Finished reading: The Meaning of Mary Magdalene by Cynthia Bourgeault 📚
Why is it the case that Christianity has utterly failed at being transformative? Might that be because it’s is not whole?
The representative democracy that the U.S. Constitution created was never intended to be efficient. The very purpose of checks and balances is to slow things down. If the goal is the most efficient form of government that choice is dictatorship. Every corporation is a dictatorship, even if public corporations have an illusion of oversight by a board.
Laws Only Apply To Those Under Authority
I keep reading articles about how the things Musk and Trump are doing are illegal, which applies under a democracy with rule of law. Democracy is no more in the United States once the Supreme Court ruled the President is above the law. Trump can’t be touched and neither can Musk (or anyone working for Musk) because Trump will simply pardon them.
In their decision SCOTUS reserved the right to decide what is a Presidential act, implying that it could still decide whether the President broke “the law.” If they do such rule who will enforce it? If Congress impeached and convicted Trump, who will enforce it?
So my advice is to stop thinking about whether or not something Trump does is illegal. of course it’s all illegal, but that does not matter. I think he welcomes any confrontation with Congress or the Supreme Court.
The Senate could have convicted Trump twice, but Republican Senators were too scared to do it. The Supreme Court could have concurred with Colorado in that the 14th Amendment prevented Trump from holding office, but was too scared to do so. Both branches failed in their role as a check against tyranny as the founders intended.
Laws now only apply to those with whom Trump and Musk have a grudge against.
Last year I made note of the number of offers I was receiving from AT&T to switch our landline to their VoIP service, which we did later in the year. We now have a cellular receiver in the top floor of our condo that has a battery for power failure and is plugged in to the phone jacks of the house so that we can continue to use our phones. The point where our house was connected to the AT&T landline network outside was disconnected. Key thing to note is that there is no failover to my Internet service in the event there is a loss of cellular connectivity. If the cell tower goes out we lose phone service.
Post Obsidian Notes To Microblog
The essay that I wrote earlier today was written in Obsidian. I copied and pasted the content to lillihub.com and then published it to this blog. I looked for and found a community plugin that suggests I can post notes directly from Obsidian and if I have it configured correctly this note should appear on my blog.
That worked as expected, not this sentence is an edit, can I publish this edit back to the same post? Yes I can! Now, I need to check whether I can do this across other devices.
Alright, I installed the plugin on my Macbook Pro and so let us see whether I can post this update. Final test to see how this works from the iPad Mini.
Do We Get Him?
Most American White Christians do not have an appreciation for the society, rules, and cultural norms during Jesus' life. Consequently, I don’t think we really understand most of what he teaches. Jesus lived under imperial occupation. The religious leaders of Israel collaborated with the Romans to rule society mostly for their own safety, and that collaboration lead to the crucifixion of Jesus.
I believe many, if not most, American White Christians don’t really read or understand scripture because they are not the heroes of that story. Most of us align to the ruling classes at the time of Jesus, which has been our privilege within American society, but this appears to be coming to an end.
In today’s daily meditation from the Center for Action and Contemplation, there is this:
Over two millennia ago, these biblical prophets envisioned a different world, a world pressing to be born. In place of imperial culture, the prophets articulated another way of living in God’s Creation. Countering extraction, force, and separation, the prophets lifted up trust, right relationship, and becoming. In prophetic understanding, these three qualities embodied the way of faithfulness to Living Presence, the way of aliveness.
Trust in life itself is essential to aliveness. The prophets repeatedly admonished the people for trusting in wealth and influence, for seeking security in power and possessions—trusting in extraction. Instead, they called people to trust Living Presence by trusting the gift of life, the God-given gift of unfolding, unexpected, ever-creating life. Rather than seeking more things, the prophets called for seeking the more in life. Rather than seeking to be in maximal control of life, the prophets called people to participate in the fullness of life. This is the response to the desire to extract: receive and appreciate the more within life itself.
May American Christians now know what it means to say and have the courage to say, Jesus Is Lord!
I intended to post this yesterday, which was a foggy day here in southeast Michigan with above average temperatures. Freezing rain and ice is in the forecast for tomorrow night.
The U.S. Constitution has emoluments clauses because the founders of the United States knew that government officials, elected and un-elected, could be bought. At the very beginning of a new country the risks, as the founders saw them, were foreign states and monarchs who had the means to provide these gifts and payments and thus establish quid pro quo. The truth is, any quid pro quo with any government official is a risk to the country, and as we are now living that danger is greater now from within. If the United States is to have a self government future there must be an Emoluments Amendment added to the constitution.
When I first learned about it I bought an eBook at Bookshop.org, which required me to install their app on my BOOX Note Air 3C. Descriptions of their eBook service say that “local bookstores” are the providers of these books, but that makes me wonder exactly how? I am skeptical that a small local book store as the means to provide eBooks, most likely they are still being provided by chains, though they may be smaller than Barnes and Nobel and Amazon.
PSA. Chicago Cubs pitchers and catchers report to spring training in 8 days on February 9. The first spring training game is on February 20, 2025.
I am a long time user of micro.blog and one of the reasons why is the ability to use alternative applications with the service. For example, I currently use lillihub.com as my preferred web application for micro.blog and I want to give a shout out to Loura’s fantastic work on the application. She continues to refine the application and I can tell that it is a labor of love.
All that is going on now in the United States is giving me flash backs to elementary school playground. It’s the revenge of the bullies.
The sensor for this thermometer is hanging in the porch of our condo, so it is sheltered a bit and tends to be a few degrees warmer than the weather app reporting. However, this is the first time I’ve seen a below zero temp on the screen.
Phone says that it is 2 degrees Fahrenheit this morning. The furnace is running a lot and that is driving the humidity down in the house despite having a humidifier on the furnace. Looking for ways to boost the humidity in the mean time. I see that it was colder on this date back in 2019. A benefit of having a blog
Good Teams Have Painful Loses
There is no consolation today for lifelong Detroit Lions fans. A loss in the first playoff game after having the best regular season record is particularly painful. Detroit fans can look back to the Detroit Red Wings, who had similar heartbreaking losses to the Devils in the 94-95 Stanley Cup finals and to the Oilers in 2005-06. The loss to the Devils was particularly hard because the Wings had not been in the finals for so long, had the best regular season record, and got swept. The next year the Wings again had the best regular season record and then lost to the Avalanche in the conference finals. Finally, the Wings won the Stanley Cup in 96-97.
Being a lifelong Cubs fan, I know the feeling of rooting for a team that were perennial losers to finally become a good team. I learned I would much rather feel the pain of a playoff loss than the feel the frustration of the Cubs being out of contention after the first month of the regular season. Painful loses are part of the consequences of being a good team, otherwise you are never in position to have such loses.
The Lions have built a firm foundation and there is no reason to not believe that Holmes and Campbell will learn from this and continue building upon that foundation. There are no guarantees next year will be just as good as this year, but there is every reason to look forward to next.
I tried to post this from the coffee shop yesterday but it just wouldn’t happen over 5G. Not sure why.
“Political parties are to democracy what monopolies are to capitalism, both corrupt the founding principles of their institutions, and those who enjoy the privileges of the power these oligarchies provide do everything they can to preserve those privileges.” 1984 Is In The Past
About a half inch of powder fell over night, making for a satisfying crunch during my morning walk.
Looks like Pixelfed.social is broke, probably due to the volume of new sign ups. Currently cannot login via the mobile apps.