A Balm for a Bomb: from Norway to a wedding

Saturday I woke up to an even higher body count on the Norway shootings, and the news of Amy Winehouse's death. I guess we feel particularly sad when someone talented dies young,  maybe because they embody the lost potential of anyone who dies young. Which almost personalizes the tragedy that happened in Norway. Over an hour of teenagers being pursued and shot at. Over 80 children whose potential barely had time to show its face.

To shoot your own peers--teens killing teens, college students killing college students--makes perverse sense to me. To turn your gun on yourself at the end, because you hate yourself that much, makes perverse sense to me. For an adult to plan, maybe for years, and then gun down over 80 teenagers, and then calmly hand himself over to the police... that's a new one.


So, though we were still under The Heat Dome (it was 32C/90F),  I was glad to escape the news and attend a wedding. (Or as widdershins would say "I went to a heterosexual wedding this weekend!") Of two very very sweet people. Well, I don't know the bride very well, but everyone was crying over how sweet she is, so I think it's safe to say: The wedding of two very very sweet people.

Kaftan Man

I met the groom when we were fellow managers at my last job. He is honestly one of the kindest guys I've ever met. It's not fake, and it's not cause he's Kaftan Man, ready with a Kleenex and a Self Help Talk in a Low Tone. (Though he's probably in touch with his feminine side cause his best friend--who was Best Lady at the wedding--is a woman, and he did take Women and Social Issues in college, or so we were told by our table mate: "Groom likes to say it was a Humanities course, but it was Women and Social Issues.")

But he plays video games and loves Rush and reads Stephen King and can hold a debate about which is the best Indiana Jones movie. And pervading all this everyday-GUYness is kind-a-tude. He thinks about other people, doesn't want to hurt their feelings, remembers things about them, is gentle, and will do anything for you.

Since he was apparently marrying another kind, thoughtful person, this made for a weepy wedding.

When his beautiful bride...

Disney Princess Beautiful!

 ...finally appeared after a pause... which the priest filled with some jokes... and we filled with some of our own jokes... she spotted Groom and started to cry. And me and my pewmate (another old work pal) started to cry. And then I looked at Groom and he was totally tearing up (Best Lady rubbed his arm. She did her own balling later when she toasted them.)

No Proof of Groom Cry pics have surfaced yet.

Me crying, pewmate crying, bride crying, groom crying. Whole damned church just falling apart--you'd think one of them had been left at the altar.

OK at weddings.

When she reached the front, the priest wiped away his tears and chastised them for making everyone cry. He's known Bride for ages, and predicted these two would marry from the first time he met Groom. The priest was at the reception as well (at the very competitive Table 4 that kept giving us a run for our money in the MC's contests!!)    >:-(

Pewmate-ex-coworker and I were at the Most Excellent Fifth Table. Credit to Bride and Groom for how they worked out the table chemistry, c'ause we had a blast. There were the right number of outgoing people to keep the conversations going, if someone wanted to dance, someone would join them, and we scored The Funny Kid in the Classroom (the Women and Social Issues guy.) I was sitting next to his mother, one of the most intelligent and interesting people I've met in a long time (excluding online friends.) Basically, we were sitting at the children's table. Awesome.

Being at the children's table is not an age, it's a state of mind.

So... a teary and informal wedding ceremony, time to catch up with pewmate-ex-coworker, laughs, politics talk, a little dancing, good conversation, and happy tears. A room of 50 people, some who've lived out their potential, little ones with their lives ahead of them, many in the Amy Winehouse age-range who will hopefully be old grannies and gramps at future weddings. It was an escape from bad news, but it was the real world too. Love always exists alongside the bad. After all, losing 80 children wouldn't be a tragedy if someone didn't love them.

When I got home I had this song stuck in my head: "There is a Balm in Gilead. Not because it was played at church. Maybe it was the word balm/bomb. Maybe it was the idea of going somewhere to have your soul soothed.

Thanks again for the invite, Bride and Groom. :-)  Have fun on your honeymoon!

___________
Afternote:  When we bought a gift on the registry we had a choice between wood hangers or a garbage can. We chose the hangers, but decided we needed something extra. So the kittehs put together a box of toys for Bride and Groom's cat Whiskey.

Facebook pic from Groom's page

                

Storms, Erotica Teachers and Obama (or Christianity: You're Doing it Wrong)

I wrote this on Friday. It's gray outside.

The last death toll in the US south was 280 people, which I mentioned on my facebook last night. This morning I found this response from my North Carolinian friend: Some idiot showed up in my Twitter feed yesterday who said (it took a few tweets...), "Well, maybe when people in the Southeast don't have anyone to pull them out from under trees and buildings, they'll finally un...derstand the importance of taxes." Hmm... I was mad. Probably an understatement. "s just... Well, the *most* anti-tax state happens to be New Hampshire (New England state), which has no income tax. And we DO have taxes. It's just... the South is POOR.


Then I went to my email to read the responses left on blogs where I've already posted comments, and there's a bunch of ongoing activity on a story about a couple of women who are harassing an English school teacher because she writes erotic romance novels. They think this is akin to pedophilia.


And then there's my lingering illness over the Obama thing, and the way some pundits don't even realize just how deeply significant it was. Some people seem to think it was just a ridiculous, maybe disgusting, distraction and they're glad it's been disproven and now they can get back to talking about important matters.


All this in a supposedly Christian nation. I don't say that to pick on Americans--there have been other weeks when it's all Canadian stories that depress me. But it's just to make this point...


A few days ago I said we need to bring our game up when it comes to engaging with the fashion industry. Today I'm saying, people who call themselves Christians (not all Americans obviously) need to bring up their game when it comes to wearing that label.


Because blaming poor people when their homes have been destroyed and they've lost loved ones through no fault of their own, and because they're poor, and because they live in a country where there's a great deal of income inequality; and persecuting good teachers, one of the worst paid and most important professions in North America, and particularly in the union-weak US; and treating the President of the United States like he's nothing but a n****r... these aren't the sorts of actions that people should associate with Christians. And unfortunately, they are. 

There is absolutely no doctrine that means you are a good Christian, not even the belief in Christ. There is one thing and one thing only that should mark you as one, and that's love. You should be a loving person. You should strive to love, to give it, to show it. Not to be perfect, but to try. That's it that's all. 

It's much much much simpler than any church mission statement, than any set of doctrines or rules, it's easy to remember, it's beautiful in it's simplicity, and it's good for all periods in history, all countries, all cultures. And yet, while it's simpler than anything any church will try to sign you up for, it's harder to live. Rules can be followed. I once belonged to a rules-based church, it made life very easy: You kept the sabbath, you didn't eat pork, you kept the holy days, and knew who you were and you could be self-righteous about it.

But LOVING people, really trying to be patient, and kind, and open-minded, and see things from another's point of view, and give, and to love even those who hate you, while still protecting and loving yourself... that's HARD. That's what Christians are being asked to do. That's what all humans are being asked to do, whether they believe in god or not. But if you're going to slap the name of Christ on your forehead and parade it around for everyone to see, then that is what I, as a fellow Christian, am going to hold you to.


I've put up songs before by Steve Bell, because this is the sort of Christian he is. The walking, talking, loving kind. For his latest album there's "endorsements" from fans on his site and this one made me laugh:

Here's a song, from an older album, that's about this topic of upping the game. It's Christ praying in the garden of Gethsemane, talking to god about his followers and how they just don't get it. They think it's about overthrowing Rome, and a new kingdom, and honor, and a top spot next to the throne; they're about to discover it's about sacrifice, and humility, and "the kind of love that changes everything."


If Christianity doesn't make your life uncomfortable, you're not doing it right.





May they understand the love You have for me
As the kind of love that changes everything
They argue who will sit next to the throne
And I cringe to here them say Thy Kingdom come
They think they know what they're getting into
We both know that they haven't got a clue
this is not the same
It's a different thing
Altogether
This is not the same
It's another thing
All together
This is love
This is love


Now... I have go root this bitterness out of my heart and love all the above-mentioned fools. Even Maya Angelou struggles with that one, so at least I'm in good company.

ADDED NOTE: MAY 1st - The woman who is persecuting the English teacher put this photo as her profile picture on facebook.

           

On today's menu: Serving up a little love

On April 1st my dad posted on his blog about the apostle Paul's famous writings on lurv. I wanted to re-read the passage, and decided to share.

But if you're feeling too worn out by life to get through the long-winded writing of Paul, then sit back and let Alicia Keys sing to you instead. Cause she knows what you're going through.

Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I have become sounding brass or a clanging cymbal. And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, but have not love, it profits me nothing.

Love suffers long and is kind; love does not envy; love does not parade itself, is not puffed up; does not behave rudely, does not seek its own, is not provoked, thinks no evil; does not rejoice in iniquity, but rejoices in the truth; bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

Love never fails. But whether there are prophecies, they will fail; whether there are tongues, they will cease; whether there is knowledge, it will vanish away. For we know in part and we prophesy in part. But when that which is perfect has come, then that which is in part will be done away.

When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child; but when I became an adult, I put away childish things. For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part, but then I shall know just as I also am known.

And now abide faith, hope, love, these three; but the greatest of these is love.

If you made a Best Parts version of the Bible (à la Princess Bride) this would definitely make the cut.

I hope your spring-a-tude weekend contains...

A little faith: in yourself, in your fave show to cheer you up, in anything!

A little hope: Emily Dickinson says it never dies.

And a little love: if not, I sends you some in the form of my step-mother with her dear departed lovebird, Agape.

______
That was 1 Corinthians 13. I chose the New King James, for the sheer poetry of it, though I changed "man" to "adult." To see other versions, or the context, check out this handy site.

But don't get a parrot! As my parents learned after getting parrots, selling them should be absolutely banned. It's a horrid industry and birds need to live in flocks. My parents put hours of work into caring for their two remaining birds, and they support this rescue which has to care for all the beautiful sick creatures that people discovered were too hard to care for after they bought them.  >:-(