Thoughts from a Loving Gadfly
In January this year, I submitted an article to Western Friend about Friends and the “Beloved Community,” and I received the best rejection letter ever.
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In January this year, I submitted an article to Western Friend about Friends and the “Beloved Community,” and I received the best rejection letter ever.
The show goes wrong. This is my mantra as a pastor. My congregants hear me say it a lot, and it’s usually followed by a laugh. It’s not something I came up with myself. I give credit to Andy Dwyer, a character from the sitcom Parks and Rec. His “incorrect” version of “the show must go on” is actually far better than the original. His version is one to live by.
The opposite of love isn’t hate; it’s indifference. The opposite of faith isn’t doubt; it’s certainty. Even though “all human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights” (Article 1 of the U.N.
Dear Friends: Our bodies cannot live outside of history, nor can we live outside of history’s cruelty, its “mixing memory and desire.” Rowing our boats with our backs towards the future, we despair at the carnage we watch flowing out from our wakes – oceans choked by our poisons, lives crushed by our bigotry, truth and kindness twisted by our greed. Some bits of beauty bob along, too.
Dear Editor: I deeply appreciate your publishing my poem “On Garbage” in the Nov/Dec 2017 issue of Western Friend, but I was disappointed that a word was omitted from the penultimate line. It should have read:
Only love matters. Only love turns junk into jewelry,
A crown of thorns into a crown of light.
We’re tolerant of behavior by a two-year-old that would disturb us greatly if it were displayed by an adult. The behavior of the two-year-old is something we’d normally accept as natural to the condition of a two-year-old. The same behavior in an adult would challenge us to reconcile our ideas about what is natural in adult behavior with the disruptive behavior we see before us.
Our problems exist because we are all complicit, each and every one of us. We value our own convenience over the livability of our planet. We value our own convenience over the legacy we leave for our children and grandchildren. If there is such a thing as sin, this is it.
In the Wild Places by Sarah Hoggatt
reviewed by Dr. Robert S. Henry
A God-space between us
There is a God-space between us
that holds a truth
larger than any of our own.
It is a challenge to be open
to that possibility,
to trust the Great Mystery
of the in-between-place
that can move us towards
forgiveness, reconciliation, home.
On Seas of Grief