I am back briefly to say I will return soon.

I am sick and tired of saying I will be back soon.  I should keep up my days of Monday and Friday to post.  My computer was out for a while and I have been busy with other issues.  Hopefully I will post again on Friday, the 29th, if I don't lose track of time.  See you soon........

Finally free to marry

Two of my best friends just got married; to each other.  They have been together 25 years and a more loving and generous couple I have yet to meet.  Yet it has taken 25 years before they have been allowed by their states to be married. 
They have always been very low key.  Not out there or in your face...though I most likely would have been both.  Instead my dear friends kept their love private, between family, a few friends and God.
Finally they are in the same world the rest of us who love our spouses occupy.  They can visit each other in hospitals, sign death certificates and make funeral arrangements for their beloved.  They can inherit each other's financial and personal effects with no legal disputes.  Most of all they can love another freely and legally.
I am so happy for them and proud of them.
They have braved non acceptance from those previously dearest to them, and scorn and derision for too many unnamed and unkind persons they met or who are in their lives.  They have born insults from the right and sometimes the left wings, clergy, the military, and even their governments.  All that is in the past for them now. 
If only those of you who have ears would listen.  Governments, local and foreign, need to change their laws to that of acceptance for the rights and concerns of all of their citizens..

Matthew 5:45

The Message (MSG)

^43-47 “You’re familiar with the old written law, ‘Love your friend,’ and its unwritten companion, ‘Hate your enemy.’ I’m challenging that. I’m telling you to love your enemies. Let them bring out the best in you, not the worst. When someone gives you a hard time, respond with the energies of prayer, for then you are working out of your true selves, your God-created selves. This is what God does. He gives his best—the sun to warm and the rain to nourish—to everyone, regardless: the good and bad, the nice and nasty. If all you do is love the lovable, do you expect a bonus? Anybody can do that. If you simply say hello to those who greet you, do you expect a medal? Any run-of-the-mill sinner does that.

If God causes his sun to shine on all, how can governments do less.
I am so proud and happy for my dearest friends, and for all the others who share in the same benefits, under God and the Law.

November is here, near the end of the year again!

I have worked the Rummage sale for 7 days and loved the fellowship and camaraderie.  The results are not too shabby.  About $2100.  for Phoenix mission work.  If you take the people who worked, times the number of hours each worked and divide up the results you come to about .03 cents an hour, but it is all good.(just kidding, but there wasn't a lot of payback in $s for the hours worked.)

On Saturday one of our best friends, who was on a business trip from India to SFO, took a valuable weeks vacation to visit us.  We could not have had more fun.  Srini and he discussed and played guitar, talked martial arts and practical arts like carpentry and aircraft.  He and I talked books and philosophy.  He taught me and a friend about setting up modem and WiFi, Kindle, and Nook, and got my friend on Facebook and email.  Our friend, Arvindar, cooked for and with me, and would not let me lift a finger in work. When we went shopping he carted around my portable oxygen.   He gave us both a number of useful gadgets. Best of all he and another dear friend Madhu, gave me a pair of red Crocs to skip down the yellow brick road in my red Wizard of OZ t-shirt I had received on a previous visit.  Little Toto(or a female version, Angie), and I will go to the Church today for a blessing of the pets, dressed in our colorful outfits.  Angie too has a red t-shirt. 
All in all it has been a fantastic 2 weeks of fellowship and friendship.  Like all good things it must wind down but the wonderful memories are carried forward for years.
Now the next things are Thanksgiving, Priya's wedding, and Christmas.  Lots to look forward to at the end of the year.