Ask Not For Whom the Bell Tolls 'Mr. Dunne'

John Donne
Meditation 17
Devotions upon Emergent Occasions

"No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main. If a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as well as if a manor of thy friend's or of thine own were. Any man's death (or indignity) diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind; and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee..." 

Work to be 'Dunne'

Christianity stands or falls with its revolutionary protest against violence, arbitrariness, and pride of power, and with its plea for the weak. Christians are doing too little to make these points clear ... Christendom adjusts itself far too easiliy to the worship of power. Christians should give more offense, shock the world far more, than they are doing now. 

- Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Work to be 'Dunne'

As long as people use tactics to oppress or restrict other people from being free, there is work to be done. 

- Rosa Parks

A Christian Mistake (for people who claim to have an inside track with God we sure do make our share of 'em)

The Religious Right was a Christian mistake. It was a movement that sought to implement a “Christian agenda” by tying the faithful to one political option -- the right wing of the Republican Party. The politicizing of faith in such a partisan way is always a theological mistake. But the rapid decline of the Religious Right now offers us a new opportunity to re-think the role of faith in American public life.

Jim Wallis 

injustice

We fought injustice wherever we found it, no matter how large, or how small, and we fought injustice to preserve our own humanity.

- Nelson Mandela

On the Road to Emmaus

Luke 17

13 Now that same day two of them were going to a village called Emmaus, about seven miles from Jerusalem. 

14 They were talking with each other about everything that had happened. 

15 As they talked and discussed these things with each other, Jesus himself came up and walked along with them;  

16 but they were kept from recognizing him.

17He asked them, "What are you discussing together as you walk along?"
  They stood still, their faces downcast.  

18 One of them, named Cleopas, asked him, "Are you only a visitor to Jerusalem and do not know the things that have happened there in these days?"
19 "What things?" he asked.
  "About Jesus of Nazareth," they replied. "He was a prophet, powerful in word and deed before God and all the people. 

20 The chief priests and our rulers handed him over to be sentenced to death, and they crucified him; 

21 but we had hoped that he was the one who was going to redeem Israel. 

And what is more, it is the third day since all this took place. 

22 In addition, some of our women amazed us. They went to the tomb early this morning 

23 but didn't find his body. They came and told us that they had seen a vision of angels, who said he was alive. 

24 Then some of our companions went to the tomb and found it just as the women had said, but him they did not see."

25 He said to them, "How foolish you are, and how slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken! 

26 Did not the Christ have to suffer these things and then enter his glory?"

27 And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he explained to them what was said in all the Scriptures concerning himself.

28 As they approached the village to which they were going, Jesus acted as if he were going farther.

29 But they urged him strongly, "Stay with us, for it is nearly evening; the day is almost over." So he went in to stay with them.

30 When he was at the table with them, 

he took bread, gave thanks, broke it and began to give it to them. 

31 Then their eyes were opened 

and they recognized him, and he disappeared from their sight.

Happy, Shiny Easter

Luke 24

1: But on the first day of the week, at early dawn, they went to the tomb, taking the spices which they had prepared. 2: And they found the stone rolled away from the tomb, 3: but when they went in they did not find the body. 4: While they were perplexed about this, behold, two men stood by them in dazzling apparel; 5: and as they were frightened and bowed their faces to the ground, the men said to them, "Why do you seek the living among the dead? 6: Remember how he told you, while he was still in Galilee, 7: that the Son of man must be delivered into the hands of sinful men, and be crucified, and on the third day rise." 8: And they remembered his words, 9: and returning from the tomb they told all this to the eleven and to all the rest.

The great mystery of the incarnation, which meant God became man that man might become God

We felt a respect for the poor and destitute as those nearest to God, as chosen by Christ for His compassion.  Christ lived among men. The great mystery of the incarnation, which meant God became man that man might become God, was a joy that made us want to kiss the earth in worship, because His feet once trod that same earth. 

Dorothy Day

The Long Loneliness.

It is impossible but that offences will come: but woe unto him, through whom they come!

Luke 17:1

Between the Darkness and the Light there is the rescuer and the sacrifice

“If I ever become a Saint—I will surely be one of “darkness.” I will continually be absent from Heaven—to lit the light of those in darkness on earth .”
—Mother Teresa of Calcutta

The orphanage is the legacy of a scoundrel turned saviour. Ed Hughes survived a kidnapping and a shooting that took his arm but he dies in a fall.

Ed Hughes stayed with the orphans he cared for in Haiti even after bandits shot him and he lost his right arm. He remained even after armed men took him hostage for a week, until his son paid a US$2,000 ransom.

In the end, the Canadian missionary, who was in his mid-seventies, died caring for the orphans. On March 21, he climbed a ladder one-handed to fix a water pipe on his roof. He fell and cracked his head on the concrete below.

Family members and Christian volunteers in Ontario who supported Mr. Hughes’s orphanage, Tytoo Gardens, flew to Haiti this week to lay him to rest. They also hope to come up with a plan to keep the orphanage running.

“We’ve got 100 kids down there without anything on their plates,” said Ted Hughes, Mr. Hughes’s son, before flying to Port-au-Prince.

“He’d changed his life, he’d taken care of those kids, and now they’re without.”

The orphanage is the legacy of a scoundrel turned saviour. In the 1980s, Mr. Hughes ran a sex club under a huge tent near Hamilton, Ont., that was raided by a busload of police. Police charged nearly 100 swingers.......... (see more)


(indeed God moves in mysterious ways 

and all His ways are past finding out
I've stopped even trying.....

Rest in Peace Ed!)

Change You Can Believe In?

Perhaps it really can happen after all.



Wilson doesn't have answers for much of how he has lived his life — not for all the black people he beat up, not for all the venom he spewed, not for all the time wasted in hate......


........for years Wilson didn't know the identity of the man he had beaten, though he says that over time, guilt began weighing heavy on his heart.
It was only recently, he says, that things became clear....... (see rest of story here)

Pentecostalism’s Forgotten Nonviolent Roots

by Aaron Taylor 03-27-2009

"The fact is that Pentecostalism started out as a radical, non-violent faith that challenged — not championed — power structures that perpetuate poverty and ethnocentrism. Pentecostals (and their charismatic godchildren) today have done an absolute 180 and are, tragically, now some of the most militant Christians on the planet. Thanks to TV evangelists, the unholy fusion of Christianity, Zionism, and American nationalism is the status quo in most American Pentecostal/charismatic churches — with very few exceptions.
I imagine that most of my Pentecostal/charismatic friends would be shocked to discover that the vast majority of Christians that experienced the revival at Azusa street (the revival that birthed Pentecostalism world-wide) also believed that the proper Christian response to war is conscientious objection. Most of the historic Pentecostal denominations that exist today started out as officially pacifist. As a matter of fact, the Assemblies of God didn’t officially change its position until 1967. Perhaps even more shocking is that some of the Pentecostal pioneers were imprisoned and — yes, it can happen in America — tortured for their refusal to participate in World War I.
Most Pentecostal/charismatic Christians today, especially the younger ones, have no idea that their heritage is rooted in non-violence,......... "

Aaron D. Taylor is the author of Alone with a Jihadist, scheduled to be released in mid-2009.

a world shattering but ultimately healing force

Einstein's E=MC2 is an extraordinary concept.
So radical: matter and energy are two phases of the same sort of general stuff.
There's only one other idea that radical:
Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.

Kurt Vonnegut, in Will the Circle Be Unbroken? by Studs Terkel


when we can produce energy in the fusion of atoms (the joining together)
rather than their fission (tearing apart)
we will have the energy we need to prosper safely in this world

and when we learn to forgive each other as members of the same beloved family
then we will be able to live on this planet without fear of want or discord.

we await a new heavens and a new earth.

Lord, energize and inspire us create this new kingdom with you.

LH

Have You Found Dog?

Grimm, you slay me!

Pray with your windows open

The Talmud reads, "Never pray in a room without windows." Never pray without the world in mind, in other words. The purpose of the spiritual life is not to save us from reality. It is to enable us to go on co-creating it.
- Joan Chittister

“Without justice, what are kingdoms (and corporations) but bands of robbers?”

"In 1965, U.S. CEOs at major companies made 24 times a worker's pay -- by 2004, CEOs earned 431 times the pay of an average worker. From 1995 to 2005, average CEO pay increased five times faster than that of average workers. While CEO pay continues to increase at rates far exceeding inflation, wages for the vast majority of American workers have failed to keep up with rising prices. In fact, real wages for the 90% of Americans who earn under $92,000 a year have actually fallen since 2001."




from
 sojourners  and God's Politics Blog by Jim Wallis and friends


“Without justice, what are kingdoms but bands of robbers?” St. Augustine

LETTER TO THE BANK

Dear Sirs,

One of my checks was returned marked "insufficient funds." In view of current developments in the banking industry, does that refer to me or to you?

Sincerely,
Your customer

how will you speak up?

What hurts the victim most is not the cruelty of the oppressor but the silence of the bystander.

- Elie Wiesel,
Holocaust survivor and Nobel laureate

Judas Asparagus and the New Evangelism

A child was asked to write a book report on the entire Bible.  

This is the New Testament through new eyes.



After the Old Testament came the New Testament. Jesus is the star of The New. He was born in Bethlehem in a barn. (I wish I had been born in a barn too, because my mom is always saying to me, 'Close the door! Were you born in a barn?' It would be nice to say, 'As a matter of fact, I was.')
During His life, Jesus had many arguments with sinners like the Pharisees and the Democrats.
Jesus also had twelve opossums.
The worst one was Judas Asparagus. Judas was so evil that they named a terrible vegetable after him.
Jesus was a great man. He healed many leopards and even preached to some Germans on the Mount.
But the Democrats and all those guys put Jesus on trial before Pontius the Pilot. Pilot didn't stick up for Jesus. He just washed his hands instead.
Anyways, Jesus died for our sins, then came back to life again.
He went up to Heaven but will be back at the end of the Aluminum. His return is foretold in the book of Revolution.

Staying Alive

Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.

- Martin Luther King Jr.

This has more theological implications than a 10,000 word treatise

Mother Goose And Grimm
by MIKE PETERS

03/06/09



someday I'll have to sit down and think those implications through and then perhaps I will share them with you


in the mean time simply enjoy the experience of genius at work in cartoon form

an experience of incomparable value

There remains an experience of incomparable value ... to see the great events of world history from below; from the perspective of the outcast, the suspects, the maltreated, the powerless, the oppressed, the reviled -- in short, from the perspective of those who suffer ... to look with new eyes on matters great and small.

- Dietrich Bonhoeffer,
Letters and Papers from Prison

neither safe, nor politic...but right

Cowardice asks the question: Is it safe? Expediency asks the question: Is it politic? Vanity asks the question: Is it popular? But conscience asks the question: Is it right? And there comes a time when one must take a position that is neither safe, nor politic, nor popular -- but he must take it simply because conscience tells him it is right.

- Martin Luther King Jr.,
from his address, "To Chart Our Course for the Future" (1968).

Well Forest, things do get out of focus sometimes

Wasn't it you who told me;

"Love and life is like a box of chocolates...it's cheaper, but means less, if you give them away after the day has past."