Happy 2023!

Photo of bluffs across Arkansas River at Little Rock a day or two before 1 January 2023

Wishing you all a very happy 2023, and apologizing that I have been absent from this blog. My spouse Steve had surgery on 19 December, then Christmas came along as he recuperated and I did nursing duties, and I have been stretched — though still posting routinely at my new Mastodon account, where you can find my "real time" commentary on various items I've been reading and want to share. 

For anyone looking for music to listen to as you celebrate the new year, here's my YouTube playlist for New Year's day, developed over a number of years.

Here's How I See the Response to the Pandemic Playing Out Now in the United States: People Who Will Pay Highest Price for "Re-Opening" Are the Vulnerable, Elderly, Poor, Minorities

The U.S. just reported its deadliest day for coronavirus patients as states reopen, according to WHO. At least 2,909 people died of Covid-19 in 24 hours. https://t.co/ZepbBKONel

— Jon Cooper 🇺🇸 (@joncoopertweets) May 3, 2020

Here's how I see things playing out now: the "re-opening" process is going to be more or less the norm across the US. We Americans are never long-term thinkers, in any case. We like frenzy and mobility and things to do. We also don't have a solidaristic bone in our bodies: it's all about individualism and (my) liberties.

My Reflections as Minnesota and Vermont Declare Grocery Clerks Emergency Workers

Hell yeah, now make it national https://t.co/XEad0wx53j

— Clara Jeffery (@ClaraJeffery) March 19, 2020

The people putting their lives on the line right now to serve the rest of us are medical personnel and also grocery store workers and people delivering goods in trucks all over the country. The latter two groups are often significantly underpaid and have few or no benefits, including paid sick leave.

Ruth Krall on Coronavirus: "If We Fail to Adequately Care for Those Who Cannot Care for Themselves, the Door will Open to Threaten Us All"

There are only TWO coronavirus cases in Mexico.

There are 16 in Canada.

For Trump, every problem has the same solution https://t.co/DV6GnePbNg

— Judd Legum (@JuddLegum) February 29, 2020

I'd like to share with readers this morning an email that Ruth Krall sent to me yesterday, which contains some of the best commentary I've yet read on the coronavirus discussion. Ruth has kindly given me permission to share her thoughts. She writes, 

Where's Solidarity When You Need It? Letting Off a Bit of Steam

I don't need this.

Today, I shared on Facebook the following statement by Rev. Andrew Foreshew-Cain from a Guardian interview published online today:

Video Captures White Young Women Mocking Native People in New Mexico: People Make Connection to Covington Catholic "Pro-Life" MAGA Boys

Sami Edge:

Commentary re: Religious Issues, Hot Off Press: Catholic Abuse, Evangelicals & Trump, LGBTQ People & Church, U.S. Catholic Resistance to Pope Francis

"Whom Would Jesus Shoot?," Karen Fiorito

From the graphic above through the tweets and article excerpts below, some valuable commentary on a wide range of matters religious (and political) I've gleaned from social media or browsing the internet in the past several days. Hans Zollner's good statement on the spiritual damage done by sexual abuse of minors dates from a year ago, but is receiving attention right now because Mark Stephen Murray tweeted this article again today.

Where Do We Go from Here, as the Future Looks More and More Bleak for LGBTQ People in the U.S.?

So where do we go from here? I ask because I quite sincerely don't know the answer to that question.

My sense is that for queer people — especially in the U.S. — and for those who care about us and stand with us, things are going to get much worse, and more quickly than many of us realize.

What do we do with that probability? Or am I wrong to sense this, do you think? (See Brynn Tannehill's sobering predictions.)

Rolando, what can those of us gathered here in this particular dialogue community do to assist you in concrete ways? Please tell us, if there's something we can be doing in addition to offering you our support and sympathy.

Telling My Story (Follow-Up to OUTWORDS Interview) 2

As I think about the interview that OUTWORDS did with me on Saturday, it's impossible to disengage what I said in the interview from the attack my relative made on me on my Facebook page a few days before the interview, in which she said to me, "You queers make me sick," and then went on to talk about Jesus and the bible. As embodied beings, we think within a real-world, social context that involves human relationships, and our thinking is shaped by our interactions within that real-world context.

Telling My Story (Follow-Up to OUTWORDS Interview)

I thought that if I performed brilliantly in school, I could carve out a safe niche for myself in a hostile world, so that when the wrath came, it would not find me in my hidey-hole. I was mistaken.

Liberal "Practicing Catholics" Express Shock That Trump Was Elected; I Don't Buy Their Shock

When I read a liberal Catholic commentator (who happens to be white, heterosexual, and married) touting himself/herself as a "practicing Catholic," and lamenting the way in which Trump's election has taken liberal or progressive Catholics by surprise, I feel like tearing my hair out. Where have all these "liberal" Catholics been for years now as some of us tried to tell them what has been brewing in the American heartland and in the heart of the white American churches?

Sharing Our Life as Theology: Another Videotaped Theological Conversation with Ivone Gebara, About Diarmaid MaCulloch's Silence, Christian Amnesia, and Gospel Mandate for Inclusivity

I've previously shared with you two videotaped conversations that I had the honor of having in the past year with the distinguished Brazilian theologian Ivone Gebara (here and here). As I noted when I shared these videos, Mark Shumway and Rachel Fitzgerald Shumway, who maintain the evolving deep forms blog, organized and videotaped these conversations (with expert technical assistance from Mark's son Chris Shumway and Rachel and Ivone's friend Marlene Denardo, who speaks Portuguese and helped facilitate the conversation when Ivone and I needed her wonderful linguistic skills).

Henry Giroux on Critical Importance of Connecting the Dots Between Issues and Groups in Battle Against Authoritarianism in U.S. Today

In an essay originally published at Truthout and just re-published by the Moyers & Company blog, Henry Giroux argues that American society is now facing "the endpoint of a long series of attacks on democracy," and that this reality calls for a new way of doing politics among American progressives — "an expansive understanding of politics, not fixating singularly on elections or any other issue but rather emphasizing the connections among diverse social movements."

Mormons Organize Mass Protests to Push Back Against Abuse of Their LGBT Family Members and Friends: What's Wrong with Catholics?

My two-week fast from blogging is nearing its close, and I'll now break silence again to share some questions with you. They've risen in my mind and heart in the past few days, as we watch at close hand what's happening in the Mormon community in Salt Lake City as a result of the recent disclosure that LDS church leaders now want to attack same-sex couples by punishing their children.

Madonna on Gay Rights as "Way More Advanced Than Women's Rights": Some Noteworthy Responses

Something else gaining attention in this week's news: Madonna's statement,

Gay rights are way more advanced than women’s rights. People are a lot more open-minded to the gay community than they are to women, period.

Quote for Day: Should Our Highest Value Be Free Speech or Love, Kindness, Generosity, and Respect for Others?

Rabbi Michael Lerner, editor of Tikkun, on the way in which the media are treating free speech as an absolute value, and the highest in the canon of values, in the wake of the Charlie Hebdo murders, while the structural violence that inflicts suffering on millions of people to enrich a few goes totally unnoticed by the media:

Quote for Day: "Political Cartoons Are Free Speech, But They Are Not Always Innocent and Inherently Democratic"

For Truthout, Christen A. Smith maintains that while we must grieve the Charlie Hebdo dead, we must beware of misconstruing racism as a democratic ideal:

Nationwide Protests in U.S. Yesterday: Tweets That Caught My Eye

"If you don't stand for something, you'll fall for anything." #NDWBB #ICantBreathe pic.twitter.com/W3M1q5kuKY
— NOTRE DAME WBB (@ndwbb) December 13, 2014

Two tweets from yesterday that caught my eye, which I want to share with readers here: above, Notre Dame Women's Basketball team tweeting; below, Eric Bohlert tweeting:

A Reader Writes: Re: Christians and the Gay Community, "Is It Really a Matter of Changing One's Mind? Or, Is It More a Matter of Changing One's Heart?"

In response to my posting earlier today about evangelical leader David Gushee's change of mind re: standing in solidarity with gay human beings (rather than standing by as a bystander), a reader responds: 

David Gushee on the Difference Between Being a Bystander and Standing in Solidarity: The Suffering of LGBT Christians Who Have Been "Pushed Out"

In an interview at Religion Dispatches with Candace Chellew-Hodge, evangelical theologian David Gushee explains what has caused him to make his "existential core decision" to stand with LGBT human beings, "those who've been pushed out":