View high resolution
Martin Richard, 8 years old, was killed yesterday in Boston’s bombing. This picture of Martin says it all. “No more hurting people. Peace.”
It is time for us to learn to love again. Violence has and forever will tear humanity apart. It has yet to create lasting peace. The cycle must be broken, and it must happen now, with each and every one of us.
With one brother in the armed forces, and another considering, my heart is deeply burdened. I love them greatly, and admire their desire to make a change in this world, but Jesus words echoing in my head are so haunting. “Put away your sword; Those who use the sword will die by the sword.” I want NONE to die, neither the ones I love and hold dear, nor those whom I’ve never met and could consider enemy. I deeply desire and pray for the day we fully embody His teachings in ways that put an end to our desire to meet violence with violence.
“Dear friends, never take revenge. Never pay back evil with more evil. Don’t let evil conquer you, but conquer evil by doing good.” - St Paul. May it be so.
To truly understand the resurrection of Jesus the Christ, one must come to understand that self-sacrificial love, to the point of death, is the only life worth living. It is the most powerful force in the world, and it lies deep within us all.
To those of you who identify as followers of Jesus, I implore you to search your hearts and identify the motivation behind denying the rights of your neighbors, brothers and sisters, to be able to commit to a life of fidelity through matrimony under the law. Perhaps our obvious shortcomings, hypocrisy, and inability to incarnate the forgiveness, mercy, and love Jesus has for us is part of the reason. Perhaps it’s easier to use misunderstood and biased mistranslated scriptures as weapons than it is to lay our lives down in acts of self-sacrificial love. Regardless of the reason, the Christian Church has constantly been on the wrong side of history, and it is time for that to change, and that change begins now, with you and I.
View high resolution
Evangelical Christian world… Today we celebrate the life of a man who died for the peace and freedom of others. Please try not to use it as a platform to attack one another. Let us honor his legacy, and practice tolerance and love.
For my thoughts on Martin Luther King Jr. and american Christianity, skip to 15:30, when we visited the Lorraine motel. My heart sadly still feels the same…
Ever ask yourself which Kingdom your heart resides (Luke 12:22-34)? Do you find yourself defending your man-given rights to own lethal weapons for self-defense and self-preservation over your willingness to fight against the principalities of evil in this world by practicing compassion, self-sacrificial love and mercy. Our divine constitution commands us to take in the homeless, nurse the sick back to health, clothe the naked, practice hospitality towards the alien and foreigner, adopt the orphan and spare yourself on behalf of the widows of our land and lay our lives down for both friend AND enemy. If the former takes precedent over the latter, God may be demanding you make some difficult changes.
“Generations to come, it may well be, will scarce believe that such a man as this one ever in flesh and blood walked upon this Earth.” - Albert Einstein (on Mahatma Gandhi).
I think we are that generation. We forget the power of self-sacrificial love. The power of non-violence. The fruits of the labor of compassion. May we seek to summon the courage needed to reorient ourselves with the spirits and hearts of those who came before us, and with great determination, overcame evil with good.
