OUR PARTISAN SUPREME COURT

The Supreme Court of the United States

        There has been so much going on in our nation and the world about which I should like to have been commenting, but I have resisted the urge, having resolved to complete my current series of articles reflecting on the continuing experience of grieving the loss of my wife Margie, who died of leukemia eight months ago today.
        Although I have more to share on that deeply personal subject, I cannot help departing briefly from that resolution in order to comment on today’s decisions by the United States Supreme Court, coming so soon after some of their other disturbing rulings. I used to have such great respect for that august body, that had always symbolized for me the highest principles of impartial justice. But the Court’s actions today reflect once again the political partisanship and ultra-conservatism of the majority of the Justices.
        The Court voted five to four to permit business owners on religious grounds to deny their female employees coverage for birth control, coverage that is included in the Affordable Care Act. It is significant to note that the three female Justices —Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Elena Kagan, and Sonia Sotomayor—  along with Justice Stephen Breyer dissented.
        The ruling evoked strong negative reactions from most women’s groups, who see it as

FAITH, LOVE, AND GRIEF

PART THREE

Throughout all our experiences of death Margie and I always had each other with whom to share our grief. Now I must grieve for her, without her. I talk to her often, and tell her things, as I always used to do, but there is no response. That’s when the awareness of her absence is hardest to bear.
But the theological dimension of my love for her is helping me to cope. What I mean by that expression is my awareness that to love and to be loved are gifts of God, for which I am immensely and constantly grateful to God, and because of which I can never take any friend or loved one for granted. It was our shared theological understanding of love that enabled Margie and me to savor our love for each other, as described in my earlier post (see SAVORING LOVE). We realized that “love is from God,” as John put it so directly in his first letter (4:7).
The theological dimension of love also includes taking seriously John’s affirmation that “God is love” (I John 4:8b), and since God is eternal, God’s love is eternal. In the months following the diagnosis of Margie’s fatal disease, we took comfort from the thought that because our love was a gift of God’s love, then our love, too, must be eternal. Death cannot destroy it. What form it will take, I have not the slightest idea. But that it will continue beyond this life as part of God’s love, I am convinced, because God’s love is eternal. That was the most comforting thought to both of us.

FAITH, LOVE, AND GRIEF

We were meant for each other. 

PART TWO

During the final months of her life Margie and I talked often about ultimate things. What made our love for each other so strong was our common faith. We prayed together often —while driving in the car, at mealtimes, often spontaneously in response to something good or bad that had happened, and every night at length. Our bedtime discussions and accompanying prayers were especially meaningful to us both. We savored our love for each other. We both were certain we were meant for each other, that our marriage was literally made in heaven. When I fell in love with Margie I had the feeling I had loved her before I ever knew her. She was the faceless girl of my dreams, the someone I was always hoping I would meet some day.
I say “faceless,” because unlike Walter Mitty I had no mental image of my “dream girl.” So when I finally did meet her, it was not as if I had seen her before. It was not love at first sight. We liked each other instantly and enjoyed each other’s company, but neither of us was thinking “This is it!” We were dating about once a week, when she was a sophomore at Wellesley and I was a newly commissioned Ensign, soon to be heading overseas.
One day many months later, while off duty aboard ship somewhere in the middle of the Pacific, I
was leaning on a rail, staring at the ocean, and daydreaming about all the girls I had known. Somebody had suggested that I had already met the girl I was going to marry. That intriguing idea had precipitated this extended reflection on all of my past female acquaintances, starting with my earliest puppy loves

FAITH, LOVE, AND GRIEF

PART ONE

I must begin what I have to say about the intertwining of faith, love, and grief by sharing very briefly my own internal faith journey. I can never remember a time when I did not believe in God. My faith in Jesus Christ came much later. It was an intellectual struggle, as I wrestled with the paradoxical nature of faith. On the one hand, there are many texts in the New Testament that would lead one to conclude that faith is our responsibility, that we can make ourselves believe. Jesus often commended people for their faith, or rebuked them for their lack of it.

There are, on the other hand, an equally impressive array of texts that suggest that faith is a gift of God, that it is not something we can make ourselves have, but something we find ourselves with. Jesus said, for example, “No one can come to me unless drawn by the Father who sent me” (John 6:44, NRSV).
We can see the paradoxical relationship between grace (God’s gift) and faith (our struggle) in such texts as Ephesians 2:8, where the Apostle Paul writes “For by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God” (NRSV); and Romans 8:28, “We know that in everything God works for good with those who love (God), who are called according to (God’s) purpose” (RSV).

We think it's all up to us.

After a prolonged wrestling match with what I now view as a pseudo-paradox, I came to realize that ultimately faith has to be a gift of God. We depend upon the God we believe in to give us the faith to keep on believing. That is an unavoidable tautology. All of our “reasons” for believing are at root tautological. They are all faith statements, and faith statements are not self-evidently true. If they were, we could prove the existence of God and every reasonable person would be a believer. If my faith in God depended totally upon my ability to prove God, I could no longer believe in God.
While we are struggling to believe, we think it is all up to us. But the moment we find ourselves believing, we realize that our faith is a gift, that God was there before we ever started to believe, and that our Christian faith was the work of the Holy Spirit prompting us to accept what God was offering us in Christ. That, by the way, is exactly how Jesus said it would happen.
However one may come to it, the decision to accept Jesus Christ as one’s personal Lord and Savior is the freest decision one can ever make. No one else can make it for us, or force us to make it. If we can’t make ourselves believe something we can’t believe, we certainly can’t make someone else believe. A decision of faith cannot be coerced.

THE DULL ACHE OF REALITY

        This is the fourth in a series of articles on my experience of grieving. Scroll down to see the others.  

THE DULL ACHE OF REALITY

        Ruth Kuhnle was the very capable secretary at my first church, the Oak Lane Presbyterian Church of Philadelphia. She and her husband were special friends of ours, and we continued to stay in touch after our move to Princeton, then out to Indianapolis, then back to Princeton.
        I had not been long on the faculty of Princeton Theological Seminary when Ruth called with the sad news that Bud had died. They had been retired only a short while and were living outside of Philadelphia. She asked me if I would conduct Bud’s funeral and burial service, and of course I said I would. Bud was not a church member.
        During my pastoral visit with Ruth and her two grown children, as we were planning the services, we had an opportunity to reminisce a bit about our Oak Lane days. I remember thinking at the time how well Ruth seemed to be dealing with her loss, as she laughed about some of the funny things that happened in the church. I know now how much she must have been grieving inwardly, as a line from a once-popular song put it, “laughing on the outside, crying on the inside.”
        In the weeks and months that followed we talked on the phone a few times, and Margie and I paid a call on Ruth one Sunday afternoon. It had been about seven months since Bud died, when I received a heart-wrenching letter from Ruth describing the immense grief and loneliness she was experiencing. She implored me to tell my students, who were preparing for ministry, to be aware that those who have lost a beloved spouse will still be grieving after the flurry of support they received in the first days following the death of their loved one has tapered off. “I’m missing Bud now more than ever, and I have no one around with whom to share my grief. I had lots of support in the beginning but now I feel so all alone.”

SAVORING LOVE

        This is the third in a series of articles on my experience of grieving the death of my wife Margie. Scroll down to see the other two articles, entitled Living in Two Worlds and Anticipatory Grief.

Andy, Ricky, and Ellen

SAVORING LOVE

Savoring love is the only term I could come up with to describe a phenomenon I discovered many years ago and have been experiencing ever since. Let me briefly describe the events leading up to that discovery.
The day before the van arrived to move my family and me from our house in suburban Philadelphia to our new home in Baltimore, our children’s pediatrician, Dr. Harold Medoff, felt it necessary to admit our son Ricky to the University of Pennsylvania Hospital for tests. Ricky had been extremely weak and pale following a severe case of chicken pox, from which his older sister Ellen and younger brother Andy had recovered in normal fashion.
While I was in Baltimore awaiting the movers, my wife Margie stayed overnight with friends back in Havertown, so she could spend the day at the hospital with Ricky. In the midst of that hectic moving operation, there came a telephone call from Dr. Medoff to inform me that Ricky had been diagnosed with leukemia, which was at that time a death sentence. There was no hope of a cure.
My first question upon hearing that devastating news was “How long. . .?”
“We can’t know for sure —maybe months, maybe weeks,” was the reply. “It depends upon how he responds to the treatments.”

ANTICIPATORY GRIEF

        This is the second article in my series of posts on my experience of grieving the recent loss of my wife Margie. My next article will be entitled "Savoring Love."

ANTICIPATORY GRIEF

Like most pastors I have read many books and articles about grief. In her first classic text, On Death and Dying (Simon and Schuster/Touchstone, 1969) Swiss psychiatrist Elisabeth Kubler-Ross identified five stages of grief (1. denial and isolation, 2. anger, 3. bargaining, 4. depression, 5. acceptance).

The girl I married . . .

Some still want to impose those five stages on the grieving process and have applied them even to what has been called “anticipatory grief.” More recent writings have moved away from such a linear approach, with which I was never comfortable. I have never felt any anger about my wife Margie’s death. Perhaps I would if it had been the result of someone’s incompetence, or negligence, or violence, or failure in some manner.
Nor have I felt any sense of denial or isolation, and I certainly wasn’t trying to bargain with God. I was always hoping that some new miracle drug or medical process might be found in time to cure her or at least prolong her life, but from the first moment we received the diagnosis of her fatal disease, we both accepted it. We were in “stage 5" from the start, if you want to call it that.
As for stage 4, I am sad but not dysfunctionally depressed. Sadness can cause one to feel depressed at times. It’s the periodic realization of the never-again aspect of a precious relationship, the ever-present absence and the ever-absent presence of one’s beloved spouse, that causes a sinking feeling in one’s heart. I’ve had moments of feeling depressed, but I certainly haven’t gone through any stage of depression. Counting my blessings dispels my momentary depression, but not my abiding sadness.

I mention these things because some people might want to think of anticipatory grief as a “stage.” It is a stage only in that it obviously occurs before one’s loss. I want to talk about it not as a stage but as recurring emotional experience, and not theoretically but experientially.

LIVING IN TWO WORLDS

        The is my first post in many weeks. It is the first of a series I want to write about the experience of losing the love of my life, my wonderful wife Margie, who died on October 30, my mother’s birthday. As one who has counseled many others over the years in their times of bereavement, I know that everyone’s experience of grief is unique, even though there are some aspects of the grieving process that many people share in common. My purpose in writing about my own experience is twofold. I’m hoping that some people might find it helpful in their struggle to understand and cope with their own grief. At the same time, I feel that it will be therapeutic for me. My next post will be about anticipatory grief.

LIVING IN TWO WORLDS

Margie

        I have been living in two different worlds ever since my wife Margie died. There is the external world, the world “out there,” the “life goes on” world. I have been functioning fairly normally in that world right from the start of my life as a widower. There were so many things that had to be done immediately, having to do with notifying people of Margie’s death, writing the obituary, planning two memorial services and three receptions, attending to matters relating to her burial and the grave side committal service, family gatherings, responding to people’s notes and cards and memorial gifts, and searching for and sorting out the things that had occupied her life until her final days.
Those and many other activities required some reordering of my own priorities. I had to give up my daily blog posts, after posting a personal note explaining why my followers had not heard from me for a while and probably would not for some time to come. I posted one Christmas poem, and that was it. I was determined, however, to continue my responsibilities as Minister of Worship at my congregation at Pennswood Village. Though I missed Margie’s companionship in my weekly commute to Newtown, Pennsylvania, having to preach every Sunday helped me to keep an outward focus, when I could easily have become too absorbed in my own grief.
Much of my time was spent catching up with financial matters that Margie had always attended to, until her declining health prevented it. I have always done our income tax returns, while she used to pay most of the bills. We were an efficient team, but our medical and other bills had piled up and it took some time to sort all that out.  Our Federal and State income tax returns were a huge challenge this year, and very time consuming, but I was able to beat the deadline, thanks to TurboTax. Anyway, that’s why I haven’t been posting for several months.
All of that has to do with the first of the two worlds I’m living in, the “outer” world of my daily life. At the same time I have been living in another world, an internal world, a private world of constant sadness. It’s always there, like a heavy weight on my heart, even when I’m absorbed in the activities and obligations of the outer world. Ever since the devastating first couple of days following Margie’s death, I have been both a participant in and an observer of the experience of grief. It’s as if I’m standing outside myself, observing myself in the act of grieving.

A CHRISTMAS PRAYER

God give us grace. . .

to see
beyond the gleam and glitter
of our tinseled trees
a dim lit stable
not at all like these,

to hear
above the clash and clamor
of the market throng
an angel's call for peace 
in silent song,

to feel
in all the merry madness
of our festive cheer
the Savior's presence
in our hearts this year.

(from Now, That's a Miracle!)

SAD NEWS

Margaret Childs Armstrong
03/21//1926 - 10/30/2013

        It has been several weeks since my last post. The reason, I am sorry to report, is that my wonderful wife Margie died on October 30, after a long battle with leukemia.Caring for her and treasuring our time together has been my primary vocation for the past nineteen months.
        Some of you have already heard this sad news, but others have not. I haven't informed my Facebook friends of her death until now. I apologize for that, but I have been totally preoccupied with all the matters relating to her burial, two memorial services (one last Monday in the Princeton University Chapel and one this past Saturday morning at our congregation at Pennswood Village in Newtown, Pennsylvania), and a host of other necessary details.
        Although I have experienced the death of many family members and close friends, I have learned much more about suffering and about grief through this experience, and I hope in the near future to share some thoughts about that and about Margie's inspiring courage and amazing grace throughout her long ordeal.
        For now I simply wanted to explain why you haven't heard from me for a long time. I hope to begin posting articles again shortly. There has been so much to write about, but it will have to wait until I catch up on some other important matters I have neglected in the past several weeks.
        In the meantime, I urge you to savor the time you have with those you love, for life is a gift, and we can't take anyone for granted. Never neglect to tell your loved ones how much they mean to you, for once they have died, it's too late, and regrets are hard to live with.
        The last words Margie and I always said to each other, whenever we were parting even for just a short time, were "I love you!" I miss her terribly, but I have no regrets about our marriage of nearly sixty-six years ---except that it has ended.

THE SHUT DOWN HAS ENDED ---FOR NOW!

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid

        The nation and the world breathed a huge sigh of relief as the Senate and the House took last minute action last night to end the government shut down and to permit the raising of the debt ceiling at least temporarily, by kicking the can down the road.
        The Senate voted 81-18 to end the shut-down by funding the government through January 15, 2014. The bi-partisan bill also allowed the debt ceiling to be raised through February 7, 2014, while leaving the Affordable Health Care Act virtually untouched. The one minor exception was the inclusion of a "no subsidies without verification" provision.
        Republican Senator Ted Cruz and his Tea Party allies were terribly unhappy with the bill and they vowed the fight isn't over.
        The bill was then sent over to the House, which voted 285 to 144 to accept the Senate's compromise. 87 House Republicans sided with 198 House Democrats in favor of the bill, while no Democrats voted against it.
        To their credit Democrats and the President are not gloating over what has to be seen as a major victory for them and for the nation. They are viewing it as a bipartisan effort. At the same time, they are not hesitant to lay the blame for the whole fiasco at the doorstep of the Tea Party, and their supporters.
        The shut down has already cost the country 24 billion dollars, and the nation's credit rating is in jeopardy. Some big questions remain: will the Republicans ever again force a government shutdown in order to attain their legislative agenda, in this case repealing Obamacare, or have they learned their lesson? Their approval rating has never been lower!
        Will moderate Republicans cease to be intimidated by the radical right wing of the Party, or will they move ahead with their own agenda? Will they work with Democrats and the President to correct the flaws in the Affordable Health Care Act, or will they continue to insist that the law must be completely abolished?
        Will the House finally turn their attention to all the other important legislative matters that have been on hold for so long, such as immigration reform, the infrastructure, jobs, gun regulation, and many other important issues. Will John Boehner continue to be the Speaker of the House?
        We'll soon know the answer to these questions.

A DISTURBING PROTEST

Ted Cruz and Sarah Palin reciting the Pledge of  Allegiance

        Tea Party spokesperson Senator Ted Cruz (Rep., Texas) and former Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin joined a group of veterans who were protesting the closing of World War II Memorial in Washington yesterday. The boisterous demonstrators broke through the barriers and carried them off to the White House, where they flaunted a Confederate flag, as they denounced President Obama for shutting down the national parks, an action for which Senator Cruz and his party were themselves  responsible when they shut down the entire government! They criticize the park rangers for simply doing their job —without pay!
        That kind of blatant hypocrisy is what infuriates fair-minded Americans and has resulted in the deservedly high disapproval ratings of the Republican party. As a World War II veteran myself, I’m embarrassed and ashamed that some (not all) of my fellow veterans could be so ill-informed about what’s going on, not to mention their being so disrespectful to their commander-in-chief.
        Cruz and Palin were followed at the microphone by Larry Klayman, founder of the ultra conservative political advocacy organization Freedom Watch. Klayman told the crowd that our country is now “ruled by a president who bows down to Allah,” and he called upon his hearers to join him in waging “a second American nonviolent revolution, to use civil disobedience, and to demand that this president leave town, to put the Quran down, to get up off his knees, and to figuratively come up with his hands out.”  I’m sure he meant to say “come out with his hands up”!
        I don’t know if Senator Cruz was there to hear Klayman’s racist remarks, but when asked for his reaction, Cruz’s response, unlike that of some of his Republican counterparts, was anything but a denunciation.  Republican Scott Rigell of Virginia, for example, emphatically repudiated Klayman’s comments and called them harmful to the country.
        As disgusted as I am with Confederate flag-waving racists, I am even more repulsed by American flag-waving bigots, whose attitudes and actions are a disgrace to our flag and to the country for which it stands.      

THIS WILL WARM YOUR HEART

        Here's a nice change of pace. In case you haven't yet seen this video on YouTube, click here to see and hear a father (Benjamin J. Ames) and his four-year-old-daughter sing "Tonight You Belong to Me." Turn the sound up and enlarge your screen, and be sure to watch the entire video. It will warm your heart and brighten your day!

IMAGINE THAT!

Rep. Congressman Paul Ryan

        Here's a weird piece of political irony: Who has emerged as the potential spokesperson for the Republican Party? None other than Republican congressman Paul Ryan!
        We remember him well the from the last Presidential campaign, when he was anything but reasonable. But in recent days he has actually sounded like a moderate, to the extent that he is drawing criticism from some Tea Partyites. Imagine that!
        Recalling Ryan's proposed budget and his outlandish comments about Obamacare, it's not easy to imagine it. But I must say, it's a welcome change ---if it's genuine!
        Let's hope it is.          

PRESIDENT’S LATEST APPROVAL RATING

        Republicans are glowing because President Obama’s approval rating has hit a new low.  An AP poll yesterday showed it at 37%.
        There are two principle reasons for that, in my opinion. Part of the disfavor is due to the “buck stops here” syndrome. People are tired of the stalemate in Congress, and even though the fault lies with the House Republicans, the frustration and anger of the general public will eventually land on the chief executive’s desk. It is happening under Barack Obama’s watch, and he can’t escape being the target, albeit it unfairly, of some of the public’s dissatisfaction with our dysfunctional Congress.
        Never mind that it has been the House Republicans who have adamantly refused to support any of the President legislative proposals, no matter how helpful and necessary they might be, and despite their having been approved by the Senate. The Republicans have been “the Party of No” from the start of the Obama presidency, and they have obstinately refused to accept even the main piece of legislation that was enacted into law and upheld by the Supreme Court, viz. the Affordable Health Care Act.
        The second and even more influential factor in the decline of the President’s approval rating is, in my view, the persuasive power of negativism. The effectiveness of negative advertising and political rhetoric cannot be dismissed. The consistent and persistent blame-casting by the Republicans and their hate-filled supporters was bound to have its effect. They are experts at the karlrovian tactic of accusing the President of the very thing of which they themselves are guilty. Their false accusations, misrepresentations and outright lies, all of which can easily be refuted by the facts (see The Grand Old Party Is Anything But Grand), were bound to influence the thinking of some Americans, whose frustration with Washington has trumped their objectivity.

OUT, DAMNED SPOT!

        Here’s a helpful household hint of which Lady Macbeth might not have been aware: while cold water and soap will remove most recent blood stains, for tougher and older blood stains try squirting some hydrogen peroxide on the spot or spots. White foam will appear instantly on the blood stains. Then scrub and rinse with cold water.
        This suggestion is nothing new to many homemakers. But what I want to say next might be, and that is, it may take three or four applications of the hydrogen peroxide to get rid of some older stains. So don’t give up if the stains don’t disappear after the first application and rinse. Repeat the process three or four times, if necessary, and even the worst stains should disappear. You have to soak and scrub each time.
        That’s what I learned recently, after I had just about given up on some old blood stains following just two applications. But I kept at it and was amazed when they finally disappeared completely after the fourth rinse and scrub.
        So my message is: don’t give up too quickly.  

END THIS SENSELESS SHUT DOWN!

    Michele Bachmann commented yesterday that Republicans couldn’t be happier about the Government shut down. “It’s exactly what we wanted, and we got it!”
       Republican Congressman Marlin Stutzman of Indiana told The Washington Examiner: “We’re not going to be disrespected. We have to get something out of this, and I don’t know what that even is.”
       Another Republican Congressman, Rep. Randy Neugebauer, of  Lubbock, Texas, scolded a National Park Ranger for refusing to allow some World War II veterans to pass beyond the barricade that blocked people from entering the WWII monument in Washington. The National Monuments around the Washington Mall are closed as a result of the government shut down, and she was simply carrying out the orders for which he and his fellow Republicans were responsible!
       Such comments and actions would be ludicrous if they were not so outrageous. The Tea Party fanatics are glowing about their achievement. Some have even commented that the shut down is good for the country! “Think of the money we’re saving!”
        What is especially infuriating is to hear the Republicans blame President Obama for the shut down. There is no way that the President deserves any share of the blame for the current debacle, and many Americans are very upset to hear some “pundits” speak as if both parties are equally to blame. I have signed more than one petition calling upon the network news commentators to stop letting the Republicans off the hook.
        Some G.O.P. leaders are not happy about the way things are going, but because of their fear of the Tea Party, they went along with the government shut down. They’d like to end it, but they don’t know how to do so and save face.
        I wish they’d worry more about saving the country!

MY REACTIONS TO “42"

Chadwick Boseman as Jackie Robinson

       I have seen the movie “42" twice, and I must say that I enjoyed it even more the second time than I did the first,

       I had been looking forward to seeing the film, subtitled "The Jackie Robinson Story,” because from my baseball days I had known and admired the central figures in the story, Jackie Robinson and  Branch Rickey. I was eager to see how the two characters would be portrayed and if the portrayals conformed to my recollections of the two men and of the events of the times.

Branch Rickey and Harrison Ford as Branch Rickey

        Chadwick Boseman’s nterpretation of Jackie Robinson was certainly acceptable, but Harrison Ford’s impersonation of Branch Rickey was simply amazing! His resemblance to the Brooklyn Dodgers’ General Manager was remarkable. Though his face was thinner, Ford looked and sounded like the Branch Rickey I knew, and except for a few times when the popular actor's well known smile was recognizable, I felt as if I were watching Mr. Rickey himself.  In my view, Harrison Ford should be nominated for an Oscar for his role in “42.” There is an excellent supporting cast as well, including especially Nicole Beharie as Rachel Robinson and Andre Holland as journalist Wendell Smith.
        The movie is commendably accurate. To be more true to life it would have to have been at least an R-rated film, because what the real Jackie Robinson had to endure was far worse than what was shown in the film. In August of 1946 following my discharge from the Navy I was invited to go on the road with the International League Orioles. I did not want to sign a contract at that time, as I was planning to return to Princeton for my senior year and wanted to be eligible to play on the baseball team. But I enjoyed pitching batting practice for the Orioles and working out with the team.

THE GRAND OLD PARTY IS ANYTHING BUT GRAND!

        The Grand Old Party is anything but grand!  

Republican Senator Ted Cruz of Texas

        The only thing they agree on is their hatred of President Obama. But they don’t agree on how to get rid of Obamacare. The right wing fanatics are willing to shut down the government to accomplish that goal. And their Senate spokesperson, Senator Ted Cruz of Texas, has the gall to blame that eventuality on the President for his unwillingness to cave in to their efforts to abolish the health care legislation he fought so hard to enact!
        What do Senators Cruz, Rand Paul, and their ilk care if people who depend on Social Security to survive won’t receive their monthly payments? What do they care if thirty million Americans will not have affordable health insurance? What do they care if millions of  Americans are already enjoying the benefits of the new law? What do they care if the Congressional Budget Office and the Joint Committee on Taxation have both estimated that the Affordable Health Care Act will eventually result in reducing the national deficit? What do they care that the nation resoundingly reelected the President who succeeded in enacting legislation that others had tried and failed to do? What do they care if the Supreme Court upheld the legality of the law, despite the Republicans’ concerted efforts to overturn it? What do they care if their misrepresentations of the Health Care law have been refuted point by point?
        Their more moderate colleagues are equally opposed to Obamacare, but they don’t want to plunge the nation into a disastrous financial crisis in order to repeal it. To be sure, their motives are not entirely altruistic, for they see the adverse political consequences of such a course of action. Despite all the misinformation put forth by the GOP, the public support for the new health program continues to mount, and the overwhelming majority of Americans do not want to see their government shut down. If it happens, they know whom to blame for it!
        As I write this, Senator Cruz is still speaking on the floor of the Senate in his effort to defeat Obamacare. They’re calling it a “faux” filibuster, because it is not technically a filibuster. But the Senator rants on and on, to the consternation even of some of his Republican colleagues. He’s a hero to his ultra-conservative right-wing ideologues, but to his moderate colleagues he’s a fly in the ointment, and to many if not most Americans, who now have seen the benefits of the Affordable Health Act, he is a deceitful demagog whose political motives are as obvious as his false statements.
        Our country needs a united not a divided GOP. But whatever became of the concept of the “loyal opposition”? The total lack of cooperation of the Republicans throughout President Obama’s entire tenure in office has been a huge impediment to legislative progress and is totally reprehensible and unconscionable.
        I hope they pay the price for their behavior in the forthcoming mid-term elections.

FOUL WEATHER FRIENDS

When the sky is bright blue with clear sailing ahead.                      
when your worries are few and your troubles have fled,
you can bet that you'll find you're surrounded with friends,
as if on your favor their future depends.

When your pockets are full and the world's at your feet,
you will get invitations to join the elite,
for it's not too hard then for some folks to be nice.
They will wine you and dine you and seek your advice.

But the question to ask yourself once in a while,
when you're getting a slap on the back with a smile,
is, What will become of your fair weather friends,
when the going gets rough and your influence ends?

Can you count on them then, when you need their support,
when your luck has run out and your efforts fall short?
That's the test!  And the best are the foul weather friends
who are still by your side when the fair weather ends!

(from If I Do Say So Myself)