Lectionary Reflection - Matthew 25:31-46 NRSVPTSD expert Seth Norrholm: To heal from Trump's abuse, we must end "catastrophic thinking" https://t.co/89RP5tlctS #SmartNews
— Brad Shumate (@shumate_brad) November 18, 2020
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Wednesday, November 18, 2020
11/22/2020 - See Christ in Us
Wednesday, November 11, 2020
As a licensed mental health professional with over 40 years experience in the field, the fitness of a POTUS and VPOTUS to hold office concerns me greatly for Democracy's future. With 48% of the country having favored the incumbent Republican candidates in the general election and an egregious lax of oversight by Congress on the Executive Branch, a more Putinesque like POTUS and/or VPOTUS candidate would have meant the end to our way of life. Much stronger laws are needed, particularly that no one is above the law, not at any time or in any way, especially if you're POTUS or VPOTUS.
I propose that a POTUS and VPOTUS not only have and pass mandatory annual physical examinations required by law but also have and pass annual mandatory psychological evaluations required by law. The psychological evaluation of fitness for office would be completed by a nonpartisan commission and comprised of the country's most gifted mental health professionals, certifying fitness to hold office. Secondly, that any candidates for office of POTUS and VPOTUS must successfully pass such examinations and evaluations as part of establishing their candidacy. Thirdly, it must be established that persons evaluated by the commission must be free of sycophantic, sociopathic, narcissistic, and/or antisocial tendencies.
Lastly, if the mental health status of a POTUS or VPOTUS at any time appears in question to such a commission, it shall have the power to summon and mandate compliance to submit to a mental health evaluation. If a POTUS or VPOTUS does not pass such evaluations and examinations or fails to comply with having such, the 25th amendment is to be immediately invoked and the lines/means of succession enacted.
Putting these safeguards into effect will help to ensure the future of our democracy and prevention of an unfit individual ever rising again to hold offices of the most powerful person(s) in the world. Heck, let's extend the requirement to all POTUS cabinet members as well.
Free of Encumbrance
Eugene, OR USA
Saturday, October 17, 2020
MY ABIDING AFFIRMATIONS:
God – The Source:
From my earliest days in this life, I experienced a profoundly loving presence. It permeated and intertwined with all my being. This presence I have called God as have others before me. I sensed God had no beginning. God always existed. God knew me before I ever knew myself. God has been the loving parent who never abandoned me, the parent I counted on when unable to count on my own. God, my eternal parent, celebrates my greatest joys, comforts my distress, heals my broken heart, calls and sends me to where I am needed most. As life transitioned from childhood to youth and now older adulthood, I have realized that God resides throughout our Universe, is our Universe, and that God offers you and me a passionately loving, accepting, personal, unconditional, non-judging relationship.
The Anointed – Prophets, Apostles, Teachers, Spiritual Companions, Believers:
Those who fully welcome God into their lives are persons who bless Humanity with their love for its diversity. As such, I call them “The Anointed” for they have shared throughout the ages their encounters with our radically loving and accepting God. In turn, those experiences have provided counsel, guidance, insight, and wisdom for millennia. “The Anointed” have helped us comprehend Humanity’s core self and what it means to be the children of a God for whom all are family and not just some. The names of “The Anointed” are countless. We easily recognize those who have been in our collective consciousness for thousands of years. They are Solomon, Ruth, Deborah, Esther, Rebekah, the Prophets Daniel and Isaiah and Jeremiah. They are Jesus, Buddha, Mohammad, Mother Teresa, Martin Luther King Jr, Jane Goodall, and many more. They are you and they are me.
Compassion - The Charitable Heart:
In belonging to God and the Family of God, our hearts are open, sensitive, and responsive to others. Their sufferings are our sufferings. Their hardships are our hardships, their joys our joys, their worth our worth. Courageously and selflessly, we respond to their needs, wipe away their tears, treat their wounds both seen and unseen. We welcome them to our tables. We help them find hope, meaning, and purpose.
Creation – Our Holy Mother:
The Earth is our mother. She gives us life. She sustains our life. Without her, we cannot survive. She is a living breathing being. She carries us through the cycles of life -- a time to be born and a time to die. Her seasons remind us of the need for rest and the need for growth. In us, she creates awe at her overwhelming beauty. As she cares for us, we see our need to care for her so we may care for one another and the future generations of all creatures and life she will birth. In poor health, she is unable to provide for us or for all other life that depends on her. She has been the witness of our very beginnings. She has nurtured us to our present moment. She will be our loving caring Mother throughout time and throughout space conveying us to whatever future awaits us. May we turn toward her and ensure her well-being in each moment of our lives. In her beauty, we see our own.
Thin Places in the Veil – Our Spiritual Encounters:
“The Anointed”, which includes you and me, have ecstatic encounters with God. Down through the ages, Humanity has shared countless stories of such occasions. Some encounters and their accompanying revelations have been straightforward and readily comprehensible. With compassion and curiosity, we have embraced the guidance of such experiences and endeavored to be better people. Other encounters leave us curious and in discernment for years, decades, sometimes even centuries and millennia. Much of Humankind seeks to understand the mind of God so that we may faithfully and lovingly move toward the just and peaceable future God wants for all God’s children and Creation. There will always be those who state they comprehend the incomprehensible and call themselves “The Chosen” of God. We shall know such persons by their works. Their judgmentalism, lies, greed, delusions, intolerance, and proclivities for violence in all its forms will be unmistakable as will be their need to control others’ minds, perceptions, hearts, souls, and spirits. The propagation of their disordered creeds, doctrines, and forcing their whims on others, will clearly reveal the demons that possess them and the necessity that we contain their evil when it arises in our midst.
Freed, Affirmed, Called and Sent:
Bondage of Humankind, in one form of another, is the goal of the powerful and autocratic in nearly every age. Maintaining that bondage from generation to generation with ever expanding subtlety and sophistication is how such entities keep God’s just and peaceable reign outside Humankind’s reach. At such times, God calls into our midst the Liberators, the Revolutionaries, the Prophets, “The Anointed” ones. We know their names. We know their sacrifices and works. They are Jesus, Gandhi, Mother Teresa, John Lewis, Martin Luther King, Jr. They are you and they are me. Each has spoken courageously to the soul of Humankind. Each one sacrificed for the hope of a coming age wherein justice, compassion, and peace are fully realized for all. When institutions, governments, brutality, slavery, false prophets, and other disordered entities tried to dampen “The Anointed” and dampen their calling and zeal -- it was the faith of “The Anointed” and their hope and sacrifices which soared beyond this life leaving behind “a forever witness” of pathways forward to a better time. As witnesses who have also been called, freed, affirmed and sent, God calls you and God calls me to carry our world forward to a just and peaceable future. The reality of your anointing and calling, even if currently unknown, awaits your discovery and expression to the world of our present time. Others, including myself, will gladly support and encourage your journey toward your awakening, including the meaning, purpose, and calling God has for your life.
Ethical Living - Doing Right by Others:
The time has arrived for organized religion, government, corporations, law enforcement, businesses, healthcare, social and educational institutions to fully comprehend and honor the wide-ranging diversity of Humankind. All too often these entities have lacked curiosity. On far too many occasions their judgmentalism has entailed serving and satisfying the control needs of disordered personalities and institutions originally tasked to see to Humanity’s well-being. The resulting traumatizing events have caused fewer and fewer people to trust the institutions empowered to protect and safeguard Humankind as a whole. Major divisive issues have centered particularly around the diversity of human sexuality. Said frankly, it is time for faith communities, faith traditions, governments, businesses and corporations, law enforcement, and other social institutions to get themselves out of the bedroom. What informed, loving and respecting, consenting adults chose to mutually enjoy sexually within the privacy of their own lives is their business. It is not the church’s business. It is not the government’s business. It is not an employer’s business. The toxic shaming controlling behavior of these institutions over human sexuality and sexual orientation must end. Furthermore, judgementalism must be replaced with fully inclusive education that affirms diversity and compassionate loving acceptance of differences. Such must be the new normal of life going forward.
World Peace, Community, Unity, God’s Just and Peaceable Reign:
On March 31, 2005, Theologian Hans Kung spoke at the opening of “Exhibit of the World’s Religions” at Santa Clara University (Santa Clara, California). In that speech, Kung advocated a fundamental attitude of “treat each human humanely”. He additionally said, “… there can be no peace among the nations without peace among the religions.” He added that there will be no peace among the religions without dialogue among the religions, and there will be no serious dialogue among the religions without four essential principles. These principles are: (1) the commitment to a culture of non-violence and respect for life, (2) the commitment to a culture of solidarity and a just economic order, (3) the commitment to a culture of tolerance and a life of truthfulness, and (4) the commitment to a culture of equal rights and partnership between men and women. For the latter principle, I would modify to read, “…the commitment to a culture of equal rights and partnership amongst and between all human beings regardless of gender, non-gender, age, sexual orientation, socio-economic status, and spiritual or religious preference.
Closing Thoughts:
In the summer of my nineteen year, I awoke one morning as the light of early dawn shown through my bedroom window. The cool air through the window led me to wrap up tightly in my comforter. Drifting back to sleep, a vision opened in my dreams and I found myself sitting in a beautiful summer meadow full of colorful wildflowers and green grass. I then noticed the grass to be the most perfect shade of green I had ever seen. I looked up at the trees bordering the meadow, swaying gently in the wind, their leaves were similarly the most perfect hue of green. A summer breeze brushed lightly against my skin bathing me with the sun’s gentle warmth. Looking to the sky I saw the most perfect blue sky ever. I sensed being completely at peace as was everything around me. Puzzled at what I was experiencing, a joyful realization came to me, “God is among us!”
Decades later in 2011 during a memorial service in Longview, Washington, a ministerial colleague would share a scripture that captured what I saw in my vision so long ago. It is from Revelations 21:1-6. I share it with you from the Inclusive Language New Testament Version:
“Then I saw new heavens and a new earth. The former heavens and the former earth had passed away, and the sea existed no longer. I also saw a new Jerusalem, the holy city, coming down out of heaven from God, beautiful as a bride and groom on their wedding day. And I heard a loud voice calling from the throne, “Look! God’s Tabernacle is among humanity! God will live with them; they will be God’s people, and God will be fully present among them. The Most High will wipe away every tear from their eyes. And death, mourning, crying, and pain will be no more, for the old order has fallen.”
The One who sat on the throne said, “Look! I’m making everything new!” and added, “Write this, for what I am saying is trustworthy and true.” And the One continued, “It is finished. I am the Alpha and Omega, the Beginning and the End. To those who are thirsty I will give drink freely from the spring of the water of life. This is the rightful inheritance of the overcomers. I will be their God and they will be my daughters and sons.”
Let us join together as overcomers of the present moment. Let us usher in our rightful inheritance as overcomers -- a time when mourning and crying, trauma and pain will be no more. For the promise is given, “I will make everything new, needs will be fully met, completely, humanely and nonjudgmentally – and its hallmark will be the fallen old order.”
May God’s Peace Be with You!
Brad Shumate
Free of Encumbrance
8th June 2021
Thursday, August 27, 2020
"When they say...."
Wednesday, August 5, 2020
Is a Civil War possible?? Doesn't need to be.
Saturday, July 25, 2020
For Sunday 7/26/20 - Understand the Kingdom of Heaven
“Understand the Kingdom of Heaven” is the lectionary scripture focus this week for some Christian churches. Specifically, we are in The Gospel of Matthew, Chapter Thirteen, where Jesus makes several diverse comparisons regarding God’s Just and Peaceable Kingdom. His comments typically begin, “The Kingdom of Heaven is like……” I won’t bore you with repeating what you can go and read for yourself, but what I would like to note about God’s Kingdom and eschatological times (i.e. the end times) is an article from the Christian Century magazine that arrived today in my mailbox.
The article by the Reverend Jesse Zink of the Montreal Diocesan Theological College is titled “Shall all be well?” In the article he shares that an end time virtue is -- of all things -- HOPE!! As a psychotherapist in a Catholic Health clinic in the midst of all the social unrest of the present moment, hope has been very much on my mind the past week. Why, because it seems in such short supply. Particularly so as secret police, both disguised as military and under order of President Trump and the Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, illegally detain American citizens in Portland, Oregon, who are exercising their First Amendment right to protest. Somehow idiots from POTUS on down to the DHS Secretary to the DHS frontline fool masquerading in military garb and waltzing around in Downtown Portland brandishing a firearm think they have it right what they’re doing. Many of my patients however think otherwise. Over the past few months, young adults to seniors have stated to me a similar sentiment, “Brad, I am with the protesters. What Trump is doing is wrong. What am I to do? What can I do? With the pandemic being what it is, I can’t be in those crowds.”
With nearly every single person, I have responded from the place and space and passion of spirit and heart and soul of ministry and said, “What are you going to do? I HOPE you are going to vote. I also HOPE you are going to encourage every adult you know who feels as you do, to also vote.” For a few moments at such times, limited as I am in terms of my own means of support for the protests due to being high risk for death if I catch COVID-19, I do sense a kinship with the 14th century English mystic whom Reverend Zink speaks of in his article. Her name? Julian of Norwich. As Reverend Zink states in his article, Julian knew pandemic. She saw one third of her city die from the Bubonic Plague or Black Death. Sick and near death herself at age 30, she had a series of mystical visions involving the Christ. She later wrote a book detailing these visions titled “Revelations of Divine Love”. At one point during a vision, feeling that sin contributed to the magnitude of the pandemic of her time, she ask Christ why God had allowed sin into the world -- for if sin had not been allowed all would be well. Christ responded, “It behoved that there should be sin. Nevertheless, all shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well.”
Without full awareness, I see that I was myself coming from such “Christ Thoughts” the past few months when responding to my patients’ observation/questions of, “I am with the protesters, what am I to do?” I was assuring them by advocating that they vote in the upcoming election, that “…all shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well." I state this because in my dreams I have seen the defeat of our pandemic just as it was defeated in Julian’s time. Further more, in my dreams, I have witnessed the coming day of God’s Just and Peaceable Reign here on Earth and no longer shall the pestilence of divisiveness by the likes of POTUS and enablers have power. I am assured of this for in my dreams, as a present day mystic, Christ motioned me to come stand beside him high on a mountain top and with love in his eyes I know not how to describe, he extended him arm over all God’s immense and mesmerizing creation and said, “In all these places shall you minister.” This promise could not be if all manner of thing will not be well.
I don’t know what sense of make of all that I saw in my dream. What I do know is that my days are comprised now in offering teletherapy from my home office as a provider for my Catholic Healthcare employer. The mission and ministry of the organization speaks to me profoundly and fosters hope within me as, "We continue the healing mission of Jesus Christ...." For in our healing ministry, we neither lose heart nor do we lose hope that a day soon approaches wherein the pestilence of divisiveness of the present moment shall be drawn to a close by our Higher Power
For me, I consider my home office and teletherapy a front that I have opened up to battle the sins of the present time and a front by which I mean to fully foster HOPE amidst the sins of those thinking they’ve cornered the market on what constitutes God’s Just and Peaceable Reign. For me, when the time comes that Trump and all his enablers are lawfully forced by an election to end the pestilence they've become and perpetrated, then the peacefulness and tolerance of the Buddha I meditate with daily will surely attest “...all is well, and all manner of thing shall be well."
We have much to learn from the grand diversity of our human family and the endless hope we so capably make possible for the Kingdom of Heaven to one reside be among us -- even when we find that we much protest.
May God's Peace be with you!
Brad Shumate
Free of Encumbrance
Eugene, Oregon
USA
Sunday, May 31, 2020
Please join us Sunday at noon ET for WE REMEMBER: A NATIONAL MEMORIAL HONORING VICTIMS OF COVID-19 pic.twitter.com/WEOxpGBHeB— Jake Tapper (@jaketapper) May 28, 2020