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Daily Scripture

+ Fourth Week of Lent

I am in the heart of God.

Readings: Jeremiah 11:18, 12:19-20 Psalm 7:2-3, 9-12 John 7:40-53

Let us destroy the tree in its vigor; let us cut him off from the land of the living so that his name will be spoken no more. [Jeremiah 12:19]

So the guards went to the chief priests and Pharisees who asked them, “Why did you not bring him in?” The guards answered, ”Never before has anyone spoken like this man.” [John 7:45-46]

Could it be that we don’t get answers because we don’t ask the right questions? I think we spend a great deal of time, perhaps a great portion of our lives in denial about who we are and who we are to become.

I may not ask the right questions because I’m afraid of the answers. I fear the darkness but hide in the darkness in order to avoid the light. Denial becomes a way of life but in reality it is the path to death.

This is a paradox, however, because unless we willingly succumb to the dark night of the soul, we cannot find the light of God’s truth.

Jesus was not exempt from this process that peaked in the Garden of Gethsemane on the night before he died.

True spiritual freedom is not something that we pursue but something to which we succumb by letting go and letting God. Those who were truly liberated in Christ were not those who simply understood his words but those who were absorbed into his life so that with Paul they could say, “I live no longer I, but Christ lives in me.” Or to put it another way, “Say not that God is in my heart but that I am in the heart of God.”

All about politics... a respone

Tuesday May 13, 2008

Just so my subscribers know that I am not above and beyond critique or criticism, I am posting a response to my previous posting entitled “Er, ahem, it’s all about politics… isn’t it?” [Cf. Notes, Quotes & Comments website link]. The subscriber makes a fair point!

To the Editor:

Oh, there’s such a better way than these two on the subject of race in America

Obama does it far better, just to choose one.

Black men of the cloth need only look at Nelson Mandela and his utterly radical forgiveness. It turned a nation around, away from retribution and hate speech, and snatched it from the jaws of civil war. No Nurenburg here, just a Truth and Reconciliation Commission where sin was confessed and forgiven but not forgotten (I wonder where this practicing Christian man got this idea??) Still not an ideal nation, riddled as it is with problems, but racial attitudes are on such a better glide path.

Unlike South Africa, in our nation the decision to turn around was made about two generations ago, all we need do is nurture it with some degree of tolerance. Assaulted by Wright, white onlookers of good faith wonder what’s been happening these last 45 years as the nation threw its treasure at a problem that happened long before they were born, embarked aggressively on affirmative action, and still strives to rid itself of the hangovers from our own personal apartheids.

The Rev. Wright chooses not to use the past as a positive mechanism for racial healing, but rather seems to wallow in it or perhaps even use it as a weapon. Spong is obviously sympathetic and seeks to explain, quite unsuccessfully, by claiming “out of context” as if it were true, the reluctance of whites to acknowledge white sin, and then raises the inevitable straw man (“Someone, seeking to destroy America’s first viable African American candidate, had linked him to the historic anger of the black Church… racial fear is still live and well in America.”)

Huh?

Pretty weak “someone!” And pretty tame “fear” as Obama gains traction regardless of whether he may win the nomination!

Two men of the cloth (three really with Bill Moyers) and not a word about the power of forgiveness! Strange how the black clergy tends to rally around Wright while the black community doesn’t seem to want to go there. Maybe this is indeed the time for some Christian soul-searching, so we can get to another level.

The truth is that few people of good faith in America really care that a woman and a black man are running for its highest office—-don’t get me wrong, they think it’s a wonderful and positive sign, but they’re simply not going to vote for one or the other for that sole reason. It is NOT racist to question Obama’s experience or judgment or his links to others, or even the extent to which he may share “the historic anger of the black Church.” We need to know him! We already know his female opponent, perhaps too well.

Disclosure: I have no intention of voting for Obama if he wins the nomination. But if he wins the presidency, I’m quite comfortable with his obvious intelligence, and trust that he will act on the data and seek to do the right thing.

Editor’s Note:

There is no doubt in my mind that forgiveness is the ultimate goal for victims of discrimination and their descendents and Christ remains the model and exemplar for Christians though, to be sure, Mohandas Gandhi also was a strong advocate of forgiveness. It is to be sure the refined sense of prophetic vision to which Martin Luther King called all Americans. As ‘on target’ as the subscriber’s observations, many are still in the process of conversion to this refined position. Nevertheless, he is wise to remind us that our destiny is truth, justice, reconciliation and peace. Forgiveness is the conclusion of a long process. My mantra remains a version of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission referred to above: “No healing and forgiveness without justice; no justice without truth; no truth without full accountability.” The justice to which I refer is called ‘restorative justice’ and takes place with the offender acknowledges his or her failure and says, “I’m sorry.”