Freethinkers Community Group
A place for all views and opinions with unfettered expression. Just play nice!
Last week's message by Pastor Susan at the UU church was so amazing, she got applause! The theme this month is Service (to humanity in general).
The baby in the river story, as she related, is not new. But it was a great analogy for this message. A man sees a baby floating down the river and snatches it out of the water. He wraps it in a blanket, brings it to the town, and everyone gathers around to help and marvel over the baby from the river. Soon, another baby is found in the river, and it is saved, fed, housed, and made a member of the community. This continues. The town gathers blankets and sets up a special home to nurture all of the babies from the river. The babies keep coming, floating down the river. Soon someone says - why are all of these babies in the river? Where are they coming from? Let's travel up-river to figure out why there are so many babies in the river!
And that is the story. The babies in the river are children and families in need of help from social services. Especially with children, and the baby analogy, they are innocent yet in need of help from the community. Pastor Susan used the current budget crisis in Arizona and the choices currently being made. Funding is being cut to education, food stamps, programs for those in need...yet the budget is being increased for prisons. Yep, prisons. Arizona has for-profit prisons, and those prisons must be kept filled. For reasons that I am unable to understand, our politicians would rather fill prisons than provide help to those in need.
And the underlying HUGE message here is this - where there is social justice, there is no need for social services.
There won't be babies in the river in need of help when there is social justice. Sadly, our current leaders' choices will assure a steady stream of babies in the river.
I continue to be blown away by this fellowship of humans. Thanks for listening!
Carry on...
The baby in the river story, as she related, is not new. But it was a great analogy for this message. A man sees a baby floating down the river and snatches it out of the water. He wraps it in a blanket, brings it to the town, and everyone gathers around to help and marvel over the baby from the river. Soon, another baby is found in the river, and it is saved, fed, housed, and made a member of the community. This continues. The town gathers blankets and sets up a special home to nurture all of the babies from the river. The babies keep coming, floating down the river. Soon someone says - why are all of these babies in the river? Where are they coming from? Let's travel up-river to figure out why there are so many babies in the river!
And that is the story. The babies in the river are children and families in need of help from social services. Especially with children, and the baby analogy, they are innocent yet in need of help from the community. Pastor Susan used the current budget crisis in Arizona and the choices currently being made. Funding is being cut to education, food stamps, programs for those in need...yet the budget is being increased for prisons. Yep, prisons. Arizona has for-profit prisons, and those prisons must be kept filled. For reasons that I am unable to understand, our politicians would rather fill prisons than provide help to those in need.
And the underlying HUGE message here is this - where there is social justice, there is no need for social services.
There won't be babies in the river in need of help when there is social justice. Sadly, our current leaders' choices will assure a steady stream of babies in the river.
I continue to be blown away by this fellowship of humans. Thanks for listening!
Carry on...
IDK....after what I and so many others have been with.....I would be inclined to push that baby on down the river and take a pass on retrieving it :P
We as a society have been programmed from birth to death to dwell on the negative....and the media, politic, and religion seem to fan the flames.
Love will conquer all.....if we just give it half a chance and just turn off the news. They don't care about us....they just want ratings and feed on those with low and already negative energy.
I don't have a clue what is going on with the presidential race becuz I don't watch or listen to any of it.
I live in the here and now becuz I use to suffer from severe anxiety and have disconnected from most of the negative stuff (I still have to deal with my mom....lol).
Thanks for taking the time to keep us updated on your new venture. I love hearing this stuff.......and from you :)
Take care and know you are loved and thought of often ((((((((Hugs))))))))
Back then doctors would go from autopsies to delivering babies...without washing their hands, changing clothes...or anything. Hatters went mad from the mercury. Kids worked 16 hours a day in mines. Mothers dosed their kids up with laudanum (heroin) so that they'd be easier to take care of... Bakers baked all sorts of things into the flour...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7k6uqhKEAOM
(funny, but not that far from the truth)
I still believe we can do better. I still believe that funding prisons is probably not the best use of tax dollars. I would still like to stop the flow of 'babies in the river' forever.
And thanks MsBlank (aka Snoopy) for the kind words. The world is indeed a puzzling place!
The war on drugs was a civil war from American people who don't do drugs on American people who do do drugs. All in all, probably more deadly than the American Civil War.
We've also got an incredibly judgmental attitude in the country. Where we think that any social issue can be solved by punishment...
At least in my experience, that's not how it works. When Jason was hitting, kicking, spitting in kindergarten, I had more than a few people tell me that he just needed to be spanked. I made punishment more and more until it cracked.
Then I told my 6 year old that he shouldn't give a damn about school. And after giving him that message for 3 months...the issues started to drop. and drop, and drop and drop. Now those days are so long gone.
When my son was 7 he called a soccer coach an Asshole. A few weeks ago, the son of that coach was in my house working on a school project with my son Another of the kids is one of his fellow volunteer firefighters.
Jason is now the quiet geek. But it could have turned out so, so, so differently.
At UU this week the minister touched a little bit about society, and how in the '70s there was a general movement to stop sending juveniles to prison and to begin closing down prisons.
Fast-forward to 2016. The number of prisons has increased 700%, where the population as a whole has increased 44%. Quite an interesting statistic, eh? And the War on Drugs, which continues, is what fills those prison cells. Not counseling or rehab or education - prison.
Your son is lucky to have you for a mom.