Watchin' The Ships Roll In

 I'm drinking tea and watching the Jackson City water lawsuits sail into port. After the judgment in Flint, they're becoming a popular hole to fish in. Jackson never had the resources of Flint, Michigan, though, and doesn't now.

We should offer t-shirts and barbeque for some of these guys because even if they win, that's all they're going to get. We should get one for Mayor Lumumba that says, "My daddy wanted to be mayor, and all I got was this lousy lawsuit." He could literally save orphans from a burning building now, and he'll still be known as the water crisis guy. It's not really fair. It was that way when he got here.

Most of these suits only list the last two mayors as defendants, which doesn't seem fair. They didn't create this, even if they did lowball how bad it was. Neither has very deep pockets, and I'm curious if their professional liability insurance covers this.

I have mixed feelings about class-action suits. I was part of involving Trustmark's auto loans once from a loan I co-signed with a girl (bad idea, huh?) and was awarded a massive $80. The money lasted longer than the girl. She never picked up her portion of the booty.  The firm in the delta who filed the suit couldn't tell me why I was in the class even though I never asked to be.  After arguing with him on the phone for over an hour, I asked what his billing rate was and informed him I had no intention of paying for the time I had just consumed.  

Like the suit I was in, none of this will provide much tangible benefit for the members of the class, and it certainly won't help the city of Jackson in any meaningful way.  It should help a few lawyers pay their rent though, while they hunt for more lucrative fishing holes.  

You Never Listen

 Southerners love to read, but sometimes they don't listen very well.

One of the first stories in the Bible tells of how enslaving a large population of foreign people ends up with a city full of frogs and the death of the firstborn.  You'd think that'd be a pretty good lesson, but the moment we saw the Spanish making some money on this African slave thing, we wanted in on it.  

Even after Nat Turner said he was inspired by Moses and operated on messages from God, we embraced slavery and believed we were righteous.  In the end, nearly three-quarters of a million of our firstborn lay dead, our homes and farms burned, our business destroyed, and our stores of treasure depleted or emptied, but the slaves were free.  We read, but we don't listen, and it costs us.

individuals of sacred worth

Responding to an increased awareness of the inequities visited on homosexuals, in 1972, the United Methodist Church proposed a statement in  The Book of Discipline of The United Methodist Church (the UMC official statement of law and doctrine) reading: "homosexual persons no less than heterosexual persons are individuals of sacred worth." meaning, homosexuals are loved by God as much as heterosexual peoples.

Some feared this was a step too far and might be interpreted as the church condoning homosexuality, so the phrase "though we do not condone the practice of homosexuality and consider this practice incompatible with Christian doctrine" was added, making it clear that homosexuals would not be eligible for clergy positions and the UMC would not condone homosexual marriages.  That is where we stand today.

Some in the church, myself included, would like to retain the "individuals of sacred worth" statement as written but delete the "we do not condone" language, giving individual pastors the leeway to make their own decisions about homosexual marriage as they see guided by their own enlightenment and understanding of scripture. 

I tend to see pastors the same way I do doctors.  We require them to do significant work to develop the judgment necessary to accomplish their job, and I think we should let them use it.  The most likely outcome is that some UMC pastors will perform gay marriages, and some will not.  I think that's fair. 

Even discussing this change means that some want to leave the UMC and slander it.  In the twenty-first century, I don't see how an American or European Methodism can survive if homosexuality is gonna be a third rail.   In my heart, I know Christ would not want that.  I avoid using the phrase "I know" with anything regarding Jesus, but I feel strongly about this.  Jesus would not deny a sacrament to anyone that loved and, in his life, celebrated love, food, and fellowship with everyone, even those rejected by the church leaders.  

Unwelcome immigrants

 In a nation made of immigrants, this current hate for immigrants confuses me.  When my ancestors came here, there were no signs saying "Fàilte Dhachaigh!" (welcome home) or "Is breá linn an Ghaeilge!" (we love the Irish).  Nobody tried to send us to Martha's Vineyard either, although I would have gone.  It's pretty cool there.  There's an awful lot of folks in the Choctaw nation who can attest to the fact that we weren't invited.  English speakers already here considered my ancestors vermin.  People were still calling the Irish "broom pushers" when Kennedy was elected, and some afterward.

I get that the number of immigrants is intimidating.  Their backgrounds are questionable.  They're beyond poor, and they don't speak English.  How different were the ships filled with desperate souls from Glasgow, Perth, or Aberdeen?   I'm Irish, Scottish, and Ulster-Scott, and I stand against this.  It's not right to deny others what was given to us.