Happy Sun’s Day:

Announcements: 

We don’t pray here – we figure God, the gods and goddesses, or whatever powers that be either know already, don’t give a fuck, or are busy with more important matters than our petty stuff. We also kind of assume that they expect us to do stuff that we can do for ourselves, and that we will do them ourselves and not be lazy. We also believe in being good friends, so we don’t presume on our friendship with the powers that be by asking them all the time for stuff while giving them nothing in return.

We also don’t take an offering here.  We figure the powers that be probably don’t need it.  Let’s be honest, offerings are not giving to the divine powers, they are given to an organization to support it.  Just being honest. God, the gods or whatever never see a dime, farthing or peso of that money; it all goes to the church, mosque or shrine.

Opening Song: “Mr. Roboto” – Styx

I was joking this week with my daughter about using this song as a song about my grandson Otto.  All I would have to do is change the words a little to make this song about him.  That said, this actually is a pretty cool song made for a rock opera that dealt with dystopian future where rock and roll as well as other forms of free expression are outlawed.  Styx always was very good and their vocalist has a ton of range in this one.

Poem: “The Storm” by Edward W. Raby, Sr.:

Wind, grey skies and pouring rain.

The Storm rages in my soul.

Fed by my inner pain.

Will I ever be whole?

Lightning flashes

Thunder rolls

I tighten my grip on the staff of my reality

Knowing only the treading of my feet

Boots grinding through grey mud

Soaked in sorrow, but my heart closed

Numb to the cold of The Grey

I struggle onward, not daring to feel

Lest my tears join the flood

And drown me in the rising tide.

I walk with the hope of seeing sunlight

I walk with the hope of feeling love

But right now, I feel nothing

So I will survive.

Soon, the wolf within will rise

The ravens will caw again

when the light breaks through.

Then I will laugh,

Once again I have become the storm

And I have become stronger

Note: This is still in rough draft form, but it is good enough I think to at least post it.  It needs refining but I like how it captures my struggles with depression at times. I will probably present this poem in it own post when it is more refined.

Meditation:

Song of Preparation: “It’s My Life” – Bon Jovi

Text: 

Everyone has the Right to Property – The Book of Rabyd 1:5

Sermon:

This is a new verse for the Book of Rabyd.  Most people don’t realize that the original Declaration of Independence had originally ‘life. liberty and property’.  Later editing changed it to the pursuit of happiness.  But the idea of the inherent right to property to anyone who owns it is something that has not always been recognized in history.  That changed with the Founding fathers as the notion of people having a right to translate their right to pursue their happiness.  As Ayn Rand wisely pointed out this means the right to property.

I would argue that this right is what defends the others as well.  Your Life. liberty and Pursuit of Happiness are yours and now one should be allowed to take them away from you.  This means you also have the right to defend what is yours.  But ownership of property being a right extends to all things that are yours.  The most important of which is ownership of self.  Self-ownership means to take responsibility for yourself and your own destiny instead of leaving in the hands of others.  You need to exercise your right to own private property to do this.

I often wonder if those who try to attack this right realize that what they are doing allows people to basically take away all the others. If my life is not mine, if my liberty is only granted and can be taken away, if my pursuit of happiness requires that someone else give it to me, then they are not rights but privileges.  The right to property is what brings in this concept of ownership of not only my stuff but my rights.

To think otherwise is to have the mentality of the thief and the societal leach. I make no apologies for saying this.  I people have the notion that other people don’t have a right to property, then they are perfectly OK with the notion that such property can be taken away. They also have no problem when people have their property taken from hem through taxation so they can be supported.  In short they envision people can think and work but the results in part belong to them even though they have done nothing to earn them. This justifies their stealing it or letting others do it for them.

So we turn again to abortion.  The seeming conflict is that the woman has her right to liberty and pursuit what will make her happy.  The notion being that the fetus is her body and she owns it so she can dispose of it as she sees fit. The opposite side of the coin is that the child has he right to live and pursuit its happiness by living. The real issue is it possible for one person to really own another and I would say that there is some inherent ownership of ones’ self in such a right to property.

For me the question of abortion has long been a sticky one.  As a Christian I had pretty clear guidelines, but it was still troubling at times.  Mostly because reality is that natural abortion happens all the time and with far more frequency than people think.  Most are never known to even exist.

Post-Christian, the issues now falls to whether the fetus is a person.  If not, the nit has no right to ownership of self and all the other rights that go with that.  If yes, then he/she does and they have those rights. I am not sure I can answer the question definitively at this point but I still maintain that liberty and life are important in equal measure.  I hope the choice is life, because I consider abortion a waste of human potential, if nothing else.

The real question for me is should the state be allowed to interfere?  Once again we are still left to determining when a person becomes a person and the answer seems clear. Given all our rights and the notion of self-ownership, if the fetus can be proven to be a person then the answer is yes, but if not we still find ourselves in a controversy.  It seems with all the advances in science, we should be able to determine this. Then the right to property with its concept of self-ownership kicks in.  This still doesn’t give us a clear answer but we have two more principles left so we shall see.

Closing Song: Amen – Halestorm:

Parting Thought:

I remain,

The Rabyd Skald – Wandering Soul, Bard and Philosopher. The Grey Wayfarer.

Skaal!!!