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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.

a prayer for good friday

Posted on April 6, 2007 | Filed Under death penalty, justice, spirituality 

Lord Jesus, forgive us for all the ways we deny you …

… by remaining quiet in the shadows, not daring to speak our faith in the public arena
… by quietly going about our own business, while neglecting to wonder what your business might be
… by being more American than Christian, more the children of our culture than the children of God
… by adopting a lifestyle and a system of values that are indistinguishable from the rest of the world, pursuing wealth instead of justice, accumulating things instead of sharing generously, protecting ourselves whatever the cost instead of showing mercy whatever …

considering the cross

Posted on April 6, 2007 | Filed Under grace, spirituality 

Either God was not in Christ and the cross is the ultimate symbol of all the meaninglessness that can destroy us, the absence of God, the triumph of the secular powers. Or God was in Christ and the cross is the final word of a God who shares the pain and the dirt, the loneliness and the weakness, even the frightening sense of desolation and the death we may be called upon to experience ourselves. That was the audacious claim of the first Christians, that God is now revealed as the one who pours himself out in love, a serving, …

on the subject of the war in iraq

Posted on March 16, 2007 | Filed Under faith, politics, war 

I reprint for you here an excerpt of the remarks Jim Wallis will make at a Christian peace rally to be held this evening in Washingon, D.C. His words are powerful and passionate and perceptive and faithful to the gospel of Jesus. As Christians, we must discern and root out the fear in our own hearts and minds, let it be rooted out as the love of God fills us more and more. As Christians, we take no sides, nor enlist God to defend “our side,” but do our best to put ourselves on God’s side …

For all of …

the opposite of peace …

Posted on December 8, 2006 | Filed Under religious language, spirituality 

I think the opposite of hope is not despair, but resignation.
no hope, just emptiness, care-lessness …

I think the opposite of love is not hatred, but apathy.
no love, just indifference, care-lessness …

Could it be that the opposite of peace is not conflict, but contentment?
no longing for peace, just settling for the status quo, care-lessness?

living witnesses … witnesses to life

Posted on October 5, 2006 | Filed Under spirituality 

From today’s news outlets …

By Michael Rubinkam: In Amish village, forgiveness lives

Just about anywhere, a deadly school shooting would have brought demands for tighter gun laws and better security, and the victims’ loved ones would have lashed out at the gunman’s family or threatened to sue.

But after the slayings of five children in a one-room schoolhouse, the Amish people in Nickel Mines urge forgiveness of the killer.

“They know their children are going to heaven. They know their children are innocent … and they know that they will join them in death,” said Gertrude Huntington, an author on the Amish …

making sense, moving forward

Posted on August 23, 2006 | Filed Under favorite posts, grace, humility, spirituality, tolerance 

We live in a world that is so different from the world of the generations that have preceded us. The pace of change is dizzying. The amount of accessible — unavoidably accessible! — information is overwhelming. We bear the burden of knowing too much, almost more than we can bear to know. It is not only the problems of family and community and region that weigh on our hearts, but the problems of a whole world: famine and disease and natural disaster, war and oppression and unabashed genocide, injustice and mistrust and entrenched hatred. We know so much about the …

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