Ghosting God, Ghosting Self
Day 54
WooHoo, the first day of talks with Iran are over and niether side walked out, tried to sabotage them!! I have such confidence in Jared the lying, grifting, ‘businessman’ and Steve the real estate mogul Wytkoff, both of whom have been barred from Putin’s presence, to be productive in the subtleties of these negotiations with JD Vance and his vast experience with diplomacy being able to pick up their slack! NOT
As we get closer to the 250th birthday of the Declaration of Independence, the beginning of the Revolutionary War, the birthing of the United States, I keep getting drawn to the prophets, in this case Hosea. These phony balony ‘good dogmatic jews and christian nationalists’, the idolatrous clergy who support them, the news media who give them oxygen and notice, we the people who cheer them on are the very reasons the 13 colonies revolted! AND no one is saying this. The level of cruelty, nastiness, lack of civility is astounding and was on full display at the PGA U.S. Open yesterday. For 17 of 18 holes, fans of Scotty Scheffler who was in the last group booed when Wyndam Clark had a good shot and cheered when he hit a bad one- how unkind, how disgusting and, I wonder, why didn’t Sheffler do something to stop it, to mitigate the cruelty? Yet, this is just another indication of how far we have fallen, how far we have gotten away from the principles that were outlined in the Declaration of Independence and fueled the fight against tyranny, against taxation without representation, against having to be of one faith, having to read the ‘company’ paper/news, etc.
What we the people are watching happening is all of the above: Trump’s tyrannical hold, reign over the Republican Party has rendered the Republicans in the House and Senate to be neutered, they have allowed themselves to be castrated which leads the people who elected them without personal representation because all they do is bend over and take it in the ass from Trump, Lutnick, Bessent, Rubio, Blanche, et al. The Christian Nationalists driving Project 2025 want the United States to be a “christian nation” while discarding Christ’s teachings and ways of being and Trump is having his cronies, also autocrats like Larry Ellison, buy up the media so most of the media will be like Fox News(which doesn’t engage in news at all) a mouthpiece and a clean-up for all that this horrific government is doing.
For a solution, I turn to Hosea again! In chapter 14, verses 2 and 3 mentioned in the past two days give us the path back-turning towards the Ineffable One, asking for forgiveness and having a plan to make the amends needed and to find a different response to the triggers that will happen again. In the case of the United States’ current situation of abandoning the principles that led to our Declaration of Independence, the taking on the same ways as King George III, trying to make this nation a ‘christian nation’, etc We the People have to gather on the 4th of July and say NO to this bullshit, NO to the lies, NO to the tyrannical rule, NO to the thievery, NO to the proliferation of White Supremacists trying to intimidate the rest of us, NO to going against our beginnings of being a nation which was a haven for the outcasts from another(s) country, NO to the cruelty, NO to the deceptions, NO to our own self-deceptions!
In Hosea 14:5 the result of our “turning back to Adonai” is: “I will heal their backsliding, I will love them freely”. This is God’s will, this is Christ’s God, not the bullshit we are led to believe by the lying Christian Nationalist Clergy who are racists, anti-semites, haters of Islam, and any other spiritual discipline that isn’t their brand of Christianity. I know that verses 2, 3, 5 are the real deal. 39+ years ago I began my “turning” and I have kept engaging in turning and returning to God, to the principles of the Bible which are all throughout the Declaration of Independence and the Bill of Rights. I know that God heals our “backsliding” because my has been healed every time I turn back to God after failing forward, learning something from my not so good actions. I experience God’s free love as it says: Amazing grace, how sweet the sound That saved a wretch like me I once was lost, but now am found Was blind, but now I see. God’s healing of my/our backsliding is immediate as is our/my experience of God’s love once we/I made the turn back to the beginning, back to the creator’s words, messages, and the story of the ‘founding mothers and fathers of the Bible’. “When will we ever learn” rings in my ears each and every day-it seems like we the people refuse to learn today, refuse to turn back today, refuse to be grateful for what we have today!
ACTION STEPS:
1) What are your foundational principles How do you live them each day
2) What “backsliding” do you need healed
3) What is the state of your “return”
4) How do you reconcile your need for freedom with the ways in which your cruelty, your autocracy, your’s being the only opinion that matters
GOD BLESS, STOP GHOSTING GOD, GHOSTING SELF, Rabbi Mark