The Peaceful Gnome

38 “You have heard that it was said, ‘An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.’ 39 But I say to you, Do not resist one who is evil. But if any one strikes you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also; 40 and if any one would sue you and take your coat, let him have your cloak as well; 41 and if any one forces you to go one mile, go with him two miles. 42 Give to him who begs from you, and do not refuse him who would borrow from you. Matthew 5:38-42 Revised Standard Version Catholic Edition (RSVCE) This is today's gospel reading.  I know many people don't like this part of the teachings of Jesus, they attempt to explain it away and rationalize revenge... but it's really pretty clear what he means here.  It is nice that it lands the day after an act of such hateful evil as the attack in Orlando. 

These last few days have made remaining a-political very difficult.  Any number of stories in the news deserve comment... presidential campaigns have descended to new, previously unimaginable, lows every day.  Insane court decisions... and hate filled terrorist attacks... all of these things have been just begging for comment. These tales all have one thing in common, they all assume governments have the solution to our problems, which is to say, they all assume that the way to solve humanities problems is through violence.  Who becomes president is deciding who will have access to the most deadly pile of terror weapons in the history of mankind.  The courts order blue suited thugs to enforce "laws" with violence.  Then there is the terror attack on the "Gay club" in Florida, pure hate filled violence in the name of a state, ISIS is a state of course, no matter what the competing violent terrorist gangs around the world try to claim, just as legitimate as th...

Since I decided to delete all of the political Facebook people and pages I was following I've been way calmer and happier. My life is now a I'm sure someone will tell me when the election is over who "won".  :-P

So, over the last few days I've been deactivating and reactivating my Facebook account because I was annoyed with all of the political posts and I found myself getting all worked up over them... today I figured out exactly WHO was causing them to be all over my newsfeed... So I've taken corrective action by unliking or unfollowing all of my political sites so I won't be tempted to comment on them, repost them or react to them... THIS is where all that stuff was coming from... :-)  

Yeah,  I turned Facebook back off again.  I can't do the leave it on but don't look at it thing.  So now, no matter who says anything I'm leaving it off! But that's  not what I want to talk about this morning actually.  :-)  I'm unable to attend Mass today because I've come down, quite suddenly yesterday afternoon, with a chest cold, or something like that.  I feel OK but I can't talk, laryngitis big time.  I just don't want to go and pass it on to the people at church. Since I can't go to church I read the readings for Mass and am pondering the deep love Christ has for us all, the compassion he shows, the understanding of our need.  The gospel today is the story of the widow of Nain. Luke 7:11-17 11  Soon afterward [ a ] he went to a city called Na′in, and his disciples and a great crowd went with him. 12  As he drew near to the gate of the city, behold, a man who had died was being carried out, the only son of his ...

Yeah, I deactivated my account for almost 24 hours, but my daughter yelled at me to put it back up, so I obediently did so because... GRANDKIDS videos and photos! But it I still am not going to actually READ it... much... at all... Maybe I'll only post from here on my blog, except when I post funny cartoons that simply MUST be shared with EVERYONE ... right NOW .  Uh huh.  Yeah, I'll just keep this little bit of blow right here on my desk, but I'm not going to actually USE it.  Sigh.

I just "deactivated" my Facebook account.  This blog and Flickr photos will be the only places online where I'll post from now on.  Obviously I've done this several times before, always going back to it eventually.  It is possible I'll do that again, but for now I don't want to be there, exposed to politics on the left and right that I find obnoxious.  :-)  As an anarchist I tend to piss off both sides of the left-right spectrum, and that's all right, I just am sick of thinking about it. Sure, I could scroll past the various nationalistic and uber-patriotic posts I see constantly on Facebook, but what would be the point of that?  At this time in the political cycle virtually everyone seems to have an opinion on which of the various lying bastard corporate whores would be the least disastrous for the nation, but there is really no choice in truth. I've already made my anarchist and pacifist views plain to the people I was "friends" with...