Letters from the Editor

This is reposted from a friend’s LiveJournal. And since this is a religious website and I am a religious person, and this is a religious blog, expect to see posts here about religion in this theme.

There are no real guidelines to this. The idea is to post at least once from Friday to Sunday Easter Weekend, April 6-8.

The post will be against theocracy, in favor of our Constitutional guarantee of separation of church and state. But there are a LOT of issues tied to this, as is pointed out in the First Freedom First website:

• No religious discrimination.
• PRO End-of-Life Care (no more Terri Schiavo travesties)
• Reproductive health decisions made by individuals, not religious “majorities”
• Democracy not Theocracy
• Academic Integrity (like, a rock is as old as it is, not as old as the Bible says)
• Sound Science (good bye so-called “intelligent” design)
• Respect for ALL families (based on love, not sexual orientation. Hellooooo.)
• And finally, The right to worship, OR NOT.

So take your pick and write your post(s). Really, the wider variety of topics makes it all the more interesting.

When you’ve posted, email the url of your post to bluegalsblog AT gmail DOT com.

If you know where this is from, please let me know.

ETA: This comes from Gator Gay-Straight Alliance. Please check them out and leave the feedback with them.

(find credit goes to Herb. Thanks.)

1. Homosexuality is not natural, much like eyeglasses, polyester, and birth control are not natural.
2. Heterosexual marriages are valid because they produce children. Infertile couples and old people cannot get
   legally married because the world needs more children.
3. Obviously gay parents will raise gay children because straight parents only raise straight children.
4. Straight marriage will be less meaningful, since Britney Spears’s 55-hour just-for-fun marriage was meaningful.
5. Heterosexual marriage has been around for a long time, and it hasn’t changed at all: women are property, Blacks can’t marry Whites, and divorce is illegal.
6. Gay marriage should be decided by the people, not the courts, because the majority-elected legislatures, not courts, have historically protected the rights of minorities.
7. Gay marriage is not supported by religion. In a theocracy like ours, the values of one religion are always imposed on the entire country. That’s why we only have one religion in America.
8. Gay marriage will encourage people to be gay, in the same way that hanging around tall people makes you tall.
9. Legalizing gay marriage will open the door to all kinds of crazy behavior. People may even wish to marry their pets because a dog has legal standing and can sign a marriage license.
10. Children can never succeed without both male and female role models at home. That’s why single parents are forbidden to raise children.
11. Gay marriage will change the foundation of society. Heterosexual marriage has been around for a long time, and we could never adapt to new social norms because we haven’t adapted to cars or longer lifespans.
12. Civil unions, providing most of the same benefits as marriage with a different name are better, because a “separate but equal” institution is always constitutional. Separate schools for African-Americans worked just as well as separate marriages
    will for gays & lesbians.

Okay, I wrote an article called “To Know” a few months ago. I had agreed to not republish it on my site until a month had gone by. That month was up some time ago, and I’m getting around to doing this. So, without further ado:

The Witches Pyramid, To Know

Okay, I’m going to guilt you out slightly. It’s a good one, probably blend into the background with the rest of the “Please Give” guilt you get this year, but I’m going to give this a twist.

Please do give to whatever charity you feel deserves your support. Don’t give because everyone else is giving, but because now is the time when 85% (more or less) of the operating budget of most charities and shelters is raised to carry them through the year. From beginning of November through Christmas, charaties and shelters get lots and lots of donations from people. And they need every dime to stay in business until they hit next November.

There are 11 other months out there. Giving now is good and it really helps. But after that, all the donations and voulenteers dry up in January, February and so on. The lines you will see pictures of with 25 workers and the Governor giving out turkey dinners to the homeless is good, but that drops to about 5 poeple in May and other months, and the numbers of people needing that doesn’t go down, it increases slightly because there are fewer services offering help. So the voulenteers are chronically overworked and they burnout.

Know what I wanted for my Birthday. I wanted to go and work at a shelter. I would take my family with me. We were there once and I didn’t want to forget that. Things happened though and we never made it and I still feel bad about that.

Yes, give generously now. That’s why the huge push happens now, it’s lots of little shelters and charaties competeing for too few dollars. So they all demand and some get. And maybe they will have money to help in April or August.

More than that, don’t forget that these groups still need help in other months. Go work, donate, give clothes and time. You’d be amazed at what a difference it makes.

Recently I was sitting around and thinking and it struck me that in a rational world, one of the worst things we can do is to lock ourselves into one vision of how things are.

I started on this train of thought by listening to “Istanbul (Not Constantanople)” By They Might be Giants. This lead me to where did their name come from which lead me to the Wikipedia Entry on the band.

From the article:

The band takes its name from the 1971 movie They Might Be Giants starring George C. Scott and Joanne Woodward (based on the play of the same name written by James Goldman). The play (and movie) title is an allusion to Don Quixote, who mistook windmills for giants. George C. Scott’s character discusses man’s ability to invent and analyze past the obvious, saying:

Of course, [Quixote] carried it a bit too far. He thought that every windmill was a giant. That’s insane. But, thinking that they might be… Well, all the best minds used to think the world was flat. But, what if it isn’t? It might be round. And bread mold might be medicine. If we never looked at things and thought of what they might be, why, we’d all still be out there in the tall grass with the apes.

And then I found myself in the desert of the mind where very fertile ground resides. I planted the seed of that thought and it bloomed into a concept.

In magick we analyze past the obvious all the time. It is what a magickian does as a matter of course. If they didn’t, then you wouldn’t have all the books on magick that exist talking about clearing Chakras, spinning vortexes and so on.

What rational person who can see the life around them and dismiss it simply as mechanics. That is someone who has no creative spirit and who cannot see posibilities.

Self help groups and books advocate that we look past the obvious and think creativiely, but it takes time and effort to do so. Seeing a windmill, most people would see simply a windmill. A smart person would see a way of pumping water or grinding meal. They could see the internal mechanics and function further with that. But only a few insane or genius intellects could see a giant who is rooted to the spot it grew at who is waving its arms around.

It may be that the windmill is simply what it appears to be, a windmill, but it could be something else, and “could be” is one of the most powerful phrases we ever hear.

A picture drawn by a child of their family may be blobs of crayon on a piece of paper, but remember back when you were drawing that. Those blobs became environments, they became people, they were your mommy and daddy in a real sense. Your siblings and pet were captured in a picture for you to look at and to treasure forever. Your animal companion whom you snuggled with each night wasn’t JUST made of fluff and cloth, they had a soul and feelings, and they responded to you. They would get lonely without you and you told them everything.

Your invisible friend may have not had a body, but that didn’t make them any less real at all. Mine was a really good person, kind and generous who loved me simply because I drew a breath. He was honest with me and made sure that I knew that he loved me because I was myself, not because he had to or because I imagined him alive. When my mother would take the clothing off him that I had placed on a representation of him (a bear) I would get really upset, for she had undressed my brother, someone I cared about.

She saw a teddy bear dressed in clean clothing of mine.

So don’t discount the highly improbable. Don’t forget “Once you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, no matter how improbable, must be the truth.” — Sherlock Holmes

After all, they might be giants.

Reposted from my Deviant Art account (only there to allow me to look at other’s work) on Sat Oct 7, 2006, 6:33 PM

Herne,
Lord of the Hunt
Master of the Pack
I thank you.

You are everything a father could be
You are my example
You show me how to be a man
You teach me to take care of those in my charge
You have helped me at the lowest points of my life.

I am unworthy of Your notice.
I have done all I can
And I keep failing
I keep demanding like a
petulant child that things be my way
Not how they actually are.

I have said I would do anything
Well, obviously I won’t
I have not actually done anything
In fact, it’s hard for me to do anything
And because of that my family suffers.

Perhaps it is because I’m a cat
Instead of a pack animal.
I know how a pack moves,
the way it thinks
the way it feels.
But a cat is solitary
Alone
Wandering and doing what it wants
not what it needful for others.

A pack is many who work together
to bring a predetermined goal
to fruition.
A cat does what they want
when they want
without regard for others.

Perhaps I should leave
But that would kill those in my charge,
Some very literally.

Help me Father.
I try to be a good example.
I try to live how I should.
I do my best to be there emotionally and spiritually
for those in my family.
But I am too proud.
I fail.

Rhiannon,
Radiant Mother
Great Queen,
You were the first deity I spoke with
who answered me back.
You are a beautiful woman,
A true goddess in poise and perserverance.
And yes, I am unworthy.

Your priest, myself
is a corrupt venial person
who wants only what he wants
when he wants it.
Who distances himself from those he is sworn to serve.
Who deliberately keeps a barrier
of the Internet
between himself and the people
he should be teaching.

Why do you stay?
What is it about me that you find compelling?
Why do you continue to bless this unworthy one?
One of the mysteries of the universe.

They say that mortals can’t know
the minds of the Gods.
Apparently that is true.
Other gods would have abandoned me by now.
yet you are still here.

If I could understand I might be able to move on.
Right now I feel lost.

Eagle,
Cat,
Horse,
Deer,
Why me?
What is it about me that draws me to you,
and not only draws me in, but makes me wish to be you?
Why have I been “blessed” with this?
If I could shed my human form to be any of you, and aye, even Snake,
I would do so with few regrets.

I dream of hooves, of feathers, of fur. I feel my tail, my claws, my fangs. I know this is not me, I am more than I see.

Why did I get blessed with this?

There are days that I find that I cannot take being human, I fail as a man, a father, a person, a human being, and fail to achieve as an animal too.

While none of this has happened today, I still feel odd knowing that all that I have achieved will be transient, lasting only breaths past my ceasing and then it will evaporate into the Void.

Perhaps this is how it should be, but I don’t know. I find that there are times I wish to hasten that, and other times when I wish to fight it with all my being.

So I do nothing.