The story made my heart sink.

A headline on the internet said “Pray for Obama not what it seems.” I went to the story and read that tee shirts, bumper stickers and more, are being made that say, “Pray for Obama. Psalm 108:8”

But, the article said, the prayer is not what it seems. Psalm 108:8 says, “May his days be few; may another take his place of leadership.” Reading further, the psalm says, “May his children be fatherless and his wife a widow. May his children be wandering beggars; may they be driven from their ruined homes. May a creditor seize all he has; may strangers plunder the fruits of his labor. May no one extend kindness to him or take pity on his fatherless children…” and so on.

It is not an explicit death threat, but it certainly is not a prayer for life.

As much as I did not like Mr. George W. Bush, I never prayed anything like this, nor did I, as a pastor, encourage my flock to pray anything like this either. I prayed that he would not be re-elected, and was glad when his term was finally over. But while he was in office, though I did not like him, I prayed for his wisdom and for the safety of the country.

This outright praying for our president’s death, for his demise, and for the demise of his family, sickens me to my core.

And what bothers me is that it is all being done in the name of God.

Wait, someone would say. This psalm was entreating God for the demise of the writer’s enemy.

Yes, but Mr. Obama is not our enemy. He is our president. We are bound to respect the leader of our country. Were we to pray for the demise of someone, it should be for Osama bin Laden, or terrorists who want to harm America.

What is the deal with this hatred of Obama? Is it because he is trying to get more people affordable health care? Is it because he put into place a stimulus package which costs taxpayers, but probably saved the economy, which was on a collision course largely because of the policies of the Bush administration?

It is because he is being slow and methodical in deciding what to do in Afghanistan, not willing to put his country into a war could feasibly go on indefinitely? Is it because he seems genuinely concerned about Americans who have no health care and who are suffering foreclosure because of Wall Street’s antics?

Or is it because he is a black man and people just cannot get past their fear, worry and contempt for black people, president or not?

What really bothers me is that I know that many who would pray Psalm 108:8 and following verses are probably people who are pro-life. You know, “save the fetus” champions. How can anyone be a champion for life yet pray for the demise, the death, of a president with whom they are at odds?

It is a scary thing to think about and it is bothersome that such a hateful spirit would exist in a land which calls itself religious. It is even more bothersome that people who will fight for the life of a fetus would pray for the death of a man who is merely leading the country in a way which is different than they would like. We all go through it; presidents are elected all the time which make some of us really sad.

This praying for the president’s demise, though, falls into my bag of reasons why I do not respect the pro life movement. If the only life worth saving is a fetus, then the movement is not about life at all. Any person who cannot care about a fetus once it is born, or about the leader of his or her own country, is not a champion for life.

It would seem, by supporting the demise of man and his family, that life is not so important to you after all.

That’s just a candid observation.

I am struggling today.

I am struggling because the bishops of the Roman Catholic church are making a stand at their meeting in Baltimore, saying that it is necessary that they be the moral voice of the church. To that end, they are speaking against health care reform, or the recent health care reform bill that passed the House and is now in the Senate because the bill doesn’t extend health care coverage to the poor (or enough of the poor) and it is not clear that abortions will not be supported by aid from the federal government.

On the face of it, their stance is not a bad one. They are speaking up for the poor, which is good …but on the flip side, their stance tells me they do not understand how that stance will only add to the misery of the poor. I think the bishops have taken the scripture “be fruitful and multiply” to a level that the original Biblical writers never intended.

The facts are these: women will continue having sex, and unwanted pregnancies will continue to happen. Rich women will always have a way to have abortions, but poor women will not. They will either have one more baby, born into a life of poverty and misery … or they will have an illegal abortion, which will either harm them, their baby, or both of them.

Larger than that, I have never heard the bishops make a stand pushing for the quality of life for those babies who ARE born! Pro-life ought to mean more than protecting a fetus. Once a child is born, where is the church, any church, to help that child have a quality life?

So, when I read that the bishops felt and feel that it was their moral responsibility to speak out, I got a sick feeling inside. Where is the church in general? Why is it that the church, now in the form of Roman Catholic bishops, seemingly so often in the way of progress and help for “the least of these?”

The other reason I got a sick feeling is that the bishops, in my mind, really do not have a moral authority leg to stand on. The memory of the aberrant sexual behavior of priests still sits with me, and I am not sure that all of the deviant behavior has been cleaned up, though the bishops swear that it has been. They said at their Baltimore meeting that this health reform bill gives them an opportunity to reclaim their moral voice.

It doesn’t work for me. I think “the church” in general demonstrates such a chasm between what ought to be and what is real that it is hard for a lot of people to embrace it. I recently read that one bishop of the Roman Catholic church argued that the late Senator Ted Kennedy’s funeral ought not to have been a mass; because he was pro-choice, he was out of line with the teachings of the church, this bishop argued, and therefore ought not be afforded the privilege of a Catholic funeral.

In fact, he said, no Catholic politician who is pro-choice ought to be allowed a Catholic funeral.

Really, bishop?

Where is such admirable morality when it comes to making sure children are not molested, or that children who are born but who go through their lives with not enough to eat and are sick because they do not have health care? Should the priests who were “found out” in regards to their molestation of young children entrusted to their care be allowed to have Catholic funerals?

I think the bishops are wrong to stand in the way of health care reform. If they were consistent moral voices, if they had a reputation for standing up for “the least of these” in this country and in the world, I would not care about the statements they are making now. Had the church not been shown to be complicit in the sexual abuse its own priests had practiced against young children (complicit because they were silent and tried to hide the problem),then I would say that they are being consistent as audible moral voices.

But the church has not been …and for that reason, I resent the statements they are making now as health care reform seems at least possible, after more than 70 years of the issue being on the table.

That’s a candid observation.

I am against the death penalty.  I mean, if someone were to ask, I would say I oppose it, and I do.

But for some reason, I am not sorry that John Allen Muhammed is going to be put to death tomorrow.

I feel like a hypocrite. How can I be against the death penalty and not be sorry that this man is going to die? My normal “explanation” of people doing bad things is that they are most probably sick. I say that they needed or need psychiatric help; perhaps they grew up mentally ill and were never treated. Therefore, they should be treated. Never released to hurt more people, but treated.

But for Muhammed, I cannot  get there.

I guess I am remembering the horror of his terror. I cannot imagine the pain, even now, of the families whose loved ones were gunned down by this man and his accomplice.

The sheer audacity of Muhammed to ride through the streets and indiscriminately shoot innocent people makes me angry even now.

And what makes me even angrier is that he roped a young boy into helping him, a young boy who apparently looked up to him, and he was doing all of this killing, apparently, so that he could eventually kill his ex-wife and get custody of his children.

It is sick. I have to believe that he is sick, but I cannot conjure up my usual argument against  the death penalty, not in this case.

I have listened to his wife talk about how he changed after he returned from war, and I can believe it. I can also believe that he probably did not receive good medical care after he got back, as that seems to be the lot of too many of our war veterans. For that, the United States government ought to be ashamed, and also ought to be getting its act together.

A country that thinks nothing of shipping young people off to fight and then leaves them to dry rot, medically, spiritually and financially once they get home is a country without honor.

But even given that, I cannot find a space in my heart to plead mercy for this man who showed mercy to no one.

I think of the lives of sadness his children will live forever, knowing that their dad was the “DC Sniper.” Muhammed has been fair to no one.

I remember being in the Washington D.C. area during Muhammed’s shooting rampage. I was nervous as hell. I didn’t want to even stop my car and get gas, because I didn’t know where this lunatic was.  I didn’t like feeling controlled by an entity I could not see, yet knew existed.

I am wondering if I can legitimately say, given my lack of feeling for Muhammed, that I am against the death penalty.  Killing him will not bring the people he killed back to life. Imprisoning him for life, sentencing him to the hardest labor ever, putting him in solitary confinement for the rest of his natural life … that would be sufficient punishment. I have always thought that a life of confinement, separation and seclusion, and hard work is really effective for getting a message to a person. And I am not saying that I would be angry if Muhammed were NOT being executed tomorrow.

I am just saying that I am not sorry that he is being executed.

That is a candid observation.

There is a program on television that has to do with women being pregnant who didn’t know they were.

I find that so amazing. I would say I find it hard to believe, but that would not be accurate. “Amazing” is a better adjective to describe how this phenomenon strikes me.

Maybe it’s because I so knew I was pregnant. My clothes got tight. I couldn’t wear my “cute” suits or slacks. I didn’t get stretch marks but my breasts sure got bigger. My hair grew. My skin got clearer. There were so many foods I could not eat and so many aromas that made me sick. I craved dumb things, like saurkraut. If I were not pregnant, I would have known something was wrong.

But there is something that seems equally impossible, something I have found it hard to explain.

For a long time, I didn’t know my name.

I mean, I knew my name  but I didn’t know who I was. I had attached myself, like Peter Pan’s shadow, to a title, and to someone whom I adored and highly respected. I spent years trying to be another person. I spent years ignoring my own spirit. It seems impossible, but I just did not know my name.

I think it must be easy to fall into the trap of admiring someone to the detriment of your own being. I think of the people who adore celebrities, and spend hours trying to imitate them, rather than putting that energy into finding out who they are and what their voice is. The time spent trying to attach oneself to someone else becomes a lifestyle, and a frustrating one at that. In the meantime, the real tragedy is that the person doing the imitating is losing valuable hours of being oneself.

Of course, when you are attached to someone else, or you are spending your time trying to attach to someone else, you don’t really know it. You are lucky, I think, if you have an “aha!” moment, a “what the hell?” moment, when you finally realize that you are wasting valuble time. The people around you can see that something is amiss, though they might not be able to identify it. But when you finally have your “aha” moment, the people around you sigh a sigh of relief. Whatever “it” was that was keeping you from being your total self as they have seen you has gone. It is a moment for deep thanksgiving.

My “idol” was a colleague, a mentor, who I thought (and still think) was the most brilliant person in the world. I modeled my work on what he did and how he did it. But my efforts never even came close to what he had accomplished. In fact, I spent years in abject frustration, not understanding why what I was doing was not working.

It was after a lot of praying and crying, self-examination, anger at myself and probably the world, and a lot of intentional silence so I could “hear” what I needed to hear did it hit me. I was not put here to imitate my mentor. I was put here to contribute myown gifts and build my own model based on where I was and the people with whom I was working. The model I had put in place was his model, not the model God wanted for where I was.

Duh.

But back to this name thing. Yes, it was about my work, but it was also about me.  During graduate school and after, I worked with my mentor, and it was under his tutelage and in his world that I felt love for the first time. Love, admiration, affirmation … all of the above. It was a gift. I felt it not only from him but from the work I did while I was with him. It was a sweet change from what I had felt my whole life. So, I latched onto the title I had, and forgot my name.

I was an object to myself.

It was when I began to break away emotionally from that loving environment which had so nurtured me that I  realized that my own first name sounded strange to me. When I opened myself up to my own possibilities I began to hear people call my name. Who was that? Oh! It was me! I was a person,a unique person. I had forgotten…

As I was able to more and more hear my name, some of the crusted anger, frustration, confusion and depression began to break away, in pieces, from my spirit. Whoa. This being enveloped like a mummy in self-ignorance had really sapped me. I didn’t realize how weighed down I had been with the feeling of frustration and failure until the pieces began to break away. As I got lighter and lighter, my vision began to clear up. I could see things I had not seen before. I realized that I had to break away from some things I had attached myself to, because in those attachments I was still yearning to be a shadow.

People do not respect shadows. They cannot relate to them.

Oh, there’s more, but it’s the hearing of my name, like it was new, that this piece is all about. My not knowing my name was my own way of objectifying myself. It was not a good way to live or to try to work.

I do not know how many people have objectified themselves. I hope there are few, because it is a dastardly way to live. Every time I hear my name now, it’s like a new experience. It seems impossible but that has been my reality.

That’s a candid observation.