Richard Whetsell

A retired UMC pastor in an RV, married to Karolann. Let's talk about family systems, disfunctional churches, Alaska, or Oklahoma State Sports?

[Matt Van Swol @mattvanswol]

🚨#BREAKING: A police officer in Phoenix has rented out an ENTIRE 144-SEAT MOVIE THEATER for over 100 middle schoolers after their end-of-year field trip fell through, so they could see Toy Story 5.

When they got there, he realized many couldn't afford popcorn or drinks...

..so he bought EVERY SINGLE ONE OF THEM popcorn, candy, and a drink too.

His name is Sean Reavies,

For many kids, it was their first time ever inside of a movie theater in their lives.

When the kids asked how they could pay him back, he told them:

"As you get older in life, help other people. As a payback to me. Would you do that? That's all I ask of you."

MORE OF THIS!!!!! 🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸

[Willie Ross Jr. Knee Deep @RossKneeDeep]

By David Abbruzzes:

This Australian's reply to Trump's rant about “NATO not being there for America” is perfect.
"Mate. You run a country with 600,000 homeless people sleeping on the street tonight. A country where 40% of adults can't cover a $400 emergency without borrowing money. A country where insulin costs more than a car payment and people are rationing it to survive. A country where medical debt is the number 1 cause of bankruptcy. A country where women are dying in hospital car parks because doctors are too scared of abortion laws to treat a miscarriage.
You lock up more of your own citizens than any nation on earth. More than China. More than Russia. More than North Korea. The land of the free has 2 million people in cages, and a quarter of them haven't even been convicted of anything. They're just too poor to make bail.
Your life expectancy is going backwards. You're the only developed nation where that's happening. Your infant mortality rate is worse than Cuba's. Your kids do active shooter drills between maths and English while you sell the gunmaker's stock to your mates.
Your minimum wage hasn't moved in 15 years. You've got teachers working 2 jobs and veterans sleeping under bridges and you just spent a trillion dollars flattening a country that didn't attack you.
And you’ve got a convicted felon, adjudicating raping, paedophile protecting, porn star shagging insurrectionist running the biggest dumpster fire war campaign since the Taliban thanked you very much for losing again.
And you're calling Greenland poorly run?
Greenland has universal healthcare. Free education. One of the lowest incarceration rates in the world. Nobody goes bankrupt there because they got sick. Nobody dies in a waiting room because their insurance said no.
'NATO wasn't there when we needed them." When exactly was that, champ? September 11? Because NATO invoked Article 5 for the first and only time in history FOR YOU. Soldiers from dozens of countries deployed, fought, bled, and died in Afghanistan FOR YOU. Australia wasn't even in NATO and we still showed up. For 20 years.
And you pulled out at 2am without telling anyone and left them to deal with the mess.
So maybe before you start calling other countries poorly run, have a look at your own backyard, you spray-tanned aluminium siding salesman. The only thing poorly run in this picture is your f----- mouth."

Very well stated.

[Center for Action and Contemplation @cac_abq]

“God’s love is constant and irrevocable; our part is to be open to it and let it transform us. There is absolutely nothing we can do to make God love us more than God already does, and there is absolutely nothing we can do to make God love us less.” — @RichardRohrOFM

https://t.co/xdnXhNSjoL

[Peter Baker @peterbakernyt]

The average life expectancy of a new Russian recruit—from arrival at a training ground to death in a combat zone—lies somewhere between 10 days and three weeks. Once sent onto the battlefield, they survive an average of 20 to 35 minutes. @peterfrankopan https://t.co/W3UhBerdH0

[The Frontier @readfrontier]

The sweep displaced dozens and gave local shelters and other service providers little time to prepare.

https://t.co/8OdfNxHFuL

[Kate from Kharkiv @BohuslavskaKate]

Vance: ​"There's been no President who's done more to ensure that Ukraine survived invasion of Russia than Trump. As he said, 'Obama gave them sheets, I gave them Javelins,' and those Javelins ensured that Ukraine still has its territorial sovereignty."

This is simply a lie. It was 360 Javelins. They mattered, they helped, but they are not the reason Ukraine survived or kept its sovereignty.

Ukraine survived because millions of us have been fighting and sacrificing for more than four years, against all odds and expectations. Our defenders are the main reason Ukraine survives.

Military and financial assistance from all countries, including the United States, does play a role, and we very much appreciate it. But Trump is not the president who provided it.

[Richard Rohr @RichardRohrOFM]

The concept and human experience of mother is so primal, so big, deep, universal, and wide that to apply it only to our own mothers is far too small a container. It can only be applied to God.

https://t.co/3o3mS5Yawv

[Blue Georgia @BlueGeorgia]

This is a Pulitzer level photo.

[David Leavitt 🎲🎮🧙‍♂️🌈 @DavidLeavitt]

There were 590,000 people stupid enough to make a $100 deposit on a “Trump Phone.”

They won’t get a phone, and their $100 won’t be refunded.

$59 million in Trump’s pocket.

[Kevin Carpenter @kejca]

Warren Buffett: "[Gambling] is a tax on stupidity."

"Rich people love [legalized gambling] because they don't have to pay. To the extent that states raise money from people who the dollar really means something to them, it actually relieves the taxes on me or other rich people. It's not direct, but it's the net effect."

"I don't like things that make a sucker out of people. I don't think the function of the government is to play its people for suckers."

[Chris D. Jackson @ChrisDJackson]

Trump fell asleep again during a live televised meeting. If Joe Biden had done that, the media would have treated it like a national emergency and run wall-to-wall panic coverage for a week.

But when Trump does it, they look the other way because the clown show keeps their ratings up and their pockets full.

The hypocrisy is disgraceful. The media failed the country, and they know it.

[Just Jack @7Veritas4]

The FBI guy is on a paranoid bender and won’t leave his room.

The War guy quotes bible passages from Pulp Fiction.

The Health guy collects raccoon dicks.

It’s an Idiocracy on steroids.

[Richard Rohr @RichardRohrOFM]

“Believing in the resurrection can and should transform not only how we view the world, but how we live in it. We should become people in whom others can see new life.” —Paula Gooder https://t.co/kWWsbJcy87

[S.V. Dáte @svdate]

Karoline Leavitt on why Trump did not go to CPAC:

"It was best for the president's schedule and what he has on his plate right now not to go."

Trump spent the weekend playing golf at one of his courses in Florida.

[Canada Hates Trump @AntiTrumpCanada]

What a fucking embarrassment. American troops are being sent into harm’s way in Iran and this fucking idiot is doing his double jerkoff dance while waving a sword, like a drunk uncle at a wedding.

This is who has the nuclear codes. America is a parody.

[Richard Rohr @RichardRohrOFM]

Jesus became the scapegoat to reveal the universal lie of scapegoating. He became the sinned-against one to reveal the hidden nature of scapegoating, so that we would see how wrong even thoughtful and well-meaning people can be. https://t.co/EIVt0Om69d

[Richard Rohr @RichardRohrOFM]

“The Psalms are the songs Jesus knew by heart. When I sing them, I like to imagine I'm sitting with him and his circle.” — Richard Bruxvoort Colligan

I hope you have enjoyed this week’s exploration of the Psalms in our “Daily Meditations.” https://t.co/gKgxT1fseb

[Richard Rohr @RichardRohrOFM]

The present disorder is our time of exile and has solidified in us an urgent commitment to our work of action and contemplation. Grounding social action in contemplative consciousness is not a luxury for a few, but surely a cultural necessity. https://t.co/vQEPiaFIcg

[Richard Rohr @RichardRohrOFM]

“If we want to break out of the vicious, violent cycles of our history, we must develop a new way of reading the Bible, a new way of seeing, a new way of being.” https://t.co/sc8lJxEBrY

I am grateful for @BrianMcLaren’s insights into Psalm 137 in today’s “Daily Meditations.”

[Eli Shields @Gopokes21]

Late NIT game in GIA tomorrow night. Plenty of reasons to cheer the team on @OSUMBB against the Shockers. Added incentive has to be a halftime appearance by the Cowboy Wrestling team! Wear orange, be loud, be rowdy! @OSUAthletics @LutzSteve @cowboyvoice