Yes we can

Yes we can…

Anyone who has ever read any of the words I have posted here on behalf of our order knows how strongly I am against George W. Bush and his policies. They got the country into both war and massive debt. Am I Democratic? Yes, you bet I am. But that is not why I am delighted at the election of Barack Obama as president of the United States.

Down through the decades the words of Dr. Martin Luther King of echoed through my mind and across the nation…

…I have a dream

This week part of that dream was realized.

Beyond that we have a president elect who has sought to bring Americans together and move America as a country past racism. Has it happened? Not yet? Will it? I hope so…but just like the old joke about a thousand lawyers at the bottom of the ocean “It’s a good start.”

Sadly I have already read words by someone I will not dignify by putting their name to the words:

“Obama's post-racial promise Barack Obama seduced whites with a vision of their racial innocence precisely to coerce them into acting out of a racial motivation.”

Its almost as if the individual concerned is upset that our president elect wants to move the nation past racism. As an individual I have been subject to a lifetime of hatred. As someone who is a nun and was born inter-gendered it continues – daily. When I see a president who is determined to a difference is such a way it moves me to the depths of my soul. I am glad to have lived to see this day.

But will Obama be able to deliver on campaign promises?

Not since Franklin Delano Roosevelt has a president elect inherited such massive problems as Obama has been left to face. It is as if the man was been faced with a broken nuclear reactor, handed a pair of tweezers and told “fix it.” Already there have been republic politicians in the news complaining about a Democratic Congress and a Democratic presidency touting to the news cameras “the last time the Democrats controlled the Congress and the Presidency they choked on the responsibility.”

What in the hell does that even mean?

Does it mean that there are Congressmen and Congresswomen who would rather see our nation in the pits of a greats depression just to see Barack Obama fail as a president? If so my response is, time to give up your seats in the house and senate to someone who will aid the nation in a bipartisan manor.

Will Obama succeed? Will he lead America out of a financial crisis? Will he bring an end to the war? No one knows for sure, no matter how much politicians with bile in their mouths and anger in their hearts my think they do…

…but I hope he will.

Julie Whitefeather

What's love got to do with it

What's love got to do with it?
By Julie Whitefeather

“I come here for a breath of fresh air now and then. I do appreciate your blog. I am single—and am very frustrated in my search to love someone. When I look at couples around me—straight or gay—I silently thank my creator that love exists. It is such a blessing. How anyone could hate someone for loving? Thank you for having the courage to encourage love.” – Jo Ann

What’s love got to do with it?

It is often said that “The prophets longed for these times.” What that means, is the common thought that we are living in the last days. Whether we are, or are not, who can say? I often kid with Mother Superior that my retirement plan is the second coming.

Still, people have been talking about the imminent return of Christ since the Ascension.

Now you might ask yourself what any of this has to do with love. The answer, however, is simple. Whether or not these are the end times there are definitely signs of the times in which we live. One of the saddest aspects of those times is that life and love are cheap commodities. The grim aspect of war is not a new advent in the history of mankind. It has been going on throughout all of recorded history. Still, life has never been considered so cheap and expendable as now. We live in an era of push button war fare, where humans are killed at the push of a button. It’s amazing, really, at how efficient human beings have become at killing themselves.

Yet while we are growing ever more efficient at death we seem to have a growing difficulty with love. There is a line from an old Beatles song that says “money can’t buy me love” but that doesn’t stop anyone from trying. When love, whether of a sister, or a sweetheart, should be a bastion of hope, rarely is this the case. It is not surprising that this is the case either. When people aren’t busy placing money over family, the same individuals are often busy entrenched in the ludicrous notion that other human beings need their approval. Instead of the notion that “it is not enough that I succeed, all others must fail” this is often supplanted with “it is not enough that I hate, others must hate, including themselves.”

Perhaps, in the end, one of the reason human beings have become so efficient at killing each other is that they have such a difficult time of loving one another. Yet if this is a sign of the times, there is also another sign of the times.

That sign is that there are still people in the world who are willing to stand up for what is right. There are still people in the world who are willing to love instead of hate. Who are willing to fulfill Christ’s greatest commandment “love one another as I have loved you” and do so without adding on provisionary statements.

One of the signs of the times is that there are still people with the courage to encourage love.

Go with God,

Julie Whitefeather

Don't ask...

Don’t ask…

One of the founding principles of the Sisters of Embracement is just that – embracement. In fact Mother Superior drives me to work in the mornings and we were talking about just that. We (as in the Sisters of Embracement we, not the royal we) are not talking about tolerance. Anyone can tolerate someone else, given a strong enough willpower. We are talking about embracement of other people, and their paths to God. We are talking about Christians who follow God’s greatest (and in many ways most difficult) commandment from the New Testament “love on another as I have loved you.” Now it may seem obvious here but I would note he didn’t add “unless you don’t happen to agree with who they are.” This is not to say there is not such a thing as righteous indignation. As a priest named Father Fratus once pointed out to me “Even Christ drove the money lenders out of the temple and overturned the tables.”

That being said, you would probably be surprised at the amount of hate mail that just the paragraph above generates. It is not enough for the world’s major religions to preach intolerance of any path to God but their own; it often seems that their members feel it necessary to turn others to their way of thinking.

More than once I have been called a heretic, which isn’t that bad when you consider that one of the same people told us that, also told us they considered Mother Teresa of Calcutta a heretic as well. All I can say is “I am not worthy”…that is some marvelous company to be in.

So if you read any of the essays here and feel that it is necessary to try and get me to hate another human being or somehow feel that God doesn’t love them because you cannot accept them or their path to God…

…please don’t ask. Don’t try and twist the words of whatever Holy Book or path to God you follow into some labyrinthine maze of ill-logic to try and convince me to hate another human being or refuse to accept their path to God. As grandmother used to say, “you may as well save your breath to cool your porridge” – the second any comment begins to turn to the above twisted logic it is deleted unread.

There are many paths up the mountain, but they all lead to the summit…find yours. Let others find theirs.

Sister Julie

The unwanted prayer

Anyone who has followed my writing knows that I am writing four columns, editing a book, and writing another. This is on top of working fourty hours a week, doing elder care 24/7 and working on starting a podcast. This doesn't leave alot of time to stop by this little blog site these days. But when someone recently posted a comment to an old "in the news" I wrote I was sure it had to be responded to. The article I wrote was about a man and his extended family who were making it a point to "picket" the funeral of veterans with signs that says "God Hates you"; and this because the people doing the picketing are certain that God hates people who are gay and lesbian. Here is the comment that was posted:

"Praise God you do not keep up with your blasphemous blog. You are in my prayers."

Well the interesting thing, as anyone knows me has heard, if someone uses scriptures from the Christian Bible such as Leviticus 18:22 to justify a God of love hating anyone, let alone someone who is gay or lesbian, that same person needs to turn over to Leviticus 25:44-46:

"If you need slaves, you may buy them from the nations around you. You may also buy the children of foreigners who are living among you. Such children born in your land may become your property, and you mayleave them as an inheritance to your children whom they must server as long as they live" - Leviticus 25:44-46.

So pardon me while I go out and buy a few immigrants...by the way, just how many Canadians CAN I own?

Sound stupid doesn't it? Want to know what IS blasphemous my friends? THIS CRAP THAT SPEWS FORTH FROM BIGOTS CLAIMING THAT GOD HATES GAYS AND LESBIANS. When Christ gave everyone a new commandment in the New Testament, it was to love one another as we love Him - no exceptions, no qualifications, no privisos. This is fortunate for the bigots out there, for God loves them as well.

So if refusing to hate someone for who they love is blasphemous, then count me amoungst the blasphemers.

Julie

In the news...

Veterans Day…

We just celebrated Veterans Day in the U.S.A. – but not everyone celebrates Veterans day the same way. How do the members of the “Topeka based Westboro Baptist church” honor veterans? As you can see by the photograph, by going to military funerals and holding up signs saying “You’re going to hell” and “God hates you” Which God is this I wonder? By which name? Certainly not the God that goes by the name God, Allah, and Yahweh. Here is a quote from an associated press article in USA Today:

“The church routinely pickets military funerals with signs reading "Thank God for dead soldiers" and "God hates fags," saying God is punishing America for its immoral ways.” - $11M Verdict in funeral protesters case, USA Today (source: http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2007-10-31-funeralprotesters_N.htm)photo credit: Associated Press

While these people who have somehow deluded themselves into thinking they are the voice of God are busy shoving Leviticus 18:22 in peoples faces to justify hatred of Gays tell them to flip over to Leviticus 25: 44-46 and tell me how many Canadians I can own. At least now they have 11 million reasons to reconsider their bigotry. No matter what you may or may not think of a particular war and its reasons, the simple fact of the matter is that the young man who was buried at the funeral in case died for his country and his beliefs.

Prayer in school?

Forget even the most remote possibility of prayer in school, and now even hugs are right out. An associated press article entitled “Girl Serves Detentions for Hugs” reported the following:

“Two hugs equals two days of detentions for 13-year-old Megan Coulter. The eight-grader was punished for violating a school policy banning public displays of affection when she hugged two friend Friday.”

Thank Heavens that school districts in this country haven’t stopped at ending prayer in schools but are continuing to quash rebellion by ending hugging.

The Vatican working hard to protect us all…

So while you are all waiting for the Vatican to work out exactly how many Canadians we can own in the USA they are busy protecting us from the villainies of gay men and lesbian women…no…really. Stop that laughing. Here is a quote from an associated press article entitled “Priest only pretending to be gay”…(source: http://www.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/europe/10/14/gay.monsignor.ap/)

“A Vatican official suspended after being caught on hidden camera making advances to a young man said in an interview published Sunday that he is not gay and was only pretending to be gay as part of his work. In an interview with La Repubblica newspaper, Monsignor Tommaso Stenico said he frequented online gay chat rooms and met with gay men as part of his work as a psychoanalyst.

He said that he pretended to be gay in order to gather information about "those who damage the image of the Church with homosexual activity."

Vatican teaching holds that homosexual activity is a sin.

‘It's all false; it was a trap. I was a victim of my own attempts to contribute to cleaning up the Church with my psychoanalyst work,’ La Repubblica quoted Stenico as saying.”

As for me, one nun in the U.S.A, I will continue in my delusional beliefs that God loves everyone no matter who it is. That when God, in the person of Jesus Christ “love one another as I have loved you” he meant no exceptions…even bigots who protest at military funerals or priests who pretend to be gay to protect us.

Troubling Times

I received the following comment to the post “Pope Benedict has turned his back on God.” I am copying it here for the sole reason of modifying one of the explicatives – not that I have never sworn in my life. The modification was more out of respect for any readers. Here is what Jenn McWhorter had to say:

“This is, in part, why I left the Roman Catholic Church and went to the Reformed Catholic Church, which, in addition, not being full of ***hats like Ratzinger, accepts all people, regardless of gender identity, sexual orientation, etc.” – Jenn McWhorter

This is an issue, as you can imagine that is a painful one for me. Cardinal Ratzinger, now Pope Benedict, was John Paul’s the choice for pope. More is the pity now that he is in the process of undoing some of the good works that John Paul did. This is not to say that Pope John Paul was perfect. There were issues with his period as pope as well.

All in all, what is most troubling is to see an era when many faiths move toward a lack of acceptance of other paths to God.

Truly Troubling times,

Sister Julie

Why is it a bad thing?

I recently received the following comment to this blog:

"What the Pope has done is to let the world to know that the Catholic Church is the ONE TRUE Church, founded by Christ. He desires for all souls to come to Christ's Church. How can that be a bad thing?"

The Blessed Mother Teresa of Calcutta put it this way:

"There is only one God, and He is God to all; therefore it is important that everyone is seen as equal before God. I've always said we should help a Hindu become a better Hindu, a Muslim become a better Muslim, a Catholic become a better Catholic. We believe our work should be our example to people. We have among us 475 souls - 30 families are Catholic and the rest are all Hindus, Muslims, Sikhs - all different religions. But they all come to our prayers."

"There are so many religions and each one has it's different ways of following God."

- Blessed Mother Theresa

Christ is Jewish. If you therefore believe that Christ and God are one then God is Jewish. Don’t think so? Arch Bishop Fulton Sheen put it this way. Christ said no man comes to the Father but through the Son. Therefore if we believe in God at all we implicitly believe in Christ whether we acknowledge it or not.

“Therefore all men are implicitly Christian” – ArchBishop Fulton Sheen.

The apostles are Jewish. The Mary the Mother of God is Jewish In fact one of the debates between St. Paul and many of the other apostles was that they though you first had to be Jewish in order to be Christian. The Pope has told all Jews that they are wrong. Their religion is wrong. He has told all Christians that do not follow his way that THEY are wrong. He is condemned all Muslims as evil. What he has done is spread hatred and derision. He has taught people that the ONLY path to God is Catholicism and THAT is wrong.