God and the Candidates

Some of the Republican candidates for U. S. President—Bachman, Perry, and Santorum come to mind—would have it that they prayed, and that God told them He wanted them to run for president.    Each seems to have taken that to mean that God wanted h/h to be king president.  But clearly they can’t all be right.    Did they consider that perhaps He wanted them to run in order to add some levity to the race?  Or because He wanted to see millions of dollars wasted?    Or because He wanted to keep people guessing as to who His real candidate was?  Or were some of them mistaken?  Or were some praying to the wrong god?*  
Because we know He does pick the president, does He not?   As in 2000, when the race in Florida wasn’t going the way He intended, He just told His judges to appoint George W Bush, and they did.  Funny, though, one wonders if He is against Democracy—if not, He would have let the democratic process take its course; He would have trusted the election to reflect the will of the American people.  If He is really so in control, why couldn’t He have just turned a few more minds to vote the ‘right’ way, to reflect his will?   
Anyway, why should God care who rules a given nation?  And does he?  Some nations have kings, ruling by the “divine right of kings,” as do England and North Korea.  Some have dictators, benevolent or malign, but very, very rich, as have been some of our very own presidents.   And some of our own presidents have acted as though they thought they were ruling by “divine right,” sometimes referred to as “mandate,” or “political capital.”
There is, of course, precedent for judges to select a nation’s ruler.  Consider the story in the book of Samuel.  About 3200 years ago, the Israelites, who had been governed for generations by judges, had started agitating to have a king.  Other nations had kings, why shouldn’t they?  (They seem to have been worried that one of Samuel’s sons would rule when he died, and his sons had “turned aside after lucre, and took bribes, and perverted judgment.”  Hmmm…we don’t know anyone like that, do we?)  Samuel, the old, wise, current judge, said, “no, no, no…” but they said “yes, yes, yes…”  So Samuel  went to God with their request and God said, “Tell them I say no, no, no…and also show them just what a king would do to them” and so Samuel did, and he warned them:  “This will be the manner of the king that shall reign over you:  He will take your sons, and appoint them for himself, for his chariots, and to be his horsemen; and some shall run before his chariots.  And he will appoint him captains over thousands, and captains over fifties; and will set them to reap his harvest, and to make his instruments of war, and instruments of his chariots.  And he will take your daughters to be confectionaires, and to be cooks, and to be bakers.  And he will take your fields and your vineyards, and your oliveyards, even the best of them, and give them to his servants.  And he will take the tenth of your seed, and of your vineyards, and give to his officers and to his servants.  And he will take your menservants, and your maidservants, and your goodliest young men, and your asses, and put them to his work.  He will take the tenth of your sheep:  and ye shall be his servants.  And ye shall cry out in that day because of your king which ye shall have chosen you; and the Lord will not hear you in that day.”  (I Samuel 8:11-18, the lofty King James version)  But again the people cried to have a king, that they might be like other nations, and that the king might judge them, and fight their battles.  So Samuel returned to God, and this time God shrugged his shoulders and said, “Oh, well, what the…” or words to that effect, “Let them have their king, I will even pick one out for them.”  So Samuel promised the people they could have their king, and told them to return home.  And God chose a very tall and comely young man by the name of Saul, and Samuel anointed him, with oil, to be king, and we all know how that turned out.  Or if you don’t, read the rest of the Book of Samuel for yourself, or google him.   (Now it is not recorded whether George W Bush was anointed with oil by one of the judges, although we do know that John Ashcroft,  Bush’s Attorney General  and later aspirant to the presidency, anointed himself, with vegetable oil.  Didn’t help though.)
Perhaps instead of thinking of themselves as chosen by God, they should think of how they should live as president if they should happen to achieve that goal, however that is done.  “What doth the Lord require of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God?”  (Micah 6:8)  “Study to show thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed.”  (II Timothy 2:5)
[An aside, but not unpertinent.  Just watched Countdown on Current tv, David Shuster hosting, and he interviewed a comedian, Jamie Filstein, about the phenomenon of Tim Tebow, the Xtian football player, and displayed a poll that showed  54% of  Republicans think God helps Tebow and helps the Broncos to win.   You can catch it here http://current.com/shows/countdown/   Pretty funny and true.
*Do you suppose that Jesus is circumventing His Father in this political event?  Consider, He was the one who chased money-changers out of the temple, he is the one who said it would be difficult for rich men to get to Heaven, now he must be very disturbed  about the devastation wrought by the financial class, and, despairing of the Democrats ever taking on that issue, manipulated this whole Republican campaign in order to get them, in the person of Gingrich and aided by Perry, to expose the whole rotten system.  Do you think?

Valerie has a birthday

Valerie My Activist Daughter, on her 47th Birthday: 

When Valerie was two years old, she took to wandering.  I normally did not worry about my children playing in an unfenced yard in the quiet community of Takoma Park MD; there were always the older ones to look out for the younger, and always enough going on to keep their attention so that they didn’t stray.  At least, (not much) till Valerie.  She would trot off down the street, and crossing streets posed no problem for her.  She ended up at the police station licking ice cream cones often enough that I think she just made a beeline for there.  One Saturday, when it was Sabbath Day at the Seventh-Day Adventist Church down the street, and across one street, she ended up on her tricycle riding around the church yard while parishioners stood around gossiping after church, everyone thinking she belonged to one of them there.  After we moved to a farm on the Shenandoah River near Front Royal, I used to have two little boys her age, four and five, to visit.  One day they all three disappeared.  You can imagine that I was frantic.  I ran around calling them, checked down by the river, in the tent set up by the river, in the barn and down the driveway, and finally called the sheriff.  As I went back outside, I discovered them emerging quite happily from the wooded hills behind the house—Rabbit Mountain we called.  “Oh, we just went for a walk the way we always do.”

Valerie’s fearless wandering may have been prophetic and metaphoric.  She was four-and-a-half when a friend and I started a small preschool in the friend’s house in Front Royal VA.  There was a minor difference of philosophy between Nadine and I, as she was evangelical and really wanted to start a religious school, and I was secular and just wanted to teach children to read.  Still, we resolved our differences somewhat, and agreed that she could read Bible stories to the children as long as I could read the dinosaur book to them.

We had differences of style too; when I was reading to the children, of whom there were five, I gathered them around me on the couch, as I did with my own, while Nadine preferred to stand in front of them in a teacherly style.  One time, in this pose, she asked the children to be very quiet, and demonstrated how they were to take their imaginary keys, lock their lips, and throw the keys away.  Valerie dutifully grabbed her key out of thin air, locked her lips, and put the key in her pocket for future use! 

Nadine was presenting a lesson on how God made things grow.  Before the words were scarcely out of her mouth, “Only God can make flowers grow…” Valerie was saying, “Uh-uh, we can plant the seeds and make flowers grow.”  “Well, yes, but only God can send the rain…”  “Uh-uh, we can water them…”

Things didn’t get much better as she got older.  In fifth grade, after we moved to Montana, she came home one day in despair.  “Mom, today Ms Killdeer was talking about tree rings, and she said that in years when the weather is good, the rings are narrower than in years when the weather is bad, and I said, “Uh-uh, the trees make wider rings in the good years.”  And she said, “There goes Valerie again, acting like she knows it all.”  Valerie felt terrible about having made such a bad impression.

The next day I happened to see a scrap of torn up paper on the floor, and upon reading it, discovered that it appeared to be part of a rough draft of a note of apology to Ms Killdeer.  When she came home, I asked her about it, and she said that, yes, she had written a note of apology to Ms Killdeer, and given it to her that day, saying that she was sorry for contradicting the teacher.  “But,” she said to me, “I know that I was right.”

Now we all know that Valerie has never ceased her metaphoric wandering and her activism; from small beginnings at a tender age, I am sure a book could be written on her forty odd years since then.

Long may she wander; long may she raise her voice.  The world is richer.

GREAT AUGUST EARTHQUAKE 2011 PART II

West Coasters are pleased to laugh at us for our “over” reaction to this earthquake, just as we would laugh at them for their “over” reaction to six inches of snow, but this is not to be taken lightly.   The Washington Monument sustains several prominent cracks (though it is not tilting as Fox News reported, but did we believe that?), the Washington Cathedral has damage that could cost in the millions of dollars to fix, and they have no insurance.   Many other buildings damaged.  Water pipes broken at Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt and Pentagon.  Roads, rails, and bridges mostly seem to be intact.  Renewed concern about the safety of nuclear reactors.  In Louisa County, officials counted four houses within five miles of the epicenter destroyed, another 65 with severe damage, and 125 with moderate damage.  Schools in the area are closed till September 12 to repair damage.  Estimates of the damage from this earthquake range from $10 to $100 million.  But that may be low-ball estimates.

Some people whose property is damaged by the earthquake may be shocked to find their homeowner insurance does not cover earthquakes.  Or other natural disasters such as hurricanes, tornadoes, floods—you had better check your policy now.  You probably have to buy a separate rider for these possibilities.  But good luck with that now—this earthquake probably will be cited as “pre-existing condition!”  I wonder if evacuation of the city, everyone leaving at once, was done as wisely as could be, but I don’t know if the gridlock was really that much worse than usual “rush hour” traffic.  Perhaps one of you kept track of that?  Rail service in the DC area was slowed, because of concern about damaged tracks, just at a time when it would be most needed.  What about all those government workers and others who depend on rail to get home?  There must have been a huge out flux of tourists and visitors, since all museums and monuments closed.  Do they have a plan for such contingencies?  It seems to me that some kind of rolling evacuation, dismissing an area at a time, perhaps beginning at the periphery, might be wiser.   What would they do if they had to evacuate the whole city on short notice?  Does Homeland Security just say “GO!”

So what triggered the earthquake?  Was it just time for another? 

 I heard someone say that the earthquake was caused by the Founding Fathers rolling over in their graves!

 A friend of mine quipped that it was an Act of God, in order to create more jobs for construction workers!

 Rev Pat Robertson thinks the earthquake is a sign of the end times—noting that the cracks in the Washington Monument could be a sign from God.

 Someone else thought it might be punishment for Rep Eric Cantor, in whose district  was the epicenter of the earthquake, who had said after the Joplin MO tornado, that indeed government might help with recovery effort, but that there would have to be comparable cuts in the budget elsewhere.  Indeed, after the earthquake, he appeared in his district to reassure his constituents that of course the government would help, but there would have to be cuts elsewhere to pay for the help.   

 I emailed Valerie, in Spokane, when I heard that MLKjr memorial, which was holding opening ceremonies, had to evacuate,   “ How long will it take the right wingers to say that the earthquake and Hurricane Irene are God’s  punishment for the installation of MLKjr memorial on the Washington Mall?  I think opening ceremonies were today, I understand people had to run out of the building when the earthquake hit, and the big dedication is this weekend, when Irene is likely to hit.

Watch for it…”

 But I haven’t really heard that one yet.  Although yesterday (Thursday) a commenter on a blog raised that very same question.

But more seriously [it was bound to come], the publisher of the conservative website WorldNetDaily, Joseph Farah, writes, "Washington, D.C., deserves more than the wallop it got today [because of declining morals]. It needs a much bigger shaking up than it got." And a Brooklyn rabbi, Yehuda Levin, blamed the earthquake on the growing acceptance of same-sex marriage, citing the Talmud as saying that “one of the reasons that God brings earthquakes to the world is because of the transgression of homosexuality.”  But I expect He could find plenty of transgressions that need punishing.  Why does no one ever suggest that He sends these calamities to punish us for our wars/invasions/occupations?  Or because we have the death penalty?  Perhaps he is punishing us for allowing 1% of the population to control 80% of the wealth of the country, for allowing such a disparity between the rich and the poor?  Or perhaps because our legislators are bought by corporations, or because those corporations dare to buy and own the government?  Perhaps he in punishing the oil,  gas, and coal industry for polluting our air, water, and land?   Perhaps he is just trying to wake us up to our follies in carrying our “dominion over the earth” to the extremes of destroying it ourselves, by showing that He can do it even faster?
And as to acts of man, I have read in the past that such things as constructing a dam, with all its weight, can increase frequency of earthquakes.  Such things as injection wells and fracking have been cited as causes, as recently in Arkansas.  (See http://www.readersupportednews.org/news-section2/312-16/7166-fracking-could-have-caused-east-coast-earthquake).  Perhaps, in some vulnerable areas, the mere weight of the huge cities we build.  Do we tempt fate?  I caught something in passing, about a plan to build a huge new facility at Los Alamos, but, because the ground there is volcanic ash, which is very soft, they would have to remove all of that ash and replace it with tons of concrete.

Anyway, this gives us plenty to ponder, as we await the next great catastrophe, Hurricane Irene.

Nationwide Birthday Celebration

When my children began planning a celebration of my 80^th birthday in May, it soon evolved into a nationwide celebration.  When it became apparent that it would be difficult to get all of my progeny—nine children, 17-plus grandchildren, two great-grandchildren, and eleven spouses-in-law—all together in one place, they decided to begin with a celebration at my home, and then ship me out west  to continue the celebration with the rest of the family.   Accordingly, on the weekend of May 7^th five children, with two spouses, and six grandchildren, gathered at my country home, for a sleep-out, cook-out, sing-out, play-out, with the grands continuing a decade-long game of Capture the Flag, the oldest players now 35.  On Sunday they hosted a cake and ice-cream social for family and 17 friends.   Families visiting included:  Dale Brady (WV), Paula Elizabeth (Ky), Bruce and Ingy Cutler, with Ava and Ty (NY), Amy and Lloyd Purves, with Austen and Julia, (MD), and Halle Papai, with sons Sean, Mitchell, and Spencer, (MD), (husband Bob absent).  Paula is the mother of two lovely married daughters who were unable to attend.  Lindsay and Chad live in NC; Whitney and Jaime Roberts, with their son, Quinn, live in AL.  A few days later I was put on a plane bound for the West, to visit family in Spokane, Missoula, and Denver.  In Spokane I visited for a few days with Cori and her new husband, Chris, and her 17-year-old step-son, Eric, and helped Cori start a flower garden.  Then spent a few days with Valerie and her husband, Craig, and two sons, Cass and Max, as well as a brand-new great-granddaughter, Diandra, and her mother, Charmaine, and went shopping with Valerie for wedding finery and gifts.  We all traveled to Missoula where I visited with Julia and her husband, Chris, and their two grown sons, Patrick and Mark.  There we attended the wedding of Mark and Robin, as well as meeting for the first time Patrick's wife of two years, Lindsay.  There were a few exciting days spent with 20 family members at a family cabin on Holland Lake, for talk and good food and boating and reading, and where 10 grands continued the western version of the game of Capture the Flag—in just a few short years they will be bringing my great-grands home to play the game with them.  From there I traveled with Tim and his wife, Kim, to Longmont and Denver, Colorado, on the way touring  Yellowstone Park.  In Denver we had a tour ofthe enchanting Botanical Gardens and of the awe-inspiring Garden of the Gods, and attended a symphony, Mahler’s 9^th.    As well, I visited with four grands—Josh, Ben, Joe, and Grace, and a step-granddaughter, Livvy.  In Longmont I visited with a former daughter-in-law, Julie, mother of four of my grandchildren.   Oh, and lots of wonderful food, home-cooked and at local restaurants.   And then, after three weeks, a three-hour flight home.  Let’s see, did I forget anything?  Anyone?  Probably, but all told a wonderful, exhilarating, exhausting, yet relaxing, celebration.