Tag: Misunderstandings

I’m No Angel

What are angels? Some might turn the question around and ask, are there angels? And, should we aspire to be angels or at least angelic? Or, is that as strange, and as impossible, as a fish aspiring to be a bird?
   The word “angel” is rooted in the Greek word angelos, meaning a messenger.
   In the Jewish Scriptures, in several places—e.g., Genesis 18—a mysterious, apparently human visitor turns out to be not only a messenger from God but a manifestation, an appearance of God. In some other places—e.g., Daniel 10—an angel messenger from God is also described as distinct, powerful, functioning person.
   When talking about angels, we also speak of “fallen angels”—that is, about angels who fail to remain the servants of God that they were meant to be. In fact, we often make this our definition of devils: fallen, in the sense of failed, angels.
   Is “angel” a superior being of God’s creation, yet a superior being that is capable of sin, disobedience, and inordinate pride? Some of our religious traditions describe them this way.
   In common speech, we tend to think of angels as perfect beings. We even call a very good child or person an “angel”. But, who is without sin, perfect in every way and always? Only by the special grace of God is it possible.
   Anyway, even though we may say to a child that “you’re a little angel” or that “you’re a little devil”, we mean no more than “you’re very good” or “you’re very bad”.
   The best of angels, according to scripture and tradition, are the ones who serve as the direct messengers of God and the protectors of his chosen people.
   This is a pretty good description of what we often aspire to be: bespeaking God by our words and deeds and seeking to aid and protect others.

   I’m no angel. I mean in the sense that I unfailingly let all my words and deeds reflect and communicate the love and mercy of God.
   I do try, though, to be an angel in this sense—and probably you do, too! Do we succeed always, usually, sometimes, rarely, or never?
   The best that is attainable, short of a special intervention of God, is usually—and that probably needs a lot of support from God, too!
   I’m no devil, either. I mean in the sense that I unfailingly refuse to let my words and deeds reflect and communicate the love and mercy of God.
   Whether we’re devilishly clever or not, the whole trajectory of our lives is a constant struggle to be less devilish and more angelic.
   But, have no delusions! You are not, and never will be, perfect.
   Even so, the fundamental measure of your life, and mine, is how hard and how often we do successfully succeed in obeying the will of God and witnessing to it, letting God speak through our lives to others.
   I don’t want to be devilishly clever, but it’s awkward to say I want to be angelically clever. I just want to be good—that is, ever to strive to be what God intends me to be and to do what God wants, as best as I can understand it.
   I don’t aspire to be an angel—or a devil.
   I’m just one more imperfect, human being struggling always to discern who I am, what God asks of me, and how best to achieve it and to have the grace and courage to let my life, for better or for worse, bespeak the love and mercy of God.  

  


22 January 2023

They Did Not Remember

How often they defied him in the wilderness
   and caused him pain in the desert!
Yet again they put God to the test
   and grieved the Holy One of Israel.
They did not remember his deeds
   nor the day he saved them from the foe;
(Psalm 78:40-42)

   Often among the psalms there are short references or even long lists, like this one, of the deeds and powerful interventions of God on behalf of his chosen people—deeds which seem to have been forgotten among the discouragements, dangers, and even despair of later years.
   The psalmist bewails their feeble and forgetful faith; his regret is that they don’t remember the so many interventions of God and his guidance in their lives.
   Be careful! It’s not just a criticism of ancient Israelites—it’s also a criticism of the feeble and forgetful faith of you and me!
   This long, lengthy psalm, and others like it, are powerful reminders of the continued interventions and guidance of God in the history of his people.
   Oh, how we forgetful ones need someone or something like the psalmist to remind us of the so many interventions of God in our own lives.
   What’s wrong with you and me that we so easily forget or fail to recognize the so many extraordinary, unexpected, and powerful acts of God in our lives?
   Oh, Lord, forgive me for not remembering!
   As I write this, certain half-forgotten memories are coming back to me, and I’m ashamed to admit how forgotten I let them become.
   These moments and experiences may have altered the course of our lives and led to significant decisions. How could we forget!
   It’s not some small thing that slips from our memories—it’s the direct actions of God in our lives!

   Martin Luther King used to say, “I’ve been up the mountain!” It’s a reference, of course, to Moses’s experience of God on Mt. Sinai.
   Moses never forgot his experience of God, nor did Dr. King—nor should we. We’re meant to remember such things for the rest of our lives, and it’s not for God to constantly remind us.
   We shouldn’t live in the past, but it’s vital that we remember the past key interventions or manifestations of God in our lives—and we have all had them, even if we failed to recognize them for what they were and are.
   From time to time, we need to stop wrestling with our lives, stop allowing its daily diet of distractions and duties to overwhelm us, and, worst of all, stop forgetting what God has done for us.
   If you wonder whether or what God has done for you that you should remember, for starters, think about some basic things like:
   Why am I?
   How is it that I even exist?
   What’s my purpose?
   How have I survived life’s vicissitudes of live?
   Am I grateful for my survival or entrapped by my past?
   Why am I still here?
   Do I dwell more on God’s blessings in my life or my failures?
   Do I celebrate the saving interventions of God instead of blaming others for, or brooding over, my regrets and failures?
   What can I do to compensate for my imprudent and unsuccessful decisions?
   Do I entrust every day and thing to God?
   No matter what, don’t fail to remember!


15 January 2023

Freedom of Spirit

It’s curious how sometimes a relatively familiar thing suddenly catches your eye and all of a sudden you see it in a new light.
   I was praying the Divine Office, when a concluding Morning prayer struck me like that:

   God of power and mercy.
   Protect us from all harm.
   Give us freedom of spirit
   and health in mind and body
   to do your work on earth.

   Of course, I would ask for health of mind and body to work for God—but to ask for freedom of spirit…? (Were I Hamlet, I might say, “there’s the rub!”)
   To work for God usually involves obeying the commandments, following the laws of the Church, and “doing what you’re told.”
   “Freedom of spirit,” that’s skating on thin ice. It implies that you might be going against tradition to work for God—at least in the sense that you become convinced that God is pushing or pulling you in a new direction!
   “Freedom of spirit” implies that you are seeking to be open to the action of God in your life, no matter how strange or innovative it may be for you.
   To exercise freedom of spirit suggests that you are open to new possibilities, that you are not afraid to be a trail blazer, that you may decide to go “where no one has gone before”.
   Of course, this can be a recipe for disaster, too! We can mistake our desires for God’s action and will! We may be courageously stupid!
   But, isn’t that what freedom of spirit implies? We don’t always get things right, especially at first.
   We learn by doing! We learn by trial and error. We learn by experimenting and experiencing.

   From one point of view the Sacred Scriptures, the collection of writings that we call the Bible, are a record of our collective learning experiences over the long past centuries, a record of successes and failures.
   A God-given freedom of spirit includes freedom to make mistakes, to better understand the will of God, to stumble and bumble to get things right.
   From the point of view of keepers of records, of curators of museums, of defenders of the past, it may seem an invitation to chaos.
   A God-given freedom of spirit includes both the courage to risk innovating and the courage to risk failure—in other words, the courage to learn new things.
   The great prophets of the Bible innovated and often paid a steep price for their innovations. Jesus’s teachings were not always fully understood nor accepted.
   It’s curious, when it comes to scientific research and development, we unhesitatingly applaud the great (and successful) experimenters.
   But, when it comes to religion and belief, it’s the opposite; we hesitate to applaud experimenters.
   Doing the work of God absolutely may include experimenting, trial and error, and mistakes and successes. But, all this is part of the plan of God for human life.
  Progress is not possible without freedom of spirit as well as health in mind and body. And, freedom of spirit is not without failures as well as with successes.
    But, beware blithe spirits. Remember, before asking God for freedom of spirit and health in mind and body, we pray to be protected from all harm!


1 January 2023

Believing in Santa Claus

Do you or don’t you?
   Presumably, your answer reflects whether you still have a naïve, sentimental attachment to a childish belief or whether you are a mature, educated adult.
   What are we talking about?
   First, there’s no dispute that historically there was a Nicholas who was bishop of Myra in Asia Minor in the days of the Eastern Roman Empire.
   Secondly, he was known for his holiness and generosity, so much so that many stories were told about his good deeds and miracles. He was known as Nicholas the Wonderworker and popular all over Eastern and Western Europe.
   Curiously, many of our popular modern notions about St. Nicholas (abbreviated as Saint or Santa Claus) are associated with the history of the Dutch colony, later taken over by the English, that became New York.
   Early books there about Santa Claus had him arriving from the North in a sleigh drawn by flying reindeer to reward good children and punish the bad.
   But, the definitive popular description of Santa Claus came with the publication of a long poem, known now as “The Night Before Christmas.” That helped paint our contemporary image of “A right jolly old elf . . . dressed all in fur . . . a bundle of toys . . . flung on his back.”
   The elf with the toys for the good children has become endeared by stores selling Christmas gifts—and many a make-believe Santa Claus is ensconced in a department store or mall as a promotion for purchases.
   As happens with so many customs with religious roots, we tend to elaborate and exaggerate the details to the point that we almost forget the origin of the custom.
   Bishop Nicholas was famous for helping the poor and needy, but the imaginative legends about him have focused on him as bringing gifts for good children.

   How did all the customs associated with St. Nicholas get entangled with Christmas, the nativity of Jesus?
   What may have contributed to the situation was the adoption of the newer Gregorian calendar by the Western Church, while the Eastern Churches generally continued to follow the older, Julian calendar.
   St. Nicholas’s feast day was traditionally December 6th. Since most of churches of the homeland of St. Nicholas did not adopt the updated, Gregorian calendar, it would seem to the Western churches that did that the day was on the 19th of December.
   Perhaps it was close enough to the Western date of the celebration of the Nativity to seem that the Orthodox churches were merely starting a little early to celebrate Christmas, while actually they were celebrating St. Nicholas day.
   In any case, clearly the two feasts have been somewhat entangled in popular observance with most of the St. Nicholas day traditions being associated with Christmas!
   Anyway, there’s no jolly old elf or St. Nicholas living near the North Pole, nor does he have an army of assistants, nor does he use a flying reindeer-drawn sled, nor does he come down chimneys.
   However, we do celebrate the generosity and love of St. Nicholas, inspired by the love of the child that was born in Bethlehem so long ago.
   Above all, we celebrate the almost incredible love, mercy, and sacrifice of the grown man that child later became that has saved us all and inspires and guides us still!
   We believe in him, every day, Christmas and always!


25 December 2022

The Theory of Neonatal Proclivity

First, a brief clarification of terms:
   Theory – from Late Latin theoria from the Greek theoria meaning a “a view”
   Neonatal – meaning of or relating to newborn children
   Proclivity – from the Latin proclivitas, a steep descent, steepness, sloping forward, meaning a natural or habitual inclination or tendency; propensity; predisposition.
   The theory of neonatal proclivity is usually associated with a quasi-genetic point of view about passing on inappropriate behaviors.
   Is there such a theory? I don’t know, but by using different words it challenges us to think about what we mean by the Doctrine of Original Sin.
   It holds, first, that the progenitors of the human race, although constitutionally well designed and innocent, fell victim to the temptations of an evil force and departed from their creator’s designs and will.
   And, secondly, it holds that their progeny inherited a tendency to the same deviation from their original design and passed it on to their descendants.
   According to this doctrine, children are born with “Original Sin”—in the sense, not that they are personally guilty of a sin but that they have inherited a proclivity to sin.
   It is the basis for a certain urgency that they receive the sacrament of Baptism, even though they are too young to be aware of it or understand what it is.
   (Originally Baptism was only for mature adults who accepted the teaching of Jesus and wanted to join his followers. They symbolically expressed this desire and choice by being ceremoniously washed and clothed in new garments.)
   The later custom of also baptizing infant children was an affirmation that they were cleansed from “Original Sin” and pledged by their parents to be raised as Christians. At a future date, hopefully they would personally endorse and reaffirm this symbolic decision.

   Adults who led a Christian life were presumed to be saved and ultimately in Heaven after death; those who did not were presumed to be damned and in Hell.
   Since unbaptized infant children could not fit into either category, a new concept was introduced to cover their situation: that they were poised, as it were, at the frontier of Heaven. This state of being, called Limbo, was identified as neither a punishment nor a reward, but a consequence of having been born and died with “Original Sin”.
   This point of view, popular for many centuries, now can seem flawed and unjust.
   A tendency or a propensity to do something wrong, to commit a sin, is not the same as actually doing it.
   Some of the greatest saints may have been tormented by temptations to sin which they successful resisted—or, as the case may be, they may have committed a sin and then repented their decision and atoned for it.
   To the contemporary mind, it seems implausible and a violation of logic and justice that someone be adjudged guilty of a temptation that he or she actually successfully resisted.
   Sin is a decision and cannot be inherited. However, the inclination to think otherwise is understandable, as one considers the many evils of ancient and modern societies and the so many bad choices of others.
   In biblical and early post-biblical times when adults accepted the teachings of Jesus and sought acceptance into the early Christian community (the Church), they repented past decisions and choices and resolved to follow a new life style.
   There was not yet a concern nor thought about neonatal proclivities!


18 December 2022

One Church, One Faith, One Lord

For the first ten years of my life, I was a city dweller and lived in an apartment house.
   A curious word, when you think about it—a kind of “house” [singular] made up of separate “apartments” [plural].
   But, after all, a house is a dwelling made up of separate rooms. So, an apartment house is a dwelling made up of separate apartments.
   The apartment house dwellers have some sense of solidarity since they live in the same building with the same identifying address—but, they have a sense of separateness too since the apartments vary in size, furnishings, and inhabitants!
   To make it a tad more complicated, sometimes apartment houses themselves are grouped together, to be identified as neighborhoods—different clusters of buildings in the one and the same city or town.
   As a kid, growing up, I certainly, clearly knew what apartment and which house I lived in, what neighborhood and (since it was in New York City) what borough we lived in, and of course what city, state, and country we lived it—and, as I learned more about geography, what continent and part of the world as well.
   Later on, I learned about the world as one of many planets in the same solar system, our solar system as one of many in the same galaxy, and the many galaxies as well…
   If your life started out in a very different situation—for example, on a large estate or ranch in a wide-open sector of the country—you might find the city lifestyle and mentality somewhat strange and hard to understand. And, you might even be more suspicious of strangers than a city dweller who encounters them all the time.
   What stirred up all these odd thoughts for me was the concluding refrain of each stanza of a hymn in the Divine Office: “One church, one faith, one lord”

   When we say, “one church” what do we mean? Is it the church we’re used to and were raised in? Is it the local parish or diocese? Is it the particular branch of Christianity we belong to?
   Is our one church more like an historic dwelling on a huge estate or more like an apartment house with a lot of different dwellers, but sharing the same address.
   Does one church mean everybody prays, believes, and behaves the same (or at least tries too)? Or, can one church include a wide variety of languages, ideas, customs, rules, and regulations.
   For many centuries, long ago, people believed in the existence of many gods. This, of course, invited a difference of opinion about right and wrong, how to worship, and a host of other things.
   But, if people believe in only one god, they must be actually believing in the one and the same god no matter what different names, titles, prayers, customs, and usages they might have and observe.
   And, it follows, that the one and the same God isn’t giving contradictory commandments, rules, and teachings to different groups of believers. It’s got to be the misunderstandings of the different groups of believers among themselves.
   Religiously, we are like dwellers in an apartment house! We live next door to one another, but in the same dwelling. Apartments can and may be different in size, furnishings, and number and kinds of people, but all share the same address.
   We’re fellow dwellers and citizens in the same town and place. We’re all neighbors. We live together in the same world with the one and same God!


11 December 2022

Fumbling and Bumbling

Fumbling and bumbling is probably an accurate description of the course of most of our lives. [It is an accurate description of mine—or at least of these first 90 years of it! But, I am making progress!]
   Fumbling and bumbling is not necessarily bad!
   After all, we learn by doing. You don’t learn how to keep your balance without falling down. You don’t learn how to do the right thing without doing the wrong thing—i.e., making mistakes.
   If you think making a mistake is something bad or to be avoided at all cost, you’re making a mistake about the role of mistakes. Frequently, almost usually, we don’t learn the importance and value of the right thing—as well as how to do it—until we have experienced the wrong!
   Think of a baby learning how to walk. It takes a lot of falling down to learn how to keep your balance, stand, and walk.
   Think of using seasoning at a meal. A little, the right amount, enhances the taste of the food. But, too much can do just the opposite!
   If you keep making the same mistake, again and again, you’re really not learning from your mistakes. At worst, you’re just becoming comfortable and used to them—so much so that after a while you begin to forget that they are mistakes in the first place!
   It’s your prerogative to crawl forever, but you’re missing out on dancing, not to mention really easily getting around!
   No one ever claims that it is a sin to crawl and not walk, but, oh, the so many mistakes and kinds of mistakes that get that label, that branding.
   We learn by our mistakes—which, paradoxically, implies that we learn by our “sins,” our mistakes that are classified as against the will of God, as shameful, as deep personal failings, as evil!

   “Sin” is a special category of mistake, and it usually implies a kind of habitual mistake, the kind that we make so often that we forget that our progress, our growth and development, our holiness are becoming impeded!
   It’s better not to teach a little child to do the right thing by bawling out, rebuking, mocking, condemning, and punishing. The preferred methodology is to assist, reward, encourage, explain, and teach.
   I think it’s safe to presume that God knows the most effective methods for helping us to grow and develop according to our built-in design.
   Alas, unfortunately often some of our religious teachings, counsels, and judgements don’t quite live up to God’s standards and practice.
   God’s way may seem baffling to us at times—e.g., telling a crucified, condemned criminal, “Today you will be with me in Paradise.” (Luke 23:43)
   God’s approach to judgement seems to be learn by doing. God doesn’t condemn us for our every mistake, only for not learning from our mistakes and falling into the habit of repeating them.
   Does this mean that anything goes? That we never take responsibility for our mistakes? That there’s no such thing as sin?
   Of course not! But there’s a subtle difference between a mistake and a sin. The way God made us, we’re all fumblers and bumblers—we are all limited creatures only gradually learning from our mistakes.
   God isn’t condemning us for our every mistake, for we can’t learn and grow without them. It’s who and what we are today that counts. We all regret our many yesterdays!


27 November 2022

Methodology

When we’re talking or writing about something, we may be speaking literally or figuratively—and both are perfectly respectable, proper, and effective ways to communicate.
   Speaking figuratively is communicating in a non-literal, metaphorical way using images, figures, likenesses, symbols, and such.
   It’s not a lessor way of speaking than literal communication; actually, it often can be more effective and evocative—even poetic.
   Some things, some ideas, are so hard to communicate literally that we must recourse to speaking figuratively. Sometimes we even don’t use words at all—e.g., the maxim, “A picture is worth a thousand words.”
   When we’re trying to speak about things that are beyond our detailed and complete understanding we’re almost forced to speak figuratively.
   Sometimes we tend to think that science and scientific speech is better, truer, more accurate, and more effective than religion and religious speech. But, actually, it is often the other way round!
   Good Theology is just as important and vital as good Physics—and maybe more so. But, alas, just as a scientific experiment can be sloppily performed and its reported results untrustworthy, so, too, some theological ideas can be sloppily or naively put together and result in untrustworthy doctrines.
   However, scientific results and theological doctrines may well be accurate and true, even though the way they were arrived at had failings and weaknesses.
   Name notwithstanding, the “Scientific Method,” is a good way to think about all matters, including Science and Religion.
   It is a method of procedure consisting of systematic observation and research, formulation of theories and hypotheses, experimenting and testing them, and reporting conclusions.

   Critical thinking resembles the scientific method. Both involve conjectural insights that must be validated by lived experience. Both respect trial and error.
   Just as the accumulated body of scientific knowledge grows and is constantly revised and further extended, so too does the accumulated body of theological knowledge grow and is constantly revised and further extended.
   Some ideas and conjectures may have been astoundingly radical and controversial when first voiced and now are accepted and presumed as a matter of course.
   Some are articulated in what now may be rejected and out-of-date concepts but which may have been strikingly challenging and provocative when first used.
   There is always a danger that older theories and insights may be ignored or rejected because they use words or concepts that are different then current usage—the classic danger of “throwing out the baby with the bathwater.”
   Just because a theory, description, doctrine, or way of communicating seems hopelessly out-of-date doesn’t mean it lacks insight or value. It may still be a stepping-stone to something newer, greater, and even more insightful, useful, and significant.
   Clinging to older, out-of-date ideas, concepts, and values is understandable but not commendable. A good scientist or theologian, a good thinker or believer always is testing and experimenting with new or revised insights and theories.
   Don’t tire! The process never ends. We are limited in our understandings; only God is omniscient. Rejoice in having a rich heritage, but don’t store your fortune or squander it—use it well and make it grow!


6 November 2022

God’s Requirements

With what shall I come before the Lord,
   and bow before God most high?
Shall I come before him with burnt offerings,
   with calves a year old?
Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams,
   with myriad streams of oil?
Shall I give my firstborn for my crime,
   the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?

You have been told, O mortal, what is good,
   and what the Lord requires of you:
Only to do justice and to love goodness,
   and to walk humbly with your God.
  (Micah 6:6-8)

   Religiosity in the days of the prophet Micah (8th century BC) and for centuries before had a heavy emphasis on personal and public sins and atonement for them.
   In the days of the Jerusalem temple, atonement rituals involved sacrifices, especially animal sacrifices. The worse the sin (and the greater the sinner’s resources), the greater the sacrifice.
   Micah—and others—challenged this traditional religious custom and practice. You know what God really asks of you, he taught, it’s simple, three basic things:
  – Do justice
   – Love goodness
   – Walk humbly with your God
   Now-a-days, we have no temple for atonement sacrifices but we still have a somewhat similar atonement mentality.
   But now as then, there’s no paying God back with sacrifices. If you regret what you have done, the answer to what you should and need to do is simple: exactly what Micah taught centuries ago.
   What God asks of you is not to spend time and effort regretting and mourning your failures nor in being jealous of others. “Don’t cry over spilled milk!”
   Just be just, be good, and be humble!

   Look, no matter what you can come up with, you can’t change the past. What’s said is said, what’s done is done.
   Don’t waste time regretting the past. We all have regrets about the past. None of us are perfect people, and none of us has a perfect past. Fact of life!
   Also, don’t waste time and effort in trying to “pay back”. No matter what you may consider to be enough, it may never be enough for another.
   The best you can do is to confess, to admit what you have done and, then, change for the future. It may never be enough for another, but it may be the best you can do.
   We still have a sacrifice mentality. We may feel the need to atone for what we have done. Others may demand that we pay a price for what we have done.
   Over the Christian centuries, many atonement practices have been popularized and some are still with us—e.g., special prayers, fasting, wearing painful devices, or vowing abstention from possessions, marriage, or free choices.
   With the best of intentions, we may still be making inadequate or inappropriate decisions.
   What God is asking of us, requiring of us, is relatively simple to state, pretty much what Micah taught long, long ago:

You have been told, O mortal, what is good,
   and what the Lord requires of you:
Only to do justice and to love goodness,
   and to walk humbly with your God.

   We more or less pray this every day, “Thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.”


2 October 2022

Mairzy Doats

This is the title of a once very popular song, composed in 1943. The words looked strange and were spelt strangely, but, somehow, they sounded right and made sense:
   Mairzy doats and dozy doats and liddle lamzy divey.
   A kiddley divey too, wouldn’t you?
   One of the song’s writers said it was inspired by an old nursery rhyme:
   Cowzy tweet and sowzy tweet and liddle sharksy doisters.
   With due respect, the way we used to sing and pray in Latin had some similarities. We didn’t necessarily understand many, if not most, of the words, but overall, we had a good sense of what we were all about!
   It reminds me of a saying attributed to St. Francis of Assisi:
   Preach the Gospel at all times. Use words if necessary.
   In other words, everything we say (or preach or write) may not necessarily be fully or clearly understood, but, overall, it’s through the way we live our lives that we are successfully communicating!
   I studied the Latin language for several years, and, later, I studied in Latin for several years. That included attending Latin lectures, reading Latin text books, writing Latin documents, and even defending a point of view in oral Latin.
   But, no matter my fluency—or lack thereof—the language never could have the emotional impact, evocativeness, and nuanced meaning my native language could and did.
   At times there were Latin words that didn’t entirely make sense to me, but usually I understood the overall message!
   Very often many traditional religious words, sayings, rites, customs, and practices seem like that. We may not necessarily understand all the details, but, overall, we get the idea!

   Some of the canonized saints were great philosophers, theologians, canonists, or founders of religious orders, but they were not singled out because of the sermons they preached, or the books they wrote, or the organizations they created.
   They were distinguished because of the quality of the lives they lived and how they affected and impacted the lives of those that knew them.
   Maybe some of their enterprises were good and successful—and maybe not. Maybe they lasted—and maybe not. No matter!
   Maybe you have no idea what mairzy doats means, and maybe, in any case, you don’t care. It’s okay!
   Maybe you know exactly what a kiddley divery too means, and you wouldn’t. So, what!
   Certain words, songs, books, movies, sermons, classes, videos, programs, etc. may or may not be useful to one or another of us. We may even debate their merits with others.
   But to allow the differences of opinion and diversity of interests to become barriers dividing us into conflicting groups is basically, as Mr. Spock would say, illogical.
   It is an indisputable fact that each and every person is unique and no two people are ever or ever can be absolutely identical.
   Therefore, every joining together with another involves compromise (not entirely doing things your way), compassion (enduring things together), and collaboration (achieving something, but not necessarily all that you would prefer).
   Try to use nice words, but above all it’s being nice that counts!


25 September 2022