Dear All of Us,
And are you ever - ever so dear.
I need to tell you that this is going to be tough.
So, a caution.
Please don't bother with this week's blog unless you are willing to risk comfort
and face evil with good at a heavy cost to easy religiosity.
Let me tell you where I'm coming from.
I ask your indulgence as I do this in a rather rambling manner,
kind of work our way in from left field.
Like most all of us, I've had to stick my neck and more out
over these my many years for rightness and it's not easy or fun.
I know you have as well.
Please let me share two examples of mine.
I helped lead a civil rights march in a racist red area of rural Maryland.
I actively participated in other marches in Washington, DC and in Klu Klux Klan
laden central Indiana all in the 60"s and one in Northern New Jersey later.
Each one posed considerable personal and professional peril.
I risked misunderstanding and even suspicion for getting close to gay
folks, trying to support them as they worked their way to
self-acceptance, self-respect and eventually joy of self.
It meant things like me going to gay bars, inviting gay people to church
activities, taking them on retreats, offering shelter in moments of crisis under
the questioning scrutiny of families and church people, like letting
one crashing gay teen stay overnight at the rectory.
The back fences buzzed.
So that's a bit about where I come from in terms of
sticking out my neck and more.
And now here's where I'm going.
My quiet, pleasant retirement may be going, too!
What follows is me
sticking out my neck and more
in a never before way
and suggesting we all do so.
I have never ever
even once
done this before
as a pastor
that is
TALK ABOUT
HOW TO VOTE
A lot
like rarely
ever before
is at stake.
Time to shift
our spiritual
acuity and resolve
into high gear
God help us!
We here in The States are up against one of the toughest and most telling
elections in our history, one that will profoundly set course for our future
if we are to even have one.
At the risk of seeming a Yankee Jingoist, it will also affect world order/disorder.
As people striving to live a true and real spiritual life it is incumbent on us
to accurately size up and respond to what's at issue here, and do so in Jesus,
"The way, the truth, and the life."
John 14:6
VOICE AND VOTE
Our fix is a carbon of the so-called followers of Jesus Christ in Germany
during the 1930's and 40's.
The leaders of the two most prominent churches in Germany, the Roman
Catholic and Lutheran denominations, protected perks over being prophetic.
They did not voice truth or lead a holy resistance.
They played patsy with an out-of-control wronging right and
its mastermind of mass murder, Adolf Hitler.
In addition to the millions of military dead and maimed on all sides,
over five and a half million Jews were tortured and then murdered.
(Atlas of the Holocaust by Martin Gilbert)
They were murdered for no other reason than Hitler,
like all fascists, needed
a scapegoat enemy.
He set the Jews up as a threat and himself as savior.
In addition, actually SUBTRACTION, three point three million
Soviet prisoners of war, one point eight million Poles,
three hundred ten thousand Serbs, gays, Roma, political
prisoners (Deitrich Bonhoffer), homosexual persons,
and handicapped people were executed.
(The US Holocaust Museum, Washington, DC)
An evil, one of the most heinous in all human history, wasn't challenged by people
claiming to be Followers of Jesus. They let it happen. They even cooperated with it.
What a horrid copout.
Look what it allowed.
Those Roman Catholic and Lutheran clergy wore vestments at church
died red in the blood of millions.
The pews were full of apathetic go alongs to vigorous Nazi supporters.
So here I am, just a little old retired pastor person.
I could duck what's before us and just watch TV all day.
Well, I cannot!
I must stick out this tired old neck again.
We all must.
That' what I'm leading up to.
Here's how I see it.
We have a lot of dear and really good folks,
and some terribly dangerous sorts,
who are rip roaring mad at the way things are
here in the USA and globally.
It's just like the Germans after World War I.
They had lost how it was.
They didn't have it good.
Social upset and unrest.
Social divide and anger.
Just change the dates and particulars
and check it out in the Rust Belt for example.
In addition to outsourcing overseas
industry is replacing lots of workers with robots.
Industry retools production but not employment
for those workers machine replaced.
How do they support their families, save up for retirement?
Same sad in Appalachia for coal miners.
We've made strides in racial and gender matters and yet lots of basic,
fine folks, have not been wrapped in, part of the consideration.
They don't understand.
They are thrown by it and are downright frustrated and ticked.
They feel on the outs and are sick and tired of it all.
It's "Give me that old time ..." that never really was and can't be now.
I am in no way playing partisan politics here.
That's not my place.
I do need to herald the importance of our soon to be election.
I do need to challenge and state that we have
some candidates for office that favor fascism.
Instead of Jews, they portray immigrants
as our most pressing danger
when in fact they the candidates are
our most pressing danger.
Immigration is a concern for sure.
It's a global concern.
It means a lot of reset,
but let's not be confused by the facts.
I live next to the construction site of a massive,
new apartment complex here in DC.
Other than the Anglo bosses, all the hundreds of heavy lifters are Latino.
Check out the farm fields and meat packing houses cross the USA.
Take away the immigrants and a lot of suppers are gone as not so well.
Statistically, crime is lower among migrants than folks whose families were
migrants a generation or four ago.
They are not taking away jobs from native born Americans.
They are taking at low, low pay jobs that native born Americans don't want.
The whole thing is a problem that needs a lot of corrective.
But it is not a threat any more than all those Scotts, Germans and Irish,
Sweeds, Italians and Poles and lots of others
who made America what it is today.
That's how America was made great again,
and again and again and to our now.
Last Sunday on ABC TV's "THIS WEEK" there was an interview of
Republican Govenor Chris Sununu of New Hampshire.
He typified our danger.
He said of Donald Trump,
"I don't like his rhetoric"
and then went on to his
VOICE AND VOTE
for Donald Trump.
Hey, words are externalizing what's inside us.
"Out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks."
Matthew 12:34-40
Consider the "rhetoric, reasoning and rhyme "
coming out of Candidate Donald Trump's mouth:
- I won the 2020 election and this after sixty some court cases across America
ruled that not one claim of voter fraud was found to be valid?
- Kamala Harris is a "s..t Vice President": abundance of the heart?
- Arnold Palmer's male measurements?
- Praise for current dictators?
- Positive comments about Adolf Hitler's feats?
- Threat to use DOJ to punish political enemies?
- Military to be used domestically for control?
- Mass deporting of immigrants - legalities, costs, social impact?
- "I'll only be a fascist the first day" - suppose the sickness lasts and lasts
more than that dreaded first fascist day??
- Political opponents are "The enemy within" ?
- Fear mongering: Immigrants eat people's pets?
- The Vice President's husband had an affair in his previous marriage.
What's that got to do with electing Kamala Harris?
And by the way, how many affairs has Mr. Trump scored -
many more than one it seems.
- Those who stormed our Capital attempting to overthrow
democratic process and the storming resulted in a number of deaths and
life trauma for some capital police are heroes and will be pardoned?
"Out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks."
What's at the heart here?
There are sadly many lap dog candidates spewing
radical right twistings of free elections and constitutional democracy.
Fortunately, there seem to be some fine candidates on
both the Left and Right in the general election.
The concern is those who repeatedly lie, fabricate spurious unfounded facts
to their supposed favor, who scuttle constitutional process and principals.
I in no way endorse voting for Kamala Harris.
That's up to each voter.
If we can't support her,
we must not support an anti-democratic other.
We can still voice our vote by doing a write in ballot.
John Bolten of Trump's White House staff says
he's doing a write in vote for Dick Chaney.
Again, the issue here is not Left or Right.
It is truth, human respect, commitment to justice
and The Common Good.
Left would do that one way.
Right would do that another way.
As long as our model is Jesus and his truth shared in the Beatitudes and
The Sermon on the Mount things will be all right and no one will be left out.
Absent that we are in for a ride to hell.
In Germany fascism got off to a slow, quiet start.
People just let it go/grow.
It was not sniped in the bad bud.
Right now we must snip.
I rarely say we must.
Right now we MUST.
VOICE AND VOTE
Perhaps you wonder about my political stance.
Well, I am not a Democrat or a Republican.
I am a progressive traditionalist.
More often than not Democrats think
I am a Republican and, yep, you guessed it,
Republicans think I am a Democrat.
I recon I might just be on to something.
We who get together here at frankly speaking each week are pretty evenly spread
50/50 from my home country and lots of other lands - USA and international.
Whether we are from Bardstown Kentucky or London England please pray for us
Americans at our crossroad.
May this cross be redemptive.
We have
VOICE AND VOTE
******
NEXT ONLINE POSTING
Tuesday Afternoon/Evening
East Coast USA time
October 29, 2024
NEXT EMAIL DELIVERY
Friday
November 1, 2024
All Saints Day
LAST FIVE POSTINGS
AVAILABLE
by
scrolling down beneath
this posting
frankly speaking
spirituality for the street
johnfrankshares.blogspot.com
Thanks for riding out this
difficult and critical matter
together.
Love to all.
God Bless,
John Frank
******
