Happy 4th of July

I hope that the title of this post and these pretty pictures above were able to attract your attention. The pictures above are of the Horticulture Garden at Purdue, which is my favorite place on campus. Yena and I went to campus yesterday and took a walk even though it was fairly humid and sticky. The garden was bustling with bees and even a hummingbird zooming around. It is truly a lovely place!

I managed to go to the used bookstore like I mentioned in the previous post. After I mentioned that I was hoping to find East of Eden by John Steinbeck and Paradise Lost by John Milton, they didn't have them, of course. Someone read my post and got there before me, haha! I ended up buying two other Steinbeck novels The Grapes of Wrath (which I have not read), and The Winter of Our Discontent (his last novel that I have also not read). I still want to find East of Eden and Paradise Lost but for now I am okay.

As far as my own writing, I am up to 127 pages now in my novel draft.

Now getting to the main thing that I want to write about for this post is about the state of our county and the fast approaching presidential election. And to be honest with y'all, the choices that we have right now are downright awful. I am not exactly comfortable with Biden being the president at eighty-one years old and at the end of four more years will be eighty-six. He has started to show his age and there are major concerns there. However, on some level if God forbid something were to happen that Kamala Harris could do the job and the people in his cabinet are at least stable and wouldn't go postal on the country. At this point, I know that Michelle Obama has said that she has no desire or inclination to get into politics or be the president, but at the end of the day for the sake of country, she needs to at least deeply consider it. I say all of this because the other option is Trump.

I know that the attention of late has been on Biden, his age, and everything; but feel like we have taken the focus off of Trump, the other candidate who is a profusive liar, is gaslighting his supporters and the country, and a convicted felon.

I do not understand why Christians and Evangelical Christians continue to support him. I don't even want to be labeled a Christian anymore if this is the candidate that is continued to be lifted up and supported. I would whether be simply called a "follower of Jesus" or something else because I don't think we are following the same Jesus or reading the same Bible. I do not say this lightly because it is not my place to tell other people what the Lord is telling them or where the Lord is leading them, but if you are supporting a person for president that openly lies, has a blemished character and refuses to acknowledge their faults or repent and even brags about, is against the foreigner/refugee, regularly mocks or makes fun of people, threatens revenge or "tooth for a tooth, eye for an eye" mentality, greedy for power at whatever costs including threatening to take out rivals or people who stand up against him, disregard for the rule of law. All of these things are in stark contrast to Jesus' teachings, yet he claims to be the candidate against the evils taking over this country and the only choice that will stand up for Christian values.

I know that Christians get all fired up over issues like abortion, transgender rights, same-sex marriage, immigration and are celebrating these decisions by the obviously conservative, Trump influenced Supreme Court that is going to have repercussions for years to come. However, if you are truly a Christian how are your views in line with Jesus? How are these views not passing judgment on people who should be able to have access and make decisions about their own lives on matters like abortion, what gender they identify with, or why they are leaving everything and risking their lives to enter the country? Do we think that with all of these restrictive laws that are discriminatory and judgmental that you are suddenly going to see a revival sweep across this country? If anything, you are building bigger stumbling blocks for people to come into the kingdom of Jesus.

We need to love our neighbors and this includes everyone, no matter their race, immigration status or where they are from, sexual orientation, gender orientation, or views that are different from us. We need to be generous with each other and do all that we can to build relationships with each other instead of supporting candidates or views that encourage us to always be suspicious and even scared of our neighbors and traumatize them with fear of being discriminated against or worse by oppressive laws and government. I am praying that those that call themselves Christians and Evangelical Christians wake up and realize that by supporting Trump it is going completely against what their beliefs actually state. I also wish that preachers and pastors would be courageous and stand up in their churches and say this on Sunday mornings. I know a lot of churches state that they aren't going to get into politics, but isn't this a time if ever that it is needed?

Okay, I am finished, and I don't know who reads these posts, but feel free to share far and wide.