After being off BlueSky for three weeks I return to find 200 people have followed me. Forgive me if I take a while to follow you back, particularly if you have a bksy handle that makes it hard to identify who you are.

Poet Jan Richardson from “Blessing of Hope”: hope made of sinew and muscle and bone, hope that has breath and a beating heart, hope that will not keep quiet and be polite, hope that knows how to holler when it is called for…

I keep hearing that GenZ is the first generation expected to do worse, economically, than their parents. As we came of age, GenX was told that constantly. For me it was true, is true, and under Trump will be more true. My parents had no student loans, which in my 50s I’m still struggling under.

I’ve ordered this year’s 12 Days of Zentangle pack because I’m quite sure this holiday season I’ll need more than 12 days of focused spiritual practice. Attached: last year’s pack.

I wish I could schedule a post to post later. Is there an app that lets me?

As a fat person, I’ve been unable to wear tall socks for years. I recently discovered a couple of brands of socks that fit, so now have fun patterned socks for the first time in a long time. My whole outfit today is coordinated to wear my new Viasox cat socks.

My posts on bsky are less personal as I consider them public. As a shy person I find myself therefore struggling to figure out what to say. Pretend I said something amazing about liberation and justice today, please. It’s all I am thinking about today, but am struggling for words.

Hey clergy peeps! It’s time to check your supply of Christmas Eve candles and bobeches. And if you just looked up the word bobeche, you’re welcome!!

One response to the election for me was to dive into spiritual practice. So I ordered a Zentangle project pack that uses a lot of moon imagery, Cynthia being a moon goddess.

M. Gessen in Daily Kos: “Balint Magyar has a useful formulation. ‘Liberal democracy,’ he says, ‘offers moral constraints without problem-solving’ — a lot of rules, not a lot of change — while ‘populism offers problem-solving without moral constraints.’” www.dailykos.com/stories/2024...

Today focused in on spiritual practice a bit. Ordered more supplies the day after the election that haven’t come, but will tomorrow. Meanwhile learned a new tangle:

Disabled people have been right about almost everything that’s happened over the last five years. People don’t listen to us because they don’t think of us as real people. We’re invisible (at best) and completely disposable (at worse). We are the canaries - and we are trying to warn you. Listen.

With advent around the corner, spent today thinking about Hope. Reread Victoria Safford: “Our mission is to plant ourselves at the gates of Hope—“ which she says are the gates of resistance and defiance. Amen, Victoria!

Good thing Hannibal Lecter is fictional or he’d be nominated for Health and Human Services. Human Meal Services.

It’s been a day, so sorry for taking a while with various requests! When it rains it pours, & things come in threes, so hopefully this is the last big issue of the week — car acting weird. Minor first world problem, really.

go.bsky.app/KNaEdhx a starter pack of UU professionals I’ve found that you can follow all at once. If you want on or off the list let me know and I will try to comply.

“each day, something that loves us tries to save us.” — Lucille Clifton

Another thing about James Luther Adams: he wrote, “Repeatedly I heard anti-Nazis say, If only 1,000 of us in the late twenties had combined in heroic resistance, we could have stopped Hitler.” So, you know, let’s do that.

Preached this Sunday: James Luther Adams talked of the five smooth stones of religious liberalism. Right now it’s important to remember the last three: Justice, Agency, Hope. With these tools, we fight fascism.