A Sunday miscellany

The first thing I do in the morning is check my email on my phone—even before I brush my teeth, make my tea, and put away last night’s dishes. This morning, there was no email in either of my accounts. That never happens, so I checked the phone—no Wifi connection. If my computer still worked, that wouldn’t be a problem. So by-passing teeth and tea, I booted the computer. No connection. This upset me because I am totally incommunicado (or so I thought—Christian told me tonight I could still have used the phone, which I didn’t realize). It worries me because I fear falling, as so many my age do, and not being able to either get up or call for help.

So, this morning, I wanted some way to tell Jordan I needed help reconnecting the router. I put SOS on a piece of paper and taped it to the window by my desk. But then I saw her come out with the dogs, so I called to her. She was one minute out of bed, not inclined to deal with a problem she didn’t understand, and not amused by my sign. Her advice: Read a book. After she disappeared, I thought if I could call her back, I’d ask for her phone and call Colin. But I had no way of doing that—or so I thought.

After about fifteen minutes, the connection was magically restored. Well, not magic at all. Apparently, there’s a wire that goes under the sill at the back door, and if you step just right, it cuts the connection. Go back and step again, and it restarts it. Makes me a bit nervous, and I think an electrician should be called. Meantime, I guess the answer is for me to just call and say, “Please go step on the back door sill.” It’s kind of like the mornings my TV tells me there are too many TVs on. I have to call and ask them to turn one off, so mine will turn on. Somehow in this day of modern technology, I don’t think we should be having these problems.

Connection restored and computer up and running, I went to church online this morning. The sermon was about disagreement—I won’t quote text, but essentially the message I got was that even people of the same faith can see things differently. Russ used the example of two people reading the same book and coming away with such vastly different interpretations that it’s a wonder they read the same book. We each see things through the filter not only of our faith but of our life experiences. The final message I got--see how tentative I’m being here because someone else may have gotten a totally different message—is that it’s okay to disagree because we are all children of God and he loves all of us.

That’s a message I hear frequently from the pulpit at University Christian Church, and each time I hear it a mental picture of Donald trump flashes into my mind, and I want to question, “Really?” I know the Milton theology (better than biblical unfortunately) about angels turning away from God, but I have a hard time wrapping my head around the idea that God loves a man so obviously corrupt, selfish, dishonest—well, you name the adjectives. According to Milton, God never creates fallen angels—they are the ones that turn away from God.

Sometimes there are reassuring signs that evil is not rampant in our world, and we certainly saw one from Martha’s Vineyard in the last few days. The way that community turned out to care for the sudden, unannounced arrival of migrants was nothing short of a miracle and certainly proof that there are a lot of good people in this world. The migrants now have been moved to a military facility on the mainland that has been used before to house people suddenly in need of shelter. Tucker Carlson says that transporting the migrants from the island just demonstrates the hypocrisy of liberals who really don’t want to have to deal with people in need. Makes me so angry, because he’s supposed to be a journalist. If he were worth half a penny, he’d know that the Martha’s Vineyard community simply didn’t have the facilities to help so many immigrants for more than an overnight stay.

Meantime, in my mind—your filter may be different—I think DeSantis lost this one bigtime and came off looking not only inhumane but a bit stupid in his misunderstanding of immigration policies past and present. He joins Gregg Abbott and apparently Ducey of Arizona.

There are good people in our world. May their numbers increase, and may karma strike some of the others, even if God loves them. As I write this, I’m hearing in my mind the ritual response to the Scripture reading in my church: “Thanks be to God.” Others may have a different filter, and that’s okay. We’re still friends.