Some Christians Want Stimulus from the Government's Package

I recently received an email calling for Christians to be scandalized and outraged. Not wanting to pass up an opportunity like that, I read on to find out that Former Speaker Newt Gingrich “feels that if Christian activists would have enough courage and holy anger to e-mail and call their representatives and senators.” Over what? Well, the current administration’s stimulus package has a section prohibiting the uses of its funds. One of the prohibitions is that the money cannot not go to building or renovating buildings that are used mainly for religious or sectarian purposes. The actual wording in question is:

No funds awarded under this section may be used for - (C) modernization, renovation, or repair of facilities (i) used for sectarian instruction, religious worship, or a school or department of divinity; or (ii) in which a substantial portion of the functions of the facilities are subsumed in a religious mission; or construction of new facilities.

It is important to note that nothing is keeping Christians from doing their own funding. We can still send a fat check Duke Divinity School in order to renovate their chapel. And we can even still meet in the buildings being renovated, as this very email notes that in the 2001 Good News Club vs. Milford Central School Supreme Court decision, the court ruled that restricting religious speech within the context of public shared-use facilities (or schools) is unconstitutional. This paragraph simply says that the money cannot go towards chapels and buildings used by seminaries and bible colleges, or building “in which a substantial portion of the functions of the facilities are subsumed in a religious mission.”

And yet some Christians see this as "discriminatory," "theft," and "corruption of the highest order." Another portion of the email says,

Christians have not expressed enough outrage focused on the concept that people of faith are being taken advantage of by the stimulus bill during a time of crisis. They are being stolen from them when they are down and out and looking in good faith to the government for help. Instead of the stimulus we need, the liberals are getting the pork that they want -- for themselves, their families, and their friends. They are pickpockets and thieves preying on the down and out.

There seems to be a great irony that some of the Christians who speak vehemently against any sort of “handout” are now shamelessly offended when they don’t get a piece of the pie. I am befuddled as to why they would want to be stimulated by the government’s package. I understand that, given its size, it is very tempting, but the church has no need of the government’s aid. Sure, we’ll take what they want to give us, but we do not need it.

Furthermore, some believe this to be a slow move of edging the Christian voice out of the public square. But part of the Christian story is that we do not force our voice to be heard, nor do we shove our presence into people’s homes or even the public square. Even if there was any validity to this alarmist claim, it still does not change anything for the Church, because it is not our custom to force our presence anywhere. Christ can only be invited.

Praise Song for the Day

Elizabeth Alexander



Each day we go about our business,
walking past each other,
catching each other’s eyes
or not
about to speak
or speaking.
All about us is noise.
All about us is noise and bramble,
thorn and din,
each one of our ancestors on our tongues.

Someone is stitching up a hem,
darning a hole in a uniform,
patching a tire,
repairing the things in need of repair.
Someone is trying to make music somewhere
with a pair of wooden spoons on an oil drum,
with cello, boom box, harmonica, voice.

A woman and her son wait for the bus.
A farmer considers the changing sky.
A teacher says, “Take out your pencils. Begin.”

We encounter each other in words
words spiny or smooth,
whispered or declaimed;
words to consider,
reconsider.

We cross dirt roads and highways
that mark the will of someone and then others who said,
“I need to see what’s on the other side.
I know there’s something better down the road.”

We need to find a place where we are safe.
We walk into that which we cannot yet see.

Say it plain, that many have died for this day.
Sing the names of the dead who brought us here,
who laid the train tracks, raised the bridges, picked the cotton and the lettuce,
built brick by brick the glittering edifices
they would then keep clean and work inside of.

Praise song for struggle.
Praise song for the day.
Praise song for every hand-lettered sign,
the figuring it out at kitchen tables.

Some live by “love thy neighbor as thyself.”
Others by “first, do no harm” or “take no more than you need.”
What if the mightiest word is “love”
love beyond marital, filial, national;
love that casts a widening pool of light;
love with no need to preempt grievance?

In today’s sharp sparkle, this winter air,
anything can be made,
any sentence begun.
On the brink, on the brim, on the cusp,
praise song for walking forward in that light.

Read after Barack Obama's inaugural address
January 20, 2009

Our Culture of Dysphoria

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What aspects of western dominant culture are the most insidious and pose the greatest challenge to the church? I often hear that it is evolution, gay rights, abortion, and the prevailing doctrine of "tolerance." Someone with more patience than me can wade through the ocean of misconceptions and erroneous interpretations at work in the current debate over these issues. However, I would like to suggest an often overlooked aspect of our culture that seems to be a greater challenge than the above hot-button issues, and that is this this culture's cultivation of dysphoria (A state of unease or generalized dissatisfaction with life. The opposite of euphoria).

In the early years of the church Christians would actually prepare themselves for various kinds torture in order to confess Christ even under the most grueling of circumstances. Such stories of Christians resisting threats of excruciating torture stands in stark contrast to the stories of many western Christians who find it almost unbearable to be in a state of discomfort.

We do not have to look far to find examples of the fact that our current economy is contingent upon a society that is compelled to buy products that avoid discomfort and promise a life of ease, comfort and convenience. This compulsion to buy such things is provoked by the cultivation of dysphoria. Why else would I be compelled to buy a remote control that does much more than merely control my tv from a remote distance?

So what? you might ask. Well, this might sound redundant, but if we continually make choices that avoid discomfort, then it seems to follow that we are going to be predisposed to make choices that avoid discomfort. This cannot be good. Again, this is in stark contrast to early Christians who put themselves in positions that made them endure discomfort, pain, and even the threat of death so as to predispose themselves to not be as influenced by those things. That is to say that while the early Christians were predisposed to resist coercion even under torture, contemporary Christians are predisposed to be persuaded to do some pretty stupid things with nothing but the threat of discomfort.

If western Christians were transported to the time of Nero, what would it take to get us to deny Christ - threaten to withhold a side item from a the menu; threaten to withhold drugs for our attention, mood, or weight disorder; threaten to make us be seen in clothes from 80's?

The Truth Project: Simply a Bad Way of Talking

The more I listen to how the Truth Projects talks about truth, the more I come to realize that it seems they have an urge to separate truth from Jesus. Of course they proof-text that Jesus is the way and the truth and the life, but they isolate verses that cast truth in the abstract rather than intimately connected with the incarnation (which in turn is intimately connected with the church). Then they make the declaration, “This scripture reveals that salvation is a result of a person's belief in God's truth claims.” This statement is irksome because scripture doesn't reveal that "salvation is a result of a person's belief in God's truth claims" but a life lived in the fullness of Christ.

It is also interesting that out of all of the proof-texts offered, they leave out Ephesians 4:21, which reads, “that is not the way you learned Christ! For surely you have heard about him and were taught in him, as truth is in Jesus.” It seems that they do not want to associate truth with the living community of Christ, as it is implied in Romans 10:8-10:

‘The word is near you, on your lips and in your heart’ (that is, the word of faith that we proclaim); because if you confess with your lips that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For one believes with the heart and so is justified, and one confesses with the mouth and so is saved.

The problem with how the Truth Projects talks about truth is that the confession that “Jesus is Lord” will no longer suffice. Now, we must confess that this confession is a truth that exist regardless of us and outside of us.

Does Jesus want truth to exist apart from us? It seems that the message of the incarnation is that the truth is near us, that God is wrapping all of creation into Godself. Granted, we need to guard against the danger of making truth whatever we want it to be (which is usually called a lie), but we also must confess that, by the grace of God, truth is with us, and indeed in us. If truth corresponds to God, and hell is separation from God, then why would we want to assert a particular kind of confession that emphasizes the separation of God/truth from humanity rather than a confession that emphasizes Emmanuel, “God with us”?

Other Posts on The Truth Project:
1. The Truth Project?
2. Wariness of The Truth Project

I also want to include this link to Hackman's Musings. He has honored me with a link to these pages, and I would be remiss not to link back to his thoughts on this topic. He makes numerous spot-on critiques and observations, as well as facilitates a much larger conversation in his comment section.

1. The Truth Project: Part 1

2. The Truth Project: Part 2

The Truth Project?

The people at Focus on the Family have launched a full-frontal assault upon an evil that lurks behind every corner that waits to suck the brains out of its next prey. This evil has many names, but Focus on the Family has dubbed this vile beast “postmodernism” (cue the creepy music). Apparently, the way the church is to live and dialogue within this postmodern “present” cultural climate is to dig in its heals and hold onto a theological and philosophical way of talking that has not only become nonsensical to the very people the church claims to bring the Good News, but it has stifled dialogue and turned otherwise interested "seekers" away from the Church. I used to be slightly annoyed and mildly amused by this organization’s presumption to speak authoritatively on highly complicated theological issues. Now, I’m just pissed off. The reason being is that they are going around the world pushing people to think in ways that are downright asinine.

Obviously, there are a lot of things that that they are saying that are praiseworthy – like loving Jesus and all that good stuff. But when they presume to give an authoritative critique of culture, philosophy, and theology, as well as offer responses to those critiques, you better be sure you bring your A-game. And these guys obviously have no A-game when it comes to theology and philosophy. They are naive charlatans delivering complex theological and philosophical issues in an oversimplified and erroneous package…bless their hearts.

So what exactly is my problem? It’s too massive to address. It’s like trying to mend a decapitated elephant with a box of Band-Aids. Maybe I’ll try to articulate a more general response to what bothers me so, but for now, I’ll leave you with this gem of how The Truth Project defines “postmodernism.”

Here at Focus on the Family, we understand the noun "postmodernism" to refer to a philosophy or mindset that rejects the value of rational thought, denies the existence of moral and spiritual absolutes, and affirms the right and power of the individual to invent his or her own "reality." This way of thinking is incompatible with the Christian perspective because it denies the existence of a truth that is valid for all people at all times. In other words, it rejects the claims of the Gospel on principle, without even granting it a hearing. It's precisely this kind of thinking that Focus on the Family's The Truth Project® is designed to counter

If you are going to “counter” something, it might help if you knew what it was you were countering, otherwise you playing war with a straw man. It’s funny; I don’t remember any self-professed postmodern philosophers or theologians staking their claim on "the rejection of rational thought." This is so off the mark that it doesn’t even count as a caricature. The other painfully misinterpreted aspect of postmodernism is that it "affirms the right and power of the individual to invent his or her own 'reality.'" Again, no postmodern thinker I've read would say this. While they might affirm the existence of different "realities," they also qualify that by saying that each person's reality is connected to a particular culture, language, practices, and shared stories of a particular community, not individual. In fact, it has been predominantly postmodern thinkers that have commented on, and analyzed the existence of various worldviews or paradigms that shape the way the individual lives and understands reality. The would also say that the individual is incapable of "inventing his or her own reality" because of the fact that we have such a symbiotic relationship with a particular worldview or paradigm.

Now it is fine to critique this aspect of Postmodernism, but this would entail a much different critique than the one that The Truth Project is offering. I applaud their efforts of attempting to help the church be more faithful to the worldview of the people of God. However, the education that they are offering is, in many ways, gagging the church from fruitful dialogue with people in this postmodern age.

Other Posts on The Truth Project:
2. Wariness of The Truth Project
3. The Truth Project: Simply a Bad Way of Talking

I also want to include this link to Hackman's Musings. He has honored me with a link to these pages, and I would be remiss not to link back to his thoughts on this topic. He makes numerous spot-on critiques and observations, as well as facilitates a much larger conversation in his comment section.

1. The Truth Project: Part 1
2. The Truth Project: Part 2

"What I wear is pants. What I do is live. How I pray is breathe." Thomas Merton

Prayer begins with the inhale. Before we are able to utter anything with our lips we must first draw through them the air that fills us, enabling not only our speech but also our life. And we must remember that humanity did not take the first breath but that it was given to us. God’s exhale became humanity’s first inhale, filling us not only with life, but the ability to participate in the creative power of breathing. For it was God’s breath that uttered the world into existence, and God’s breath that filled humanity with life.

And so before we gather words to give to our God, we must first realize that this activity of prayer is itself a gift from God. It is the very breath that God breathed into humanity that we in turn direct back to God. Taking in and breathing out this breath of God is no trifling matter. “This is not an enterprise to be entered into lightly,” Eugene Peterson notes. “When we pray we are using words that bring us into proximity with words that break cedars, shake the wilderness, make the oaks whirl, and strip forests bare (Ps. 29:5-9).”

Prayer is the breath of God in our lives. Prayer begins with receiving from God. If we are not waiting in silence for the Lord (Ps 62), or receiving the God-breathed scripture into our lives (II Tm 3:16), or listening to the counsel of the wise (Pr 8:33-35), then the words we breath will be little more than toxic wind. Just as fresh air is crucial to the activity of breathing, so also is the taking in of these breaths of God in the activity of prayer.

But it is not only waiting but also acting, not only receiving but also giving, not only listening but also speaking, for we cannot act without having waited, or give without having received, or speak without having listened. Life exists in the rhythm of the two. And in the act of praying we place ourselves in this rhythm of life. A rhythm of receiving God’s perpetual gift of life, as well as taking that breath and creating words similar to God’s that create and bring life.

In doing this, we place ourselves further in the depths of God where we were created to live and move and have our being (Acts 17:28). Having been invited into the depths, we now have the opportunity to invite the depths into us. In God we live and move and have our being, but through prayer we open ourselves up so God can live and move and have God’s being in us. May our prayer life be so wrapped up in this rhythm of taking in and praying out, that we may be able to utter the words, “how I pray is breathe.”

Who Would You Be: Hitler or FDR?

This made me laugh.

Al Franken and Ann Hart Coulter were asked at the Connecticut Forum if they could be anyone in the previous century, who would it be. Ann Hart Coulter, since she apparently prefers to call people by their full names, employs some very interesting logic... so does Al.

Houses Built with Human Hands

As I walked through Christ’s Church United Methodist on Park Avenue in Manhattan, I was struck with amazement by two converging facts: 1. This church was grand, beautiful and fostered an awareness that you stood in a space that had been hallowed for the public gathering of Christian worship. The doors were unlocked and anyone could wander in off the streets and dwell in this stunning space. 2. The grandeur of this place was financed by poor immigrants during the Great Depression.

As I walked through a mega church from my own tradition, I was struck with wonder by two parallel converging facts: 1. This church was big, functional, and spared no expense in lighting and audio/video technology, but spared every expense when it came to art and architecture. 2. The underwhelmingly enormous building was financed by upper class citizens during one of the wealthiest time periods of American history.

Since I grew up in a church like this, I heard first hand the rational for building a church in such a way. The rhetorical question was continually asked, why spend so much money on superficial things when all we really need is a building that can shelter as large a group as possible for occasions ranging from worship to basketball. After all, we do not need a building to worship God. Like Judas, we often wondered why anyone would waist money on such a senseless act of worship when that money could have gone to the poor (John 12).

But these questions rattled around in my head as I wondered through the church built by poor immigrants during the Great Depression. “Why was this money not given to the poor?” Well, these people where the poor, and what did they do with that money? They built a public space that could house a king. But not just any king, their king – a king that that shares his space with the poor. It goes without saying that these poor immigrants devoted their money to create a space that was the worlds apart from their private homes.

But what about the rich upper class mega church? Was this functional building worlds apart from their private homes? Yes, but in the opposite ways it was s

There seems to be an interesting tension between churches built by a predominantly poor community and churches built by a predominantly rich community. The poorer community will devote a higher percentage of their income to provide a space for worship that far exceeds the grandeur of their own homes. But the richer community will give more money, but less of a percentage of their necessary income, to build a space for worship that is “functional” because, as Judas says, this money could go to the poor.

How is it that the rich can have a problem with devoting too much money to a church building, seeing it as superficial or not a good investment or that it could go to the poor, but have no problem buying and living in $500,000 homes? It seems that if we have a problem with one, we should have a problem with the other? It is interesting how we pose such questions to a church building, but we do not pose it to our own lives.

I have now lost count with how many people who see it as their right to spend as much money on themselves, as long as they have given their “tithe” to the church. I have posed a specific question to numerous people in countless conversations:

If a Christians makes $200,000 thousand dollars a year, and has tithed $40,000 (which is 20% annual income) as well as devote time 20% of their weekly time for service in church ministries, then is it acceptable for them to buy a $60,000 Ferrari, make payments on a $500,000 home, and spend $50,000 on clothes, as long as they are not in debt (other than the home lone)?

The answer I get is always a resounding yes. In fact, many of the people I’ve posed the question to look at me like I’m crazy for even implying that there would be a problem with this.

Wine from these Grapes

by Edna St. Vincent Millay

Wine from these grapes I shall be treading surely
Morning and noon and night until I die.
Stained with these grapes I shall lie down to die.

If you would speak with me on any matter,
At any time, come where these grapes are grown;
And you will find me treading them to must.
Lean then above me sagely, lest I spatter
Drops of the wine I tread from grapes and dust.

Stained with these grapes I shall lie down to die.
Three women come to wash me clean
Shall not erase this stain.
Nor leave me lying purely,
Awaiting the black lover.
Death, fumbling to uncover
My body in his bed,
Shall know
There has been one
Before him.


Reflecting on Wine from these Grapes
Stephanie A. Hart

This is one of my favorite poems, but why would the author, a wildly promiscuous woman living in bohemian Greenwich Village at the height of the roaring 20's, care to write something which seems to evoke such a powerful image of Christ. Perhaps, Edna never meant it to be Christian, but in reading her work, I often discover religious themes coming through the pages.

Yearly around Easter time, this poem pushes its way to the foreground of my thoughts. This year, my books boxed away, I searched four libraries and the internet to find a copy. When I finally found it on a dusty shelf and turned its brittle pages, its words hit me again with their rich themes.
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The Force That through the Green Fuse Drives the Flower

Dylan Thomas

The force that through the green fuse drives the flower
Drives my green age; that blasts the roots of trees
Is my destroyer.
And I am dumb to tell the crooked rose
My youth is bent by the same wintry fever.

The force that drives the water through the rocks
Drives my red blood; that dries the mouthing streams
Turns mine to wax.
And I am dumb to mouth unto my veins
How at the mountain spring the same mouth sucks.

The hand that whirls the water in the pool
Stirs the quicksand; that ropes the blowing wind
Hauls my shroud sail.
And I am dumb to tell the hanging man
How of my clay is made the hangman's lime.

The lips of time leech to the fountain head;
Love drips and gathers, but the fallen blood
Shall calm her sores.
And I am dumb to tell a weather's wind
How time has ticked a heaven round the stars.

And I am dumb to tell the lover's tomb
How at my sheet goes the same crooked worm.

Hand of God

Auguste Rodin

The power of this sculpture lies in Rodin's choice to leave much of the medium uncut and unpolished. Two figures intertwine in a loving embrace that culminates in a kiss that is immortalized in stone. All the while, the "hand of God" is the place where this sensual interaction is created. Again, the power of this piece is in its ambiguity. Love, beauty, and passion are at the very core of creation. There is no finished product in love because the goal is the very activity itself. And the activity itself is caught up in creating things that have not yet come to fruition. Love begets love; beauty begets beauty; passion begets passion. But these activities would continue regardless if they begot anything.

The "unfinished" stone not only emphasizes the active and creative nature of love, but it also emphasizes God's hand in the whole process. God does not cause the two to be caught up in such ecstasy, but is the place where that ecstasy takes place. The most brilliant embrace of rapturous sublimity can only take place within the hand of God. This is because God is co-creating in this activity. All of our notions of love, beauty, and passion exist because they are the offspring of previous actions of God's of love, beauty, and passion. Indeed, our very existence and continued sustenance is maintained within God's loving embrace with all creation. And we touch the hand of God any time we find love, beauty, and passion within the embrace of the body of Christ.

The Peace of Wild Things

Wendell Berry

When despair for the world grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children's lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting with their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.

Ash Wednesday 2009

Lent: the last Christian season to be colonized by Hallmark and other trinket-making industries. It hasn’t happened yet, but I’m sure it will. It’s only a matter of time. First, they took Christmas from us. Then they took Easter with that ridiculous bunny and those disgusting Cadbury eggs. Then they moved on to snag All Hallows Eve. Next they started chipping away out our saints, like St. Patrick and St. Valentine.

But the season of Lent is difficult terrain for our capitalistic society to colonize into a profit-making season. After all, “tis the season to be… fasting” is hardly a motto that could stir the masses into a buying frenzy.

But it is for these very reasons that Lent just might be all the more significant for Christians to practice in our modern culture. There is something about it that cuts across some of the most powerful currents in our society. If for nothing else, it reminds us that we as a church are shaped by disciplines and practices that are utterly foreign to our dominant culture.

Now, to be sure, we hear Jesus state in no uncertain terms that we are not to practice our piety in a way that draws attention to ourselves. This seems to be in tension with putting the sign of the cross in ash on our forehead of all places. But it is important to remember that this tradition arose out of time when nearly everybody in a given town would have this very sign on their forehead, and so it hardly drew attention to anybody in particular because it was as normal as the clothes their back. We however live in a different time and place and should rightly ask whether such an act will be one that draws attention to ourselves in a similar way as the hypocrites on the street corners who want to be seen by others. Yes, this is indeed a danger. However, there are countless Christian practices and disciplines that could potentially be twisted into this sort of perverted act.

It is also helpful to remind us of the full range of rituals we engage in on a yearly basis. Getting together in groups on December 31 to eat junk food and watch digital numbers change from 11:59 to 12:00 and at that moment singing a song, all in order to celebrate the unseen reality something new has begun. There is also the ritual of standing for specific songs in public places, and maintaining silence at specific times so as to point to the unseen, and not always remembered reality, of the identity of the nation. There is the ritual of doing something out of the ordinary to celebrate the reality of the event of a friend’s birthday.

These are realities that are always with us, but it is enriching when we take time to experience those realities in an out-of-the-ordinary way. Every day when I wake up, I’m aware of the reality that I’ve been married to Angie. But there is something very enriching to our relationship when we plan for our anniversary, and then share in that occasion in order to celebrate one particular day that happened over a decade ago. It is hard for me to imagine carrying with me on a daily basis the intense reality of the fact we have made a covenant of faith and all of weight that entails. And yet it is important for us to yearly remember and relive that important day, and that life-altering decision.

Likewise, our faith is too big to be profoundly aware of all of its nuances everyday. Our faith is so big that we stretch out our memory across an entire year so as to be aware of it all, because we cannot possibly have the awareness of all of the aspects of what God has done for us on a daily or even a weekly basis.

I’m always thinking about Jesus, but there is just too much to what he said and did to be mindful of it all on a regular basis.

The Lenten practices are intended to be an aid to experience Holy Week, and the Passion of our Christ in a heightened way that we might not otherwise experience. For just as it is out of deep darkness that the dawn shines most brilliantly, so too do we come to a better awareness of the splendor and glory of our king’s greatest morning when we set it against the backdrop of his darkest night. Lent is a season when we work into the rhythms of our lives practices that remind us that Christ left the beauty and safety of heaven in order to take on the beauty and brokenness of humanity. Just as my wife and I have both given up many things in order to share our lives together, so too has our relationship with Christ entail a similar type of giving up and taking on. As we give up and take on during lent, we remind ourselves not only of Christ’s giving up the goodness of heaven to take on the brokenness of humanity, but that Christ’s call to confession, repentance, and return enables us to give up our brokenness in order to take on his divinity.

During lent, many of us alter our lives in small ways, so as to help bring this particular reality of Christ into our lives. These things that we may give up are usually things that are not in themselves bad things. In fact they are everyday common things, sometimes mundane things, things that are a part of our every day rhythm of life. But when we give these things up, or take these things on, the cycle of our lives hits a slight bump, jarring us out of cruse-control and making us think, reminding us of Jesus’ words, Remember me? Remember me.

But this is no easy task because in our act of remembering Christ, we also remember the declaration of “remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return.” This may at first glance seem morbid and hopeless. Indeed, all of Lent seems to be depressing. The Lenten themes are usually things that most people try their hard not to think about. So why do we go to such great lengths to remember it? Because buried under the ash on our forehead is the reality of the life of Christ. In acknowledging our death and mortality, we set the contrast by which the resurrection may be seen in our lives so that the world may know it is not us that live, but Christ who lives within us.

It is a reality of our faith that is with us all year, every year, but now is the time where we allow our lives to cycle through this aspect of Christ at a slower pace. Like an anniversary, we both remember Christ’s commitment to us, as well as our commitment to Christ.

All of our texts today emphasize that the significance is not so much on the practice as much as it is on how those practices enables us to not only return to God, but to be a people who beckons all of creation to this same return. Our acts of worship, and the symbols we use, from the waters of baptism, to the table of Christ, to the ashes on our foreheads, are acts and symbols that are to enable us to see the reality of the kingdom of God. If these acts aren’t turning within us the desire to serve the homeless, visit the lonely, speak out and stand up against oppression, then we had better think twice about doing them. However, if done in the right spirit, these cyclical and yearly practices can not only strengthen us to be the people God would have us to be, but they also enable us to come to a deeper awareness of the life to which all creation is returning so that, as T.S. Eliot wrote,

…the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.

May the symbol of the ashes bring about a better awareness that in dying we are born anew; and in leaving life we are actually returning to it.

New Depressant Drug about to Hit Market

And now a word from our sponsor...

Blurring Borders in a Nation that Fears Its Neighbor

or, The Parable of the Good Samaritan (Luke 10:25-37)

Every year the National Wildlife Association faces the challenges of regulating the rules and guidelines of deer hunting. It seems that the prospect of getting that 8 point buck is so tempting that many hunters are willing to break the law in pursuit of this great prize.

But back in 1942, something happened that caused a dramatic drop in deer hunting. You know what it was…Bambi. That’s pretty hard to believe, isn’t it? How in the world is Bambi going to cause some big burly deer hunter to not go hunting? Two possible explanations, either they just couldn’t bring themselves to putting Bambi in the cross hairs of their thirty-alt-six, or little Jonnie Jr. wouldn’t let daddy out the door with the knowledge that he intended to blow Bambi’s head off.

It is so intriguing that one story, could so dramatically transform the way people see deer, that it would even transform a deer’s greatest enemy? But that is power of story, Bambi being the more ridiculous example. But think of the ways in which stories transform not only the way we see, but many times the way we act. Think about how stories like Uncle Tom’s Cabin influenced the ways whites viewed African Americans. Think about the way in which the Movie Philadelphia or the play Angels in America helped to transform the way many American’s viewed Aids and even Homosexuality. We could all mention stories that hit us at certain times and quite literally transformed the way we see things.

It is this transformative power of story that Jesus harnesses in his parables. Jesus is not interested in giving rules and regulations, Jesus is interested in transforming the way we live and understand our lives, and more importantly, how we understand our neighbor...
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