Of cabbages and kings.

   I have taken a break from politics and religion on facebook. I still put some sayings from some of my spiritual journey and I still from time to time make a poltical statement. Especially on news groups such as al.com or 3340.com. I feel those are kind of community boards and free for all political speech. But, I often see things on  friends pages and start to type and then back off. Or better yet just keep on scrolling. The good part of just posting jokes and far side memes is that you don't insult people or try to manipulate or express you deepest thoughts. 

The bad part of that is you don't express your deepest thoughts or engage in any kind of meaningful dialog. Still, I have certain facebook groups I interact with and some of them do engage with religion or politics and I can express my spiritual questions. A couple even allow for health and sexual questions so there is a nitch that I can interact with without making my facebook page a running argument.

Politics: First let me say this and I don't think I've ever been as bi partisan as I'm about to be here. I will use my home state of Alabama as a basis for my financial statement so if you live in Europe or Southern California or the Northeast then you can adjust the math for your area.

For the sake of argument then here goes: If you make One Hundred Thousand dollars and up a year and you are a Democrat you're a dummy. If you make sixty thousand or less and you are a Republican. You're  a dummy. If you make anywhere from $40,000 and below and you are a Republican then you are a stone cold IDIOT! Now that is as blunt as I can be.

So when I hear people who are doing well say I vote GOP then I understand. I might not agree. But, I fully understand. But, when I hear people that are one paycheck away from losing their home or one injury or heart attack or car wreck away from financial ruin spouting about how they don't want to support dead beats who don't have health insurance I honestly cringe. 

Healthcare: I don't really understand people who say healthcare isn't a right. It's a privilege. Well, you know what? It's not a privilege or a right. It's a human need. And if you are so gripe gutted and spiritually blind that you think a person should die of cancer of heart disease or diabetes in a nation with all of our resources then I  got nothing else to say to you.

Abortion: Yeah I'm a little left of center and yeah I hate abortion. I cringe at people who say they are pro life and then promote policies that strip Medicaid and financial assistance to pregnant mothers and struggling families. But, I honestly don't see the difference in aborting a child and supporting taking medical care away from a child's family or an adults family for that matter. Watching people die on the street homeless and hungry in a land where we throw food away because it's past it's expiration date or was left over. We can and should do better. 

Jesus: This gets tricky. I call myself a Jesus Follower these days instead of a Christian. It's because I honestly believe in treating others the way I would want to be treated. I honestly believe in the reality of God taking human experience and showing that there is no barrier between the Divine and the creatures that are a part of the Divine. I have been raised to be a Christian my entire life. I have struggled with what I see as man made dogma and the silliness of one size fits all religion. But, I have never struggled with my core relationship with God/Holy Spirit/ Christ. I don't believe in hellfire and brimstone and I don't believe a Loving God could ever rest if even one creature was outside the reach of home. So, I'm a universalist. You can google it if you don't know what a Christian Universalist is. That is if you want to do that. I don't really care  cause I ain't trying to convert anybody to my way of thinking.

I actually have my own reasons to lean towards reincarnation as a partial explanation of spiritual realty. But, that also gets swallowed up in dogma and religion easily so I don't use the word belief or believe. Honestly, I don't "believe" in god. I have a life long inner dialog that has at times been responded to in dreams, visions and intuition enough that I know with intimacy the one that I commune with. I don't believe in the sunrise or the sunset. I don't believe in the evolution of the species or the airplane flying overhead. These things are self evident to me. I don't believe in my own inner life and dreams and thoughts because no "belief" is required. That's how I look at God/Ground of all being/Goddess/All that is. But, if you don't see it that way then I don't argue or blast you. I'm right and you're not and one bright day you will see that. :-) 

Conservative: Once in a story I was reading a group of devil worshipers were doing a ceremony. In the story an actual fallen angel is watching them. The demon is disgusted with them. amatures thought the demon. They have no idea what true evil is. Well, sometimes I think that as I read some far right person calling me a libtard or snowflake. Amature! You have no idea what a conservative is. I'm not one now. But, I was one. And a damn real one. I was a "Dittohead" and I laughed at all the in jokes "From the womb to the tomb." Basetball Jones and other Limbaugh idiocy. I yelled at women thinking about abortions and I made fun of the godless idiot liberals. 

But, then slowly I started to really listen to what was being said. Limbaugh once had a show where a liberal ecology person died of cancer. He spent a whole show running chain saw effects in the background and yelling "timber" every time he mentioned her death. I came away from that show feeling like I needed a bath. It felt like he had spent the whole show throwing eggs at a funeral. So, while I honestly hate the thought of anybody including him dying of cancer. I also understand that he could be a nasty piece of work. 

Then I started to listen to how cold it was to deny people healthcare and basic human dignity. and I slowly over the years turned left and liberal. In recent years I've turned back towards the center just a little bit. I'm still a little left but not so far my brains fall out.

Anyway, this has been a hard blog to write. I have gotten to the point where politics and religion and yelling at each other just wears me out. So, I'll leave this here and continue to focus on the positive. After all life is short. This journey has gone by fast. Seems like yesterday I was a kid and now I'm 63 and counting. 

Peace.