More Americans believe in UFOs (34%) than oppose a public option (26%)

As health insurance reform makes its way through congress, it's easy to observe the partisan fighting in Washington and believe the country is deeply divided over a "public option."

Luckily, that is not the case. Americans love choices. They want the opportunity to choose to purchase a public health insurance plan.

A recent New York Times/CBS News poll found that 65% favored a public option, with only 26% opposed to it.

To put that number in perspective: a 2007 Associated Press/Ipsos poll found that 34% of Americans believe in UFOs.

It speaks volumes about the status of the health care debate among the public when it is more mainstream to believe aliens are flying around in spaceships than to oppose the public option.

Public Option Amendments Fail In Senate Finance Committee

Read more at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/09/29/first-public-option-amend_n_303228.html

A coalition of Republicans and Democrats on the Senate Finance Committee joined together Tuesday to defeat a public health insurance option.

Five Democrats joined with all the Republicans on the committee to reject an amendment by Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D-W.Va.) in a 15-8 vote.

Three Democrats then joined the Republicans to defeat a second public-option proposal. By a vote of 13-10, the committee rejected an amendment by Sen. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.).

Schumer, however, said the debate is far from over. He acknowledged during the debate that the public option doesn't yet have the 60 votes on the Senate floor it needs to overcome a filibuster, but he emphasized to Huffington Post outside the hearing room: "Yet. I said 'yet.'"

Read more at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/09/29/first-public-option-amend_n_303228.html

Income Inequality Is At An All-Time High

Income inequality in the United States is at an all-time high, surpassing even levels seen during the Great Depression, according to a recently updated paper by University of California, Berkeley Professor Emmanuel Saez. The paper, which covers data through 2007, points to a staggering, unprecedented disparity in American incomes. On his blog, Nobel prize-winning economist and New York Times columnist Paul Krugman called the numbers "truly amazing."

Though income inequality has been growing for some time, the paper paints a stark, disturbing portrait of wealth distribution in America. Saez calculates that in 2007 the top .01 percent of American earners took home 6 percent of total U.S. wages, a figure that has nearly doubled since 2000.

As of 2007, the top decile of American earners, Saez writes, pulled in 49.7 percent of total wages, a level that's "higher than any other year since 1917 and even surpasses 1928, the peak of stock market bubble in the 'roaring" 1920s.'"

full article at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/08/14/income-inequality-is-at-a_n_259516.html

Read more at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/08/14/income-inequality-is-at-a_n_259516.html

Mark 10:2-16

18^th Sunday after Pentecost

We live in a world

less that it should be,

with division, hatred and war.

The reality of this is harsh,

is brokenness

and pain

and from time to time

we try,

try to look past the pain

into the law

and justify

for ourselves and all the others

who are trying to handle the pain

by ourselves,

to handle in our own way

the reality of pain in our lives

making it

we think

less painful.

And sometimes we succeed.

Until

some breeze of fresh air clears the clouds

and we see.

See

the reality for what it is

despite all our attempts to understand

--and rationalize

----and explain

------and study

--------and even glorify

our pain,

but it’s there.

The children know,

their eyesight is keener than ours

they have not been tainted by the years

and hurts

--and “realities” of life.

They know,

the children are the ones who look

and see

the emperor standing there naked

and wonder

why we like his clothes so much.

They see the pain of divorce

and wonder

how we understand it so well.

They feel the pain

and are driven to the cross

with the God who knows our pain,

and standing there

with Jesus for comfort

in their pain

and wonder

why

we don’t see

relationships

Sunday October 4^th, Genesis 2: ^18-20 God said, "It's not good for the Man to be alone; I'll make him a helper, a companion." So God formed from the dirt of the ground all the animals of the field and all the birds of the air. He brought them to the Man to see what he would name them. Whatever the Man called each living creature, that was its name. The Man named the cattle, named the birds of the air, named the wild animals; but he didn't find a suitable companion.

^21-22 God put the Man into a deep sleep. As he slept he removed one of his ribs and replaced it with flesh. God then used the rib that he had taken from the Man to make Woman and presented her to the Man. We were created for relationships; humanity from the earth, family from humanity, all with the calling from God to love and care for one another. the significance of the story is that man was not happy as a solo entity. The animals, though nice, were not enough to fill the need for relationship. God though great, loving, kind, not to mention omniscient, is still not enough for human to experience relationship. It is in getting together with one other, sharing the ups and downs, experiencing the loving embrace, and the physical nature of the relationship that humans feel love. This is not dissing God, this is accepting God's great gift of love. As a society we are still working out the fullness of what that means. We are still denying that love of God, through the physical, emotional and spiritual bond of marriage to some. they love differently, but they love one another and is there any higher expression of God's love than to love one another?

listen to him

Tuesday October 6th, Hebrews 1: ¹In the past God spoke to our forefathers through the prophets at many times and in various ways, ²but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, When God speaks through his on, he speaks in work of love and acceptance. How often we seek out own way of rejection and judgment by picking a quote from here and a quote from there to justify our personal prejudice? But in Jesus’ world we have demonstrations of divorce which pints to the hardness of hearts and the recognition of the personhood of both men and women. We have examples of God’s love that takes small children, not the cherub faces depicted in most church art, but small smelly dirty rejected and powerless children, and tells us to become like one of these. Identify with these small, expendable, rejected and powerless ones, and then you will “get” the kingdom of God. It is not about power, greatness, CEO salaries or golden parachutes, it is about love, acceptance and caring for the least, lost and lonely, those most often rejected by society. In these last days we have the words and examples of Jesus. In the words of God on the mountain of transfiguration, “Listen to Him!!!!”

love one another

Monday October 5th, Genesis 2: ^23-25 The Man said, "Finally! Bone of my bone, flesh of my flesh! Name her Woman for she was made from Man." Therefore a man leaves his father and mother and embraces his wife. They become one flesh. The two of them, the Man and his Wife, were naked, but they felt no shame. Humanity had a little trouble getting the oneness down. For most of humanity, instead of the two becoming one, it was the woman becoming mine. It was one becoming one with a little help. But God has called us into relationships. Relationships are the best way to show and experience the love of God. Relationships are where we feel the touch, sometimes sexual, most often comforting, that we can experience most closely the love of God. The ELCA is moving slowly toward accepting that love of God as a good thing in those whose love interest might be seen as a minority view. The church also took way too long to accept interclass relationships, interethnic relationships, interfaith relationships and interracial relationships. Until it is our children, whom we love, it is hard to accept change. I applaud the ELCA for moving, I am saddened by how long it is taking and by those who see loving one another as the straw that breaks the camel’s back. Someday, we will get the immensity of God’s love, until then, in spite of out differences, love one another.

love and law

Wednesday October 7th, Mark 10: ²Some Pharisees came and tested him bay asking, "Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife?" Inherent in the question was their understanding that only a man could divorce a woman. they wanted to test Jesus, their aim was not for understanding but for entrapment. One could liken it to the classic "Have you stopped beating your wife?" argument. For Jesus to answer yes would fall into the system of power that was the Pharisees and Sadducees, to say no would pit him against the power of the recently divorced Herod and his army. it seemed to be a win, win for the Pharisees who were intent in bring him down. Jesus however was not playing politics, oooops! He had in mind both God's law and God's love which were always meant to be the same.

should we do any less

Thursday October 8th, Mark 10: ⁵"It was because your hearts were hard that Moses wrote you this law," Jesus replied. ⁶"But at the beginning of creation God 'made them male and female.' ⁷'For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, ⁸and the two will become one flesh.' So they are no longer two, but one. ⁹Therefore what God has joined together, let man not separate." The sin of humanity is that we are always trying to put asunder that which God has joined together, the love from the law, humans from humanity, creature from creation, in order to feel some sense of power and control. Their question was, can a man get rid of his wife. Jesus answer was that it was only because of humanities sin and hardness that the question would even come up. For Jesus marriage did not mean one belongs to another, but that the two become a part of, and responsible for, one another. Power structures are thrown to the wind and the powerless in society are given not only their day, but their life. Jesus was returning the world, bit by bit, to what God had intended, a place where all of life and all of humanity and all of earth are looked upon by God and called good. Should we do any less?