Tag: grace

Buy Swords/Capitol Insurrection

This is about what happened on January 6, and before. This is about the Cross and the sword. This is about how easily we can miss the point (or be led away from the point) for self preservation or preservation of a preferred way of life. This is about hamartia, about missing the mark, about sin. This is a little bit about Christian Nationalism, but only a little bit… that would really require more words. This is about Jesus, and hope for redemption for those far from the Father.

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Same Last Words, Same Pre-existing Conditions, and a Birthday (George Floyd, Eric Garner, Erica Garner)

Erica Garner’s birthday was May 29. She would have turned 30. In honor of her birthday, and her tireless striving for justice, I wanted to share this spoken word in its entirety, my thoughts on God’s heart as life ends. Weeping. Doubly so when life ends because of an abuse of power by those in authority. The word was originally written her father. Unfortunately, it can easily apply to George Floyd who died in police custody this week. The pre-existing condition that took Eric Garner, and Philando Castile, and George Floyd, and Erica Garner and the grossly overrepresented percentage of African Americans who have contracted and died of Covid-19 and who have become slaves of the carceral state, the same pre-existing condition that was weaponized by Amy Cooper to threaten the life of Christian Cooper, was, and is the condemnation of blackness in a society steeped in white supremacy, and the extreme vulnerability that belongs to poor and low wealth communities in America. I explore these pre-existing conditions and some of their outcomes.

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Spoken Word – Year of Jubilee

Johnny Cash's “When The Man Comes Around” was a huge influence for this piece. That song moves in the expectation of The Man’s judgment and (I gather,) payment or punishment for sin. With such great injustice in the world, we can long for the same. And there is Biblical allowance to do so, but as followers of Christ I feel there is a fine line between our anger and sinning not (Ephesians 4:26). Sinless whip-snapping and temple-table-flipping is probably not natural. In this broken world, where injustice and pain and violence is rife, the tension is real. I believe that we, as believers are called to bear witness to, and to cry out against evil. But witnessing and speaking out against injustice and brokenness can weigh us down. This piece calls our focus back to the Lamb, Slain and Risen for us, even in a world of brokenness. It calls us to long for love, over vengeance.

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Of Faith, And Prophesied-Over Image Bearers

In my previous post “If (Primary) Justice Was Done”, I looked at a form of justice that, if practiced with earnest and self-sacrifice by the Christians who were in the early and adolescent United States of America, could have preempted the creation of highly racialized laws which have contributed to the Laments in Midlothian. In this post I'll revisit an earlier post about fear. In the original post I considered how fear (as a tool of the lowly lion) will likely be used to justify the killing of Jemel Roberson. This week, I will consider how a prophetic lens of faith and honor may have brought a prophetic letter of love to Midlothian, rather than a lament.

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The Sound of Grace

This is a piece prepared for Easter Sunday church service, today April 12, 2020.

In it I contemplate the love and confidence of Father Son and Spirit in their planning to redeem humanity (did They laugh?), and wonder if there was wavering on the way to the Cross. I look at how far heaven may have seemed as Christ moved closer to death for us.

And I celebrate the beauty of the Resurrection, even as we still wait for the fullness of it to be revealed.

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God, As Healthy Oxygen Saturation Levels Fall Too Far, Weeping.

"But neither infinite power nor infinite wisdom could bestow godhood upon men. For that there would have to be infinite love as well." Walter Miller Jr., A Canticle For Leibowitz. As of this posting we are under the pandemic. Covid-19 is ultimately an icon of creation post-fall. As we live in the tension and long for redemption, let us take time to mourn with those who mourn over loss and suffering. I believe that that number includes our God.

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