Via FB: Healthcare / Ebola

Via JMG: HomoQuotable - Frank Bruni

"Repeatedly over the last year and a half, I’ve written about teachers in Catholic schools and leaders in Catholic parishes who were dismissed from their posts because they were in same-sex relationships and — in many cases — had decided to marry. Every time, more than a few readers weighed in to tell me that these people had it coming. If you join a club, they argued, you play by its rules or you suffer the consequences. Oh really? The rules of this particular club prohibit divorce, yet the pews of many of the Catholic churches I’ve visited are populous with worshipers on their second and even third marriages. They walk merrily to the altar to receive communion, not a peep of protest from a soul around them. They participate fully in the rituals of the church, their membership in the club uncontested. The rules prohibit artificial birth control, and yet most of the Catholic families I know have no more than three children, which is either a miracle of naturally capped fecundity or a sign that someone’s been at the pharmacy." - Frank Bruni, writing for the New York Times.

Labels: Catholic Church, employment, Frank Bruni, religion

Reposted from  Joe Jervis

Via JMG: Engage!

 

Via Reddit: "I proposed to my boyfriend yesterday on the bridge of the Enterprise, he said yes and I couldn't be happier." (Tipped by JMG reader Ray)

Labels: bears, gay geeks, gay proposals, Star Trek

Reposted from  Joe Jervis

Via Daily Kos / FB:

Flower of the Day: 10/05/14

"Devotion is love in its most refined form. Devotion is when we become lovers of the Supreme, lovers of life itself. Devotion happens when the love within us can manifest in this way, establishing communion with the Holy Spirit. This communion feeds us, forming a benign circle. Therefore, it is true to say that love is sufficient unto love."

 

Sri Prem Baba

Via Daily Dharma

---

Call It By Its Right Name | October 5, 2014

---

If you know a view as a view, you can be free of that view. If you know a thought as a thought, you can be free of that thought. 

 

- Zoketsu Norman Fischer, “Beyond Language” 

 

The Castro San Francisco

JMG Quote Of The Day - Yvette Schneider

"I think the ex-gay movement will be dead within the next 10 years. As churches become more gay-affirming, parents and church leaders won’t seek parachurch ministries to 'fix' in gay Christians what isn’t broken. The fact that the ex-gay movement has been a monumental failure with no real, lasting change in those who have sought to negate same-sex attractions and become heterosexual will become more and more apparent to the average lay Christian. This is especially true in the age of social media, when information spreads like wildfire and can’t easily be suppressed. I’m sure there will be pockets of people here and there who will still try to change someone’s orientation. But the movement as a relevant entity in the push for LGBT rights will be defunct." - Former "ex-gay" activist Yvette Schneider, speaking to the SPLC.

Meanwhile in Washington DC...

Labels: brainwashing, Christopher Doyle, crackpots, ex-gay, LGBT youth, religion, self-loathing, still totally gay, torture

Reposted from  Joe Jervis

Via JMG: SCOTUSblog On What Could Happen Next

Lyle Denniston writes at SCOTUSblog:

It would be hard to find a close, or perhaps even a casual, observer of the Court who would predict with any confidence that the Court will deny review of all seven pending filings on same-sex marriage, from five states. The Court actually has been quite active on the issue this year: on three occasions, it has temporarily blocked lower court rulings that would have cleared the way immediately for same-sex marriages to begin or to be recognized, in Utah and Virginia.
Those orders suggest, if they don’t actually prove, that the Court is preserving either a chance for the issue to be explored further in lower courts without thousands of new same-sex marriages occurring, or a chance for the Justices themselves to weigh in on the issue before that happens.
Moreover, it would only take the votes of four Justices to grant review of any one of the seven new petitions, and there are four Justices who strenuously objected in dissent last year when the Court struck down a key part of the federal Defense of Marriage Act — a ruling that actually set off nearly three-dozen rulings by lower federal courts, striking down (with only one exception) state bans on such marriages.
When the Court privately discusses the new cases, as it almost surely did at last Friday’s closed-door Conference, it would not be hard to predict that those four Justices would be arguing energetically to take on the issue, provided that they had some reason to hope that, after such a review, they might gather a fifth, majority-making deciding vote from another Justice.
Those four Justices also surely know that, if the Court does opt to deny review of all of the cases at this point, such a denial would trigger the full implementation of appeals court decisions that would spread in a short period of time to eleven more states beyond the nineteen (along with Washington, D.C.) that currently allow same-sex marriage. That would almost certainly add an inevitability to the campaign to win same-sex marriage rights across the nation.
So, after the silence on Thursday, the focus now turns to Monday. The new list of orders, mostly denials, will emerge first and, before the end of the day, the Court will indicate whether it is rescheduling the same-sex marriage cases for another look, at a private Conference set for next Friday morning.

Labels: LGBT rights, marriage equality, SCOTUS

Reposted from  Joe Jervis

Flower of the Day: 10/04/14

"The human entity feels that suffering is bad, but is unable to give it up. This happens because at some point a marriage took place between the vital current, which is our sexual energy, and suffering. This is the reason why suffering remains in the world. This is why destructiveness continues even though we are aware that it is senseless."

 

Sri Prem Baba

Via Daily Dharma

---

About the Present Moment | October 4, 2014

---

Some important questions to ask are why people want to believe that mindfulness is good in every circumstance, that there are no negative side effects, and that it’s derived in a pure way from a 2500­-year-old practice. Why do contemplative practices, especially Asian contemplative practices, seem to elicit this type of positive response? Those are the really interesting cultural questions about the present moment. 

 

- Catherine Kerr, "Don’t Believe the Hype" 

 

Via Paulo Coelho / FB:

Flower of the Day: 10/03/14

"The vast majority of people are taught to deny the shadow. Most religions and even culture itself evoke the original goodness, but they do not teach us about what to do with evil. In order to reach the experience of oneness, we need to integrate all parts within us. We can only bring the kingdom of God to earth through unity, and unity includes everything."

Sri Prem Baba

Via Daily Dharma

Too Busy Talking to Ourselves | October 3, 2014 Most of us are too busy talking to ourselves to even contemplate what might be vivid and apparent should we ever learn to shut up.   - Bonnie Myotai Treace, Sensei, "The Sword Disappears in the Water"

Until We Could - Richard Blanco

Flower of the Day: 10/02/14

"The first glimpse of God is a deep darkness. This darkness is the unknown that inhabits you, and this encounter with God is a portal to this same unknown part of you. What is unknown makes you fragile and vulnerable. A profound meeting between a more superficial center and a much deeper center of consciousness acts as a mirror that reflects the reality of who you are on all levels. So if you are not mature enough for this encounter with yourself, then you tend to run away from it."

Sri Prem Baba

Via Daily Dharma

---

A Fathomless Foundation | October 2, 2014

---

Buddhism is fundamentally a path of inquiry, a practice of looking at the mind’s tendency to cling, to adhere to opinions, beliefs, memories, emotions, moods. This is a remarkable foundation, because it’s fathomless. For as every moment gives way to the next, we come face to face with an infinite freshness of experience—a freshness that, if we have truly surrendered to the practice, cannot be solidified into a doctrine. 

 

- Noelle Oxenhandler, "Glass of Water, Bare Feet" 

 

Via Daily Dharma

---

Body as Illusion | October 1, 2014

---

There is no 'body' in the limbs,
But from illusion does the idea spring,
To be affixed to a specific shape—
Just as when a scarecrow is mistaken for a man. 

- Shantideva, "What Body?" 

Flower of the Day: 10/01/14

“For a while now I have been speaking about the cycle of time we are currently in. There are many people wanting to commit suicide, many unknown diseases appearing, and our whole system is entering collapse, from economics and politics to the environment. What is actually happening is that the ego is entering collapse. This crisis is most visible and intense within larger urban centers, where one’s patience is constantly tested. This is why it is important that you dedicate at least a few minutes of the day to sadhana, spiritual practice, because this is what makes it possible to keep the flame of connection ignited.”

Sri Prem Baba