FOLKS WHO DIDN'T LISTEN THE FIRST TIME OR THE FIFTIETH

With the continued refusal of the far right to accept the fact that their social agenda is exactly what most of us voted against this year. Too bad they didn't listen the first, second or fiftieth time. 

No you didn't stutter. But it's so much easier for some of those who claim to follow you to stick with the one liners. Women can't be pastors because of this verse. Gays can't have rights because of that verse. We can rape the world because of Genesis.  But we were called on to tend the garden not plow it under.

One of Your pastors said something along the lines of "when I feed a starving man they call me a saint. When I ask why the man was starving I'm called a communist." When You told us to tend Your sheep, You didn't add a qualifier. You didn't tell us to make sure they deserved the help before we give it. You told the story of the missing one out of the one hundred. That a good shepherd would go out and search for the missing lamb even if it was the Sabbath. The missing sheep wasn’t expected to crawl back all bedraggled and full of burrs and mud begging for help.

And that's what can make it hard. When we're faced with need we have to face why the help is needed. When the civil war started in El Salvador a small group of families controlled over half the land, most of the arable land in the country. So is a man starving because he's lazy or because he has no land to grow crops. If someone is out of work in this country is it because they're lazy or because the best jobs are half a country or half a world away.

We're forced to face the accepted way of doing things. And if it isn't working how do we change it. And what replaces it. I believe we're at a cross roads. We can bend and build or we can break. And then as usual, the women will have to pick up the pieces.