Today’s cultural environment has a call for “justice.” The danger is that in some segments, that call is also coupled with a “calling out” meant to shame a particular person and drive them from our visual existence. David Brooks has an excellent column HERE to dive into that segment.
Justice has to move past vengeance and anger. It has to move to deeper change.
Continue reading “True justice is not into shaming “the other side””I was able to pick up a copy of A Testament of Hope: The Essential Writings and Speeches of Martin Luther King, Jr. while visiting the National Civil Rights Museum last year. It is a powerful compendium of Dr. King’s work in his words, not the interpretation of someone else.
He lays out his plan for nonviolent resistance and is clear this isn’t about cowardice. He moved this direction because he believed violence only created new social problems without correcting the old ones. His thoughts on nonviolent resistance had five basic principles:
Continue reading “The meaning of nonviolent resistance”The struggle for freedom on the part of oppressed people in general and of the American Negro in particular has developed slowly and is not going to end suddenly. Privileged groups rarely give up their privileges without strong resistance. But when oppressed people rise up against oppression there is no stopping point short of full freedom. Realism compels us to admit that the struggle will continue until freedom is a reality for all the oppressed peoples of the world. — Martin Luther King, Jr., A Testament of Hope: The Essential Writings and Speeches
O God, the Father of all, whose Son commanded us to love our enemies: Lead them and us from prejudice to truth; deliver them and us from hatred, cruelty, and revenge; and in your good time enable us all to stand reconciled before you; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
Grant, O God, that your holy and life-giving Spirit may so move every human heart, that barriers which divide us may crumble, suspicions disappear, and hatreds cease; that our divisions being healed, we may live in justice and peace; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
A prayer for today captured me in light of the horrifying news the past few days of how we are treating children in this political war over immigration. Here is part of that prayer:
Let your way be known upon earth;
Your saving health among all nations.
Let not the needy, O Lord, be forgotten;
Nor the hope of the poor be taken away.
A bold message from MLK50 that calls us to recognize our problems and for THE CHURCH to rise up and be the solution again. Please hear this call from Pastor Charlie Dates.
Reading for the Day:
Psalm 55, 138, 139
Gen. 41:1-13
1 Cor. 4:1-7
Mark 2:23-3:6
I have lived too much of my life outwardly in recent years. The inward prayer life needs attention. Continue reading “The needed private life of prayer”
