Storm...

“All things truly wicked start from an innocence. So you live day to day and enjoy what you have and do not worry. You lie and hate it and it destroys you and every day is more dangerous. But you live day to day as in a war.”

~ Ernest Hemingway

“People who fail to do it right, by even their own definition of right, are those who often break through to enlightenment & compassion.”

~ Richard Rohr

Certain people enter your life as a storm and a storm is exactly what you needed at the time they entered. To others (those on the outside, peering in, judging) the storm looks perverse, immoral, insubstantial. But, the reality is that the one, the other creating the storm is the most needed, most worthy one in your life at that precise moment. And, you become more alive, more vibrant because of the storm.

Sleep...

I sleep to be alone, even if someone is next to me in bed. I close my eyes and fall into a place of peace and solitude.

KLN...

Love Is Heavy Sometimes...

Our own "Shawshank's"...

"Get busy living or get busy dying."

~ The Shawshank Redemption

"It's hard to fight an enemy who has outposts in your head."

~ Sally Kempton

We all are in some way or another within our own Shawshank’s; we become prisoners to our fear of the unknown and love of the known. As such within our epistemological paradigm we are locked within our minds capacity for comprehension of reality.

Think of it this way - as an Inuit who was born and lived her whole life in the arctic cold, spending winters in an igloo just as her parents and grandparents had done before her. Her reality is that which she knows from what she has experienced around her and has been told. She is unaware that if she would walk south there is warmth and difference unlike anything she experienced and yet there is an epistemological leap that must be taken.

Yet, how does one know that there is even a leap to be taken? When does the inquisitiveness to question even begin or where does it come from?

Is it an inherent distinctiveness of nature in some to journey, to be restless, to need to move beyond where they are?

Perhaps, that inkling or spark or beam of light shining through even so dimly the cracks of our prisons is enough to prod one to move, to think there is a way out of where one finds oneself?

The fear of the unknown, the uncertainty inherently involved in any journey is more than enough to keep most in the comfortable unease of their personal Shawshank. A time of disruption or crisis may be the only way that one can garner enough resolve to move beyond, to fashion a means of escape from the prison one is in.

It is only when on the other side, free, does one fully grasp where it is one has been and come from. Then the warmth, beauty and tranquility of a hard fought freedom can one find peace.

A Storm That Brings Clarity....

"Looking hard into your eyes
There was nobody I'd ever known
Such an empty surprise to feel so alone

Now for me some words come easy
But I know that they don't mean that much
Compared with the things that are said when lovers touch
You never knew what I loved in you
I don't know what you loved in me
Maybe the picture of somebody you were hoping I might be..."

"How long have I been sleeping
How long have I been drifting alone through the night
How long have I been dreaming I could make it right
If I closed my eyes and tried with all my might
To be the one you need
Awake again I can't pretend and I know I'm alone
And close to the end of the feeling we've known..."

“All actual life is encounter.” ~ Martin Buber

"Where there is ruin, there is hope for treasure." ~ Rumi

She seemed so raw and so real, a woman of fiery mystical intelligence and crazed beauty. Her eyes stunned and pierced my soul while she silently listened to my story and absorbed with her body some of my pain. She didn’t try to fix or suggest, no "you should do this or that," she just sat with me, talked with me, held my hand, kissed me, and was present with and for me; as refreshing as an early spring rain.

Her being brought a storm into my life - a brief, furious, sweeping storm that ravaged and churned all that it touched. Full of lightening, thunder, rain, wind and then the calm tranquil peace of contentment and sleep. She asked a question that no one had asked before, a question that remains etched in my mind and the questions itself reveals all that she is, “would you rather me know you by reading what you have written or by being with you?” It is a question that pleads for connection and relationship, for being and experiencing of life together.

Then she vanished as quickly as she had come. An ethereal wisp of presence, an eff of the ineffable both an angel and a devil vanishing into the night leaving her spirit to both haunt and comfort my loneliness and discontent. She set me on a course, a direction, yet without a destination. The journey continues and all journeys are risks.

"Sometimes touching another person is more than I can bear." ~ Walt Whitman

Am I That Different Than Him?

My Grandfather...

Kris Kristofferson...Help Me Make It Through The Night...

"A crisis of faith -- when you seriously question whether what you believe/how you see/what you're committed to is actually true -- is a good thing. It's not pleasant. It hurts. The ground goes wobbly. You may be reaching for sleeping pills or alcohol or a lover to get you from 2 to 4:30 a.m. each night." ~ Kent Annan

My Place Today...Caribou Coffee - Canal Park, Duluth, MN...

Billy Joel...An Innocent Man...

"Some people say they will never believe

Another promise they hear in the dark

Because they only remember too well

They heard somebody tell them before

Some people sleep all alone every night

Instead of taking a lover to bed

Some people find that it's easier to hate

Than to wait anymore..."

Pearl Jam...Black...

  "I'm spinning, oh, I'm spinning

How quick the sun can, drop away

And now my bitter hands cradle broken glass

Of what was everything

All the pictures have all been washed in black,

tattooed everything..."

Pearl Jam...Just Breathe...

 
Yes I understand that every life must end, aw huh...
As we sit alone, I know someday we must go, aw huh...
I'm a lucky man to count on both hands
The ones I love...

Some folks just have one
Others they got none, aw huh...

Stay with me
Let's just breathe
 
Practiced are my sins
Never gonna let me win, aw huh...
Under everything, just another human being, aw huh...
Yea, I don't wanna hurt, there's so much in this world
To make me bleed

Stay with me
You're all I see

Did I say that I need you?
Did I say that I want you?
Oh, if I didn't I'm a fool you see
No one knows this more than me
As I come clean

I wonder everyday
As I look upon your face, aw huh...
Everything you gave
And nothing you would take, aw huh...
Nothing you would take
Everything you gave

Nothing you would take
Everything you gave
Hold me 'till I die
Meet you on the other side

Heavy...

“But somehow I paid the big cost
Inside I felt like I was carryin' the broken spirits
Of all the other ones who lost
When the promise is broken you go on living
But it steals something from down in your soul
Like when the truth is spoken and it don't make no difference
Something in your heart goes cold…”

~ Bruce Springsteen, The Promise

 “…I absolutely renounce all higher harmony. It is not worth one little tear of even that one tormented child who beat her chest with her little  fist and prayed  to ‘dear God’ in a stinking outhouse with her unredeemed tears! Not worth it, because her tears remained unredeemed. They must be redeemed otherwise there can be no harmony. But how, how will you redeem them? Is it possible? Can they be redeemed by being avenged? But what do I care if they are avenged, what do I care if the tormentors are in hell, what can hell set right here, if these ones have already been tormented? And where is the harmony, if there is hell? I want to forgive, and I want to embrace, I don’t want more suffering. And if the suffering of children goes to make up the sum of suffering needed to buy the truth, then I assert beforehand that the whole of truth is not worth such a price.”

~ Fyodor Dostoevsky, The Brothers Karamazov (Rebellion)

“…when the Inquisitor sell silent, he waited some time for his prisoner to reply. His silence weighed on him. He had seen how the captive listened to him intently and calmly, looking him straight in the eye, and apparently not wishing to contradict anything. The old man would have liked him to say something bitter, terrible. But suddenly he approaches the old man in silence and gently kisses him on his bloodless, ninety-year old lips. That is the whole answer. The old man shudders. Something stirs at the corners of mouth; he walks to the door, opens it, and says to him: ‘Go and do not come again…do not come at all…never, never!’ And he lets him out into the ‘dark squares of the city.’ The prisoner goes away.”

~ Fyodor Dostoevsky, The Brothers Karamazov (The Grand Inquisitor)

Silence and a kiss are forgiveness and understanding, both louder than any spoken word. But the most difficult to believe and accept.

Sympathy for Eichmann? - Brainstorm - The Chronicle of Higher Education

'With “Why I Feel Bad For the Pepper-Spraying Policeman, Lt. John Pike,” Atlantic magazine senior editor Alexis Madrigal provides a useful discussion of the criminalization of protest and related militarization of police response. Madrigal is quite right that we’re missing the point if we pretend that Pike is an “independent bad actor” and “vilify” him as an individual without analyzing the flawed system of protest policing in which Pike operates. However, Madrigal makes a serious blunder in framing the piece.'

Read more here: Sympathy for Eichmann? - Brainstorm - The Chronicle of Higher Education

The Origin Of Grief - The Dish | By Andrew Sullivan - The Daily Beast

"Grief is the price we pay for friendship."

The Origin Of Grief - The Dish By Andrew Sullivan - The Daily Beast

William Styron on Depression...

“Mezzo del cammin di nostra vita Mi ritrovai per una selva oscura, Ché la diritta via era smarrita.”

“In the middle of the journey of our life I found myself in a dark wood, for I had lost the right path.”

~ Dante

“….pain of severe depression is quite unimaginable to those who have not suffered it, and it kills in many instances because its anguish can no longer be borne. The prevention of many suicides will continue to be hindered until there is a general awareness of the nature of this pain.”

“I felt an immense and aching solitude. I could no longer concentrate during those afternoon hours, which for years had been my working time, and the act of writing itself, becoming more and more difficult and exhausting, stalled, then finally ceased.”

“…in all of its manifestations is the touchstone of depression—in the progress of the disease and, most likely, in its origin.”

“…depression this faith in deliverance, in ultimate restoration, is absent. The pain is unrelenting, and what makes the condition intolerable is the foreknowledge that no remedy will come—not in a day, an hour, a month, or a minute. If there is mild relief, one knows that it is only temporary; more pain will follow. It is hopelessness even more than pain that crushes the soul.”

“ I partook of what may be depression’s only grudging favor—its ultimate capitulation. Even those for whom any kind of therapy is a futile exercise can look forward to the eventual passing of the storm. If they survive the storm itself, its fury almost always fades and then disappears. Mysterious in its coming, mysterious in its going, the affliction runs its course, and one finds peace.”

“…but it has been shown over and over again that if the is dogged enough—and the support equally committed and passionate—the endangered one can nearly always be saved. Most people in the grip of depression at its ghastliest are, for whatever reason, in a state of unrealistic hopelessness, torn by exaggerated ills and fatal threats that bear no resemblance to actuality. It may require on the part of friends, lovers, family, admirers, an almost religious devotion to persuade the sufferers of life’s worth, which is so often in conflict with a sense of their own worthlessness, but such devotion has prevented countless suicides.”

“… antiquity—in the tortured lament of Job, in the choruses of Sophocles and Aeschylus—chroniclers of the human spirit have been wrestling with a vocabulary that might give proper expression to the desolation of melancholia.”

“For those who have dwelt in depression’s dark wood, and known its inexplicable agony, their return from the abyss is not unlike the ascent of the poet, trudging upward and upward out of hell’s black depths and at last emerging into what he saw as “the shining world.” There, whoever has been restored to health has almost always been restored to the capacity for serenity and joy, and this may be indemnity enough for having endured the despair beyond despair.

“E quindi uscimmo a riveder le stelle.”

“So we came forth, and once again beheld the stars.”

~ Dante

~ William Styron, Darkness Visible: A Memoir of Madness  

To Be In Silence...

"The friend who can be silent with us in a moment of despair or confusion, who can stay with us in an hour of grief and bereavement, who can tolerate not knowing, not curing, not healing and face with us the reality of our powerlessness, that is a friend who cares."

~ Henri J.M. Nouwen, The Road to Daybreak

What I Have Been Reading...

Unholy Ghost: Writers on Depression – Nell Casey

The Politics of Jesus – John Howard Yoder

The Noonday Demon: An Atlas of Depression – Andrew Solomon

The Return of The Prodigal Son: A Story of Homecoming – Henri Nouwen

Darkness Visible: A Memoir of Madness – William Styron

De Profundis – Oscar Wilde

Falling Upward: A Spirituality for the Two Halves of Life – Richard Rohr

Dark Nights of the Soul: A Guide to Finding Your Way Through Life’s Ordeals – Thomas Moore

Jesus Interrupted: Revealing the Hidden Contradictions in The Bible – Bart Ehrman

Unprotected Texts: The Bible’s Surprising Contradictions About Sex and Desire – Jennifer Wright Knust

The Hours – Michael Cunningham

The Paris Wife – Paula McLain

Heidegger’s Glasses – Thaisa Frank

Sophie’s Choice – William Styron

The Orthodox Heretic: And Other Impossible Tales – Peter Rollins

A New Kind of Christianity – Brian McLaren

Poke the Box – Seth Godin

Common English Bible

Lonely Planet Italy

My Week...The Winner Takes It All...

How I Feel Tonight...Like An Acrobat...

"No, nothing makes sense, nothing seems to fit.
I know you'd hit out if you only knew who to hit.
And I'd join the movement
If there was one I could believe in
Yeah, I'd break bread and wine
If there was a church I could receive in.
'Cause I need it now.
To take the cup
To fill it up, to drink it slow.
I can't let you go.

And I must be an acrobat
To talk like this and act like that.
And you can dream, so dream out loud
And don't let the bastards grind you down."

Smoking, Drinking, Swearing and The Kingdom of God....

“Evangelicals believe they are saved by grace through faith (Eph. 2:8-9), but then add a man-made waiver that you have to work as hard as you can to meet middle-class behavioral patterns to hang onto it. It seems to be contrary to the Gospel, where among the many teachings of Jesus regarding servanthood, the last become first. It is an upside-down kingdom contradicting what the natural order of the first and the best winning. The Church therefore should be radically opposed to such a success syndrome. It seems this affected Bono.

Another strange quirk about the Church is it has specific qualities that indicate whether you are an ‘acrobat.’Usually, they have to do with swearing, smoking, and drinking.

For some reason, there are biblical teachings that do not – but perhaps should – hold so much importance. Among them: materialistic greed, bigoted prejudice, the oppression of women, or the neglect of social justice. Somehow you can ignore many of the rallying calls of Christ and the prophets, and because you are teetotal and less flowery with your language and attend church twice a week, you are declared spiritually strong….Jesus told a parable about the kingdom of God where the sheep enter the kingdom, and the goats are left outside (Matt. 25:31-46).

Jesus didn’t say the goats smoked, drank, or swore too much. He said they didn’t get involved in changing the circumstances of the marginalized by feeding them when they were hungry, and visiting them in prison. These were the issues of His kingdom.”


~ Steve Stockman, from Walk On: The Spiritual Journey of U2

Depression - some thought...

“…you have to keep going when you are depressed. That means phone calls, appointments, errands, holidays, family, friends, and colleagues. For me, this is where things got tangled. Depression brought to me a new rationing of resources: for every twenty-four hours I got about three, then two, then one hour worth of life reserves – personality, conversation, motion.”

~ Virginia Heffernan from Unholy Ghost: Writers on Depression

 “In depression, the meaningless of every enterprise and every emotion, the meaninglessness of life itself, becomes self evident. The only feeling left in this loveless state is insignificance.”

“The first thing that goes is happiness. You cannot gain pleasure from anything….Eventually, you are simply absent from yourself.”

“Rebuilding of the self in and after depression requires love, insight, work, and, most of all, time.”

“The only way to find out whether you’re depressed is to listen to and watch yourself, to feel your feelings and then think about them. If you feel bad without reason most of the time, you’re depressed.”

“Illness of the mind is real illness.”

“Depression is a condition that is almost unimaginable to anyone who has not know it.”

“It was when life was finally in order and all the excuses for despair had been used up that depression came slinking in on its little cat feet and spoiled everything.”

“Depressives have seen the world too clearly, have lost the selective advantage of blindness.”

“So many people have asked me what to do for depressed friends and relatives, and my answer is actually simple: blunt the isolation. Do it with cups of tea or with long talks or by sitting in a room nearby and staying silent or in whatever way suits the circumstances, but do that. And do it willingly….The loving is that you are there, simply paying attention, unconditionally.”

“The opposite of depression is not happiness but vitality.”

~ Andrew Solomon, The Noonday Demon: An Atlas of Depression

Credo by Jane Kenyon - A Primer on Depression

“Pharmaceutical wonders are at work

but I believe only in the moment

of well-being. Unholy ghost,

you are certain to come again.

Coarse, mean, you’ll put your feet
on the coffee table, lean back,

and turn me into someone who can’t

take the trouble to speak; someone

who can’t sleep, or who does nothing

but sleep; can’t read, or call

for an appointment for help.

There is nothing I can do

against your coming.

When I awake, I am still with thee.

~ from Having it Out of Melancholy in Unholy Ghost: Writers on Depression

A Poem....

“A poem is a portrait of consciousness. It’s a recording of the motions of a mind in time, a mind communicating to others the experience of its own consciousness. When I read or write a poem, I’m trying to open a window between my mind and the minds of others. But it’s also a study of the self, which is a positive kind of work.”

~ Chase Twichell from Unholy Ghost: Writers on Depression

Toward a Better Future for Gays at Evangelical Seminaries by Andrew Marin

Toward a Better Future for Gays at Evangelical Seminaries

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25 Books Every Christian Should Read - Tony Jones at Theoblogy

25 Books Every Christian Should Read (and I Agree!) « Theoblogy

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Poetic Memory...

I want to sit with someone that I care about and that cares about me and simply be for a long time. For part of a day and into the night, talking when we want to talk, and sharing in the silence when that is all there is. To feel the tangible closeness of two souls next to each other as the slow moments of time elapse. Content, relaxed, at peace – finally arriving at that place where poetic memories are created and captured for eternity.

Not What You Think

To lead without leading,

Perfection in imperfection,

Succeeding in failing,

Going up in going down,

Grace in sinning,

Winning in loosing,

Expression in absorption,

Life in death,

Certainty in uncertainty,

Faith in doubt,

Creativity in suffering,

Love in hate,

Victory in the Cross.

Text and Punctuation

A text is like a body, a country, a language. You can know it on the surface, what you see at first, how it is first read.  The literal thing there is in front of you. Yet, to see the literal is not to know the thing, it must be explored and journeyed over and your heart must fall in love with it to know it fully. And still life is punctuation. It is what gives form to our stories, defining the parameters of our souls.

A Time Before

A time with nothing.

A time before.

Before translucent souls,

Nymphs of the ache,

In the sun on the rocks.

A soul leaving footprints,

Signs of life leaving.

New life after the before,

Color from the black and white,

Effervescent illumination of the once drab and silent.

Liminal Space...

When you’re touched profoundly by someone while you inhabit liminal space, the one who touched you becomes quite special to your soul.

Story...

The beginning and the end of any story are also at the same time a part of the story, the narrative is alive and is in process, becoming out of being. A journey of discovery, there are not ideals to be achieved but a story to be lived. To stop doing and simply be in the midst of your story is to find a semblance of peace; to experience grace in each moment of living.

Helpless...

For The Good Times...

Hmmm...Well...Maybe...

"She put him out like the burnin' end of a midnight cigarette
She broke his heart he spent his whole life tryin' to forget
We watched him drink his pain away a little at a time
But he never could get drunk enough to get her off his mind
Until the night..."

The Rivers

You could have grown old with me,

Watched our children grow up together and then,

Watched our grandchildren play.

You could have drank coffee with me,

While we sat together in the morning,

On the steps while the day was still new.

You could have walked along the Thames with me,

Looked at art in the National Gallery,

Drank and laughed on the streets of Soho.  

You could have walked along the Swan with me,

Spent a morning in Freo sipping flat whites on Cappuccino Alley,

Then a lazy afternoon on the beach while The Doctor caressed our skin and the ocean filled our senses.

You could have walked along the Seine with me,

The Louvre filled with its masterpieces could have been ours for an afternoon,

Then red wine and cheese on a crowded Parisian street while the day turned to night.

You could have walked along the Liffey with me,

Strolled through Stevens Green hand in hand on a rainy afternoon,

Than drank a pint together in an ancient warm Pub.

You could have,

We could have,

But you did not believe in me,

Your desire went in a different direction.

And your choice broke my heart and killed a part of my soul.

So bitter is betrayal,

So agonizing is the loss.

I reeled and faltered for awhile,

Was lost and alone,

Vertigo and confusion tossed and whirled me about.

And then…

I walked along the Thames,

Looked at art in the National Gallery,

And drank and laughed on the streets of Soho.

I walked along the Swan,

Spent a morning in Freo sipping flat whites on Cappuccino Alley,

Then a lazy afternoon on the beach while The Doctor caressed my body and the ocean filled my senses.

I walked along the Seine,

The Louvre filled with its masterpieces was mine for an afternoon,

Then red wine and cheese on a crowded Parisian street while the day turned to night.

I walked along the Liffey,

Strolled through Stevens Green on a rainy afternoon,

Than drank a pint in an ancient warm Pub.

Now I will walk along the Tiber,

I will be renewed with all that is Rome,

Tuscany will breathe newness into me.

There will be wine and freshness,

Warm Mediterranean breezes,

And I will walk with a new lover and friend.

N.T. Wright on American Christians and the death penalty...

N.T. Wright, "You can’t reconcile being pro-life on abortion and pro-death on the death penalty. Almost all the early Christian Fathers were opposed to the death penalty..."

Read more here: http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/on-faith/post/american-christians-and-the-death-penalty/2011/09/15/gIQAb8yaUK_blog.html

Belief As Serious Fiction - The Dish | By Andrew Sullivan - The Daily Beast

Belief As Serious Fiction - The Dish By Andrew Sullivan - The Daily Beast

Cathleen Falsani: 10 Years After 9/11 The Question Remains The Same...

The Dude Abides

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Red Letter Christians » The New “War” on Terror: 9/11 and Jesus’ Approach to Enemies of the State

Red Letter Christians » The New “War” on Terror: 9/11 and Jesus’ Approach to Enemies of the State

Greg Boyd - Where Was God on 9/11?

What Does It Mean To Love by Greg Boyd...

This is by Greg Boyd taken from: http://www.gregboyd.org/

The New Testament defines agape love by pointing us to Jesus Christ (I Jn 3:16). To love someone is treat them like Jesus has treated you -- dying for you while you were yet a sinner.

The New Testament tells us that the command to love (= looking like Jesus Christ) is the greatest command, encompassing all others ( Lk 10:27; Rom. 13:8, 10; Ja 2:8). It tells us everything else in the law hangs on our fulfilling this law (Mt 22:27-40). It tells us that love is to be placed above all else (Col 3:14; I Pet 4:8). It tells us that everything we do is to be done in love (I Cor. 16:14). It tells us that nothing has any Kingdom value apart from love, however impressive things may be in and of themselves (I Cor. 13:1-3). It tells us that the only thing that ultimately matters is faith energized by love (Gal. 5:6). And it tells us that this love is to be given to all people at all times, including our enemies (Lk 6:27-35) . Indeed, Jesus makes loving our enemies the pre-condition for being considered "children of the Most High, because he is kind to the ungrateful and wicked" (Lk 6:35). We're to "be merciful as your Father in heaven is merciful" (Lk 6:36).

This is simply what it means to look like Jesus Christ.

Now follow me: If love is to be placed above all else, if everything else is to be considered worthless apart from love and if everything hangs on fulfilling this one law, how can we avoid the conclusion that refusing to love even our enemies is the worst heresy imaginable? To miss this all important point renders whatever other truth we may possess worthless.

In this light, we have to ask, who is the worse heretic: Michael Servetus who was burned alive for denying that the Son of God was eternal, or Calvin who had him burned alive? Burning someone alive is not loving them, doing good to them or blessing them (Lk 6:27-28, 35). And without love, whatever other truth Calvin may have been defending becomes worthless. If we're thinking biblically, how can we avoid concluding that Calvin was not only a worse heretic than Servetus, but that he committed the greatest heresy imaginable?

9/11 - Ten Years Later: Washing Osama's Feet by Greg Boyd...

This is by Greg Boyd - taken from:  http://www.gregboyd.org/

Brad Cole is a friend of mine who runs a ministry called Heavenly Sanctuary. This ministry puts on Conferences around the country on the Character of God — and they get it right. This year they hired an artist named Lars Justinen from the Justinen Creative Group to paint the above picture to use on posters advertising their conference. Under this picture they had captions like “Follow the Leader,” “God IS Great,” and most accurately, “Jesus - Still Too Radical?”

Heavenly Sanctuary had contracts with several malls in the Seattle area to hang these posters advertising their conference, but no sooner had the posters gone up than angry calls began flooding the malls. Many people — but, it seems, mostly Christians — were offended at the image of Jesus washing Osama Bin Laden’s feet. There was such an outcry that each of the malls decided to go back on their contract and take the posters down. The Christian College that Heavenly Sanctuary was renting space from to host the Conference also canceled their contract. Brad had to scramble to find a secular venue (which, ironically, had no problems with the poster).

What does this say about how many American Christians envision Jesus? Obviously, the protesters believe that Jesus would not wash Osama Bin Laden’s feet. But Jesus died “not only for our sins, but for the sins of the whole world” (I Jn 2:2) — and this obviously includes Osama. So if Jesus died for Osama, how are we to imagine him being unwilling to wash his feet?

What the protest reveals is that many Christians have tragically allowed their patriotism to co-opt their faith. They have allowed their American citizenship to take priority over their Kingdom citizenship — despite the New Testament’s instruction for disciples to consider themselves “foreigners” and “exiles” wherever they happen to live (Heb. 11:13; I Pet 1:17, 2:11) and to consider their real citizenship “in heaven” (Phil 3:20). Many American Christians seem to want a Jesus who will defend their country and hate their national enemies as much as they do. Many want the Jesus of the Middle Ages whom Crusaders called on to help them slaughter — not serve — their Islamic enemies. Many seem to want to reduce Jesus to just another version of the tribal gods that have been called on for centuries to bless tribal battles. Most wars throughout history have been fought under the banner of some god or another.

Fortunately, the real Jesus isn’t anything like this. Knowing all power had been given to him, John says, he wrapped a towel around his waist and washed the dirty, smelly feet of people he knew would deny and betray him in a couple hours (Jn 13:3-5). Knowing he could call legions of angels to vanquish his foes, the real Jesus rather chose to let them crucify him, because this is what they needed him to do (though they of course didn’t know it). Then, with his last breath, the real Jesus prays to his Father to forgive his barbaric torturers — and all of us (Lk 23:34).

This is the kind of power the omnipotent God of the universe uses against his enemies. And this is the kind of power we’re to use against our “enemies.” It’s the power of Calvary-like love.
We’re called to imitate the Jesus who washes the feet of enemies, dies for them, and prays for their forgiveness. We are to “live in love, as Christ loved us and gave his life for us…” (Eph. 5:1-2). When we were enemies, Jesus nevertheless ascribed unsurpassable worth to us by paying an unsurpassable price for us. We who claim we are his disciples are called to do the same. We’re to sacrificially ascribe unsurpassable worth to all people, including our enemies — even Osama Bin Laden.
In light of God’s servant love toward us, we must be willing to wash Osama’s feet — and pray for his forgiveness.

Jesus says to us: “Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you. If someone slaps you on one cheek, turn the other also. If someone takes your coat, do not withhold your shirt…” (Lk 6:27-29)

And in case we missed the point, he comes back five verses later and says: “…love your enemies, do good to them, and lend to them without expecting to get anything back. (How important is this? Read this next sentence carefully). Then your reward will be great, and you will be children of the Most High, because he is kind to the ungrateful and wicked. Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful.” (Lk 6: 27-29; 35-36).

When we act like our kind Father, we reflect the fact that we are his children.

In Christ, God’s been kind to Osama. May we who are his children do the same. May we be encouraged by the above picture rather than offended by it. May we pray, “Father, forgive Osama. He doesn’t know what he’s doing.”

Greg

P.S. In case some of the faces on the poster are unfamiliar to you, they are (left to right) German Chancellor Angela Merkel; Tony Blair, England; Kofi A. Annan, UN; Osama bin Laden; George Bush; Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh; and Jiang Zemin, former president of China.

Reflection on 9/11 by Will Willimon...

"On 9/11 I thought, For the most powerful, militarized nation in the world also to think of itself as an innocent victim is deadly. It was a rare prophetic moment for me, considering Presidents Bush and Obama have spent billions asking the military to rectify the crime of a small band of lawless individuals, destroying a couple of nations who had little to do with it, in the costliest, longest series of wars in the history of the United States.

The silence of most Christians and the giddy enthusiasm of a few, as well as the ubiquity of flags and patriotic extravaganzas in allegedly evangelical churches, says to me that American Christians may look back upon our response to 9/11 as our greatest Christological defeat. It was shattering to admit that we had lost the theological means to distinguish between the United States and the kingdom of God. The criminals who perpetrated 9/11 and the flag-waving boosters of our almost exclusively martial response were of one mind: that the nonviolent way of Jesus is stupid. All of us preachers share the shame; when our people felt very vulnerable, they reached for the flag, not the Cross.

September 11 has changed me. I'm going to preach as never before about Christ crucified as the answer to the question of what's wrong with the world. I have also resolved to relentlessly reiterate from the pulpit that the worst day in history was not a Tuesday in New York, but a Friday in Jerusalem when a consortium of clergy and politicians colluded to run the world on our own terms by crucifying God's own Son."

~ Will Willimon, presiding bishop of the North Alabama Conference of the United Methodist Church

taken from: http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2011/september/howleaderschanged.html?start=5

My Place Today...

Thinking, Reading & Writing some...

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Peter Rollins - Looking To The Past: The Backward Movement of Radicals and Conservatives

peterrollins.net » Looking To The Past: The Backward Movement of Radicals and Conservatives

Secretly Gay-Affirming Pastors: You Are Not Alone - John Shore

John Shore writes:

"What she certainly must do is show her young lesbian friend absolute love and acceptance. That's a personal matter, not subject to the judgment and opinions of others. She must communicate to this hurting young woman, in no uncertain terms, that anyone, her mother included, who responds to her brave revelation by shunning her in the name of the Lord has simply and severely misconstrued the truth and purpose of Christ's message. She mustn't fail to let this young woman know that while some people might disapprove of who and how she is, God does not."

Read more here: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/john-shore/secretly-gayaffirming-pastors-you-are-not-alone_b_950696.html

Christianity as Country Club & A Gospel Culture - Scot McKnight

Scot McKnight: Christianity as Country Club

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Universalism - A Third Way: Peter Rollins

The Trash of the World: Paul and Universalism « peterrollins.net

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Harbour In The Tempest...

My, “…harbour in the tempest…”

Can you take it all in?

All that I must tell you?

All that my soul longs to release?

Can you take it all in and still want me?

Still love me?

Great Article: LGBTQ - God Does Have A Better Way...

God does have a ‘better way’ — Don’t stand in the path of it – LGBTQ Nation

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More Vacations & Less Work Increases Productivity...

Why Summer Vacations (and the Internet) Make You More Productive - Atlantic Mobile

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The Question…The Abrahamic Promise, The Unconditional Covenant…

"The LORD had said to Abram, ‘Go from your country, your people and your father's household to the land I will show you. I will make you into a great nation, and I will bless you; I will make your name great, and you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and whoever curses you I will curse; and all peoples on earth will be blessed through you.’"

~ Genesis 12:1-3 TNIV

Is the question:

Is someone a Christian or is it, is someone a human being?

Do we believe that we are the beloved of God, that we are the “one” that God loves, created in his/her image and because of that truth we can be free and live full abundant lives? No longer slaves or in bondage, but rather magnificent freedom?

And then, do you believe this to be true of EVERYONE that you meet, encounter, and interact with – they too are all the “one(s)” – “one(s)”  that the One (Jesus) came to earth to be born, live, die and be resurrected for?   

“…and all peoples on earth will be blessed through you…”

~God

At some point in early Church history perhaps being a Christian and being fully alive were synonymous – now, not so much?

“For the glory of God is a living man (woman); and the life of man (woman) consists in the beholding God. For if the manifestation of God which is made by means of the creation, affords life to all living in the earth, much more does that revelation of the Father which comes through the Word, give life to those who see God.”
~ St. Irenaeus, A dversus Haereses 4. 34. 5-7.

“And remember the truth that once was spoken: to love another person is to see the face of God…”

~ Victor Hugo, Les Miserables

  "Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?" Jesus replied:

"'Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.' This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: 'Love your neighbor as yourself.' All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments."

~ Matthew 22:36-40 TNIV

"Love God and do as you please."

~ St. Augustine of Hippo

"Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us."

~ 1 John 4:8-12 TNIV