Sabbath Messages > Sabbath Message: January 1, 2005
Good Sabbath
January 1, 2005
A new year dawns; the punctuation of the last one was an earthquake and a Tsunami that wiped out two or three Rose Ball park's full of humans, and only God knows what the final count will be; each day we wake up to another number as if count gave media the dramatic license to inform us of tragedy-by-numbers. I've always measured tragedy in terms of one individual rather than by the tens of thousands. Do we humans require big numbers in order to feel pain? I don't believe so.
God, were You there?
Did you know about this?
Did You cause it?
May I ask why?
Or is the devil to blame, or Mother Nature or Madam Fate?
And what will the new year bring
What surprises await us?
Could it be peace
Or kindness
Or manners
Or teenagers that awake earlier than maturity
To build and rebuild rather than a new toy
That goes faster than the last.
O Lord, please return to Earth, we need You
We're running out of room.
But the New Year celebrations went on, except for brief moments of silence; and the inauguration will spend precious millions which are needed elsewhere to ally pain and suffering and deprivation; or is the globe permanently subdivided into them that has and them that do not? I do not believe that these are Your plans or wishes.
Every time I saw a picture of a grieving parent or spouse, or drowned innocence that had hardly tasted life, I felt the pain of tragedy. How long does it take to feel pain? Do we need a collapsing high-rise to comprehend it, or a lifeless body--but we've seen so many in every movie and TV show, how can there be any feeling left? Isn't there a limit to pain? Don't emotions have a maximum height to them? Can we get used to poverty because we have wealth, or death because we have life, or disease because we have penicillin?
Is religion the final cure unless it brings compassion and understanding instead of memorized prayers, constantly asking God for protection or mercy or cure? Isn't there more to life than existing? Isn't there more to God than religion?
We had so much rain during the holidays that walking became more wondrous with or without umbrella. Fran and I adopted two kittens that brighten the house with their mischief and cuteness. We had to put Hannah to sleep after almost 20 years of life. It was important to me that my beloved Frances have another kitten to nourish into adult cat, even though I've never been a cat-person. But I am a Fran-person and that has incubated so much love that I appreciate these tiny cats, dogs, birds and fish and need some of them also.
Fran and I had quiet holidays as we really didn't want to celebrate while so many were in pain. My thoughts went out to Tom Carter , fighting cancer, and Bob who had lost Carole, and Tally who had lost Tim, and Bill Wade who fights in Iraq leaving behind his wonderful family, again. I pray for him, his family, his command. I started to read another book on WWI, a tragic, inexcusable testament to male egocentricity and the arrogance that always accompanies stupidity.
I am commanded to pursue Justice and it becomes my preoccupation. I pray to God for Him to help us along in this incredible pursuit that separates us from the true heathen, the tyranny of zeal and passion that wish for better days through the slaughter of others. No, I shall never understand that a god would measure our worthiness by our wishing for the slaughter of others we judge to be less holy-than-we.
When my computer was finally fixed so I could continue my "conversation" with each of you, I could hardly wait to think out what I wanted to share with you.
I leave you with a new year that is burdened by human and mother nature always, but filled with opportunities for kindness, justice and humanity. I pray for true peace and non-politicized leadership that is also blessed with the strength of kindness, justice and love.
May this new year be blessed with the wonder of fulfilled love, practiced kindness, warm and tender companionship, and dedicated collaboration among all of us, no matter which deity accompanies our daily lives.
sandy
