These contractors are installing the steel pillars in concrete to stop vehicles from parking on the pavement outside a Sports Bar downtown.
They are now in the process of cleaning up at the end of the day anxious to go home.
How long do you think it'll be before they realize where they parked their truck?
Matthew Wayne Shepard - December 1, 1976 – October 12, 1998
Matthew Shepard was a member of the LGBTA (now SPECTRUM) in 1998. On October 6th of that year, he was beaten by Aaron McKinney and Russell Henderson. He died 5 days later from his injuries. While his death is something that his friends at SPECTRUM will never forget, we also hope to remember his life as well. Matthew was more than a gay person who died; he was also a gay person who lived.
A Litany for children who have died from bullying
--by Kirkepiscatoid
O God of justice and mercy, we pray that no more daughters and sons in this world die as the result of bullying simply because of who they are; be it race, religion, sexual orientation, or social awkwardness. Lord, in your mercy,
hear our prayer.
That our schools become places of nurturing and hope rather than shame and derision. Lord, in your mercy,
hear our prayer.
That our teachers instill values of charity and acceptance in all children so there is no need for one child to feel superior over another. Lord, in your mercy,
hear our prayer.
That parents can put aside what they were sometimes taught, in order to promote tolerance and diversity at home. Lord, in your mercy,
hear our prayer.
That our communities support children who feel “different from the others” and show them lives that are theirs to claim, lives they cannot begin to imagine to see at home. Lord, in your mercy,
hear our prayer.
That all children can grow up feeling self-empowered and truly loved simply as themselves, and not suffer beatings and psychological abuse at home or school. Lord, in your mercy,
hear our prayer.
O Lord, you understand this above all others, for your only Son hung among thieves on a rough wooden cross on a barren hill, just as Matthew Shepard hung from a rail fence on a lonely road. Be our light in the darkness, Lord; protect our children and fill them with the love of your Holy Spirit; hold them in your Son’s loving arms in their most fearful hours, and be with them always.
Amen.
"A woman is like a tea bag. You never know how strong she is until she gets into hot water."
Despite having heard a lot of bluster from the religious right over the years, they still sometimes have the ability to say something so totally brand new, and patently offensive, that it just knocks the wind right out of me. Take this gem quoted in the Colorado Springs Gazette over the weekend in a story about the recent rash of gay teen suicides:Peter Sprigg, senior fellow for policy studies at the Family Research Council in Washington, D.C., said the rash September suicides by gays might be linked to the students believing they were born gay. “That creates hopelessness,” he said. “It is more loving and compassionate to say you don’t have to be gay for the rest of your lives.”
What would be far more loving and compassionate is for Sprigg and his compatriots to actually engage in a true act of compassion. “Compassion” literally means “to suffer with” or “suffer together.” We can only have compassion for someone when we understand, on a deeply personal level, what, exactly, is the other person’s struggle.
What makes the thought of be “being gay for the rest of your lives” such a horrible, shameful, terrible thought to even bear consideration is because Sprigg and people like him dedicate their entire careers to making the lives of gays and lesbians so incredibly miserable. They produce ridiculous studies full of lies that no reputable psychologist or social scientist would touch with a ten foot pole and when their scientific lies are exposed they play the religion card and say, “well, God didn’t create you gay.”
Thanksgiving Day in Canada has been celebrated since 1957, on the second Monday of October. It is a chance to give thanks for good harvest and other fortunes in the past year for the people. People have a day off work on this day, though perhaps religious in origin, Thanksgiving is identified as a secular holiday now. Many stores and other organizations and businesses are also closed on this day.
Canadians eat their Thanksgiving meal with turkey and mashed potatoes and other meal such as pumpkin, corn ears and pecan nuts. At this time of year, a common image is seen of a cornucopia, or horn, filled with seasonal fruit and vegetables.
The Thanksgiving weekend is a well-liked time to take a short autumn vacation. Many other popular activities are also done including outdoor breaks to admire the spectacular colors of the Canadian autumn; hiking; and fishing. While who are the Fans of the teams in the Canadian Football League may expend their part of the weekend watching the Thanksgiving Day Classic matches.
The gospel has saved up the punch-line for this moment. In one short sentence, it informs us, ‘And he was a Samaritan.’A Samaritan.
Not only once cast out of society by virtue of his leprosy, but twice cast out because of his nationality. A doubly impure, scorned man, someone whom the boundaries would have permanently kept out.
Yet Jesus ministers to this man with the same grace as he has to the other nine. Moreover, he tells the Samaritan something he does not tell the other nine: ‘Your faith has made you well.’ A stronger translation is, ‘Your faith has brought you salvation.'
Ruth does in the end discover a distant relative of her late husband; she finds Boaz, who because of Ruth’s loyalty to him and to Naomi marries her. She bears him a son — and that son, it turns out right at the end of the story, is none other than the grandfather of King David!
Imagine how that punch-line must have sounded in the ears of proud Judeans: David’s great-grandmother was an immigrant Moabite — a foreign-born member of one of Israel’s ancestral enemies. For Moabites had once long before treated the wandering Israelites themselves as lower than dirt and wouldn’t let them so much as set a foot in Moab on their roundabout way to the promised land; and in latter days the songs of Israel would declare, “Moab is my washbasin” — and yet here it turns out that our greatest hero, David the King, David the Deliverer, is part Moabite, and wouldn’t even have been born at all had it not been for the loyalty of a woman of Moab, Ruth, in not turning back from Naomi. And perhaps a feeling of shame might rise in the heart of any Israelite who had ever mistreated a foreigner.
Sometimes I think we should bury all
our money in a hole & go back to
enjoying life again, he said. It'd
probably be a good idea to make a map
of where the hole was just in case it
didn't work out though.
By the way, Mimi, I was wondering if you would mind adding me to your prayer list, just because I feel rather unwell? I have been getting a nagging pain in the left side on and off for a few years now. I did get examined for it (ultrasound etc, and they put some tubing with a camera on it into my stomach to check it out), and they couldn't find anything, but it is getting worse, I think, and my digestive system is increasingly going haywire for no really good reason. I need to get it checked out again. It feels as if there is some kind of blockage or problem in my gut somewhere. I am a little worried. In fact if you wouldn't mind posting a prayer request at Wounded Bird I would be immensely grateful.
