"O, ye who visit the distressed, do ye know that everything your money can buy, given with a cold, averted face, is not worth one honest tear shed in real sympathy?"
— Harriet Beecher Stowe, Uncle Tom’s Cabin
word to flesh
I came that they may have life and have it abundantly.
John 10:10 (ESV)
That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we looked upon and have touched with our hands, concerning the word of life— the life was made manifest, and we have seen it, and testify to it and proclaim to you the eternal life, which was with the Father and was made manifest to us— that which we have seen and heard we proclaim also to you, so that you too may have fellowship with us; and indeed our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ.
1 John 1:1-3
The Word became flesh that we might have life and have it abundantly. God incarnate, not to take us out of this world, but to be the catalyst, to be the source of our becoming all that we were created to be. The Word came into the World not to destroy it, but to bring its restoration. Justice in our own earthly lifetimes is eternally consequential.
pittsburgh: violence | prosperity
My city, my city! How I mourn your broken walls of dreams shattered in the ground. Hope lost, Life forlorn. How I mourn your walls built of speeding cars separating and segregating race, class. Will we not respond to the call of the age? Or will we miss the opportunity until the next cycle? I pray that we stop our generational curse. Let this be our time of repentance.
- Welcoming neighborhoods: let us build bridges across communities, let us welcome one another into our communities to live, work, & play
- Affordable housing, livable wages: let us provide opportunities for people to live in provision
- Celebration of creativity: let us celebrate and provide resources to empower the creativity of one another
- Equal voices: let us uncloset ourselves from any cloisters of power and invite each other to the table to listen, share, and learn
Useful Reads/Listens:
"There is no way to quantify the death of a dream, or the death of dreaming itself."
— Vanessa German, Lost My Cool at a Community Meeting
"The great evil of American slavery was not involuntary servitude and forced labor; the great evil of American slavery was the narrative of racial difference that we created to legitimate it. There was an ideology of white supremacy that we made up to make ourselves feel comfortable with slavery."
— Bryan Stevenson
poor among us
It was now two days before the Passover and the Feast of Unleavened Bread. And the chief priests and the scribes were seeking how to arrest him by stealth and kill him, for they said, “Not during the feast, lest there be an uproar from the people.”
And while he was at Bethany in the house of Simon the leper, as he was reclining at table, a woman came with an alabaster flask of ointment of pure nard, very costly, and she broke the flask and poured it over his head. There were some who said to themselves indignantly, “Why was the ointment wasted like that? For this ointment could have been sold for more than three hundred denarii and given to the poor.” And they scolded her. But Jesus said, “Leave her alone. Why do you trouble her? She has done a beautiful thing to me. For you always have the poor with you, and whenever you want, you can do good for them. But you will not always have me. She has done what she could; she has anointed my body beforehand for burial. And truly, I say to you, wherever the gospel is proclaimed in the whole world, what she has done will be told in memory of her.”
Then Judas Iscariot, who was one of the twelve, went to the chief priests in order to betray him to them.
Mark 14:1-10 (ESV) [emphasis added]
Jesus recognizes 3 things:
1. The reality of poverty.
For there will never cease to be poor in the land.
Deuteronomy 15:11a (ESV)
In this broken world, poverty will happen.
2. Our need to break cycles of poverty.
Therefore I command you, ‘You shall open wide your hand to your brother, to the needy and to the poor, in your land.’
Deuteronomy 15:11b (ESV)
Deuteronomy 15 gives God’s commands for breaking poverty in this age.
3. There is no justice without him.
Pray that in our desire for justice, we remember who the Judge is. Pray that in our desire for justice, we find ourselves at the feet of Jesus. Pray that in our desire for justice, we do not find ourselves betraying our Savior.
(Source: benirwin.me)
false dreams
Reality is not taking a pill to see yourself waking up to a world outside of this – it is seeing the world as it really is.
When the journalist asked me about my body, it was like she was asking me to awaken her from the most gorgeous dream. I have seen that dream all of my life. It is perfect houses with nice lawns. It is Memorial Day cookouts, block associations, and driveways. The Dream is treehouses and the Cub Scouts. The Dream smells like peppermint but tastes like strawberry shortcake. And for so long I have wanted to escape into the Dream, to fold my country over my head like a blanket.
Death to the demon of the American Dream! Death to the spirit of Manifest Destiny! I pray that we would choose you King Jesus – resurrect us from lies, bring deliverance to our persistent slumber.
Very few Americans will directly proclaim that they are in favor of black people being left to the streets. But a very large number of Americans will do all they can to preserve the Dream. No one directly proclaimed that schools ere designed to sanctify failure and destruction. But a great number of educators spoke of “personal responsibility” in a country authored and sustained by a criminal irresponsibility. The point of this language of “intention” and “personal responsibility” is broad exoneration. Mistakes were made. Bodies were broken. People were enslaved. We meant well. We tried our best. “Good intention” is a hall pass through history, a sleeping pill that ensures the Dream.
- Between the World and Me, Ta-Nehisi Coates
"The worship of the golden calf of old has found a new and heartless image in the cult of money and the dictatorship of an economy which is faceless and lacking any truly humane goal."
—
Pope Francis
(Source: w2.vatican.va)
zoot suit, god bless america
The more digging, the bigger the graveyard is. During WWII, racial attacks occurred in Los Angeles against Latino, African, and Filopino Americans and immigrants. Zoot suits were worn often by youth and became the target for the attacks occurred by the very servicemen who had sworn to defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic. Even in the midst of the greatest war in human history, America still held on to racism and naming non-European peoples as the enemy. What difference was democracy from fascism, for what hope was there for non-”Aryan” peoples?
God bless America,
Land that I love.
Stand beside her, and guide her
Through the night with a light from above.
From the mountains, to the prairies,
To the oceans, white with foam
God bless America, My home sweet home.
How difficult it feels for me to sing such a song for a country with such great sin. But this is my prayer:
God bless America,
Land that I sojourn and have been called to love.
Stand beside her, and guide her
Despite her affair with violence.
As Hosea was to Gomer, do not leave this land!
Through the night with a light from above
Cast away all darkness that evil cannot hide.
From the mountains, to the prairies,
To the cities, soaked with blood.
God bless America, my Babylon.
(Source: Wikipedia)
Why do the wicked live,
reach old age, and grow mighty in power?
Their offspring are established in their presence,
and their descendants before their eyes.
Their houses are safe from fear,
and no rod of God is upon them.…
Who declares his way to his face,
and who repays him for what he has done?
When he is carried to the grave,
watch is kept over his tomb.
The clods of the valley are sweet to him;
all mankind follows after him,
and those who go before him are innumerable.
Job 21:7-9; 31-33
(Source: Wikipedia)