One of the very first little ditties, written for “little children weak and small,” I learned in Sunday School. It went like this:
Jesus loves me.
This I know.
For the Bible tells me so.
Little ones to him belong
They are weak but he is strong
Yes, Jesus loves me.
Yes, Jesus loves me.
Yes, Jesus loves me.
The Bible tells me so.
Now I am an aging adult still rooted in this childhood chant. It makes me laugh and cry at once. It is true and false all at once. It’s as “gospel” as the latest excerpt from a recent H.C. Richardson report: "Many congress members have left Washington, D.C., since Friday was to be the first day of a planned recess. This meant the partisan majority on the floor fluctuated. Olivia Beavers of Politico reported that that instability made Freedom Caucus members nervous enough to put together a Floor Action Response Team (FART—I am not making this up) to make sure other Republicans didn’t limit the power of the extremists when they were off the floor."
FART for freedom? It actually might clear the air, especially if we add to it the little gospel ditty above. Can you imagine a divine fart? We could call it the Big Bang. Laughter is down-to-earth embodied laughter.
I stay clear of most political commentary, and yet........ I am drawn to the clarity of prosecuting attorney, Alvin Bragg. You can see his story in Sunday's NY Times magazine of 4/14/24. The sliver of hope I feel gently tugging at me is this: hush money payments are immoral and slimy but not illegal. HOWEVER, if the Republican presidential candidate running for election as President this November used money from his campaign donations to make such payments, that IS illegal. Bragg steadfastly declined comment until he had thoroughly read everything. Only then did he choose to take this case, pronouncing himself "pleased." It was the Law.
His spokeswoman confessed later that "it was a struggle to get him to say even that.”
Such careful, undramatic, grounded, simple, and deliberate discernment I trust. Law and Gospel reconcile.
And the Bible does tell us so:
Beloved, let us love one another
because love is of God;
is begotten of God
and has knowledge of God.” (I John 7:10)
