t see you as___________ (insert race, cultural label), I just see you as one of us.” Or, “I did not choose you to be on this team because of your culture.”  We then get offended that they do not see us as for who we are! POC are offended by color blindness.

So are we visible or invisible?  How do we graciously live in this tension?

Mistaken Identity 

I OFTEN mix up people’s name because I have CRS (Can’t remember $hit).  When non-POC do that to POC, the often POC attribute that to ‘you all look alike‘ syndrome.  It taps into our tendency to attribute xenophobia to mistaken identity (see reporter Sam Rubin’s mistake Samuel L Jackson February 10, 2014).  POC are offended during mistaken identity, but…

When POC do this especially to other POC we are often given a pass.  We accept that we just don’t know their name or just a honest mistake.  We take it at face value and often attribute no emotion towards it.

We all need to season ourselves with a bit of grace…

Lament is to deeply relate to, empathize for, have pit pity with, and emote with a person or situation that is going thought hardship, suffering, or injustice.  It is compassionate, caring, and consuming…

Grief is deeply personal, experientially first hand,  all consuming, irrational, inconsolable, thick, dark and clingy.  It is not linear.

I find it hard to move from lament to grief if I have not experienced trauma personally, however it is is essential that we at least start with lament to relate to other’s grief or injustice to be a catalyst for change.

I wish for a day that we can look back at ‘chemotherapy’ as archaic we do now as the efficacy as ‘blood letting’ of the 1700s.

Taking ‘poison’ to cure cancer seems ridiculous.