CHRISTIAN NEWS FROM RAY
A free service of Jesus Christ is Lord Ministries
News selected and edited by Ray Mossholder
Monday, January 27, 2014
URGENT PRAYER REQUEST: TIM MOSSHOLDER HAS THYROID CANCER.
I have known that my son Tim had thyroid cancer since before Christmas, but he asked me not to tell anyone. That’s because he has so many relationships with people and pastors, especially because of his much traveling for the Foursquare denomination setting up schools in churches that prepare college aged students before they ever entered college, a career, or the ministry. As a result, fifty percent of the graduates do enter into ministry. That includes Tim and Kelly’s own daughter, Kaeylen, who is preparing to begin her ministry with Foursquare in Haiti this May. Tim is now an adviser for this program – The Emerging Leadership Network – and works in a number of other church related/pastor related oversight.
Tim also said he doesn’t want a lot of sympathy cards which often tend toward gloom and doom. What he asks now is for you to pray for him and if you know of any prayer chains to please get him put on them a.s.a.p.
Georgia and I have been praying intensely for my eldest son. His cancer was discovered by his doctor during a routine examination. He isn’t at all afraid of putting the unknown future into the hands of his known God.
Thyroid cancer has a very high survival rate. He will not need chemotherapy. He will have a permanent scar on his throat. The thyroid is very close to vital nerves that can dramatically affect the vocal cords. Join us in prayer that Christ to guide the hands of every doctor or nurse who will be taking part in the surgery, before and afterward. Pray also against infection and that no hospital Superbugs will dare come near him.
I’m Tim’s dad and I love him more than I love my own life. His very first words came when we were watching a football game on television. Tim was sitting on my lap. All at once he shouted out, “Get that ball!” He’s been actively following Jesus with his whole heart since he was three.
We’d deeply appreciate prayer for his mother, Arlyne, Georgia and me, and, of course, for his wonderful wife, Kelly, and for their adult kids, my grandkids, Brennon, Kaelyn, and Braden
In tomorrows edition of Christian News From Ray, I will begin with a message from Tim. His surgery is scheduled for 11:30 a.m. Wednesday morning. PRAY!
PRESIDENT OBAMA WILL TELL US THE STATE OF THE UNION
TUESDAY NIGHT AND WHERE HE PLANS TO TAKE US
Senior White House advisor Dan Pfeiffer said in Sunday television interviews that President Obama in his State of the Union address Tuesday night will detail what he calls “practical” proposals to advance the country in 2014, including ones to improve economic opportunities for every American and to fix the nation’s immigration system. And Obama will also make clear his intentions to use his executive powers to achieve his goals when Congress fails to pass legislation.
Pfeiffer’s comments mark the second time this weekend that he has attempted to prepare Americans for what Obama will say in his State of the Union address to Congress Tuesday night. In a letter Saturday to Obama supporters, Pfeiffer called 2014 a “year of action” and said the president will lay out a set of “real, concrete, practical proposals” to grow the economy and strengthen the middle class. “President Obama has a pen and he has a phone, and he will use them to take executive action and enlist every American … in the project to restore opportunity for all,” he also wrote in the letter.
On Sunday, Pfeiffer said those proposals will include efforts to increase the minimum wage, extend unemployment insurance and pass comprehensive immigration reform.
He argued against criticism that the president has a failing economic policy that has resulted in record-level poverty and lower average household incomes. Pfeiffer said the administration is still trying to climb out of the recession it inherited from George Bush in 2009, and pointed out that the national unemployment rate is now at 6.7 percent.
“We are making progress,” Pfeiffer told Fox News. The White House is backing a Democratic congressional proposal to raise the minimum wage to $10.10 over three years and index it to inflation thereafter.
“The Republican Congress is not going to rubber-stamp the president’s agenda,” White House senior adviser Dan Pfeiffer told “Fox News Sunday.” “And the president is not going to sign the Republican Congress’ agenda. So where there is gridlock between them, he will use his executive power.”
Obama, in an effort to avoid the appearance of being a lame duck president, is also expected in his State of the Union address to press Congress to assure Americans that they are better off with ObamaCare, despite a rocky start to the website rollout. White House Press Secretary Jay Carney told ABC’s “This Week” that 2014 will be an “action year” and that the president’s signature health care law is a success — “expanding access to quality and affordable health insurance to millions of Americans and reducing the growth in health care costs.”
Still, the president will have to convince Americans, considering a recent ABC poll shows that 59 percent of them disapprove of how ObamaCare has been implemented and to counter Republicans’ midterm election strategy of singling out and defeating Democrats who backed the law.
“If all [Obama] has to offer is more of the same, or if he refuses to acknowledge that his own policies have failed to work, the president is simply doing what many failed leaders have done before him: trying to set one group of Americans against another group of Americans,” Senator Roy Blunt, R-Mo., said Saturday. “The 2014 GOP agenda will continue to include efforts to replace ObamaCare, which he called “a law that’s fundamentally flawed.”
Senator Rand Paul, R-Ky., told CNN’s “State of the Union” that the White House’s vow to use executive power “sounds vaguely like a threat. And I think it also has a certain amount of arrogance,” he added.
Obama will probably again address his proposed reforms to the government’s surveillance efforts. Earlier this month, following former NSA contractor Edward Snowden leaking U.S. surveillance secrets, he proposed new measures to overhaul the government’s sweeping program.
He is also expected to try again to get greater gun control and free pre kindergarten for all 4-year-olds. He is also expected to call attention to bipartisan legislation that would reduce criminal penalties for some drug offenders.
A lot is riding on the president’s prime time remarks this year, expected to be seen by roughly 30 million TV viewers. Less than 50% of the promises made by any president are actually carried out. He has little time to reach his goals, considering members of Congress are in part already focused on their campaigns outside of Washington. And Republicans are looking to wrest control of the Senate and keep their majority in the House.
Two survivors of the Boston Marathon bombing and an openly gay NBA player are among the guests who will sit with first lady Michelle Obama Tuesday when President Barack Obama delivers the annual State of the Union address.
The first lady’s guests are often picked because they symbolize an issue or policy the president is promoting.
Program note: All major news channels will cover President Barack Obama’s State of the Union address. It starts at 7 p.m. ET Tuesday.
MANY DEMOCRATS UNHAPPY WITH PRESIDENT OBAMA
With Obama’s last campaign now well behind him, several left-leaning groups that had previously kept quiet for the sake of the President’s re-election are now echoing criticizing and bucking the administration on a number of issues.
Earlier this month, a coalition of 18 environmental organizations sent the White House a letter warning that Obama’s “all of the above” energy strategy — one that embraces so-called “green energy” and more domestic extraction of traditional fossil fuels — is unacceptable for those sounding the alarm about climate change.
“An ‘all of the above’ strategy is a compromise that future generations can’t afford,” the letter declared. “It increases environmental injustice while it locks in the extraction of fossil fuels that will inevitably lead to a catastrophic climate future.”
Those who keep pressing the president for their progressive agenda wanted Valery Summers — a key member of Bill Clinton’s economic team — to head the Federal Reserve. Obama chose Janet Yellen instead.
A number of progressive leaders also pushed back against Obama’s proposed airstrikes in Syria, and made clear their unhappiness with the recent budget deal that froze spending on key liberal domestic priorities.
Obama, who originally emerged from the more liberal wing of the Democratic Party, appears sympathetic at least to the economic populism arguments. In a speech in December to the left-leaning Center for American Progress, the President made clear that America’s growing wealth disparity would be a focus of his remaining time in office. “Increasing inequality is most pronounced in our country and it challenges the very essence of who we are as a people.”
While divided Democrats will soon begin their search for a new standard-bearer, political observers warn not to make too much of the differences now bubbling to the surface. “Both parties have a far greater degree of programmatic consensus than they did 40 or 50 years ago. This is one reason why the parties have polarized and why it is often difficult to achieve bipartisan compromises,” noted George Washington University political scientist John Sides.
“The differences between Obama, Hillary Clinton, Warren (and others) are mostly at the margins,” he argued. “There is far more agreement than disagreement on the fundamental issues. By their nature, political parties are coalitions of mostly like-minded voters and groups,” Johns Hopkins University political scientist Adam Sheingate added. “It’s not uncommon for there to be differences on policy issues within the coalition, or a range of opinions on issues that span part of the political spectrum.”
Regardless, Schiller argued that the financial demands of modern presidential campaigns may ultimately spell defeat for de Blasio-and Warren-style economic populism. “There is a strong voice within the Democratic Party that believes Barack Obama has not done enough to protect the average working voter,” she said.
“For now Elizabeth Warren personifies that voice, but when the pressure to raise really big money for 2016 rears its ugly head (and) the Democrats need to be competitive for Wall Street money, her voice may very well get drowned out by the pragmatic wing of the party.”
Schiller also noted that around the dawn of the last century, the Republican Party wrestled with a similar split on economic issues. The outcome of that struggle eventually helped fuel decades of dominance for Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal coalition. “History tells us that danger lurks for both the Democrats and the Republicans if they fail to heal their internal divisions,” she warned
DEMOCRATS DIVIDED THIS ELECTION YEAR
Washington (CNN) – “I am not a member of any organized political party,” Will Rogers once joked. “I am a Democrat.”
Plenty has been written on the current fight for the soul of the Republican Party. But as President Barack Obama unofficially rings in the sixth year of his administration with Tuesday’s State of the Union address, another intriguing struggle may be emerging — between moderates and progressives on the Democratic side.
It’s not a divide on a par with the cavernous pre-New Deal divisions of Rogers’ day. Not even close. But it is taking on growing importance as Democrats, frustrated with unyielding Washington gridlock on virtually every major issue, start to look past the current administration.
More specifically, as Democrats look toward the future, there’s sharp disagreement over whether to stick with a Bill Clinton-style centrist agenda or embrace the unabashed left-wing populism most notably personified by Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts and New York Mayor Bill DeBlasio.
While New Yorkers think of their city as the center of the universe, the last time its mayor won a race for governor or senator — let alone president — was 1869. And what works in midnight-blue Massachusetts, hasn’t sold on a national level since (JFK’s election in) 1960.”
“We are seeing a split in the Democratic Party between self-described progressives and the old guard,” Brown University political scientist Wendy Schiller told CNN. “If you dig deep, you see that these are old dividing lines based on economics, region, and culture.”
Policy ramifications aside, more liberal Democrats worry that a return to Clinton-era centrism will deflate the party’s base. More moderate Democrats fear a full embrace of Warren and de Blasio-style liberalism will herald a return to the party’s McGovern-Mondale-Dukakis era political wilderness.
Whichever side wins this fight, one thing is already clear: Six years after flocking to the banner of Obama’s “hope and change” candidacy, a lot of progressives are disappointed in the current Democratic administration.
“It’s a mixed legacy,” said Adam Green, head of the Progressive Change Campaign Committee, a Washington-based liberal group. “In some areas, like ending two wars, (Obama’s) presidency has represented a return to some sanity. But on the core issue of corporate power and a government that fights for the little guy, this administration so far has had a lot of missed opportunities.”
Susan Schorin, a 68-year-old political activist from Virginia, told CNN she is particularly disappointed with Obama’s willingness to consider changes to Social Security that could lead to a reduction in future benefits. “I feel betrayed,” said Schorin, a member of Green’s organization and a volunteer for the Obama campaign group Organizing For America. Obama “was so enthusiastic and identified with saving these programs for people who really need them. He was extremely verbal about it. Obama’s a “great man,” Schorin insisted. But he “turned his back on me and on all of the people that voted for him on that promise.”
Both Democrats and Republicans continue to complain that when President Obama speaks he seldom carries through with what he’s saying. Many say he outright lies. Here are examples they give:
1. I will have the most transparent administration.
2. I have Shovel ready jobs.
3. The IRS is not targeting anyone.
4. If four Americans get killed, it is not optimal.
5. You can keep your family doctor.
6. Premiums will be lowered by $2500
7. You can keep your current healthcare plan
8. Just shop around, for that healthcare I claimed you wouldn’t lose.
9. I am sorry you lost your healthcare, (you know the health care you have to shop around for, ya the same health care I said you could keep, yup, that’s the one).
10. I did not say you could keep your health care. (Regardless that 29 recorded videos show I did)
11. ObamaCare will not be offered to illegal immigrants.
15. ObamaCare will not be used to fund abortions.
16. ObamaCare will cost less than 1 Trillion Dollars.
17. No one making under $250,000 will see their taxes raised one dime.
18. It’s Bushes fault. (The President almost never apologizes for anything and has a habit of always shifting the blame to someone or something else.)
19. A video caused the murders at Benghazi.
20. If I had a son he would look just like Treyvon.
21. I will put an end to the type of politics that “breeds division, conflict and cynicism”.
22. You didn’t build that.
23. I will restore trust in Government.
24. The Cambridge police acted stupidly.
25. I am not after your guns.
26. The fact that we are here today to debate raising America’s debt limit is a sign of leadership failure. The BHO of (2006).
27. I have been practicing…I bowled a 129. It’s like — it was like Special Olympics.
28. “If I don’t have this done in three years, then this is going to be a one-term proposition.
29. I do think at a certain point you’ve made enough money.
30. I think when you spread the wealth around, it’s good for everybody.
31. The public will have 5 days to look at every bill that lands on my desk
32. If they cross that red line we will strike them.
33. It’s not my red line it is the worlds red line.
34. Whistle blowers will be protected.
35. We got back every dime we used to rescue the Banks, with interest.
36. I am good at killing people. (Drones)
37. I will close Gitmo. (but instead built them a $750,000 soccer field).
38. The point I was making was not that Grandmother harbors any racial animosity. She doesn’t, but she is a typical white person
39. I am not spying on American citizens.
40. By, on, on, by, Friday uh afternoon things get a little uh, uh challenged uh, uh ( when his TelePrompTer broke and he was left to think for himself).
41. John McCain has not talked about my Muslim faith.
42. It’s not surprising, then, they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy.
43. UPS and FedEx are doing just fine, right? It’s the Post Office that’s always having problems. (Attempting to make the case for government-run healthcare).
44. The future must not belong to those who slander the prophet of Islam.
45. We will conduct our daily activities on C-SPAN.
REPUBLICANS ARE ATTACKING EACH OTHER TOO
The dueling factions of the Republican Party were evident at the just-concluded Republican National Committee meeting. One was younger, more diverse and tech-savvy, part of the RNC’s carefully crafted plan to inspire confidence that the GOP is trying to grow beyond its shrinking, older, largely white base.
The other — one that hasn’t evolved since the GOP’s back-to-back presidential losses — occasionally took center stage at the Washington hotel where party delegates from across the country met to discuss party business.
The reminder of the divisions comes a year after committee Chairman Reince Priebus published a report aimed at modernizing the party and boosting its ranks, and as Republicans eye their best chance at taking control of both houses of Congress since 2002. “If our party doesn’t unite, we’re never going to win,” said Jonelle Fulmer, a Republican National Committeewoman from Arkansas.
Following the recommendations in the Priebus-commissioned autopsy of the GOP’s losing 2012 presidential campaign, the national party launched a multipronged strategy a year ago to reach out to younger voters, women and racial and ethnic minorities, groups who sided more heavily with Democrats, especially President Barack Obama. Yet, awkward comments about contraception and women’s reproductive systems and chatter over Michigan committeeman
Member of the Republican national committee,Dave Agema, made derogatory comments about gays and Muslims obscuring the party’s attempt to put its best foot forward. By the end of the three-day conference, Priebus and Michigan Republican Party Chairman Bobby Schostak were calling on Agema to quit “for the good of the party.”
The only other public comment from party officials about Agema came later during a press conference on the RNC’s diversity outreach team. “There’s no room in the Republican Party for those kinds of comments,” said Jennifer Korn, the GOP’s national director for Hispanic initiatives.
Agema released a statement Friday night apologizing for his use of words. But he refused to resign from the committee, insisting that he has drawn many to the Republican Party. “In retrospect, I acknowledge errors in judgment and how I addressed them, feel badly about the impact this had had on many here in the land I love, and have learned valuable lessons about the requirements and responsibilities that are to be expected and honored by all who are in leadership positions — including myself,” his statement said.
The episode created a sharp dissonance with the meeting’s official program, which included sessions on the party’s organizational investments in digital, data-gathering technology and personnel. That’s an area that helped Obama’s campaign carry traditional Republican strongholds in 2008 and 2012.
Another sharp contrast occurred when a panel of well-polished women from an array of racial and socio-economic backgrounds discussed the party’s up-and-coming leaders, just minutes after former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee’s speech in which he said Democrats “insult the women of America by making them believe that they are helpless without Uncle Sugar coming in and providing for them a prescription each month for birth control because they cannot control their libido or their reproductive system without the help of the government.”
The clash between the RNC leadership’s party-broadening goals and the lingering image of a party arguing with itself over tone and tolerance reflects the division that’s playing out in Republican congressional primary campaigns across the country. Despite the competing messages, there still were signs that Priebus’ plans were moving forward.
Priebus hired 25-year-old Raffi Williams as national youth political director and tasked him with running a program aimed at identifying Republican-leaning voters. It’s similar to an effort begun by the Michigan Republican Party to use Facebook and other online social media to get people to identify like-minded conservatives. Run by digital media strategist and former advertising executive Chuck Defeo, the project conceivably could help Republicans win close elections.
“We’re starting behind the eight ball, but we’re building a good machine, and we’re doing it across the country from the ground up,” he said.
Alex Smith, 24, said Republicans can only gain back the edge they had with young voters they narrowly held in 2000 by updating the language and the tools that they use to reach her and her peers. The Seton Hall University law school student and chairwoman of the College Republican National Committee said. “If you’re talking to younger voters on television, radio or direct mail, you’re not reaching them.”
“We were very clear we need to be more inclusive,” said Zori Fonalledas of Puerto Rico, one of the five authors.
Oh, and that whole end run the Ron Paul people pulled in 2012? Winning conventions and reversing the “results” of the primary preference caucuses? No longer possible. If a caucus state holds a preference poll—the event that allows any registered voter to show up in a high school gym and cast a vote—then that result will be binding on the eventual delegate math. Only if a caucus state holds no preference poll—if it, say, holds some so that at the convention it picks those delegates—will such a convention vote be binding.
The Republican National Convention will take place “in June or early July.” The goal of this change, and of all changes, is to maximize the time that the Republican candidate (TBD) will be his party’s nominee, to effectively compete against the Democratic candidate (Hillary Clinton, let’s just be honest).
David Weigel is a Slate political reporter. You can reach him at daveweigel@gmail.com, or tweet at him @daveweigel.
RAND PAUL: “REMEMBER BILL CLINTON
(Editing by Robin Pomeroy)
Democrats should remember President Bill Clinton’s sexual affair with a White House intern before turning their criticism to Republicans’ attitudes toward women, Sen. Rand Paul said Sunday.
“He took advantage of a girl that was 20 years old and an intern in his office,” said Paul, R-Ky. “There is no excuse for that, and that is predatory behavior.”
Paul’s invocation of intern Monica Lewinsky comes as Democrats have been redoubling their efforts to paint the GOP as a party that stands opposed to women on issues such as contraception, abortion rights and equal pay. In the wake of losing back-to-back presidential elections, the GOP has tried to improve its outreach to female voters, who reliably support Democratic candidates.
“Someone who takes advantage of a young girl in their office? I mean, really. And then they have the gall to stand up and say, `Republicans are having a war on women?”‘ Paul told NBC’s “Meet the Press.”
Paul’s remarks come as he weighs a presidential campaign in 2016 — an endeavor that could bring him face to face with former first lady Hillary Rodham Clinton, if she, too, decides to run for the White House.
Paul said that Bill Clinton’s infidelity shouldn’t be used against Hillary Rodham Clinton if she seeks the Democratic nomination for president. “It’s not Hillary’s fault,” he said. But of the Clintons, he added “sometimes it’s hard to separate one from the other.”
Paul’s comments track with what his wife said about Bill Clinton in a recent profile. “I would say his behavior was predatory, offensive to women,” Kelley Ashby told Vogue, adding that Lewinsky affair should complicate his return to the White House as first gentleman.
CHRIS CHRISTIE NO LONGER THE DARLING OF MANY REPUBLICANS
In November, Christie won re-election to the governorship of New Jersey by a wide 20+ point margin. But the number of Republicans who think New Jersey Governor Chris Christie has a “strong future” in the Republican Party has dropped significantly in the wake of allegations members of his staff ordered lane closures leading to the George Washington Bridge as political payback in spite of Christie’s denial.
A new Fox News national poll finds that the number of self-identified Republicans who believe Christie has a strong future in their party has dropped 22 percentage points since December 2012. Sixty-three percent of Republicans felt Christie had a strong future a year ago, while 41 percent feel that way now.
The number of Republicans saying the governor doesn’t have a bright future in the party has increased from 23 percent to 41 percent. There’s been a similar shift among voters overall: 38 percent think Christie has a strong future in the Republican Party, down from 55 percent in December 2012. Among independents, he’s dropped from 52 percent to 32 percent now thinking his future’s bright in the GOP.
The Fox News poll is based on landline and cell phone interviews with 1,010 randomly chosen registered voters nationwide and was conducted under the joint direction of Anderson Robbins Research (D) and Shaw & Company Research (R) from January 19-21, 2014. The full poll has a margin of sampling error of plus or minus three percentage points.
MORE THAN HALF OF AMERICANS ARE NOW ON FOOD STAMPS
For the first time, working-age people now make up the majority in U.S. households that rely on food stamps — a switch from a few years ago, when children and the elderly were the main recipients.
Though demographics have something to do with it, slow economic recovery with high unemployment, stagnant wages and an increasing gulf between low-wage and high-skill jobs also plays a big role. The government today is spending $80 billion-a-year food stamp program — twice what it cost five years ago.
Food stamp participation since 1980 has grown the fastest among workers with some college training, a sign that the safety net has stretched further to cover America’s former middle class, according to an analysis of government data for The Associated Press by economists at the University of Kentucky. Formally called Supplemental Nutrition Assistance, or SNAP, the program now covers 1 in 7 Americans.
The findings coincide with the latest economic data showing workers’ wages and salaries growing at the lowest rate relative to corporate profits in U.S. History. Economists say having a job may no longer be enough for self-sufficiency in today’s economy. Congress, meanwhile, is debating cuts to food stamps, with Republicans including House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, R-Va., wanting a $4 billion-a-year reduction to an anti-poverty program that they say promotes dependency and abuse.
“A low-wage job supplemented with food stamps is becoming more common for the working poor,” said Timothy Smeeding, an economics professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison who specializes in income inequality. “Many of the U.S. jobs now being created are low- or minimum-wage — part-time or in areas such as retail or fast food — which means food stamp use will stay high for some time, even after unemployment improves.”
Since 2009, more than 50 percent of U.S. households receiving food stamps have been adults ages 18 to 59, according to the Census Bureau’s Current Population Survey. The food stamp program defines non-elderly adults as anyone younger than 60.
PRO-LIFERS MARCH IN SAN FRANCISCO
SAN FRANCISCO – Many thousands of anti-abortion protesters from across California marched through downtown San Francisco on Saturday, calling for restrictions on a medical procedure that was legalized more than 40 years ago. A massive and diverse crowd of protesters rallied in front of City Hall before marching down Market Street to Justin Herman Plaza for the 10th annual “Walk for Life West Coast.” They chanted “Pro Life” and carried signs that read “Defend Life” and “Women deserve better than abortion.”
San Francisco police did not immediately provide an official crowd estimate, but at one point marchers stretched across more than a mile of Market Street, the liberal city’s main thoroughfare.
High school senior Nancy Castellanos came to San Francisco on one of six buses of worshippers from St. Peter’s Catholic Church in Dixon, about 70 miles away.D She believes the laws need to change to make it harder to get an abortion. “I am 100 percent, completely against abortion,” Castellanos, 17, said. “If you don’t want the child, there’s always adoption.”
John Paine, 52, arrived with people from his church group in Visalia in California’s Central Valley, after making a 3 1/2-hour drive to San Francisco on Saturday. “I’m ashamed that my country sanctions the killing of the most defenseless of its citizens,” Paine said. “Human life in all its stages is sacred and should be protected.”
A small group of pro-abortion rights activists protested the march on Market Street, holding signs that read “Abortion on demand and without apology.” Anna Wilson, 20, a commercial artist who lives in San Francisco, said she participated in the Walk for Life march two years ago, but said she’s since changed her stance on abortion. “I realized I was looking at it in a real childish way,” Wilson said. “I’m not pro-abortion. Nobody’s pro-abortion. But I am pro-choice. I think that women should have every single choice available to them, as much as men do.”
Supervisor David Campos introduced a resolution last week opposing the dozens of “Abortion Hurts Women” banners that organizers hung from street lamps on Market Street. The resolution says “the prominent display of false anti-abortion statements on public property on Market Street misrepresents the City’s support for reproductive health, rights and justice.”
Over the last several decades, anti-abortion groups have focused on placing relatively small restrictions on abortion, especially in conservative states with Republican-dominated legislatures. But lawmakers in those states are under increasing pressure from activists to take stronger action to limit abortion.
But California, which has a Democratic governor and Legislature, expanded abortion access last year with a measure that allows nurse practitioners, certified nurse midwives and physician assistants, to perform a type of early abortion.
FIRST CLASS STAMPS HAVE JUMPED 3 CENTS
WASHINGTON (CNNMoney)
Stamp prices increased on Saturday, jumping to 49 cents from 46 cents.
The 3-cent hike is the largest increase in consumer postage prices in more than a decade for the U.S. Postal Service.
The price hike affects millions, even though fewer Americans these days use snail mail to pay bills and keep in touch.
One way around the increases is buying Forever Stamps now and using them any time for first-class mail, the kind used by most consumers. Launched in 2007, Forever Stamps are always valid, no matter what people paid for them and even if prices go up in the future.
Declining mail volume continues to plague the agency. Some 2 billion fewer pieces of mail were sent in 2013 compared with 2012. But more people are using the post office to mail packages. In 2013, package volume rose 8%.
The price of a first-class stamp went up by 1 cent in January 2013.
ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION AND WHAT’S ABOUT TO HAPPEN
The Democrat-controlled Senate passed comprehensive immigration reform this past summer that includes a 13-year path to citizenship for some of the estimated 11 million illegal immigrants now living in the United States. However, such legislation stalled in the House amid opposition from some of the chamber’s most conservative members who argue that giving illegal immigrants an opportunity to become citizens is tantamount to “amnesty.” President Obama is making it a top priority for 2014. Speculation that House Republican leadership would unveil such a plan has circulated around Washington for weeks.
There appears to be a consensus forming around a package of bills — including ones on border security, a crackdown on the hiring of undocumented workers, expanded guest-worker programs and a path to citizenship for illegal immigrants brought to the country as children, according to the Los Angeles Times.
Critics of a possible House-Senate deal fear they will be left out of final talks involving so-called congressional “conferees.” They also worry that veteran negotiators such as Senator Charles E. Schumer, D-N.Y., who helped craft the upper chamber bill, could behind closed doors make the final bill more like the Senate version.
A GAY TIME FOR THOSE WHO ATTENDED THE GRAMMYS
This year, the Grammy Awards weren’t just about the music, they were also about making a political statement in the same-sex marriage debate currently dividing much of America. In a turn of events heavily hyped in the hours leading up to the CBS telecast, 34 couples – both gay and straight and of different ages and ethnicities – exchanged rings and said “I do,” as officiated on stage by Queen Latifah. The actress/rapper/talk show host was recently deputized by Los Angeles County to legally conduct wedding ceremonies and will sign the marriage certificates for each couple.
The event took place on a stage set to resemble a giant chapel with stained-glass windows during a performance by hip-hop duo Macklemore & Ryan Lewis, in which they sang their hit tune “Same Love,” a song that was universally embraced by the LGBT community last year.
One of the couples who tied-the-knot was Lewis’s sister Laura and her boyfriend Alex.
“The right-wing conservatives think it’s a decision and that you can be cured with some treatment and religion/Man-made rewiring of a predisposition,” Macklemore rapped. “Playing God, aw nah here we go/America the brave still fears what we don’t know/And God loves all his children, is somehow forgotten/But we paraphrase a book written thirty-five hundred years ago.”
Madonna later joined the matrimonial moment in an all-white suit, singing a portion of her heyday hit “Open Your Heart.”
The group wedding ceremony was met with extreme support and an emotional standing ovation by the Grammy crowd. And many viewers at home also advocated a thumbs-up with tweets such as “so beautiful & so proud of couples not afraid to marry who they want… Straight gay black white… Love is Love.”
But on the flip side, many others viewed the Grammy show-stopper as both inappropriate for a music awards show and a blatant attack on religious values. “Why can’t the event just be about the music? So tired of political and social messages being infused into everything,” one tweeted, others referred to it as “anti-Christian” and “propaganda,” while another weighed in: “I don’t care if they are gay or straight this is wrong. Quit shoving your leftist agenda down my throat. Enough is enough.”
But it seems that is exactly what producers and the forces behind the Grammys intended to achieve – debate, emotion and even a little ire. “I expect that people with all kinds of opinions might voice them, and that’s healthy,” Neil Portnow, President of the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences told the press ahead of the telecast.
NO MORE MARRIAGES IN OKLAHOMA?
The idea stems from a bill filed by Rep. Mike Turner (R-Edmond). Turner says it’s an attempt to keep same-sex marriage illegal in Oklahoma while satisfying the U.S. Constitution. Critics are calling it a political stunt while supporters say it’s what Oklahomans want.
“[My constituents are] willing to have that discussion about whether marriage needs to be regulated by the state at all,” Turner said.
Other conservative lawmakers feel the same way, according to Turner.
“Would it be realistic for the State of Oklahoma to say, ‘We’re not going to do marriage period,’” asked News 9′s Michael Konopasek. “That would definitely be a realistic opportunity, and it’s something that would be part of the discussion,” Turner answered.
The broad-stroke plan is expected to be released by House leaders at their annual retreat on Maryland’s Eastern Shore that starts Wednesday.
Such a discussion will be made possible by a current shell bill — something that can be changed at almost any time to react to upcoming rulings on Oklahoma’s same-sex marriage ban.
“I think that, especially with issues like this, [these lawmakers are] out of touch with most Oklahomans,” said Ryan Kiesel, ACLU Oklahoma executive detector.
Kiesel says prohibiting all marriage is new territory. In fact, the ACLU was unable to find an example of where a state has ever tried to ban all marriage. Kiesel believes the entire idea just boils down to politics. “Moving forward I think we’ll see less efforts like this,” Kiesel said.
Turner admits his idea makes a lot of people uncomfortable. He also says, “I accept that.” Turner plans to wait until the federal appeals process plays out. The fight over Oklahoma’s ban on same-sex marriage will now head to the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals in Denver
NO GAIN BUT PAIN IN UKRAINE
Ukraine’s two-month old anti-government protests have spread further across the country despite offers of concessions from President Viktor Yanukovych.
Thousands of demonstrators attempted to take over the regional government office in Dnipropetrovsk on Sunday, a major industrial hub in eastern Ukraine home to more than one million people and birthplace of opposition leader Yulia Tymoshenko.
Thousands more tried to seize the local government headquarters in the south-eastern city of Zaporizhia, local media reported. Further protests took place in Lviv, Ivano-Frankivsk, Chernivtsi, Lutsk and Sumy over the weekend, raising fears that the previously peaceful movement is morphing into a national uprising.
In Kiev on Sunday, hundreds of protesters chanted “heroes don’t die” as the coffin of one demonstrator shot dead in clashes with police was paraded through the city centre. “We just want to live in a free and peaceful country,” said one protester at the memorial, who gave his name as Vladimir. “This death shows we live under a dictatorship.” Later, police clashed with protesters in central Kiev again.
Government insiders in Kiev and Moscow continue to say Mr Yanukovych is under considerable pressure from Russian President Vladimir Putin to crush the demonstrations, which it sees as a threat to its hold over former Soviet states.
“For the Kremlin, Ukraine is Russia,” James Sherr, associate fellow at Chatham House and author of ‘Hard Diplomacy and Soft Coercion: Russia’s Influence Abroad’, told The Independent. “It believes the protests are being orchestrated by the West. If Ukraine were to go its own way, Russia would be amputated.”
Addressing tens of thousands of people gathered in Vatican City’s St. Peter’s Square for Pope Francis’s weekly Angelus prayer, the pontiff said that his thoughts and prayers were with the victims of the Ukrainian unrest.
He then raised hopes for a “constructive dialogue between the institutions and civil society,” urging both sides to avoid violence and reminding that “the spirit of peace and a search for the common good” should be “in the hearts of all.”
In a symbolic peace gesture, two white doves were then released by children standing alongside Pope Francis which were immediately attacked by other birds.
Three regional legislative bodies, have now banned the Party of Regions and the Communist party — two parties that comprise the ruling coalition. President Yanukovich and Prime Minister Azarov are currently at the head of Party of Regions, which forms a parliamentary majority with its loyal ally — the Communist party.
In a surprising twist Ukrainian football ultras emerged as an orderly force guarding peaceful protesters against the brutality of police and plainclothes thugs locally known as ‘titushki’. Several regional football fan clubs voiced their open support for the protest on their websites and social network groups.
49 MORE PROTESTERS DIE IN EGYPT OVER THE WEEKEND
(Reuters) -Egypt will hold a presidential vote before parliamentary polls, President Adly Mansour said on Sunday, in a change to a political roadmap that could pave the way for the swift election of army chief General Abdel Fattah al-Sisi.
Parliamentary elections were supposed to be held first under the timetable drawn up after the army overthrew President Mohamed Mursi of the Muslim Brotherhood in July following mass protests against his rule. The decision to revise the order of elections is likely to deepen tensions in Egypt which is struggling to cope with waves of political violence. Forty-nine people were killed in anti-government marches on Saturday, the third anniversary of the popular uprising that toppled autocrat Hosni Mubarak.
“I have taken my decision to amend the roadmap for the future in that we will start by holding presidential elections first followed by the parliamentary elections,” interim leader Mansour said in a televised speech.
Critics have campaigned for a change of the roadmap, saying the country needs an elected leader to direct government at a time of economic and political crisis and to forge a political alliance before potentially divisive parliamentary elections. Sisi is expected to announce his candidacy for the presidency within days and win by a landslide. His supporters see him as a strong, decisive figure able to stabilize Egypt. But the Brotherhood accuses him of masterminding a coup and holds him responsible for widespread human rights abuses in a crackdown against the movement which has killed up to 1,000 Islamists and put top leaders behind bars.
While tough measures against the Brotherhood have nearly crippled it, security forces have failed to contain an Islamist insurgency. Militant attacks have raised fears for the stability of Egypt, of great strategic importance because of its peace treaty with Israel and control over the Suez Canal.
A new constitution voted in earlier this month cleared the way for a change in the order of the elections by leaving open the question of which should come first. “It was an expected move amid the growing signs that Sisi is being groomed to become the next president,” said Khaled Dawoud, a well-known liberal activist.
Mansour did not announce a date for the presidential vote. The constitution says steps towards holding the first of the elections should be begin no later than 90 days from the ratification of the document in mid-January.
Insurgents based in the Sinai Peninsula have stepped up attacks, killing hundreds since army chief Sisi ousted Mursi, Egypt’s first democractically-elected president. Gunmen killed three Egyptian soldiers in an attack on a bus in the Sinai on Sunday, the military said, prompting a warning from the army that it would eliminate the Brotherhood, which it blames for much of Egypt’s political violence.
Anti-government demonstrations in Cairo on Saturday were attacked by supporters of the new political order and security forces, witnesses said. Of the 49 people killed, 22 Brotherhood supporters were shot dead with live rounds in one district of northern Cairo, security sources said. The violence highlighted deep divisions that have flared often since the 2011 uprising that toppled Mubarak and raised hopes of a stable democracy.
In another attack in the lawless Sinai, five soldiers were killed on Saturday when an army helicopter crashed in the north of the peninsula in an operation against militants. Security sources said it was a missile attack, without giving further details. Militant group Ansar Bayt al-Maqdis (Supporters of Jerusalem) claimed responsibility for a rocket attack on a helicopter in a statement posted on the internet.
Egyptian authorities make no distinction between militant groups operating in the Sinai and the Brotherhood, which renounced violence in the 1970s but has been declared a terrorist group by the Egyptian government.
In a statement about the bus attack posted on Facebook, the army said: “We assure the Egyptian people of the great determination of its men to fight black terrorism and the complete elimination of the advocates of oppression and sedition and blasphemy from followers of the Muslim Brotherhood.”
The soldiers were killed on their way back home from holiday when gunmen opened fire with automatic weapons and rocket-propelled grenades, security sources said. Mansour suggested that Egypt, criticized by human rights groups for its hardline tactics against both Islamist and liberal opponents, was about to resort to still tougher measures. He said authorities would act swiftly to prosecute insurgents. “I have asked the President of the Appeals Court to expand judicial capacity in order to officiate speedy trials of terrorist cases,” said Mansour, adding this should not violate the fundamental rights of citizens.
Such moves are likely to reinforce the view of government opponents that Egypt is returning to Mubarak’s iron-fisted rule, or worse.
Mocking what has become known as Sisi mania – everything from T-shirts to posters to chocolates honor the general – the April 6 movement, which played a prominent role in igniting the revolt against Mubarak, criticized the change to the roadmap. It used a play on words to describe it in a tweet: “PresSisi-dential elections”.
(Additional reporting by Maggie Fick; Writing by Michael Georgy; Editing by Rosalind Russell)
HALF OF AMERICANS BELIEVE TERRORISTS WILL STRIKE THE OLYMPICS
(CNN) – A trip to the Winter Olympics in Sochi should be all about superhuman feats of skill or endurance on skis, skates or bobsleighs. But hearing the talk of U.S. security plans in the run-up to the Games in Russia next month, visitors may think they are entering a war zone. Contingency plans for evacuating Americans in case of an attack are well in hand, it would seem.
he United States is moving two warships into the Black Sea. If ordered, helicopters could be launched from there to Sochi. And if more capacity is needed, C-17 transport aircraft will be on standby in Germany and could be on the scene in about two hours. That’s in addition to U.S. precautions on Russian soil, where FBI agents are now arriving in Sochi to work with their Russian counterparts, according to Representative Michael McCaul, chairman of the U.S. House Homeland Security Committee.
The United States has also discussed at the highest levels the sharing of its high-tech bomb detection technology with Russia– developed to protect service members from deadly homemade bombs in Iraq and Afghanistan — with Russia.
Concern over explosives is heightened because theradical Islamists who have threatened to attack the Sochi Games have a track record with hidden bombs. One was detonated under a stadium grandstand in Grozny in 2004.
With the largest delegation of any nation to the Winter Olympics and Paralympics, as well as — according to McCaul — 10,000 to 15,000 Americans as
American athletes, coaches and staff are outside the “ring of steel,” the Russian security cordon surrounding Sochi. They also will be under the watchful eye of U.S. security officials who will attend events with them, according to State Department officials.
The State Department went so far last week as to issue an updated travel alert for the region, warning Game-goers that bombings and abductions continue in Russia, particularly in the North Caucasus region. It cited media reports about the hunt in Sochi by Russian authorities for “black widows,” wives of dead insurgents who act as suicide bombers, even as it said the U.S. government has not corroborated the reports.
The reports were just one example of what one senior State Department official has described as an “uptick in threat reporting” in the lead-up to the Winter Games. “Our expectation is that we will see more in the coming weeks,” the official, speaking on background, told reporters during a briefing on Olympic security measures.
But is the U.S. contingency planning in line with the potential threat?
Security expert Matthew Clements, editor of IHS Jane’s Intelligence Review in London, doesn’t think so. “It’s normal for countries to outline contingency plans for the removal of their nationals from any country in which there’s a risk to them,” he said. “At the same time, this is usually only undertaken in very serious situations such as cases of civil war or other kinds of conflict. In the event of a terrorist attack on someone in Sochi, even if it was around the city or venues, I don’t think the idea of there being a U.S. military evacuation of their citizens from there would be a realistic prospect.”
This, says Clements, is because it would cause huge logistical difficulties, would likely be overkill in terms of the situation and “probably the Russians wouldn’t be very happy about it.”
It is unclear whether a military evacuation would entail U.S. forces entering Russian territory, but Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel has publicly hinted that there is a plan of some sort. “We’ve had conversations with the Russian government on protection of our citizens,” Hagel said recently.
He also has said the United States has offered assistance to Russia, but there has been no request from the Russian government for help. McCaul, speaking on CNN’s New Day, also said the notion that Moscow needs foreign help to deal with its own homegrown terrorist threat would likely rile many Russians.
“There’s a sense of nationalistic pride in Russia, just as we would have in the United States,” said McCaul. “And so, while they’ve been very productive, cooperating with us on some issues, when it comes to the military, it gets a little sensitive.”
But former FBI assistant director Tom Fuentes, a CNN law enforcement analyst, believes the U.S. precautions make sense. “You’d hope that the U.S. wouldn’t be sitting around waiting for a telegram from Russia going ‘hey, come and get your people.’ So to me, that’s a commonsense approach, and the military should have a very robust plan to come in and do that,” he said. “If an attack occurs, you’re going to have chaos. You’re going to have a large problem to get ships and get helicopters, so merely getting your forces in to get your people out will be quite an event just by itself.”
Other nations are well-aware of the security risk attached to any such major event — but are more coy about their precautions. Darryl Seibel, spokesman for the British Olympic Association, declined to go into detail about the security measures planned for Team GB in Sochi. “We will take some extra measures for our delegates,” he told CNN. But, he stressed, “that is not new — we have done that for a number of Games. That’s been part of our planning from the beginning.”
Seibel said the primary responsibility for security always falls to the host country and the organizing committee. It’s something of which Britain is very conscious, having hosted the Summer Olympic Games in 2012. As it turned out, the London Olympics went off without incident, but the security measures taken included parking missile batteries on apartment block roofs and a huge warship on the River Thames. The precautions in Sochi are even more extensive.
“This security operation is the most impressive and well-fortified that we’ve ever seen in Olympic history,” McCaul said. Even so a Quinnipiac poll taken in the United States last week found that half those surveyed believe a terrorist attack at the Winter Olympics is very or somewhat likely. American authorities have sought to allay concerns.
It’s not clear exactly how many people will travel to Sochi for the Games. Former champion Olympic swimmer Michael Phelps said that the security issues are likely the last thing on the athletes’ minds right now. “As an athlete, we don’t notice anything,” he said. “You know, we’re there to represent our country and we are there to compete at the highest level. Being in the Olympic Village with athletes from all over the world is incredible, he said, adding “there’s nothing like it.”
CNN’s Barbara Starr and Laura Bernardini contributed to this report.
TRIAL OF FORMER NEW ORLEANS MAYOR BEGINS IN SECRECY
(CNN) – Closed courtrooms. No laptops, phones or Wi-Fi. Bathrooms closed off by marshals. The corruption trial of former New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin cranks up today with a federal judge imposing tough rules on spectators and reporters during jury selection. In an order issued last week, U.S. District Judge Helen Berrigan imposed those restrictions because of concerns that courtroom rules “may not be respected” by some unnamed miscreants.
Nagin’s pleas for federal help for his flooded city caught the nation’s attention in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina in 2005. Now out of office, he’s pleaded not guilty to federal charges of bribery, money laundering, fraud and filing false tax returns. Prosecutors have accused him of being at the center of “a bribery and kickback scheme” in which he allegedly received checks, cash, wire transfers, personal services and free travel from businessmen seeking contracts and favorable treatment from the city.
After preliminary questioning, some jurors will be quizzed behind closed doors, Berrigan ordered. Electronic devices have been barred from the courtroom, and the nearby restrooms on the fifth floor of the courthouse “will be closed to all members of the media and public during voir dire proceedings,” she wrote.
Those restrictions may be lifted “after the jury is sworn and in the event the court regains confidence that there will be full compliance with its orders by the media and public,” she added.
Prosecutors accuse Nagin of taking more than $200,000 in bribes, while his family members allegedly received a vacation in Hawaii; first-class airfare to Jamaica; private jet travel and a limousine for New York City; and cellular phone service.
In exchange, businesses that coughed up cash for Nagin and his family won more than $5 million in city contracts, according to an indictment brought in January 2013.
Two businessmen named in the charges have pleaded guilty to making payoffs and are cooperating with prosecutors. A third was found guilty of bribing two Nagin staffers, while another admitted to paying kickbacks to the sheriff of nearby Plaquemines Parish after winning a project management contract there.
But Ashleigh Merchant, a Georgia defense lawyer and legal observer, told CNN, “Corruption is still very hard to prove. In most businesses,” Merchant said, “you’re going to give the work to who you know, who you trust, who you perhaps took a family vacation with. The issue is going to be the testimonyof those people, as to whether or not they expected to get something back in return for taking the family on vacation.” And if prosecutors can show that Nagin promised city business in exchange for their favors, “Then he’s done,” she said.
Nagin sought to have the charges dismissed in October after another federal judge blasted what he called the “grotesque” misconduct of prosecutors in the post-Katrina shootings of unarmed civilians by police at the Danziger Bridge.
The judge tossed out the convictions of five cashiered cops after ruling that members of the U.S. attorney’s office tainted their 2011 trial by anonymously posting “egregious and inflammatory” comments at online news sites.
Nagin argued that he was the target of the same underground effort, citing “a continuum of perjorative statements and demeaning racial epithets” aimed at him. The U.S. attorney’s office said none of the prosecutors involved in the Danziger Bridge case played a role in the Nagin investigation, and Berrigan denied Nagin’s motion.
The onetime cable-television executive was elected mayor in 2002 and was in office when the massive Katrina slammed ashore just east of New Orleans on August 29, 2005. The storm flooded more than three-fourths of the low-lying city and left more than 1,800 dead, most of them in across Louisiana.
Supporters credited Nagin’s sometimes profane demands for aid from Washington with helping reveal the botched federal response to the storm — a fiasco that embarrassed the George W. Bush administration and led to billions of federal dollars being poured into Gulf Coast reconstruction efforts.
But he also had his critics: A Congressional committee criticized him for delaying evacuation orders, and his frantic description of post-storm New Orleans as a violent wasteland with up to 10,000 dead turned out to be greatly exaggerated.
As he sought re-election in 2006, with much of the city’s African-American population displaced by storm damage, he was blasted for insisting that New Orleans would remain a “chocolate” city.
He won a second term despite the controversies, but left office in mid-2010 with approval ratings in the celler Afterward, he told CNN his career in public office was over: “I have given my pound of flesh,” he said.
MALL SHOOTER IDENTIFIED
COLUMBIA, MD. – Police have identified the shooter in the Maryland Columbia mall shooting as a 19-year-old teenager from College Park as Darion Marcus Aguilar. McMahon said police are trying to determine whether Aguilar knew either of the victims and why he did the shooting.
THE POWER OF FORGIVENESS
The following excerpt is from Leslie Leyland Fields, an award-winning author of eight books, a contributing editor for Christianity Today, a national speaker, a popular radio guest, and a sometimes commercial fisherwoman, working with her husband and 6 children in commercial fishing on Kodiak Island, Alaska where she has lived for 36 years. Her latest book, Forgiving Our Mothers And Fathers (Thomas Nelson), released January 21, 2014.
I never called my father worthless. That was his own word for himself. I had other words to describe him. But in a way he was right.
He said it on the phone after I told him I was flying down to see him, from my home in Alaska to the rehab facility in Florida.
My sister had flown down already and was there with him now. Other siblings were coming later. He had had a stroke the week before and now could barely speak.
I’ll see you in about three weeks!” I said, trying to make my voice cheerful, to lift him from his misery.
“I’mmm . . . not . . . worth . . . ,” he stumbled.
“Of course you’re worth it!” I protested, horrified. But I knew instantly what he meant. In the human balances of justice and fairness, he had done nothing to deserve this kind of sacrifice and attention from his children.
He could not or would not hold a job, leaving us impoverished and ashamed throughout our childhood.
He seemed incapable of forming relationships, and treated his children as though we were invisible, except for the abuse visited upon some of us.
Soon after we grew up and left our house, he moved to Florida to live alone, thousands of miles from his children. I was glad.
I saw my father three times in the next thirty years, always me traveling four time zones to see him. I went each time needy and hopeful that he would express interest in me, show some kind of affirmation. I left each time hurt, hollow. He would barely speak to me, and when he did, he ridiculed my faith. The last time I saw him, I resolved never to go back.
But eight years later, I was gently pushing his wheelchair down the hallway, sharing meals with him, watching TV in his room, reading to him.
In all of it, I could not shake the injustice and inequity–that every gift and kindness given, he had never shown to me. Ever. But something else was even stronger. A desire to forgive.
I remembered what I believed, that God had released me from my debts against Him, and I knew He required me to do the same for those who owed me.
We are to “forgive as we have been forgiven.” Could I not extend the freedom I had been given to him?
I began to try, moving slowly from what C.S. Lewis calls “need love” to “gift love, ” looking past my blinding needs as a daughter to see the pain in his life.
Had anyone loved him? How might I have hurt him?
After that visit, I knew I would return. I began praying for him, calling and sending gifts and letters.
I realized it was not justice or equity I wanted most of all, but relief. Often we think the cost of forgiving is too high, but we do not consider the cost of not forgiving.
I found relief in releasing his debts against me, especially as I realized my father could not pay what he owed me. Nor can many parents.
I found the yoke of forgiveness, then, lighter than the yoke of hurt and hate. I found the yoke of caring for him easier than the burden of abandoning him.
And love came back. Yes, in small doses. He called me “amazing,” one day. He phoned on my birthday. When I came to visit, he didn’t want me to leave. All of this was new. All of this broke my new-found heart.
Forgiving my father has changed me. The broken and bitter parts of me are healing.
One forgiveness has led to others and to my own apologies from those I know I have hurt. I am moving toward the person I hope to be.
My father was touched as well. In the last two years of his life, my “worthless” father was surrounded and blessed by the very ones he had harmed.
I believe he felt loved, perhaps for the first time. We cannot heal all the broken families of the world, but we can begin here: with ourselves and our own families. With God’s forgiveness and love, anything is possible.
For more on forgiveness go to Tim Mossholder’s blog – Unsolicited Hope.com
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THOUGHT FOR THE DAY
It’s tragic to know the 23rd Psalm, but not know the Shepherd.
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Monday, January 27, 2014