Zeros and Kingdoms
“Blessed are the spiritual zeros – the spiritually bankrupt, deprived, and deficient, the spiritual beggars, those without a wisp of ‘religion’ – when the kingdom of the heavens comes upon them.”
[Dallas Willard]
Risky
“I will love you like God, because of God, mighted by the power of God. I will stop expecting your love, demanding your love, trading for your love: I will simply love. God risked Himself on me. I will risk myself on you. And together, we will learn to love, and perhaps then, and only then, understand this gravity that drew Him, unto us.”
[Don Millar]
I’m Still Yours
This song is me right now…
Though I sleep, my heart is awake
Though It’s night, on You I wait
It’s been a long night, and I am weary
It’s been a long time, and I am hungry
So I’ll wait in the stillness again
I’ll wait in the quiet again
For when I heard Your voice
When You said my name
When I heard Your voice
My heart it yearned
In the middle of the night
In the middle of the night
In the middle of the night
My heart it yearns
Though You’re far away, still I’m here to say
I am Yours, I am Yours
And when You feel so far away, still I am here to say
I am Yours, I am Yours
And I pay my vows, no turning around
I burn the bridges that can’t be found
For when I heard Your voice
And You said my name
When I heard Your voice
My heart it yearned
For You.
[ I Am Yours – Misty Edwards ]
We Seek You
O my God, Light of the blind and Strength of the weak; yes, also Light of those that see and Strength of the strong: we turn and seek You, for we know You are here in our hearts when we converse with You; when we cast ourselves upon You; when we weep, and You do gently wipe away our tears, and also when we weep for joy because You who made us does remake and comfort us. Grant that we may entirely love You, even unto the end.
[St. Augustine]
Religion
“I have this hunger in me… everywhere I look, I see the evidence of a Creator. But I don’t see it as religion, which has cut my people in two. I don’t see Jesus Christ as being any part of a religion. Religion to me is almost like when God leaves – and people devise a set of rules to fill the space.”
[Bono]
Common Bonds
A few nights ago I read a speech by Robert F. Kennedy, On The Mindless Menace Of Violence (pdf). He gave this speech the day after Martin Luther King was assassinated in Memphis, Tennessee, where he was to lead a march of sanitation workers protesting against low wages and poor working conditions. It struck me reading this how timely it still is for us today. There is nothing new under the sun…
“Some look for scapegoats, others look for conspiracies, but this much is clear: violence breeds violence, repression brings retaliation, and only a cleansing of our whole society can remove this sickness from our soul.
For there is another kind of violence, slower but just as deadly destructive as the shot or the bomb in the night. This is the violence of institutions; indifference and inaction and slow decay. This is the violence that afflicts the poor, that poisons relations between men because their skin has different colors. This is the slow destruction of a child by hunger, and schools without books and homes without heat in the winter.
This is the breaking of a man’s spirit by denying him the chance to stand as a father and as a man among other men. And this too afflicts us all.
I have not come here to propose a set of specific remedies nor is there a single set. For a broad and adequate outline we know what must be done. When you teach a man to hate and fear his brother, when you teach that he is a lesser man because of his color or his beliefs or the policies he pursues, when you teach that those who differ from you threaten your freedom or your job or your family, then you also learn to confront others not as fellow citizens but as enemies, to be met not with
cooperation but with conquest; to be subjugated and mastered…”[Robert F. Kennedy]
One of the thoughts this sparked off for me was related to that last paragraph, about teaching a man to hate his brother. I was completely struck by how much that seems like what USA/UK are doing with Iraq/Iran… we (UK) have become a nation so fearful of our brother simply because he has a different colour of skin, or different religious beliefs, or different cultural values. When did we lose our ability to discern for ourselves? When did we become a nation so passive and apathetic? But more importantly… what steps must we take in order to reverse this?
Small things done with great love can change the world…
Recent Comments