Been getting lots of Merry Christmas wishes, even though I don’t see much going on inside of me or in America and the world that feels Merry.
I’m 81. Each day is a physical struggle for me, which has been the case since I was 26 and I woke up one morning and my G.I. tract was all fouled up. Diet, exercise, medicine, Christianity, the New Age, yoga, tai chi, chi kung, prayer, meditation, spiritual, herbal, shaman, light, Reiki, naturopathic, chiropractic, homeopathic, radionics, crystal, flower remedy, Hakomi, cranio-sacral healers, Rolfers, massage and physical therapists and other kinds of bodyworkers had no answer. So, my gut and I reached a tenuous live and let live agreement.
Sometimes I came across something that seemed to be helping my gut feel better and me be hopeful and even joyful, until something decided enough was enough, and quickly I started feeling a whole lot worse, to the point that I was terrified, and I discontinued what I was doing to try to feel better, and whatever in me had reacted backed off, and back to the tenuous arrangement we went. That’s how I discovered whatever was behind it was intelligent, which was, yeah, disturbing.
I also came to see that whenever I took on a new spiritual assignment, my gut got grumpier, and it stayed that way until I had worked a bit on the new spiritual assignment, and then my gut relaxed and we went back to our tenuous arrangement. That was further proof that whatever was behind it was intelligent, which added to the rather disturbing, as did my realization that I processed other people’s psychic shit, and my own psychic shit, through my gut.
I spent a lot of time pondering and guessing what might be the root cause of if my disagreeable gut. Was it something I did that I ought not to have done? Something I didn’t do that I ought to have done? In this life, in a prior life? Many times I asked the angels, who had taken me on as an experiment, to show me what was behind my disagreeable gut, and I got no answer, which left me pondering and guessing.
Prostate cancer radiation therapy in early 2020 didn’t agree with my disagreeable gut, and we worked a different even more tenuous arrangement.
That, and feeling like I ran out of new things to write, and dreading getting older and more feeble and hurting, and worrying about ending up in a facility for people medicine has to keep alive at all costs, caused me to hope my Christmas present this year would be the Lord would take me. But since I’m still here this Christmas morning, I figure that means the Lord has other plans for me today.
A dream around dawn, and a dream during a nap after breakfast, left me feeing I had shat and sat in something I should have left alone, or maybe I had shat and sat in two somethings I should have left alone. I sit in lots of shitty stuff, as part of working for God, I hope, as opposed to working for my ego, or worse, the Devil. I came to accept that. But sitting in shitty stuff I should leave alone makes me feel like an idiot. It also creates a sense of dread, bordering on terror.
I noticed in the latter 1990s, that special days, including Christmas, tended to be really rough for me in just about all ways, and I came to dread special days coming. So, yeah, I dreaded this day coming, and now that I didn’t get taken by the Lord yet, and I don’t feel up to driving two hours today, to visit one of my daughters and her husband and their children home for Christmas, also helps explain why I don’t exactly cheer up when I hear “Merry Christmas.”
There are impersonal reasons, too, and I will provide some examples.
The first happened after I posted a link to the Mary Poppins, I ain’t, but sometimes wish I was post at this blog onto my Facebook timeline, and this happened.
Doug
MERRY CHRISTMAS
Sloan Bashinsky
Thanks, Doug, but not much Merry going on in America, Palestine, Ukraine, to name a few places that cause Jesus to weep ongoing.
Charles
Sloan Bashinsky wish as happy of a Merry Christmas as you can deal with in this fractured world
Sloan Bashinsky
Hard to be happy looking at many millions of American Christians backing Israel murdering Gaza civilians, and as many Americans giving Hamas a free pass. Just as hard to be happy seeing many millions of American Christians believing everything their pagan leader in Mar-a-Lago tells them. They all really should study Jesus a bit more, especially the parts where he spoke of demonic possession.
And this:
December 19, 2023
The Atrocities In Gaza Are The Perfect Embodiment Of 'Western Values'
Caitlin Johnstone
https://www.caitlinjohnst.one/p/the-atrocities-in-gaza-are-the-perfect/comments#comment-46012884
Listen to a reading of this article (reading by Tim Foley): When Israeli president Isaac Herzog described the assault on Gaza as a war “to save Western civilization, to save the values of Western civilization,” he wasn’t really lying. He was telling the truth — just maybe not quite in the way that he meant it.
Sloan Bashinsky
Writes Sloan’s Newsletter
Hamas was founded to destroy Israel. Unable to do it, Hamas baited Israel to do what it is doing.
Chang ChokaskiWrites Chang’s Substack
I would recommend that you read the following book "Hamas Contained: The Rise and Pacification of Palestinian Resistance" by Tareq Baconi.
It explains Hamas (and its ideologies, goals, and evolution) better than what can be gotten from media sources or second hand information.
To clarify - Israel purports to represent Judaism (or Jews). But it doesn't do either. Israel (and Israeli Zionists) are a subset of Jews - they are trying to tie the religion of Judaism to their Zionistic beliefs. One reason for this strategy is so that if one insults Israel, they are insulting Judaism or Jews. They then use this to attack and silence anyone that criticizes Israel.
Similarly, Hamas uses Islam for its own purposes of resistance and increasing the ranks of its members. I doubt its values are religious, even though they claim to be based on religious values.
Ordinarily, I would agree with you that both are terrorist outfits. But that is painting with a very wide brush. Yes, both have committed terrorist acts. But distinctions need to be made here. Hamas grew out of a need for resisting the occupation. If there were no occupation, there would be no need for a Hamas. It would be more accurate to say that Hamas is a resistance outfit that has often used strategies of terror to resist.
Similarly, Israel and its Zionist ideology is not a terrorist organization. Their goal is to completely occupy Palestine. Ideally, they would like to achieve this with "ethnic cleansing". If that fails, they would move on to "genocide". What is deplorable and unforgivable is that they use strategies of terror to achieve their objectives - in my opinion to a greater extent than Hamas.
Sloan Bashinsky
Whatever the history of Israel and Hamas, beginning October 7 of this year, both behaved like terrorists, so that’s what they are. The broken record I keep playing in this forum is, unable to defeat Israel militarily, Hamas figured out how to punch every button of the people running Israel and its military, to provoke them to do what they are doing in Gaza and thereby turn the entire world against Israel. In that context, Hamas and Israel are joined at the hip in destroying Gaza and its people, culture, buildings, infrastructure and economy. The only solution is for Israel and Hamas to stop fighting, exchange their hostages, and leave each other alone henceforth, and Israel stops taking more land. Is that wishful thinking? Yes. But it is the solution.
And this from an old friend about yesterday’s post: A Hurt Feelings Report for Christmas stockings, Hamas lovers, Israel lovers, and Gaza, Israel and West Bank tourism industries
Linda
Re your not very timid post
I hope you're well ensconced with loving friends and family this Christmas Eve-- it's very quiet over here, which is how I like it, and in a bit I'll leave for the Church and hope I can get in for the 4:00 Lessons and Carols without having to stand in a long line. Although not anything like what happens to you when you think or know too much about IPC, I'm having such negative thoughts about what's happened over the last year or so that the Spirit should probably bar the door when I presume to cross the threshold. I'll report on it, but only to the extent that it doesn't hurt you.
I've read your long message and am now going back in search of your blogpost.
So much to talk about-- we'll make a firm dinner date after tomorrow.
Sloan
Home alone all day, but it’s been pretty peaceful, for a change. I don’t want to get re-involved in your church. It’s not part of my life, it’s not important to me. But if God insists ... Meanwhile, Dietrich Bonhoeffer summed it up: "Silence in the face of Evil itself is Evil, God will not hold us guiltless." Only people in your church have standing to deal with it. Or consent by silence. Or leave. That you have not left, nor been barred by the Spirit from entering, could mean you are being called to make a rumpus, which is where we disagreed the other time :-).
Linda
Merry peaceful Christmas! Thanks for the note-- we can take up our weighty matters later, but at the moment, after a really depressing ministerial intrusion on Lessons and Carols yesterday, I and a number of my friends are truly bummed out, and some of us have decided to talk about what to do about it. You and Herr Bonhoeffer are right, it's up to us. It's not that our minister is evil, but his personal difficulties seem to be flooding the church.
I totally agree with you about Palestine.
More this coming week.
Sloan
Heh, I’ll send you a link to my Christmas Day blog post.
Am looking forward to dinner with you, but not to hearing about what’s happening in your church, other than I might like to hear of any rumpus you made there.
Now something that did cheer me up yesterday was a meme posted on Facebook by a south Alabama amiga, under which I commented, “Amensky”.
I ain’t neva gonna fergit her “Pigs in mud” pome:
All want the security of the well fed pig.
Horror at the baseness unrecognized.
A lifetime spent in shirt stuffing.
And pen comparison.
Is truth more palatable when honeyed?
Is a stark soulscape less so with the eyes of Monet?
May my affectations always be understood.
sloanbashinsky@yahoo.com
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