Invictus

It is June and I feel as if I haven't kept up with my blog much at all.  Yet, I was still surprised when I realized just now that I had not posted for this long.


Sidenote about my vision.  I've been wearing my Dollar Tree glasses and receiving compliments about them.  My four hundred dollar bifocals, with progressive lenses, are basically sitting here unused.  I find myself most comfortable with no glasses but I know I look better with them on so I tend to have them with me when I'm bound to meet people.  Here at home, I had them on just now and could see my blog perfectly with them- I think they are plus 1 magnification.  With them off, I see everything blurry, but I'm determined tonight that if I make a typo I'm just going to leave it in.


So I'm driving around Orlando tongiht oops... and I notice a few things.  The weather is a little humid but let;s face it... oops... it is beautiful with the top of the car down and with the windows open and a little air on to take the sting out of the humidity.  I hear that the worst mass shooting just happened and I try to care and I try not to care at the same time.  Watching Jungle Surfer today, and someone else, I just thought without a doubt that the two political strands of this false narrative were combined so nicely that I couldn't even think about the actual victims.  I guess I feel we're all victims of this one and I'd rather drive around in my beautiful car and enjoy the weather than to cry.  I don't even feel like crying.  I live in a beautiful world and the news isn't going to tell me that.

They're gearing up for the Woman against the Man, and the Politician against the Businessman and the Liberal against the Conservative and the Red against the Blue and the Glorious Past or Crappy Past against the Glorious Future or the Crappy Future.  They're pulling the strings and giving us one vote each that can only be cast for one end or other of the glorious evil beat that pretends to be two parites.  oops...  Democrats and Republicans work together just fine.  We just don't hear about what their goal is.  THeir ooops goal is to stay in power.  And they are doing that just fine.

I don't want to research it but I think I heard that the death toll of fifty last night is the worst mass shooting in somebody's history.  Is it in the whole US?  So much travail and ink has been suffered over mass shootings, it seems impossible that none of them have ever claimed more than fifty lives.  They want us to argue over gender roles and they want us to argue over guns.  It's so clear.  Now is the time to invest in a gun company.

Jungle Surfer pointed out that the coverage from Orangeland was in purple and the carnage occured between  oops Kaley, which he pronounced Kali, as in the goddess of destruction, and Gore street.  So let me get that straight.  The carnage which has upended the world but means frankly nothing to me rigfht now... oops- isn't that terrible?  I'm feet away from this event and just don't care about it.  The carnage took place between Gore and Goddess of destruction.  Wow.  But I'm still stuck on how this trend that has caputred the narrive for so many years has never brought more than fifty deaths.  Fifty deaths?  We're talking about fifty deaths as if the fate of the world hangs in the balnace?  Come on.

Now it is terrible when someone dies.  Even if they are old and they've been sick it is sad.  I am reeling from my Dad's death which was years ago.  But, the entire nation is divided over issues sparked by events that they tell us happen all the time... that have never killed more than fifty people.  I am incensed.  I sit bewildered at the power they hold over us.

When I find out tomorrow that I knew some of these people, I too will be sad.  But these things don't make the news because death is sad.  The mortality rate is consistently hovering right around one hunderd percent since the dawn of time.  THis isn't new and it isn't news.  And as I get emotional I'm making more typos and my OCD wants to fix them but I am triumphantly not doing that.

This poen, wow.. how did I misspell poem, is actually terrible.  It is powerful, and I understood its artistry several times by hearing bits and pieces of it and hearing it read well.  But today I read it and I think wow, I am glad I have Jesus.  I know Jesus cares about these deaths and didn't place them in harm;s way and will heal my city and these families.  I don't care right now but I know in spite of that that He does.

Invictus

Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the Pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.
In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.
Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds, and shall find, me unafraid.
It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll.
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.
          –William Ernest Henley