I see this flower all over the San Diego area.  I took these pictures on my way back to my car after church this morning. I don't know what it is.  Because I don't know what it is, because I don't have a name for it, doesn't make it any less real or any less legitimate.  It is beautiful and I celebrate it today... especially today.

Beauty… Out of the Ordinary…The CNN news  this morning was screaming about the biggest massacre in U.S. History.  Two things came to my mind:  

1) This is may not be the biggest massacre in U.S. History.  Bigger was the ruthless, unbelievable massacre of indigenous people on the North American Continent, genocide that went on until the century into which I was born. 

2)  The second thing that came to my mind was that our culture is still infused with marginalization of groups of people who are different in some way from who we are… The usual differences are mentioned repeatedly: race and ethnicity, color, religion.  A difference that continues to be legitimatized by religious groups and social groups is sexual orientation.  The place where the massacre occurred was a popular gay nightclub in Orlando.  There continue to be people  in our society, people who insist that they are the “good” people, people who believe gay people are different from the majority of the population to such an extent that they should be denied participation in the religious group.  In Mission Valley the First United Methodist Church denies L.G.B.T. individuals participation in ways that affirm the basic humanity of all human beings.  A gay person cannot become a minister into the United Methodist Church liturgical system until the church to which the person belongs has voted to be a reconciling church.  In other words, a majority of the people in a Methodist church must vote to ignore the national convention’s stand.  In most Methodist Churches person’s money and talent’s (if needed) are welcome.  Use of facilities in the United Methodist Church national community is denied in anything that resembles marriage.  Even in a state like California where marriage of same-sex individuals is legal, the church continues to deny the church’s blessing on same sex marriages. Of course, that situation will end.  Such an absurd notion will eventually die, but death of the notion is slow. That two individuals who happen to be women cannot be allowed, should not be allow to form a marriage, or that two men of the same sex should not be allowed to form a marriage doesn't make sense, is absurd, so it will eventually die.  In the meantime, people like the 50 who died in Orlando this morning, pay a high price for having been born different.  The Orlando massacre can still happen elsewhere, and will continue to happen, as long as there are “good” people who insist that whatever it is that they are is the best way to be human.  It will continue to be a problem especially when a group insists God wants them to continue to believe whatever it is they believe about who should be considered whole and good.