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thirty-three prayer flags

Posted on April 24, 2007 | Filed Under grace 

Yesterday, as classes resumed at Virginia Tech, students gathered around a display of thirty-three white prayer flags.

Thirty-three flags … one each for the thirty-three people who died the previous Monday at the hand of a lone gunman. One each for his thirty-two shooting victims … and one for him.

Thirty-three lives were lost. Thirty-three precious human lives were laid waste. All thirty-three people were remembered and grieved. It is a powerful witness that love can rise up over hate, that grace can rise up over bitterness.

Do not let evil defeat you; instead, conquer evil with good.

hateful?

Posted on March 17, 2007 | Filed Under church, grace 

From a Christian blog I read:

General Peter Pace’s comments calling homosexuals acts as immoral, and Senator Sam Brownback’s comments backing the General up are nothing less than hateful …

Grace is not about an indifferent acceptance of everything, but about an unconditional love for everyone. Peter Pace, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, came under fire this week for his characterization of homosexual behavior as “immoral.” The remarks may indeed have been ill-advised and unnecessary, and probably unwise and unloving to pin the “immoral” label on a group of people with a public statement like that. But I would …

not crusaders for jesus, but followers of jesus

Posted on February 2, 2007 | Filed Under grace, tolerance 

From an editorial by John Buchanan in the February 6, 2007 edition of The Christian Century …

I was representing my denomination on a visit to Croatia, not long after the shooting between Croats, Serbs, and Bosnians had stopped. The Croats are mostly Roman Catholic; the Serbs, Orthodox; and the Bosnians, Muslim. The conflict was about more than religion, but religion added fuel to the fire …

We … met Peter Kuzmic, an American who calls himself a Calvinist Pentecostal and who presides over the Evangelical Theological Seminary is Osijek and also holds a chair in world missions at Gordon-Conwell Theological …

the healing power of forgiveness

Posted on October 15, 2006 | Filed Under grace 

Marie Roberts is the widow of the man who entered the Amish school in Nickel Mines, Pennsylvania, thirteen days ago, taking ten young girls hostage and eventually killing five before taking his own life. On Friday, she released an open letter to the Amish community through her pastor. The text of her letter follows …
To our Amish friends, neighbors, and local community:
Our family wants each of you to know that we are overwhelmed by the forgiveness, grace, and mercy that you’ve extended to us. Your love for our family has helped to provide the healing we so desperately need. The …

much ado about nothing

Posted on March 18, 2006 | Filed Under justice 

Much has been made of the missteps of the prosecution team in the trail of Zacarias Moussaoui, a confessed al-Qaeda operative. Because one of the prosecution lawyers illegally coached several witnesses, Judge Leonie Brinkema ruled that the witnesses could not be called, severely undermining the government’s case against Moussaoui. On Friday, however, Judge Brinkema agreed to let the government substitute other “untainted” witnesses.

The great outcry over the government’s mistakes, raised by media commentators and relatives of some of the victims of the 9/11/01 attack on the World Trade Center, disturbs me. I do understand the need to “get this right,” …

no matter who you are …

Posted on March 8, 2006 | Filed Under grace, ucc 

No matter who you are, or where you are on life’s journey,
you are welcome here.

The folks at my church have heard me repeat this tag line from the United Church of Christ national media campaign countless times. For me, it expresses something fundamental about the gospel to which I am called to witness, something not so much about our readiness to welcome anybody, as about Jesus’ readiness to welcome everybody, something not so much about our hospitality, as about Jesus’ gracious invitation. Jesus invited me and Jesus welcomed me! So I know Jesus will invite and welcome you … …

point of no return?

Posted on November 22, 2005 | Filed Under favorite posts, grace 

I remember pulling hard and fast on the paddle, propelling my whitewater canoe forward with the accelerating current toward the brink of Wonder Falls, an eighteen-foot falls on the Big Sandy River. I remember the point of no return, when I knew there was no turning back, no turning around, when I knew that I was committed, that one way or another I was going over the falls!

I made the choice to be there. I made the choice to run the falls. But once I passed that point of no return, I had no more choice … We make …

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