#RevThread #112
Songs of Brokenness
1/ Last night we saw “A Star is Born,” a story for our times -- a movie that starts out being about diversity and opportunity and the discovery of immense talent,..
Songs of Brokenness
1/ Last night we saw “A Star is Born,” a story for our times -- a movie that starts out being about diversity and opportunity and the discovery of immense talent,..
2/.. and then becomes a meditation on addiction, the fame machine, and grief. The film is filled with compassion and truth, and is pretty tough to watch. In it, Lady Gaga is just brilliant.
3/ So this morning we sat down to re-watch Stephen Colbert’s interview with Lady Gaga. She’s a striver for honesty and for depth. She was most moving, to me, when answering Colbert's gently phrased request for a reflection on Dr. Ford’s testimony about Brett Kavanaugh’s assault.
4/ Lady Gaga first owned that she herself is a survivor of sexual assault. She spoke in a well-informed way about how the brain responds to that kind of trauma.
5/ I have listened to parishioners confiding these events. Someone in my family was brutally assaulted. I hate this stuff. And I believe my outrage is nothing compared to God’s when this happens to any of his daughters or sons.
6/ Back to Lady Gaga. She said, (to paraphrase) “She [Dr. Ford] had put that trauma in a box in her mind, and decided to get on with her life...
7/.. But when she saw that Brett Kavanaugh was about to be put on the Supreme Court and become one of the most powerful men in America, she wanted to protect our country. She came forward to protect our country.”
8/ Both Lady Gaga’s movie and her witness on the Colbert show lead me to share an anguished cry of my own:
9/ Why does our country need protection? From whom?
10/ Here’s what this gallant artist did not say, but I will say it: Our government is currently filled with people who are so dead inside that all they know or care about is their own power and wealth.
11/ Ponder the infinite depth of this wisdom: “For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evils.” (1 Timothy 6:10)
12/ Trashing a victim of sexual assault, if it serves their purpose, is fine. Who cares? Why bother with something as stupid as caring? Vast swaths of our public are being desperately corrupted, are dooming themselves.
13/ Those transactional beings, led by the President, are intent on ending our quest for a just, life-affirming culture. The leaders of the Republican party under Trump have become necrophiliacs, dead inside and in love with that death.
14/ If you just stop caring about anyone other than those who adore you, you’re dead inside. When he discussed the murder and dismemberment of a U. S. resident, distinguished reporter, Trump asked, “It’s not a citizen, is it?” That is a question posed by a dead man.
15/ When the R’s heard Dr. Ford’s challenge to their poster child of wealthy white male privilege, they gathered up all their passion to destroy Dr. Ford. Here, rich white males are to rule.
16/ Another goof-ball, but terrifying rally is going on tonight. Trump, lost in his addiction to fame and to more money, will wallow in his putrid rhetoric as eager crowds ask him to piss all over them. They love this abandoned, “Animal House” Fascism.
17/ At this moment in the United States of America, judges are forced to sit in judgment as a two-year old child is dragged into court by herself, and told to explain why she should be granted asylum.
18/ A two year old! Who cares about child abuse? To Trump and his followers, what does a baby whom they have orphaned matter?
19/ I remind us all of what Jesus says about those who hurt little children: “ it would be better for him if a great millstone were hung around his neck and he were thrown into the sea.” (Mark 9:42)
20/ We have a president, a congress, and a court where dead hearts and cowards rule. Once you don’t care you can become Soooo..TOUGH! Apparently it’s fun for them to abuse two year old girls and to approve adult sexual assaulters. Happy, Mitch?
21/ When the little girl bursts into terrified tears, she is pronounced unfit and carted away to the tent in the Texas desert. No one to hold her or to love her. After all, her skin is brown and her parents were deported for the sin of coming here to ask for safety.
22/ Trump and Trumpsters: your wealth will never comfort you. You are ruining the finest country in history. Still decent Repubs: Come out, come out, in the name of God come out of that hideous ruin of a once-great political party.
