"Christian" group prays for singer, George Michael to die
http://www.spinner.com/2012/01/04/george-michael-christian-group/

It's situations like this that justify my escalating aversion to organized religion.

Given my Catholic background, and otherwise religious upbringing, every random now and then I get a twinge of uneasiness with this independent position I've grown into, but stories like this one confirm  for me that it's fine to have taken my own spiritual path. Religion is too often used to justify less than equitable, civil, or even sensible behavior toward others. Some use religion to fit their own agenda, which a lot of the time has nothing to do with what that religion is supposed to be about.

When did it become "Christ-like", or Christian, to pray to God/ Christ, to take back one made in God's own image? If I'm to believe what I'm told the Bible says I should believe, God put George Michael here. Who are these Christians to tell God to take him back? The Book says we are all made in God's image. Does that not include gay people? Women? Minorities? The biased? The Unintelligent?

And furthermore, just who determines what that image is?

Did these same people pray to God for the death of the guy who a week or so ago killed and dismembered that little girl he was supposed to be babysitting? Did the Christians light candles and send up requests for the demise of Bernie Madoff after he made off with all those people's savings, not mention their basic trust in their fellow man? And did religion not figure into the reason some of those people gave and continued to give their money to Madoff to make off with even when the "Trouble Ahead!" signs were flashing?

In keeping with religious beliefs, abortion clinics are blown up, sometimes killing and maiming doctors and other health workers in the process. Abortion doctors have been targeted for death. How is that in keeping with God's will, or even pro-life? I watched in confusion as people of various religions cheered the death of Sadaam Hussein. They prayed, celebrated, supplicated themselves, thanking their God for taking him. Hussein might have been a total low life who wreaked havoc in his own country and around the world, but that religious reference/rule book I was made to study in my early days clearly informed me that vengeance is not ours here on earth. We don't call the shots; that Higher Power does. Sadaam went when his time came, and his time came because that Higher Power said it was time. Period.

Politicians run on the "Christian" or "Family Values" ticket, hoping to sway the vote in their favor (fit their own agenda), then it comes out the private lives they lead are anything but Christian or in line with family values- whatever they really are. Almost every religion has found a way to try to keep women and girls "in their place". Religion on its own hasn't done a whole lot for most of the problems in this world. For a long time, for me, it's been looking like quite the opposite is true. In fact, I've begun to cringe when someone feels the need to announce to me how 'Christian' they are. It's usually not very long before the true measure of that Christianity shows itself, a thing I might not have noticed had it not been brought to my attention.

I gave up on the clubs some time ago; I don't care to be included. I've decided the best I can do in this life is give my best, treat people right, be as fair and impartial as the situation allows, help others when the ability to do so is there, be right with myself, and put my faith and trust in a power greater than me.

That leaves me with little time for praying for or celebrating the demise of others.

I am thankful for a great many things. Life is good. Enjoy the day.

Saturday

  

I love Saturdays. 

Getting up when I feel like it, that is unless somebody messes with me, trying to insert their agenda into mine, and I hate being that kind of pissed off on a Saturday morning. If you live with me, you know that, so unless you're daring- or sixteen months old and really cute- you don't go there.

Saturdays are for doing what I feel like doing, or not doing what I don't feel like doing. For not thinking about work, or obligations, or the have-to's in life. Now that my own children are grown and gone, I aim during the week to work it so my Saturdays are for me.

Today is a good one. I'm home alone. Just me and my thoughts. Hubby's at work, and my temporary tenants, the grandniece and her mother, are out and about. I love them all, but I don't miss them. I wonder sometimes if the day will ever come that I'll regret enjoying being alone so much.  I have always been my own best company, but is that because I really like me or is it  the escape from the uncertainties and demands of the alternative? 

Hmmm. 

Whatever. It's Saturday, and I'm all in.

The laundry is going, but it's my laundry. Down to my last pair of clean knickers; it was time. I need to do my health benefits for work, but that can wait. I have until the 10th of next month to get that in. But it's on my mind to do it, so I just might knock that out while I'm on here. But if I do, that will also be for me.

Saturday is my selfish day.

Got a few very good coupons for Jo-Ann's that I might take advantage of in a little while. There's nothing I really need crafts-wise, but the coupons are 50 and 40% off on any one item. There should be something I can run up on once I go into the store. Just being in a craft store does something for my creative flow. I may go simply for the infusion.

Slice of cheesecake in the fridge has my name on it. So does what's left of that Haagen Daz butter pecan ice cream left over from last week's present to myself for being so good during the week. I'm down almost fifty pounds since March. When I saw that first digit in my weight flip, I knew it was time. Unlike with an odometer on a car, it isn't illegal to roll back pounds on a body. But every now and then, I have to break the rules just to keep life interesting and fun. I save rule breaking for Saturdays.

Sun's out. I've got gas, lots of time, and a paid off credit card.

And it's Saturday.

Image: digitalart / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Today....

Got a new student in my 8th grade Language Arts class. Before the student actually showed up in my room, I was informed this was his first day of school for this entire year.

He comes to us from out of state. They say when his mother enrolled him this morning, she was a nervous wreck having run with her children from a dysfunctional, chaotic relationship. Reportedly, she was barely functional, and it was difficult even getting the paperwork filled out.

The young man was placed in my fifth period Inclusion class where there are already eight Special Education students of varying levels of ability and varieties of disability being mainstreamed. He makes nine. Among the General Ed. population of that class, a couple more kids struggle to the degree we pull them, as well, when we need to work more closely with some of the Inclusion students.

According to the counselor, my new student's reading ability and comprehension range is somewhere between 1.5-2.0; first year grade, fifth month to beginning second grade. Then there is that troubling detail about not having stepped foot in a classroom in 2011 until October 20.

In talking with him, I could tell he was nervous, as any new student entering late in the year would be. I could also tell he didn't have the first clue about the four kinds of sentences, run-on sentences, or clauses- dependent or independent- we were discussing in review for tomorrow's test. Judging from his mumbled, incongruent responses, I also suspect he understood little of anything I was saying to him in general.

All I could do was sigh. No point in being angry or frustrated. It won't change a thing.

My co-teacher and I will have to find out where he is academically and teach him at his level, but at the end of the year, despite his late start and his academic shortcomings, he will have to take and pass the 8th grade level Math and Reading CRCT.

Now there are those in government and in the private sector who would assess an individual teacher solely on the percentage of students meeting or exceeding standards on those tests. There are those who would award merit pay to schools and teachers whose students demonstrate "adequate yearly progress" based on those scores.

As if that one set of test scores provides the only snapshot needed of a school's or its teachers' abilities and effectiveness. As if test scores tell the whole story of a students progress or lack thereof. As if students aren't kids, multidimensional human beings with backgrounds and baggage they bring to school with them that factor into the quality of the experience.

As if.

All I can do is sigh, give the children the best I have, and push on.

Monday

For all intents and purposes, I detest Mondays. They're the wake for the now-deceased weekend that preceded it, Monday reminisces the eulogy And as it is after the death of a loved one, the new day dawns surreal; I get dressed for it wondering how life can go on so normally when one so vital and so important to my existence has left me behind.

But just as it is with a human passing, I keep going because life does. To be doing otherwise would mean I was somewhere I'd rather not be just yet. Right now there's just too much unseen, untried, and undone.

Aside from being Monday, it  wasn't a bad day, as days go. The kids had their first Unit test of the year, so each class period was quietly engaged. The grade books close this Friday, and report cards for the first nine weeks go out on the 21st. Needless to say, noses were to the grindstone.

In some cases, I had to hold back that whispered, "As if, sweetie. Way too late."

I have a dearth of papers to check before the weekend, so my nose will be buried pretty deep, too.But in the meantime, I'm home and putting that all aside for the moment.

Weekend company is gone. They left this morning, so my house is somewhat back to normal. I still have the two temporary tenants, but I've come to see them as fixtures rather than intrusions. They know the house rhythms and routines, and they have their place in the schema, so I'm not as distracted by their presence in my immediate universe. This little one (15 months) still tries to call her own shots, but even she is beginning to come on board. She's started demanding to feed herself; little does she know that's only the beginning. Now if we could just get this potty thing going.

Feeling pretty good right now. It's quiet, my housework is done, and she's playing by herself over in the corner of the office. Perhaps I can get a spot of writing done before the hubby gets home and/or baby girl notices I'm enjoying myself.

Back

It's been way too long since I've written anything worth writing about. That inner critic of mine had me wrestled to the mat and for a while there, had gotten the best of me. I hear that voice relentlessly whispering next to my ear,"You have nothing to say that people want to hear," and I listen. I shut down and the blank screen mocks me in my submission. My brain freezes, and I'm left with a barren wasteland in the place of my flowing creativity. My once nimble fingers won't move. It's been like that, and I think I've started to like it. There is a certain odd comfort in, "I can't."

But enough is enough.

So, tonight, I said to the inner critic, "Eff you. I'm writing something, Even if it's bullshit and nonsense, I'm putting it out there and getting started one mo' 'gain."

My life is on overload, and it has been for a couple of years now with no real end in sight. But that's okay. I could take current conditions in my household as being taxing to my limits, but I'm choosing to look at it as people know they can trust me to hold onto them until they get back on solid footing. I could say the burden is too heavy, but I'm going to believe the burden was given to me because someone felt I was strong enough to carry it until it gets where it's supposed to go.

I'm going to choose to love all those orbiting around me and to keep going forward with my life because that is who I am.

And I'm going to choose to write because that is who I am, as well.

I'm back.

Thinking out loud....

It's Saturday. I'm in the middle of sweeping the kitchen floor, had most of the debris gathered in one spot, and the broom broke. Just split in two, the handle from the part holding the bristles.

I took that as a sign.

Left the trash right where it was and got out of Dodge. Perhaps somewhere in my travels, I'll pick up a new broom, and finish where I left off whenever I get back. Or better yet, someone else will see the mess I left on the floor and somehow get it up while I'm gone, freeing me up to do something I really want to do and with better success.