When last we visited, the discussion surrounded blowing chunks.
Or something like that.
Since then you may have visited with family or friends for Thanksgiving. Hopefully no blowing of chunks was involved.
Other things that have been running through my mind in recent weeks …
The word swimmingly. Much like the word fantastic, swimmingly can be said in either a sincere or sarcastic fashion.
“How are things going?”
“Swimmingly!”
I felt vindicated of my recent pondering of the word when Stephen King uttered “swimmingly” in an audiobook I was enjoying while driving on a dark and stormy night to a performance of The Legend of Sleepy Hollow. It was his nonfiction On Writing, but still.
Another phrase dwelling in my head …
Not sure how much I’m winning at any given moment, but definitely enough for sprinkles.
One more passage swirling around in my head is Genesis 50:20.
As for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good in order to bring about this present outcome, that many people would be kept alive [as they are this day]. ~ Genesis 50:20 (AMP)
If you recall, Joseph (of amazing technicolor dreamcoat fame) was sold into slavery by his (jealous of said technicolor dreamcoat and his status as favorite son) brothers. Now second in command in Egypt and saving the country and beyond from famine, Joseph had enough vision to see how God redeemed the hardships of decades of his life. How God redeemed the evil committed against him.
Aka see: If God is good, why do bad things happen?
I’ve learned more in recent months about some of the religious objections to the Covid vaccines, and I have heard similar objections to other vaccines in the past. Some claim the vaccines “contain” aborted fetal cells. That statement is a bit of an overblown, sensationalistic extrapolation. It is true that cell lines replicated (many, many times, i.e. many, many generations descended from) from aborted fetal cells have been used in the research and development and/or production of the Covid vaccines. Before you let that prevent you from “taking the jab”, please consider a couple of points.
By the way, I am pro-life. All the lives. At all the ages. I think faith-based crisis pregnancy centers are great. I think abortion is horrible and evil. I think it’s the great genocide of our time. I think compassion and a lack of judgment for anyone who finds themselves wrestling with such a decision is super important.
No one is actually being injected with aborted fetal cells. The origin of most cell lines used in vaccine research was from a couple of abortions performed decades ago in the Netherlands. The cells have been replicated in a laboratory setting many generations over. They are so far removed from the original, it would be a similar idea to writing me off as evil and refusing to have anything to do with me because you thought something my Grandma Pocahontas did was evil, or perhaps more appropriately Grandpa John Rolfe.
God has a way of redeeming all things. Even the horrific things.
Hey Satan, you think you got away with killing the Son of God? Three days later … watch this.
Hey Satan, you think you got away with killing those babies? Watch this.
God has a way of Genesis fiftying all the things.
I sometimes think I’m a bit of a pattern recognition savant in life, although some might say idiot savant. I see themes and patterns and say, “Well duh, of course that’s why and how all that ties together,” when most people don’t see it.
To me, the vaccines are clearly God redeeming what the enemy intended for evil and destruction … and using it to save many lives. I don’t think it supports abortion or encourages abortion. Will we someday find a way to do research and production that doesn’t involve the cell lines in question at all? Hopefully.
For what it’s worth, the pope supports vaccination. Here’s short article from a University of Nebraska MD that includes a link to the Vatican’s position paper on the subject.
If you still disagree with me about the moral acceptability of the vaccines, I still love you. I still think you should choose vaccination if medically able, but I still love you.
