Today is the Feast of the Immaculate Conception. I read just yesterday that the feast began in 1854. Protestants and the Eastern Church don’t recognize the feast, but it’s dogma in the Roman Church. It’s too bad that the dogma of more Christian churches doesn’t include the Sermon on the Mount and the phrase, “love your enemies, do good to those who persecute you.” Somehow we’ve managed to excise that from dogma. It’s perfectly okay to kill your enemies as long as you observe dogma. The mother of Christ will always hold a special place in my heart, “the lady” as I call her always seems to intercede and there can be no doubt that Mary’s presence in the Roman Catholic Church reaffirms the sacred feminine, even if women are not allowed to be priests as they should be. Alas, that is more dogma.
Today is my 55th birthday. Thirty-seven years ago I was required to register with Selective Service. We had phony war going on in which Americans were killing and being killed. We lost over 58,000 men and women. Thousands more of our veterans were wounded and many still bear the effects of the combat. A good friend of mine is suffering from cancer once again that has been tied to Agent Orange. We were told then as now that the war was necessary to keep our democracy safe. We didn’t have much of a democracy then and we sure don’t have one now. The politicians then were doing the bidding of the military industrial complex as they are now. Combat veterans were allowed to languish in military hospitals then and now. Politicians made stump speeches about ending the war, but then as now the speeches were just bull****. Only a few of today’s politicians actually served in our military. Back then there were more veterans in Congress, but it didn’t really make any difference. There’s a lot of money made in war and who cares if thousands of our youth are killed and wounded. We care even less for the innocents we’ve slaughtered in Vietnam, Cambodia, and now Iraq and Afghanistan. Our bloodthirsty and money hungry leaders are planning yet another blood bath and despite what we want, we’ll have yet another war, because that is the American way.
I’m a veteran of the Vietnam era and as such I’m entitled to a flag and a marker. I want neither. In my will I’m stipulating that my coffin is not to be draped, nor any marker put anywhere. I’m ashamed of my country, our president, vice-president and our congress. They don’t represent me, they only take my money in taxes which they don’t feed the poor or house the homeless, but instead make bombs and guns to kill with.
America loves to be called a Christian nation. Politicians never shrink from an opportunity to wrap themselves in the Bible and the flag. But they neither love Americans nor do they really love God. If they read and applied any of what is in the Bible, in particular what is attributed to Jesus Christ they’d soon realize that they were living in error.
Last night as I had dinner with my wife and daughter we reflected on the fruits of folks who claimed Christ. An appalling lack of understanding about Christ’s message exists.
I like your Christ. I do not like your Christians. They are so unlike your Christ.–Gandhi
The Mahatma got it. Many Americans do get it, but our government doesn’t and we the people who really pay the taxes are having our money stolen and squandered in war. War never accomplishes anything. It only produces more war. Fighting for peace is like fornicating for virginity. It doesn’t work.