“Whenever anyone has offended me,
I try to raise my soul so high that the offense cannot reach it.”
René Descartes
The Bible, that powerful book, has many effects:
it comforts, counsels, instructs, and brings us into the presence of God.
But trying to erase offense as one of its functions is a fundamentally misguided task.
Frederica Mathewes-Green
The first and most essential means of making peace with those who offend and
persecute us is to pray for them,
according to the commandment of Christ.
–Saint Leo of Optina
(my first fig from my small tree / Julie Cook / 2016)
We are known by our fruits, just as we may know others by theirs…
By their fruit you will recognize them. Do people pick grapes from thornbushes, or figs from thistles? Likewise, every good tree bears good fruit, but a bad tree bears bad fruit. A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, and a bad tree cannot bear good fruit. Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. Thus, by their fruit you will recognize them.
Matthew 7:16-20
Meaning…
It is to the goodness and the positive…those good deeds, exploits and actions we do for
which we will be remembered and recognized…
And yet sadly on the opposite side of all of this, many of us are actually recognized by the bad fruits and the negative things that we do.
As we are more likely to remember one bad offense while forgetting the 99 good—
All of which is human nature I suppose…
And as I have stood watching all of this election business of ours..
the good, the bad and the very ugly…
Just as I have watched this racial unrest or ours,
This polarization of ours,
This ever deepening and widening chasm of ours…
splitting this Nation of ours in half…
All with both amusement and alarm,
sorrow and bewilderment,
disdain and even wonder…
I am left to ponder as to the fruits that we are to recognize in our fellow man / woman
That of which we shall see and be drawn to and remember….
I’ve never seen anything like all of this growing spectacle of ours.
This debacle of democracy.
It’s grown into something so laughable and so ridiculous,
that I want to stop everything and just ask one simple question…
can we simply start all over??
As we are about to have to decide between the two people who are currently
seeking the highest office in our Nation…
One has proven herself to be a liar who…
has spent a lifetime covering up so very much…
conveniently forgotting so much…
all the while…
living with spilt blood on her hands…
The other one lacks tact, decorum, civility and often decency of thought and word…
all the while forgetting to shut his mouth lest he shoves both feet in for a snack.
And yet I am being chided into voting for the woman of this pair for the mere reason that I too am a woman…
As when Madeleine Albright so ridiculously and even threateningly stated that “there is a special place in hell for women who will not for vote for a woman…”
It was shades of Dante’s Inferno…
however her motives were not nearly as pure or just as our dear Dante…
Is that not just another way of saying vote white because you’re white,
vote male because you’re male,
vote black because you’re black,
vote latino because you’re latino….
As ludicrous as that all is–that is exactly how many out there are coaching fellow
voters to in turn vote….
And yes, I have taken grave umbrage with such…
Why?
Because I am a woman and I can vote…
that is in itself the very reason why I can vote for someone other than a woman…
And at this rate, Charlie Brown is looking pretty darn good….
We’ve definitely got a mess on our hands and there is, I’m fairly certain,
neither divide nor doubt about that from either party or side.
So here’s the thing…
We can either honor God and His covenant to us, His children.
We can either honor the Nation of Israel, the land of God’s chosen inheritance
We can either turn back around from our wicked, yes wicked, ways…
or…
We can continue down our path of destruction…
So what are we to do?
Who are we to vote for….????
We pray……..
The Spirit of the Lord speaks by me;
his word is on my tongue.
The God of Israel has spoken;
the Rock of Israel has said to me:
When one rules justly over men,
ruling in the fear of God,
he dawns on them like the morning light,
like the sun shining forth on a cloudless morning,
like rain that makes grass to sprout from the earth.
“For does not my house stand so with God?
For he has made with me an everlasting covenant,
ordered in all things and secure.
For will he not cause to prosper
all my help and my desire?
2 Samuel 23: 1-5
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