I have "lurked" here for a little over a year now. I have always intuited things, an Empath... and an NDE 47 years ago heightened things. I am usually "in the closet" because many do not understand or accept it. A long Journey to be who I am today. I just wanted to say (Putin's Puppet has been my name for Trump since 2016) I am so thankful that people are finally seeing what he is. Truly evil flourishes while good people stand by and do nothing. I have had long time friends turn on me because I speak out about him. I have met new ones...who can see what he is and what he is doing. I wanted to thank all here.. for the support and honesty that I "see" know that it has comforted me and kept me from thinking I was insane LOL. I have always had a heightened sense of smell , hyperosmia, about many things in the physical world. Oddly .. I always had a sense of "reeking garbage" that I can actually smell whenever I would see IMPOTUS (Love that!) and hear him talk...to the point I have to turn it off/remove it. I strongly sense his mental health is teetering on the brink of him totally losing it. It remains to be seen if the GOP covers it up for him as they did with Reagan.
Amen, @bluebelle!
I think it bears remembering that only about 13% of Christians identify as evangelical. The problem, of course, is that—much like the religious clerics Jesus of Nazareth directly criticized (which, as we know, got him killed)—the majority of white American evangelical leaders have aligned themselves with "Rome." Not because they care so deeply about sparing the lives of the unborn [what do they care for those lives once they're here?] or because they fear "the homosexuals" so much [they seem to love all the gay music ministers and pastors who lead their megachurches!], but because they want to continue to be appointed to senate seats and federal judgeships and cabinet posts and every other powerful position their proximity to this president affords them.
Seeing to the preservation of their "religious freedom" is an accidental euphemism for American Sharia, but I digress...
I was raised by evangelicals and no longer identify as Christian myself. But (despite my stated frustration here) I have a great deal of love and respect for that two-millennia-old faith. For others like me, I think it's important to keep in perspective that most Christians fall somewhere near the political center—like everyone else in the bell curve of democracy. And at the forefront of every one of our country's civil rights and social justice movements, going back to abolition and suffrage, were liberal Christians—Unitarians and Quakers and Episcopalians and Methodists—(and people of other faiths) who fought for the rights of all people, at risk of their own lives and livelihoods. They sought to stand in the example of their messiah, who'd once been a lowly immigrant child but had gone on to challenge the injustices of Rome itself, including its enslavement of the Jews. A carpenter's son who was willing to die fighting for a more righteous and compassionate world.
And each of those evangelicals, if we take them at their word, believe they'll stand before him someday.
So ... children in cages? Imprisoning frightened migrants who desperately seek asylum at our borders? Callously allowing young people to die in those conditions? Rewarding a soldier who murders civilians and mocks the death of an adolescent? Looking the other away as a journalist is brutally murdered and mutilated? I can't imagine how they believe they'll justify those things then.
Hi, @journeywithme2! So glad you finally posted. Please do stick around.
P.S.
I have hyperosmia! I'm basically a bloodhound. My daughter and I joke that my uncanny sense of smell is my "unfortunate superpower," but your post makes me incredibly grateful that I don't smell anything extrasensory when I see or listen to IMPOTUS. (The seeing and hearing are bad enough, thankyouverymuch.) ?
Hi, and couldn't agree more about American Sharia. Recently, I watched "The Family" on Netflix, a five-part series about an extremely powerful evangelical group centered in DC. It explains the hard right evangelical mindset quite well. It also reveals their faith-based reasons for accepting IMPOTUS as their Chosen One.
Merry Christmas and Happy Hanukkah to all who celebrate.
Even for those who don't, here's a holiday gift for us all viafilings in court yesterday. The very first line of the article says: The House is open to the prospect of impeaching President Donald Trump a second time, lawyers for the Judiciary Committee said Monday. Happy Holidays!
@vestralux, I don't always catch all smells. Some seem to elude me-like when my friend complains about her cats having soiled something. I don't always smell it. On the other hand, I catch many things others don't. I one time called the HVAC repair guys because my heat didn't smell right-I smelled something burning. The guy thought I was nuts till he found the blower motor switch was working only intermittently. Seems I could smell the heat coils when the switch hadn't activated yet, but the guy couldn't figure out how since he could barely smell them when he was in the attic with them. LOL I could always tell when my ex had been smoking pot when he had my son in the house. The clothes sometimes didn't even leave the suitcase, and were never in the same room with the ex while he was smoking. Then they'd make the journey from one coast to another in a plane, but when I unzipped the suitcase, I could always smell the tobacco and the pot.
Hi, @mikeb! Totally. Some of us discussed the docuseries here right after its release, and I'm glad you've mentioned it again. In fact, I'd say the story it reveals (as frightening as it is) should be necessary viewing for all Americans. But then, I'm partial to sunlight as disinfectant.
What I want to see next is an examination of how this particular strain of religious thinking and its tendency toward dark covenants with power has repeated throughout history, from Constantine to the Crusades to the Reformation and so on. It feels like something we need to be conscious of as a culture. A type of mind virus we should learn to better guard our societies against.
@cindy Very cool about the HVAC motor! As they say, the nose knows.
Like you, I smell all the things—even when no one around me is concerned or convinced. Someone told me that Kim Kardashian can smell cavities just by sitting near enough to a person, and I can believe it. I feel I've smelled cancer (before it was diagnosed) and even death (before it had commenced). But I also tend to experience smells whenever spirits are near, which might be anything from particular food smells, cigarettes, pipe tobacco, a campfire, mothballs, or the odor of alcohol on someone's breath, to more pleasant smells like aftershave, gardenia, jasmine, or roses. Without fail and regardless of smell, I get a metallic taste in my mouth when spirits are near.
I have synesthesia (I've said it here before, but I imagine a lot of us do), so smell for me is bound up in other senses: namely, visual (color) and sound. They're overlapping energetic frequencies, I guess. So, a smell often has a color component that I'm picking up visually (inner eye). And certain musical chords or harmonies come with color and smell. There's sometimes also a feeling of "texture," but that's harder to explain.
Happiest of Holidays to all here ..sharing one of my favorites of the season : https://youtu.be/yxDZjg_Igoc
I don't know where to post this - remove it if it's the wrong place.
I was at my brother's tonight for Xmas eve and my nephew gave me a book "1000 Things The Republicans Do Right." Chapters concern the electoral college, health care, diversity etc.
Every page in the book is blank. Happy holidays.