Vanasõna

  The Story... Keep on Keeping on! Thank you to all for showing up, waking up, and resisting all the ways the Trump administration and DOGE are working to dismantle our democracy. Thank you to all who show up to town meetings with your elected officials, even when they don't show up. Thank you for calling, writing, emailing, and pestering those who are forgoing the oaths to defend the Constitution and represent the people, not kowtow to the wanna-be authoritarian president donald j. trump. Thank you to all who support the men and women and all genders who serve our country in the armed forces and the government offices and the bureaucracies that keep us safe and help everyone live and have better lives. Thank you to all who are reaching out to their neighbors and relatives, checking in to see if they are alright while services for the vulnerable continue to be slashed and more road blocks are put in place like cutting phone services for social security, closing offices, and laying...

 There are protests around the country and around the world against facism, oligarchy, and the collapsing independent branches of our government in favor of letting Trump be Trump and dictators be dictators. This is good! Our Democratic Party is hamstrung because they are trying to appear the reasonable and lawful party and are worried about the optics which allowed the CR to pass last week with significant cuts to key parts of our budget. Yes, Republicans (the party of Trump) control all three branches of our nation and there are not a lot of legal ways to slow the roll of Project 2025, but there aren't none. They are not using their greatest power, the power of the people. Their messaging is measured in tone and fumbling in overall themes and are not connecting to the people who are itching, waiting, struggling to do their part. If our democratic politicians can't lead like Sen. Bernie Sanders and Governor Waltz and host rallies and town halls in Republican districts where th...

 Samuel grew up in the Temple and when God talked to him, what was the first thing Samuel had to do?  He had to tell Eli that his sons were corrupt and they were going to die.  After Samuel anointed King Saul to be the first king of Israel, what did he have to do? He had to tell Saul that he would no longer be king. When King David slept with Bathsheba and had her husband Uriah killed, who was called to set him straight?  The prophet Nathan was called to share a story about a man and his lamb.  When the Assyrian army was coming after Judah, what did the prophet Isaiah preach to King Hezekiah, what did the king and the people do? They repented to escape destruction.  When John the Baptist called out King Herod because he married his brother's wife and called out other corruption, what did King Herod do to him? Jailed and then beheaded him.  And when Jesus began his ministry what did he preach to his hometown?  The Spirit of the Lord is upon me to b...

 How many species of ants can we name? When I was in South Dakota, I was listening to South Dakota Public Radio about native grasslands. The state flower, prairie rose, can only grow on native grasslands. With the rise of CAFO farms (basically factories for livestock) makes the demand for more corn and soybeans causing farmers to dig up the grasslands to get feed them. Seventy percent of soybeans and corn grown around the world is used to feed commercial livestock. While this is going on, there are many people and organizations trying to keep native grasslands that were left and how to restore them that have been plowed up. The person studying this discovered something peculiar, the litmus test that he found was that if the prairie has eighteen to twenty-four species of ants, it was healthy. How many did we name? (5-7) I didn't know there would be more than a dozen. This shows God's plan to be fully healthy is diversity.  Professor Amy Jill Levine, a Jewish New Testament schol...

  The Story... Our Constitution Over the last week, many Republican Congress had town halls in which their constituents shared their displeasure with how the administration is handling things. Many politicians continued to gaslight the town hall people that American citizens can trust our President and his right-hand man whose position is ambiguous but his power is not. It in our Constitution that Congress has the power of the purse. They decide where the money is to be spent and how. Elon Musk is going through different departments and making cuts to individual programs (targeting the ones who are investigating his businesses) and whole-sale slaughter. What he is doing is illegal for sure, unconstitutional, and bordering on traitorous as this seems to be leading to the destruction of our government and democracy. I have been accused of being too political. It is true that I follow politics more than the average citizen and I have voted for one party much more than the other. B...

 What a great time we had at Loaves and Hotdishes on Wednesday night! There was lots of great food, conversations, and the ambience was exquisite. I think at our next one, we should include foot washing for the guests who come. Who is willing to be a host? Who would be finding an excuse not to come because they would have to let someone else wash their feet? Back in the day, in Jesus' time, there really wasn't shoes as we have them today, much less socks, so feet would get dirty. And it was hard to hide them under the table because most homes didn't have table and chairs, everyone sat on the ground, sometimes supported by cushions, and your feet were a lot closer and to be seen by everyone. And in that culture, the host wasn't responsible for washing their guests feet, so everyone can relax. No free person washed another free persons feet, they may be attended by their own slave or servant, but mostly they washed their own. But it was the hosts job to offer water for th...