mea culpa<\/em> selfie-video<\/a>, recorded in a friggen cemetery for Chrissake, with an altar call chock full of contempt, the false doctrine of American Christo-gnosticism writ large across her way-too-close, practically sneering face: \u201cBut for those that would like to see eternal and everlasting life, I encourage you to embrace my Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.\u201d<\/p>\nFunny. I have searched high and low in the Bible, and I have not found a single instance of Jesus embracing a poor, desperate person seeking bodily healing and saying, \u201cOh well, my son, we are all going to die.\u201d<\/p>\n
Her words were also a cutting knife to those who have lost loved ones \u201cbefore their time.\u201d<\/p>\n
In April 1980, when I was 18, my 47-year-old father died at 4:00 am, and I called the funeral home as soon as they opened to set up his arrangements.<\/p>\n
In the summer of 1985, I looked on as two dear friends in their early 40s buried their 13-year-old daughter who had been struck and killed by a car. After the funeral, the two of them took my newlywed wife and I aside and told us that while the pain of losing a child was intense, love was worth it, and they encouraged us to have children anyway.<\/p>\n
On New Year\u2019s Day 1999, in front of a packed church, I spoke words over the casket of my nearly 11-year-old nephew and then helped his classmates and my then 10-year-old son, the six of them dressed in suits and sneakers as ones grown up way too soon, carry and place it in the hearse.<\/p>\n
In August 2022, I stood over the broken, riddled-from-cancer body of my 50-year-old “baby sister” not long after she took her last breath, my hand on her shoulder, just as I had touched my father years before.<\/p>\n
In October 2023, I delivered a eulogy for her 24-year-old son.<\/p>\n
There is obviously a difference in both the quantity and quality of grief over someone \u201cripe in years\u201d and a person who dies \u201cmuch too soon.\u201d<\/p>\n
Get behind me, Senator Ernst.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
U.S. Senator Joni Ernst\u2019s (R-Iowa) flippant and tone deaf response to a woman distressed at possible cuts to healthcare benefits during a recent townhall meeting was patronization cloaked in patriotism: \u201cWe are all going to die.\u201d…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12039","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general","comments-off"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ocularfusion.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12039","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ocularfusion.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ocularfusion.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ocularfusion.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ocularfusion.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=12039"}],"version-history":[{"count":35,"href":"https:\/\/www.ocularfusion.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12039\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12074,"href":"https:\/\/www.ocularfusion.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12039\/revisions\/12074"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ocularfusion.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=12039"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ocularfusion.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=12039"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ocularfusion.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=12039"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}