Feb 02, 2025

Living in Unconditional Love (203)

 

“Love flows from God to humans without effort:

As a bird glides through the air without moving its wings-

Thus, they go wherever they wish united in body and soul,

Yet separate in form.”

–Mechtild of Magdeburg

 

My wife Eileen died from esophageal cancer in February 2020 one year after being diagnosed, 60 years after we met on Long Island. Then my brother Tom became ill (not COVID), and I spent a total of six weeks being with him in Ohio, but he died in October 2020. My sister-in-law Sue Mahoney died from Covid-19 in January 2021. On top of it all stood the pandemic, locking everyone down almost two years. Covid has proved to be a persistent problem, and many of the long-term effects are quite serious, and it has proven much more serious than flu.

02/02/2025                                                    This has been a pain-filled week due to the excesses by our new president where he is intent on hurting the poor and siphoning even more for the rich. Even worse is his intent on revenge and to re-establish white supremacy by cancelling long standing civil rights laws (60 years) and choosing only white people for his leaders, even though they have no experience except that they bow to him as their dictator, as was done for Hitler. (Remember, Hitler destroyed a democratic Germany in 58 days.) It seems obvious that his intent is to become dictator, ignoring the two-term limitation of being president and punishing and removing any who may have angered him in the past and installing only those who bow to him.

These actions are only the beginning of the end of our country as we have grown to understand the meaning of democracy. All in two weeks, and he is intent on continuing this destruction for the foreseeable future as seen by his intent to install tariffs on our two neighbors north and south. Prices will rise and he will blame the democrats, just as he blamed the democrats for the airplane collision in Washington. Nothing he says can be believed, and he has no regard for the loss of people in that event.

I feel fully justified in not bothering with the news except reading briefly during the day, as there is nothing I may do to change anything.

Being the end of January and the beginning of February, the weather has been cold, snowy, and windy, and I have stayed in and kept warm. I am indeed fortunate in that I feel good and healthy. I take a nap almost every afternoon and all seems well. The Christmas tree and stable are still up but I hope to take them down soon.

I am starting to prepare for my trip South which is in two weeks. It will be fun and filled with joy to be there.

I am depressed as things are regressing rapidly. I am pleased that many object, but we have at least four years of hate-filled rhetoric to absorb, and that will be sad.

Meditation

Gentle One, I lay this sad world in Your care as only pain and destruction seem to be in the future. Our nation calls itself a Christian nation, but too many of its actions are anything You would have accepted as described in the Sermon on the Mount. I beg for Your mercy on our nation as we move to absorb the pain we see before us.