Still not the post i was going to make but...

Pet Peeve: calling God "he".... God is genderless.  God is beyond gender, and beyond time.  women are made in God's image every bit as much as men.  if you are going to call God "he" then you should also call God "she" since the divine encompasses both aspects of humanity. 

the Hebrew name for God, El Shaddai, means 'the God with breasts"...  Julian of Norwich, the famous medieval nun and mystic, often referred to God in the feminine. 

if we are to be accurate about God and God's gender, we need to be careful either to never assign a gender to God, or be equal in assigning gender to God.  just as it is inconsiderate, if not actually discriminatory, to use gender-exclusive language (such as 'man' or 'mankind' instead of humanity or people) for humans, the same is true of terminology for the Divine.

this post is a quickie > i want to do a 'real' one later but....

where do we Christians get off judging other people and their behavior?  Jesus never asked someone to stop sinning before they could come to him.  God never said you had to stop sinning to be saved.  "For while we were yet sinners..." - doesn't that ring a bell ????

we are called to love God and love each other. period.  if God wants someone to change, let God worry about that.  it is not our business, folks!!!!!! 

people will come to love God when they see God's love in us.  if all they see is the potential for judgement, no one will ever come to God.

i want to cry when i see how we are behaving towards other human beings; how we are talking to and about other human beings.  how can we be so cruel???? how can we be beacons of love and light if we are only spewing hate?  it doesn't matter if you are right since no one will listen to you!  just love people. love them in their sinfulness and don't even worry about their sins.  everyone of us has darkness within.  everyone of us has the potential for great evil.  and yet God loves every single one of us, even the most hate-filled....

just love people.  let God take care of the rest.

we have been waiting for a revolution for a long time.... it's been 37 years since the last one, a racial revolution that left much of the cities of New Jersey literally smouldering (to say nothing of a 10 year old girl petrified for her father who worked in one of those cities as an inspector for the department of health)... but all of the signs of oppression, disenfranchisement, discontent, bewilderment > the things that lead to revolution > are present... we are ripe for revolution... we need one!

in USA Today, Julianne Malveaux writes, "The average American has not experienced much good economic news lately. The wealth gap is growing. Median family income has been dropping. Meanwhile, gasoline prices are up 36% from a year ago. With interest rates rising, those with adjustable rate mortgages face higher payments, and residential rents also are nudging up. Incomes are not keeping pace with inflation, and the job market is weak...New York Times writer Louis Uchitelle describes workers as "disposable Americans," and daily headlines about layoffs - recently reports surfaced that Walt Disney Studios will lay off up to 10% of its workers - reinforce the sense of job insecurity.There don't seem to be many breaks out there for those at the bottom. The $5.15 hourly minimum wage has not been raised in a decade. The most recent tax cut legislation that extends breaks on capital gains and dividends will provide the bottom 40% of taxpayers with less than $20 in tax cuts over a three-year period. In contrast, more than two-thirds of the benefits of the tax cut will go to the top 5% of our nation's earners."

we are told continually that unemployment is way down.... down to about 4.7% nationwide, which is a nice, low figure, sure, but one that LIES! like a rug!!  most of the jobs are lower paying service sector jobs, and many of the unemployed have exhausted their unemployment benefits, and so they are no longer counted.  they still don't have jobs, but yet, they are no longer counted as unemployed!  my friend, JV, just got a job after being unemployed for 18 months....

oh, and you already know how i feel about health care!  i did finally get my appointments squared away, but at an enormously inconvenient time and in an extraordinarily inconvenient location.... <rolls eyes as steam comes out ears>

so... it seems we need a revolution.... even Rf wants to know why we, as a nation, don't change our policies, particularly in regard to the existence (or lack thereof) of a viable third party.  sweden, and germany, and the UK , and israel all seem to function with multiple parties in a coalition government.  these nations used our system as a model, but managed to find ways to improve on it - or at least, one hopes the changes have been improvements.  http://www.wired.com/news/columns/0,70980-0.html  is the link he sent me to support his thinking.... it is a good read....

  so... ok.... i have seldom been this frustrated with the state of health care in the United States.  it takes an awful lot to get me this steamed -- usually i top out at frustrated or even annoyed, but this time i am, dare i say it, totally PISSED off (and no, this time it is not better to be pissed off than pissed on....)

i came back from vacation, which carries its own set of frustrations since we were sharing living space with donathan's family and assorted extensions... having to sleep in the living room, which means people pass by all the time, and can watch you sleep, which freaks me out (what if i snore? or drool? or body parts become exposed???)... having to sleep in the living room on the floor (yes there was a sort of an air mattress, but only sort of)... watching all the dynamics between my s.i.l. (sister-in-law) and her in-laws, plus donathan's issues with his sister and her husband, and his mom and her daughter..... and then there was a serious train service disruption on the day we were coming home, and so my mom called us down in florida and offered to pick us up at the airport, which was kind of a mixed blessing.  at least we didn't have to scramble to find trains that were running, but we did have to deal with the MOTHER of all drivers (if you have ever read the comic strip Jump Start, and seen that grandma drive, you'll know what i am talking about)....

so vaca was over, and we were home, and i was taking the first full, long shower in a bathroom i only had to share with one other person. sounds nice, huh? i shouldda known....

i step out of the shower, look in the mirror, and there is a visible and palpable lump in/on my left breast. ugh. scary ugh.  so i see the doctor that morning. and he agrees with me that it feels like a fibrous (benign) tumor, not a cancerous one, but he writes me a scrip for a mammogram with an ultrasound.  i have been this route before, since my very first mammogram turned up a tumor and i had to have a biopsy -- long story, but short version was that it was benign, and we left it alone.  this is the same breast, so i'm fairly confident, but since it is the memorial day weekend, i can't call for an appointment until tuesday.

so, tuesday comes and goes, and i forgot to get the provider book from my husband that will tell me if i have to travel out of state to have the procedure covered, or if i will be lucky enough to find a provider within 50 miles of where i work or live.  i got the book today, found a radiology center that is not only close, but the same one where i got my initial mammogram done, so we are looking good.  then i make the mistake of calling them....

you do not get a live person, but a series of "menu options" none of which are radiology.  so, since my breasts are involved, i figure ob/gyn to be the closest department, and choose that option.  but that is the busiest department, so i am on hold (suddenly dan's question about our "on hold" tolerance threshold flashes through my mind)... finally i get a person, explain what i need and she sends me to radiology where ... i am put on hold.

after 45 minutes of going around and around, and choosing and discarding 3 or 4 dates and times, we (the radiology secretary and i are friends by this point) find out that i cannot book the appointments (mammogram to determine that i felt what i felt followed by a sonogram to see if it is a tumor or a cyst) because i do not have the scrip in front of me with the vital diagnostic code.  i am told to call back from home.  i ask how late they are open, and they tell me until 8:00 PM.  this is great.

well, it is not really great, but it is not absolutely awful.  so i make it through my day, rush home since i have a 7:00 meeting i have to attend, dig out the scrip, and  call them back only to be told., by a very polite recording that they are CLOSED!!!!!!  and it is only 6:15!!!!!!