Speaking Truth to Power

A couple people have lifted my heart in the past couple days.
I've only been able to stomach short video-clips from inauguration day, and only this morning did I realize that I know (well, I met) one of them:
Mariann Budde, the Episcopalian priest who called out Trump.
So brave and true. A real Christian. A mensch. My hero!

(I hope this article isn't behind a paywall, but I expect you've seen the video anyway.
startribune.com/mariann-edgar-budde-trump-sermon/601209242)

Budde was rector at an Episcopalian church here in town that I went to a couple times when I was checking out religions and churches other than my Catholic one.
I immediately loved her. She was great.
I even remember one of her sermons because. . . 

1. She quoted E. B. White on his wife, Katherine, continuing to plant tulip bulbs in the fall, even the year she knew she wouldn't be there in the spring. "Calmly plotting the resurrection", he called it:

“As the years went by and age overtook her, there was something comical yet touching in her bedraggled appearance on this awesome occasion —
the small, hunched-over figure, her studied absorption in the implausible notion that there would be yet another spring, oblivious to the ending of her own days, which she knew perfectly well was near at hand, sitting there with her detailed chart under those dark skies in the dying October, calmly plotting the resurrection.”

And, 2. She announced at the end of the service that there would be a meeting to review the Annual Report, and all were invited.

I went up to her afterward and told her that I was a heartbroken Catholic-in-exile and her sermon had touched me.
"I felt like crying," I said–– she nodded with pastoral concern––
"when you invited everyone to review the budget."

And she laughed.
(You know--and she knew--Catholics don't get to see no church budget reports!)

I liked Budde very much but realized I would remain a Catholic outside-the-Church. It's a matter of the heart. She's a shining example of what I always want Christians (and priests) and all humans to be.

I'm going to write her a typewriter Thank-you card.
(I've only written three--they turned out to be more intense to do than I expected.)
___________________

And then, another hero!
This woman, Pamela Hemphill, turned down Trump's pardon:

"We were wrong... Accepting a pardon would only insult the Capitol police officers ...and our nation."

bbc.com/news/articles/cvged988377o

She's already served her time, but still. Jesus, you'd think people could know the most basic right from wrong. But since they don't.... GOOD FOR HER!
_________________
We all knew this would be weird and bad, right?
But it wasn't possible (for me, anyway) to prepare for just how WEIRD it all is.
The added warp for me being the Tech Bros all lined up in service like dogs. (Dogs are good, but people are not good when they behave like dogs.)

Remember when Google said its motto was Don't Be Evil in 2004?

"Don't be evil. We believe strongly that in the long term, we will be better served—as shareholders and in all other ways—by a company that does good things for the world even if we forgo some short term gains."
––wsj.com/articles/BL-DLB-33777

I guess I still held onto some of the early glow of tech, when it seemed it might be part of an evolutionary leap forward.
"We'll do better now!"
And of course, it has unleashed enormous democratic creative expression and allowed for huge political insight.
(My forever example (of course):
George Floyd would have been just another Black man the police squashed like a bug if 17-year-old Darnella Frazier hadn't filmed his murder on her phone and posted it online. [Her statement])

But of course the Internet is like Science:
it's the users who determine what good or evil we make of it.
The owners too, though, and right now they are not humanity's finest.
Poorly done. I'm disappointed in you, guys. No cinnamon rolls for you.

But the users?
That's us!