Maybe Oklahoma State Reps Need AP History Courses

I guess every State legislature has its issues and cast of characters.  Here in Oklahoma ours are colorful, and too often, overtly applying their religious perspective in their duties.  Those that are overtly “Christian” rarely remember the “least of these” in their creating of laws for our citizens, tax law, and restrictions on corporations.  Rather, they have plenty of time for the revisionism of American history to fit their narrow eschatological world view and notion of what America is in God’s salvation story.  The most recent example is a vote to remove funding for AP History Courses by blowing the “Common Core” whistle, a program that few in our Statehouse support, because it does not allow States or Local School Boards to have their own facts (that’s my cliff notes on the objections to Common Core).  Read more in the article from the Tulsa World.

I am not politically active, but this motivated me to send the email below to my State Representatives: Rep Dan Kirby and State Senator Bill Brown.

Sirs,

I trust you are well today.  ​I’ve not attended any of your meetings nor voted for you.  I am one of those “independent” voters.  ​I am a fairly new resident of Oklahoma having lived here less than five years, but during this short time I’ve discovered that our State government spends more time legislating segregation from these United States in education, voting rights, healthcare, economics, and marriage equality rather than writing laws that unite and create just systems that benefit the poor, working poor, middle class, wealthy, and corporations alike.

The newest example is HB 1380.  I’m emailing to express my concern about this bill, that from my brief research, is designed to ​further ​segregate Oklahoma students from quality education through AP Courses in our public schools.​ How is it that concerns over “American exceptionalism” matter in quality education?  It appears that some of our citizens have become sensitive about being thanked or labeled “exceptional” rather than humbly serving and learning from the mistakes of our history.

I urge you to vote no on HB 1380, and any legislation, that segregates Oklahoma from participating in our Federal government unless white Republicans are in charge.  I am concerned that in the 21st Century some of our State representatives are associated with groups like, The Black Robe Regiment, that one could argue is an American version of a religious fundamentalism that is label the Taliban in another part of the world.  This kind of eschatological divine right revisionism of American history has no place in modernity and no place in any of the Statehouses in our Nation.

Thank you for taking a moment to read this email, though I know that it will be a staff person who reads and responds on your behalf.  Please don’t respond if it is a canned, “thank you for your concern.”  I’m not interested in being placated.  What I can tell you is that your support of this bill, HB 1380, would be a reason for me to vote against you in the next election because supporting this kind of bill will tell me about your values and view of what America is an ongoing experiment in democracy.

​I will remember you in my meditation and pray God’s grace for you.​

, 02/18/2015. Category: Michael D.

Wednesday Devotion

Ash Wednesday
Words for reflection on the day ahead or the day past for persons
that follow the way of Jesus;
that only know Christ in belief;
that question and are skeptical;
that have no belief other that humanity is here on this planet circling a star we call the sun.

May the G*d of your choosing help us all live in peace and plenty with our neighbors without violence or oppression.

Centering . . .

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.
The Road Not Taken, Robert Frost 1916.

 

Ponder . . .

All those days
you felt like dust,
like dirt,
as if all you had to do
was turn your face
toward the wind
and be scattered
to the four corners

or swept away
by the smallest breath
as insubstantial—

Did you not know
what the Holy One
can do with dust?

This is the day
we freely say
we are scorched.

This is the hour
we are marked
by what has made it
through the burning.

This is the moment
we ask for the blessing
that lives within
the ancient ashes,
that makes its home
inside the soil of
this sacred earth.

So let us be marked
not for sorrow.
And let us be marked
not for shame.
Let us be marked
not for false humility
or for thinking
we are less
than we are

but for claiming
what God can do
within the dust,
within the dirt,
within the stuff
of which the world
is made,
and the stars that blaze
in our bones,
and the galaxies that spiral
inside the smudge
we bear.
Blessing the Dust, © Jan Richardson. janrichardson.com

 

Remember . . .

Our God, Our Help in Ages Past,
our hope for years to come;
be thou our guide while life shall last,
and our eternal home.

Time, like an ever rolling stream,
bears all who breathe away;
they fly forgotten, as a dream
dies at the opening day.

A thousand ages, in thy sight,
are like an evening gone;
short as the watch that ends the night,
before the rising sun.

Before the hills in order stood,
or earth received her frame,
from everlasting, thou art God,
to endless years the same.

Under the shadow of thy throne,
still may we dwell secure;
sufficient is thine arm alone,
and our defense is sure.

Our God, our help in ages past,
our hope for years to come,
our shelter from the stormy blast,
and our eternal home.
Isaac Watts, 1719

, 02/18/2015. Category: Examen.
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