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Sun, 09 Nov 2008 21:46:10 -0800

The Sins of Our Neighbors
wherein we engage religious hatred on its own terms

Atrocity, hatred and bigotry in the name of religion is certainly nothing new, and these lamentable human frailties have figured dramatically into the same-sex marriage maelstrom engulfing California and much of the nation. In the aftermath of California's Proposition 8, there appears to be joy and elation among those who were beguiled into the belief that God wanted them to fight for the vilification of their neighbors. I am left wondering whether they will realize, before it is too late, the spiritual price that they must surely pay for straying from the path toward salvation. Wearing religion on their sleeves as they so often do, I wonder whether their fall from grace already haunts their dreams.

I believe that in His infinite wisdom, and for reasons beyond my reckoning, God made me and millions of His other children differently than He made most other people. I do not know why I am drawn to members of my own gender to find the emotional and spiritual fulfillment so vital to the human condition, but that is more typically the province of different-gender relationships.� I do know that this yearning is as much a part of me as the shape my head or the color of my heart.� Being too weak to walk such an uncharted path, for almost 4 decades I strove to deny my true nature and to defy God's beautiful plan for my life. During that time, I was beguiled into thinking that His plan was mine to reject, not because it was a bad plan or even a difficult plan, but because the callous world around me denied me the ability, in my weakness, to even imagine being myself. I know now that my weakness was an affront to God, and I fervently pray for remission of this sin above all others.

There is no sin in being homosexual; indeed, there cannot be. God does not create broken, sinful people. He does not make mistakes. I am not a mistake. But people can and do make mistakes, some of them brazen enough to risk departure from God's grace. Witness those who fought in California to abridge the rights of their neighbors and to demean and vilify their lives. This much is clear to me: when Judgment Day comes, it will be the souls of these misguided zealots that are imperiled. Myself, I am content to meet my Maker at the appointed time and be held accountable for my life. Like most, my path through life has not been simple, and my journey to acceptance of my own homosexuality has been cruelly difficult. I have sinned in many ways for which I seek remission and forgiveness, but being gay will never be among them. If I am wrong, the price will be mine to pay, but the faith that God has given me tells me otherwise.

http://EmilioX.stumbleupon.com/review/6191685/

Sat, 28 Oct 2006 07:07:07 -0700

High Flight
By John Gillespie Magee, Jr.

Oh, I have slipped the surly bonds of earth
And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings;
Sunward I've climbed, and joined the tumbling mirth
Of sun-split clouds, and done a hundred things
You have not dreamed of, wheeled and soared and swung
High in the sunlit silence. Hov'ring there,
I've chased the shouting wind along, and flung
My eager craft through footless halls of air.
Up, up the long, delirious, burning blue
I've topped the windswept heights with easy grace
Where never lark, or even eagle flew
And, while with silent, lifting mind I've trod
The high untrespassed sanctity of space,
Put out my hand, and touched the face of God.

John Gillespie Magee died during the Battle of Britain. He was 19 years old.

http://EmilioX.stumbleupon.com/review/6149824/

Mon, 23 Oct 2006 19:34:37 -0700

Children
from Kahlil Gibran, The Prophet

Your children are not your children:
They are the sons and daughters of life's longing for itself.
They come through you but not from you,
And though they are with you yet they belong not to you.

You may give them your love but not your thoughts,
For they have their own thoughts.
You may house their bodies but not their souls,
For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow,
which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams.
You may strive to be like them, but seek not to make them like you.
For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday.

http://EmilioX.stumbleupon.com/review/5800074/

Thu, 28 Sep 2006 14:01:35 -0700

This is a scene from the beautiful old Market Square in Poznan, Poland, taken in early June of this year. I'm posting it for my friend and fellow stumbler Scot at http://scotpk.stumbleupon.com, who is lucky enough to live there.

http://EmilioX.stumbleupon.com/review/5544972/

Sat, 09 Sep 2006 15:25:54 -0700

Endless Time
by Rabindranath Tagore
1861-1941

Time is endless in thy hands, my lord.
There is none to count thy minutes.
Days and nights pass and ages bloom and fade like flowers.
Thou knowest how to wait.

Thy centuries follow each other perfecting a small wild flower.
We have no time to lose,
and having no time we must scramble for a chance.
We are too poor to be late.

And thus it is that time goes by
while I give it to every querulous man who claims it,
and thine altar is empty of all offerings to the last.
At the end of the day I hasten in fear lest thy gate be shut;
but I find that yet there is time.

http://EmilioX.stumbleupon.com/review/5514968/

Thu, 07 Sep 2006 11:45:18 -0700

A Code Poem For The French Resistance

The life that I have is all that I have
And the life that I have is yours.
The love that I have of the life that I have
Is yours and yours and yours.

A sleep I shall have
A rest I shall have,
Yet death will be but a pause,
For the peace of my years in the long green grass
Will be yours and yours and yours.

-- Leo Marks

http://EmilioX.stumbleupon.com/review/5144660/

Tue, 08 Aug 2006 20:31:27 -0700

Photo by Joshua @ http://rubeitup.stumbleupon.com

Snorkeling

http://EmilioX.stumbleupon.com/review/5025080/

Sun, 30 Jul 2006 13:00:52 -0700

Turn your face to the sun and the shadows fall behind you.

- Maori Proverb

http://EmilioX.stumbleupon.com/review/5017395/

Sat, 29 Jul 2006 21:10:12 -0700

Central Valley Sunflowers; Patton Photographic

http://EmilioX.stumbleupon.com/review/5013170/

Sat, 29 Jul 2006 13:50:04 -0700

"The cry has been that when war is declared, all opposition should therefore be hushed. A sentiment more unworthy of a free country could hardly be propagated. If the doctrine be admitted, rulers have only to declare war and they are screened at once from scrutiny."

William Ellery Channing