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Worldly Things, and a Blessing for All Time

Food for Life....

Did you know that if you eat the RIGHT kind of chocolate you increase the odds of preventing skin cancer! - fortunately for us "foodies" Callebut is frequently in the cupboard!

Lifelong learning.....


About the furor over PRESIDENT (just reminding you, he IS the President - some people seem to have forgotten this already!) Obama's speech to School Kids this next week, I have a few things to say.

Firstly, Just about every President in past 30 years has given a similar speech (Bush 43's speech might not be seen as so inspirational) Here's a little "helping people remember" news video:



Secondly, I believe that much of the Neo-Conservative back-lash we are seeing right now, is because there is rampant, unacknowledged RACISM still operating in our country. Think about it - when people say (or yell, as is happening more frequently!) that they "want their country back" or "he's not my president, and I don't have to listen to him" it is quite possible that they are saying "I don't want a BLACK guy in the WHITE House". Author Tim Wise has written an article (and a book) that helps explain the "Psychology of the racist Right" in the same powerful way that George Lakoff helped explain the way the Right has co-opted language and derailed the conversation.

Lastly, good teachers everywhere are appalled by the politicization of the annual Back-to-School-Presidential-Speech. Here's just one of thousands of editorials that appeared this week, written by teachers and school administrators who support kids staying in school, working hard, and thoughtfuly listening to an important grown-up's views about education! As Arianna Huffington said in her blog this Sunday, " The last sitting president to address students across the nation was George H.W. Bush. During that speech, he issued a challenge to "revolutionize American education" and conduct "a crusade for excellence." Can you imagine what Glenn Beck would do with "revolutionize" and "crusade" coming out of Obama's mouth?"

Medicare for All, part IV:

Please, sign the Petition to the President calling for a Public Option that asks that the Public Option NOT be "optional" in the Health care reform work going on in Washington D.C. right now.
There are millions of reasons why we need HealthCare for All NOW, and only a small, but increasingly strident and threatening conservative "clot" that wants to intimidate the vast majority of us who are asking for, and willing to stand up for, real reform that helps individual Americans. Don't let the few ruin it, once again, for the many.

Daily Blessing:
from Julian of Norwich, one of my favorite mystical Christian writers (c. 1400) who prayed “Ah, good Lord, how could all things be well, because of the great harm which has come through sin to your creatures?”.

This was God’s response to her: “And so our good Lord answered all the questions and doubts which I could raise, saying most comfortingly: I make all things well, and I can make all things well, and I shall make all things well, and I will make all things well; and you will see for yourself that every kind of thing will be well. … And in these words God wishes us to be enclosed in rest and peace.” Julian’s words teach us that whatever happens, somebody bigger than either you or I is in charge of the cosmos. The storms may rage, we may feel we are sinking, but Jesus our Lord will always be there. Julian also wrote:

“He did not say ‘You shall not be tempest-tossed, you shall not be work-weary, you shall not be discomforted’. But he did say, ‘You shall not be overcome.’ God wants us to heed these words so that we shall always be strong in trust, both in sorrow and in joy.”

All will be Well
and
All will be Well
and
All manner of Things will be Well
Amen.

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