Warning: a ramble with troubling themes of politics and religion
On this Martin Luther King Jr. holiday, I find themes of gender, violence, misogyny, religion and politics all churning in my mind and not much coherent thought coming out, I’m afraid, Let me list some of the elements and see if any of you brilliant folk see patterns that are eluding me.
We start with three seemingly unrelated occurrences: the Tuscon shooting, my return to 12-step program. and finally, the film Agora.
The shooting in Tuscon is disturbing in so many ways. At I was furious about the crosshairs map, how it had targeted Congresswoman Giffords . I made a brief post on Facebook about the power of graphic symbols, and my cousin the gun-toting conservative got angry with me. I realized he was right about the shooter not being directly motivated by politics.
I am grappling with my stance on free speech (extremely permissive) and how deeply troubled I feel about authority figures repeatedly calling for violence in coded language. A week later and I’m still grappling. Having taken my president’s direction to let go of political sparring, I now am thinking a great deal about the lack of accessible mental health care , and the powerful social barriers that prevent it’s effective deployment.
Art, Spirit, Nature 
Ohhh, things like this: http://www.journalfen.net/community/unfunnybusiness/297500.html
Things like that make me think the world is still occasionally a good place.
You are a seeker, my dear. NOT a pagan. That is such an ugly word— a word that makes “the other” (or the “outsider” ) out of those people who are not (according to the dictionary—I had to look it up to be sure–out of people who are neither Christian, Moslem, nor Jew —also defined as “heathen,” another one of those ugly words that makes an “other” or “outsider” of someone who, in truth, is a brother or sister to us. At least this is how I interpret what Jesus taught about people other than ourselves—people whom he called our “neighbors”, the ones he said we should love as much as we love ourselves and God.
I like the word “seeker” because it suggests those like me still seeking to know the nature of that which I usually refer to as “God” (though I’ve become reluctant to use that word because some are so sure they know just exactly what HE is like, and their notion of God frequently is profoundly exclusive. (Will they be surprised on judgement day!!!) There was a time when I was pretty sure I knew what God was like, but the older I got, the more I realized how little I knew about the nature of God. But He, She, It didn’t disappear. It just got bigger, and bigger until I realized that my mind was absolutely too small to fathom Its nature. Then I came across a book by J.B. Phillips,”Your God is Too Small”. I never read it but I thought that was a great description for how I felt.
As for that word “pagan”, the definition excluded anyone who wasn’t Christian, Moslem or Jew. Can you imagine how many people on the planet that that definition excludes!! That you are a seeker to me means you don’t have “reality” all tied up in a package and are consequently a much more interesting person. LOVE!!!!!!!!! Joan P.