THOUGHTS OF AN ORIGENAL HERETIC

This drastically simplifies what the candidates' tax plans would do. Mr. McCain would preserve all of the Bush tax cuts, while Mr. Obama would let them expire for those making more than $250,000 a year. Mr. McCain would also double the child tax exemption to $7,000 and reduce business taxes. Mr. Obama would reduce income taxes and provide credits for people earning less than $250,000 a year. The nonpartisan Tax Policy Center found that Mr. Obama's plan would amount to a tax cut for 81 percent of all households, or 95.5 percent of those with children. The center calculated that by 2012 the Obama plan would let middle-income taxpayers keep about 5 percent more income on average, or nearly $2,200 a year, while Mr. McCain would give them an average 3 percent break, or about $1,400. The richest 1 percent would pay an average $19,000 more in taxes each year under Mr. Obama's plan but see a tax cut of more than $125,000 under Mr. McCain.

--from my friend Brian, an accountant and MBA.

“I’m spiritual, but not religious,” is a refrain we hear often these days. As with most popular expressions, its meaning is vague, but it’s quite clear that the expression makes a distinction between being spiritual and being religious with the implication that they are alternatives. A brief reflection on what the distinction seems to mean should give us some insight into a prevalent attitude floating in the air.

I take the expression “spiritual but not religious” to indicate an interest in supernatural reality of some sort lived out with consciousness-raising practices such as meditation, but separate from any particular religious institution. There might be respect for some teachings in some religions, but these teachings are brought together in a personal eclectic mix. This approach to being “spiritual” isn’t new. Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau did much to sell Americans and people world-wide on a spirituality of “self-reliance.”

It is telling that I can’t recall ever hearing anybody turn the expression around by claiming to be religious, but not spiritual. This suggests that “religious” people don’t see anything wrong with being “spiritual,” and are not likely to see the two as alternatives. Apparently, “spiritual” people see religion as an obstacle to “spirituality,” but religious people don’t see spirituality as an obstacle to religion.

The Latin root word for religion, religare, means “to bind.” Religious practices live up to this meaning by making connections that bind people with each other and with God. Practices of spirituality are also capable of making these connections, but if spirituality is separated from religion, then whatever good they do for an individual’s well-being, any connections they make with other human beings or God are tenuous at best. Basically, a person who is “spiritual but not religious” follows the spiritual quest alone. The extreme of this would be to live by Plotinus’ famous phrase: “The alone to the Alone.”

A condescending attitude comes across to me in the claim to be spiritual but not religious. It seems to suggest that religion is beneath one who is really spiritual. I’m sure that is not always the case with everybody who says this, but when I look back on my years of adolescence and early adulthood, I have to admit frankly that this sort of snobbishness was a large ingredient in my own outlook that fit the phrase “spiritual but not religious” forty years before it became common currency. Maybe my perception at the time that religious people usually weren’t all that spiritual was true. I do see a lot more vital interest in spirituality in churches today than I remember seeing then, but there is also a real possibility that my snobbish attitude made it harder for me to see the spirituality that really was present in religious people.

In all fairness to people who are inclined to be spiritual but not religious, it must be admitted that, in religion, we do not always connect to the right things in the right way. The French thinker René Girard has done much to draw our attention to how, traditionally, societies have pulled themselves together by perpetuating collective violence via a scapegoating mechanism. Some religions have bound their people together in precisely this way. It’s understandable that sensitive people would shy away from any religious group that binds itself together by defining common enemies and outcasts. It can easily seem preferable to forge one’s own path, however lonely it is, than to connect with a group that disconnects from other people in violent ways.

A decisive factor that led to my becoming religious as well as spiritual was a dissatisfaction with the eclectic approach. I reached a point where I realized that, in order for my spirituality to be centered, it had to be rooted in a particular religious tradition. My settling on Christianity, however, was not made with the sense that one choice was as good as another. At the time of decision, Christ, who very definitely willed certain things, such as fellowship with me, became very real to me. God’s grace and my choice to give myself to the particular Personhood of Christ were so inextricably entwined that there is no way I can separate one from the other. “Particular” is the key word here. The missing ingredient in spirituality without religion is particularity. Before this conversion, it seemed that believing in an impersonal “god”, whose manifestation on earth was not limited to one holy person, preserved my individuality. The irony is, that it is the making of particular choices in terms of friends, a community, and God that has enhanced my own particular individuality.

One of the particularities of Christianity is that the Holy Spirit makes spirituality religious by binding people and God together. The Holy Spirit is more than “the bond of love” between the Father and the Son. The Holy Spirit is a Person who actively brings the Father and the Son together and also actively brings each one of us, in our own particularity, to the Father and the Son and to each other in that same bond of Love. That Holy Spirit inspires us to love everybody, not in general, but in particular. This does not mean that the Holy Spirit gives us the impossible task of relating personally with billions of people. Rather, the Holy Spirit inspires us to follow Jesus’ commandment to love our neighbors. Our neighbors are the particular people who happen to be present in our lives. With the Holy Spirit binding us together with God in this way, there is no room for binding together by way of collective violence. This is how the Holy Spirit makes religion spiritual.

Living spiritually and religiously requires that we face the challenge of living with our own particularity and the particularity of others. We cannot meet this challenge without commitment: commitment to God and commitment to our neighbors. It is easy to be tempted to shrink from this challenge. I had something of a relapse into being more spiritual than religious when I first considered a monastic vocation. I thought I could relate to God and grow spiritually with little reference to the other members of the community if they weren’t enough to my liking. But I learned very quickly that only by committing myself to the particular monks in this place could I grow spiritually. This is why Benedict puts so much emphasis on commitment in his Rule. Benedict has only disapproval for wandering monastics who hop from place to place without ever settling down. Such people are committed neither to God nor to other people. The Benedictine vow of stability of place is precisely a vow of commitment to God and to the particular people in a particular place, and the land and the trees, to say nothing of the cats. This kind of commitment may not sound as spiritual as attaining “cosmic consciousness,” but it is by living with particular people who give us daily opportunities to make little sacrifices that we receive clear indications of when we are living in the Bond of Love of the Holy Spirit and when we are not.

Far from being a restrictive “god” who imposes a tyrannical rule on us, the God who calls us to commitment models total commitment to us, a commitment that took Jesus to the cross. The Persons of the Holy Trinity are totally committed to each other as much as they are totally committed to each one of us. We might be too busy to attend to a family member, a friend, or a community member, but the Holy Spirit has all the time in the world, plus Eternity, to be the Bond of Love between each of us and the Father and the Son. The Holy Spirit fills the whole world by virtue of this full-time commitment. What that means to us is that the Holy Spirit is intimately involved in the smallest details of our commitments to our neighbors and God. As the flame who formed tongues of fire above the disciples, the Holy Spirit breathes life into our smallest acts of service to each other and in the prayers we offer together to God. Serving others at table and vacuuming hallways may not be the sorts of things that make newspaper headlines, but, in the Holy Spirit, they are of cosmic importance.

It is true that I made a caricature of people who are spiritual but not religious at the beginning of this article. I know that many such people honestly struggle to participate in connections that the Holy Spirit is forging. Likewise, the notion that religious people are not spiritual is a caricature that blinds one to many of the ways the Holy Spirit breathes life into corporate activities. Both caricatures are harmful when they are used to denigrate other people. These caricatures are of some use, however, if they are turned toward ourselves and used as monitors for religious and spiritual growth. Is there real binding in our spirituality? Does the fire of the Holy Spirit breathe through our prayer and our acts of service to others? When the answer to both question is Yes, our hearts are inflamed as we walk with Jesus as did the disciples on the Road to Emmaus.

--Abbot Andrew,
The Abbey Letter
Summer 2008,
St. Gregory's Abbey,
Three Rivers, Michigan

You seek a great fortune,
you three who are now in chains.
You will find a fortune,
though it will not be the one you seek.
But first...
first you must travel a long and difficult road,
a road fraught with peril.
Mm-hmm.
You shall see thangs,
wonderful to tell.
You shall see a...
a cow...
on the roof of a cottonhouse, ha.
And, oh, so many startlements.
I cannot tell you how long this road shall be,
but fear not the obstacles in your path,
for fate has vouchsafed your reward.
Though the road may wind,
yea, your hearts grow weary,
still shall ye follow them,
even unto your salvation.

The Coen Brothers, O Brother, Where Art Thou?

perfection?
you want to find
the perfect person?
that person doesn’t exist.

there is no perfect body.
there’s no perfect mind.
no perfect heart.
no perfect person.

everyone farts.
everyone has hair
in strange places.
everyone goes bald
or turns gray.
everyone’s human.
we’re all odd.

what is perfection?
is it finding that other person
or is it finding yourself?

--Wes Jamison, 2008

"So many people think that a flush of erotic chemistry with another person is reason to forsake their friends and family, ignore their solo callings, go into escrow with a virtual stranger, and generally make fools of themselves. Disillusionment is real."

--Susie Bright, Full Exposure: Opening Up to Sexual Creativity and Erotic Expression

We pray that someday an arrow will be broken,
not in something or someone,
but by each of humankind,
to indicate peace, not violence.
Someday, oneness with creation,
rather than domination over creation,
will be the goal to be respected.
Someday fearlessness to love and make a difference
will be experienced by all people.
Then the eagle will carry our prayer for peace and love,
and the people of the red, white, yellow, brown, and black communities
can sit in the same circle together to communicate in love
and experience the presence of the Great Mystery in their midst.
Someday can be today for you and me.
Amen.

--a prayer of the Chippewa,
taken from the Book of Common Worship

Isaiah 55.10-13
Psalm 65
Romans 8.1-11
Matthew 13.3-9, 18-23
__________________________________________________________

In the summer of 2003, when I was serving as the associate pastor of a church in Johnson City, Tennessee, I led a group of 30 youth and adults to inner city Chicago on a mission trip.

For most of the week, we worked cleaning up trash in Cabrini Green, what was then one of the largest low income housing projects in the nation. We cleaned up lots of broken glass, a few spent bullet casings, and even a few hypodermic needles. For most of the kids from Johnson City, it was a rude awakening to life outside the confines of their peaceful mountains. The sea of concrete, the dirtiness, and the regular hail of gunfire and squealing tires in the background were radically different from the pastoral scenes of Northeastern Tennessee to which the youth were accustomed. By the end of the week, they were ready to come home.

During our final day in Chicago, however, our site coordinator moved us to a tutoring center near Cabrini. Instead of picking up garbage, we were going to be tutoring kids in a summer program. While each child we met and worked with that day was important, one child in particular will stay with us for the rest of our lives.

He was a young boy named Anthony. He was 12 years old and in the 6th grade. He was in the 6th grade and he couldn’t read. We had three adults with us who were teachers, one of whom specialized in working with children with unique challenges. She sat down with Anthony and two of our youth members and in the course of an afternoon, taught him the rudimentary skills necessary to read. Before we left that day, Anthony tearfully thanked the teacher and two youth members who had taken the time to work with him.

When we left there that day, most of the youth members in the group were in tears, wondering why Anthony had never learned how to read. Their tears led to questions about why such things are allowed to happen in this world.

It's far too easy to blame Anthony's teachers for letting him fall through the cracks. When you're faced with a classroom of 40 to 60 kids and you're one person, there's no way that you can provide the kind of one on one attention that every child needs. There are bigger questions to be answered. Why weren't there more teachers? Why didn't Anthony's parents say something or do something to bring the issue to the attention of someone? Why did the school keep promoting him to the next grade when he wasn't able to read?

As my youth members began to question the situation that led to Anthony's neglect, they subtly began to ask the larger questions that each of us must grapple with in this life. Why is there evil in this world? If God is good, why doesn't God do something to rid the world of such evils. These are not only important questions for young people, they're also important questions for adults. Far too often we allow the demands of life to push us into conformity and accept the injustices of the world.

Why do over 30,000 children die every day from hunger in this world? Why have 25 million people died from HIV/AIDS since 1981? Why do 47 million Americans go without adequate health care in the what is reputed to be the richest nation on earth?

I could throw statistics at you all day and it probably wouldn't take long before all of us started feeling guilty. The truth of the matter is that this world is not the promised land of our longing. As children we nurture dreams about the way we expect our lives to progress, but sadly, the circumstances of life seldom cooperate. Somewhere along the way we give up our dreams and accept that things are the way they are and there's nothing we can do to change it. We don't like the status quo, but we accept its inevitability and turn away from the television when images of children starving to death or a person dying of AIDS confront us. We have allowed the business of our lives to lull us into complacency and we resent being jarred from it. There's nothing we can do, so why bother with it.

The early church lived with this same struggle. After his ascension, Jesus had promised to come back soon to fully establish God's reign, but as the years passed, there was no visible sign of his return. When organized persecution of the church began, many who once held such strong faith abandoned it for fear of loosing their power, privilege and even their very personhood--their lives. Those first Christians were left to struggle with the dilemma of what to do with Christians who turned their back on the Gospel and acquiesced to the status quo. They were left to wonder, “Where is God?” They were forced to live in the tension of the already and the not yet of God's reign. Through the life and ministry of Jesus, God's reign is already present in this world, but this world is not yet fully a reflection of life as God intends it to be lived. Our ancestors in the faith were left to wonder, gazing up to heaven, prayers seemingly unanswered, what to do with it all. Their answer? To keep the faith, hold on to hope, and live as Jesus taught.

Two thousand years later, I doubt there's a better answer.

It's so easy to struggle with these hard questions of justice and wonder what, if anything, I, as a single, solitary person, can do to change things. What can one individual do to make a difference?

Jesus offers us a model in today's Gospel lesson. He tells us that we can become like farmers. We can plant seeds and care for them, be patient and watch them grow, and then share in the abundant harvest. No, he's not telling us to sell everything we have and go buy a farm and then plant seeds, though I often wonder if that wouldn't be a welcome change for most of us.

Jesus' words remind us that God acts in this world through the ordinary means of life. God seldom breaks open the clouds of heaven and sending choirs of angels marching down to right the wrongs of the world. In fact, I can't remember a single time God did anything like that. Can you?

The God of Abraham and Sarah, Isaac and Rebekkah, Jacob, Leah, & Rachel, the prophets, Jesus, the apostles, and all our other ancestors in the faith, is a God who acts through individual acts and individual lives. While it would certainly make things a lot easier, including faith, our God seldom resorts to the dramatic. God tends to work through each of us in the unique situations of our lives.

In the life and ministry of Jesus, God planted the seeds of justice that have grown into the Church of Jesus Christ, a foretaste of the beloved community of God's reign, albeit a bit flawed and myopic at times.

Jesus embodied radical love, extravagant hospitality, and an unwavering passion for justice. With each decision he made, each action he took, he intentionally chose a different way of life, one that was lived in harmony with God's will for creation. He dared not only to reject the status quo of his day, but to challenge it. He did not sit on his hands and accept that there was no way to change things. He got off his bench and started changing things. The funny thing was that he wasn't alone for very long. People were drawn to his passion and conviction. They sought him out and asked him for help, for healing, and for hope. He didn't disappoint, though he didn't give them everything they wanted either. Jesus called others to share in this counter cultural way of life. He dared to create a community of people who had the courage to live differently.

Challenging the status quo is never easy and seldom without significant personal cost. When the powers that be of his day struck out against him, Jesus remained faithful, faithful to the point of death. He refused to meet violence with violence. He refused to sacrifice his ideals for the sake of comfort. He paid for his commitment with his life. As Jesus himself said, “unless a grain of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it cannot bear fruit. However, if it dies, it bears much fruit.” Jesus' very life was a seed of justice, a seed of peace.

The seed God planted in Jesus bears fruit in us. We are the Church—the very body of Christ in the world. God seeks to in graft us into the very body of Jesus Christ, willing us to be the continuing presence of Christ in this world. Our lives, like the life of Jesus, can become seeds of justice in this world. We can choose daily to live according to the values of God's reign, living in the already of the beloved community. With each decision we make, we can sow the same seeds of justice that Jesus sowed. But how can those seeds bring peace? How can they change the world? As Pope Paul VI said, “If you want peace, work for justice.” Violence is a desperate response to loose the bonds of injustice. If we want to live in peace, we must seek to eradicate injustice.

While it's easy to feel overwhelmed by it all, it's important for us to remember that history has shown that political and economic structures collapse when they are unjust. A people will not suffer oppression long before they seek to rebel against it. Often that rebellion takes the form of violence, as we have seen in so many revolutions in history. Our steps toward justice now can and do begin to dismantle the very systems of oppression that do violence to the image of God with in us and the integrity of creation and they can embody a different, non-violent means of political, social, and economic transformation.

The ancient Chinese philosopher Lao Tzu reminds us that “the journey of a thousand miles begins with the first step.” Daily we can and must choose to dismantle institutions that dehumanize and exploit, not only humans, but also animals and the natural world. We must build more just, equitable, and sustainable societies in this world, or there may not be a world in which living is either possible or desirable. Each decision we make is a chance to resist evil and transform it with goodness. Every choice we make is a choice for justice or injustice. The old adage is true. Think globally, act locally. No, I can't stop the AIDS crisis in Sub-Saharan Africa, but I can volunteer at the local free clinic and help those living with HIV/AIDS here. No, I can't topple the unjust political regime in China, but I can choose not to support them with my purchase of products made by government sanctioned slave-labor. No, I can't eradicate illiteracy, but I can take the time to sit down and teach a 12 year old boy to read.

Yes, these decisions are often costly. We'll pay more for our groceries at a locally-owned store than if we had purchase them from a major national retailer, and yes, that may mean that we don't have as much disposable income, but at the end of the day, we'll know that we've made at least a small difference in our local economy. Each of those small differences add up to seismic shifts, both politically and economically.

In our Epistle lesson today, Paul reminds us that we are daily confronted by the choice between Spirit and flesh. When he tells us that we must choose the Spirit over the flesh, he isn't telling us that all things physical are bad and all things spiritual are good. He is telling us that our lives must be lived according to the values of God's reign, not according to the prevailing status quo of our day. Paul is reminding us that we must build our lives on values that reflect the love that God has for all that God has made, that honor our role as stewards of creation. Paul knows that such a choice is costly, but he offers us a deep and abiding hope. Those who live justly and fairly, caring for the world around them find peace and live in the assurance that death is not the end of this life. It is that hope that has sustained countless Christians throughout time and it can and will sustain us in our journey as well.

Can these tiny decisions truly make a difference? Are they really the seeds of change? The seeds we plant can and will transform this world. The modern Civil Rights moment began with one woman, Rosa Parks, deciding on the spur of the moment to reject the status quo, to stand against the injustice of racism, and hold on to her seat, even when the laws of the land demanded that she vacate it for someone of a lighter skin tone. Rosa's decision ignited a protest that helped to transform this land. It was through Rosa's arrest and the ensuing boycott of the Montgomery, Alabama, bus system that Martin Luther King, Jr. came to the forefront of American public life. While his leadership of the movement can never be denied, it was Rosa Park's simple, yet profound decision that day in 1955 that started it all. Yes, sisters and brothers, our decisions can and do make a difference.

So often we can feel like we're wandering in the wilderness. Choosing people over possessions, joy over contentment, risk over security--this all seems so ridiculous to those around us. Often our decisions make little sense even to our close family and friends who do not share our values. We feel alone and sometimes even foolish. We are not alone.

To the Hebrew community in exile, the prophet Isaiah speaks words of promise and hope. The people of Israel had watched their nation fall and seen their way of life evaporate as they were carted off to exile and slavery by a conquering power. They were so overcome with grief and despair that they simply wanted to sit down and cry. If we have lost a loved one, most of us can identify. It's so easy to pull the covers over the head and want never to get out of bed. To a people in such a state of exile, Isaiah dares to say things can and will be difference. Isaiah reminds the people that their nation fell because of political and economic injustice. They did not care for the most vulnerable among them and because of that they lost everything. Isaiah compares their exile with living in a barren wilderness, but God is not willing to leave them in the barren desert. God plans to bring them home, but not to the life as it was. When they do go home, they will return to a very different country and they will go home a very different people, changed by their exile. They will have a new understanding of what it means to live as those who have no voice, whose very livelihood is a struggle. They will know first hand what it means to be poor and marginalized and they must structure their community in such a way as to care for those most vulnerable.

In cooperation with the Spirit of God, the community of faith begins to plant seeds of justice. Without the distractions of wealth and privilege, the people refocus their attention on rebuilding their relationship with God and with each other. In these years of exile, the synagogue is born, a gathering of the people into a community for the purposes of worship, fellowship, and mission. It is this gathering that will sustain the Hebrews in their exile and empower them maintain their sense of identity in a foreign land.

While Isaiah compares life in exile to a barren wilderness, he envisions a wilderness that is transformed into an oasis of life. A people willing to cooperate with God, willing to build their life on values that uphold justice will find that any place can become a fruitful home, no matter how barren. Isaiah promises the people that their wilderness will bloom and they will be released from exile, joyfully returning home in peace.

The promise is for all of us. The seeds of justice that we plant will bear fruit in building a more just and peaceful world for all of us. The world as we know it, all to barren with hunger, poverty, war, violence, oppression, and ignorance, will slowly, but surely be transformed into the beloved community of God's new creation.

Did you ever plant seeds as a child? Every time I was given seeds to plant in our garden or for a project at school, I found myself planting the seed and digging it up every day to see if it had made any progress in growing. We're all a little like that when it comes to the seeds of justice that we plant. We want them to mature as of yesterday. Justice doesn't happen that quickly. It takes time, patience and persistence on the part of people willing to struggle.

Planting, hoeing, tilling, tending, weeding, and harvesting are hard work. We're not only going to have to be patient, but we're going to get tired. There are going to be days when it seems like it's pointless, when we just can't see our sacrifices making a difference. It's in those moments when the community of faith is all the more important. God does not leave us to wither with weariness. God comes to us continually, planting new seeds of love in us. The beloved community created by God, the church of Jesus Christ, lives a model of justice and peace for us, giving us hope that we can transform this world. We can feel the presence of God in the compassionate embrace of a sister or brother when we are exhausted, the blessed silence that overwhelms a worshiping community in the presence of God, and in the soul-stirring laughter of those whose hope is founded on things eternal.

Through the Eucharist, God comes to us and offers us God's very self as nourishment for the journey. The very presence of Christ in the Eucharist, is a foretaste of the holy communion with God and with each other for which we long. It's a vision of a world where each and every one of God's beloved children share equally in creation's bounty. In a world consumed with gluttony, this meal reminds us that there is a different, more nourishing way of life.

Historically, the Church of the Brethren has been identified as a peace church, a church that rejects excess, shuns violence, and fosters deep community. In a world as torn by injustice and violence as our own, we desperately need your witness. Hold on to your identity. Be passionate in your witness. Teach all of us who claim Jesus as Savior and Lord a different way of living.

God plants seeds of love and justice in us that we might plant seeds of love and justice in this world so that the whole world may be transformed from a desert of violence and hate into a plentiful paradise of peace. We are called to reject the injustice of our day and pursue the justice of God. We must reject notions of the survival of the fittest and work for the recognition of the inherent worth and dignity of every person.

May God give us the strength, the courage, and the fortitude to become sowers of the seeds of peace in this world. May we dedicate our lives to the pursuit of justice, the embodiment of love, and the extravagant welcome that God offers to all. Through us this world can become everything and more that we dream, indeed, it can become the very beloved community envisioned by Jesus.

Amen.

--The Rev. Wes Jamison,
Minister-at-Large for the
Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) and the
United Church of Christ,
15th Sunday in Ordinary Time,
July 13, 2008,
preached at Good Shepherd Church of the Brethren
Blacksburg, Virginia

There is more love somewhere.
There is more love somewhere.
I'm gonna keep on until I find it.
There is more love somewhere.

There is more hope somewhere.
There is more hope somewhere.
I'm gonna keep on until I find it.
There is more hope somewhere.

There is more peace somewhere.
There is more peace somewhere.
I'm gonna keep on until I find it.
There is more peace somewhere.

There is more joy somewhere.
There is more joy somewhere.
I'm gonna keep on until I find it.
There is more joy somewhere.

--Traditional Spiritual

Two boys
aren't
supposed to
love each other.

Two boys
are
supposed to
love two girls.

Two boys
aren't
supposed to
love each other.

But
we do.

--Wes Jamison, 2008

There's a mountain
Here before me
And I'm going to climb it
With strength not my own
He's gonna lead me
Or the mountain beats me
Carry me through
Carry me through

There's a river
Here before me
And I'm gonna cross it
with strength not my own
He's gonna save me
Or the river takes me.
Carry me through
Carry me through

Oh Lord be gentle
I'm just a man
Please don't crush me
Help me in.

Oh Lord remember
I try so hard
I walk and talk
Your kingdom love

There's a sinner
Here before me
And I'm gonna give them
Strength not my own
He's gonna carry me
when I get weary
Carry me through
Carry me through

Oh Lord be gentle
I'm just a man
Please don't crush me
And help me in

Oh lord remember
I try so hard
I walk and talk
Your kingdom love

Hallelujah
Hallelujah
Hallelujah
Carry me through

Hallelujah
Hallelujah
Lord Sweet Lord
Carry me through.

--Dave Barnes, 2008

"When I say your whiteness is showing this is what I mean: You claim that your opposition to Obama is an act of gender solidarity, in that women (and their male allies) need to stand up for women in the face of the sexist mistreatment of Clinton by the press. On this latter point--the one about the importance of standing up to the media for its often venal misogyny--you couldn't be more correct. As the father of two young girls who will have to contend with the poison of patriarchy all their lives, or at least until such time as that system of oppression is eradicated, I will be the first to join the boycott of, or demonstration on, whatever media outlet you choose to make that point. But on the first part of the above equation--the part where you insist voting against Obama is about gender solidarity--you are, for lack of a better way to put it, completely full of crap. And what's worse is that at some level I suspect you know it. Voting against Senator Obama is not about gender solidarity. It is an act of white racial bonding, and it is grotesque,"

--Tim Wise speaking to those Hillary supporters who are withholding their support from Obama by either not voting or supporting John McCain.

"When believers stand together in the liturgy after the readings from Scripture and recite the words of the Christian creed, they affirm that the world as imagined by Scripture and constructed by the creed is the world in which they choose to live. They construct this world together by imagining together the world that the creed imagines. When they say the creed together, Christians explicitly articulate their vision of the world and at the same time implicitly reject other visions of reality. They choose to live their lives in adherence to these claims about reality, and none other."

--Luke Timothy Johnson, The Creed: What Christians Believe and Why It Matters

"(The)Media is/are the opium of the people."
--Wes Jamison, 2008

God of Justice, Saviour to all
Came to rescue the weak and the poor
Chose to serve and not be served

Jesus, You have called us
Freely we've received
Now freely we will give

We must go live to feed the hungry
Stand beside the broken
We must go
Stepping forward keep us from just singing
Move us into action
We must go

To act justly everyday
Loving mercy in everyway
Walking humbly before You God

You have shown us, what You require
Freely we've received
Now freely we will give


Fill us up and send us out
Fill us up and send us out
Fill us up and send us out Lord

--Tim Hughes

As children turn to a Mother for strength and comfort,
so in a broken and fearful world, we turn to you, O God,
praying for your reign to come,
as Jesus taught us:

Our Father in heaven,
hallowed be your name,
your reign come,
your will be done, on earth as in heaven.
Give us today our daily bread.
Forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us.
Save us from the time of trial and deliver us from evil.
For the dominion, the power, and the glory are yours now and forever.
Amen.

--Wes Jamison, 2008

"The bravest of angels often travel with dignity as their only weapon."

"Sexual identity is a powerful common ground to share with another person. But in terms of genuine community, it's water, baby, not blood."

"If you can look someone in the eye and say, 'I knew you when you were this big,' it's hard to hate them. Gay men and women cannot simply disappear from our hometowns. That's where we have the most influence."

--Kirk Reed, How I Learned to Snap: a Small Town (Southern) Coming-Out and Coming-of-Age Story

Because he is the one candidate who has a clear vision for the role of religion in public life; one that is focused on service and sacrifice rather than divisiveness and domination.

Because he entered into public service in an effort to assist the poor.

Because he came to faith upon seeing the work of inner city churches on behalf of the poor and does not play his faith like a political trump card.

Because he has a track record of working with whomever will come to the table; finding the commonalities in causes and foci rather than allowing differences between ideologies or methodology to determine his political effectiveness.

Because he is the only candidate who had the foresight to know what kind of mess an Iraqi invasion would lead to, and the courage to vote against it.

Because he believes in the power of conversation and cooperation.

Because he does not fear sitting down with leaders many have labeled "evil" and "enemies", knowing that life is not the LORD OF THE RINGS trilogy and that the difference between good and evil is not as simple as we would like it to be.

Because he honestly believes that the American people need to become more involved and has the courage to call us to that.

Because he has consistently communicated that change means sacrifice on all our part and has had the courage to call us to that as well.

Because I believe he can inspire the world to find hope in America again

Because I believe he can inspire Americans to find hope in America again

Because I want a president who leads and inspires.

Because he makes me want to be a better American, a better person.

--Justin McRoberts, Christian/Singer/Songwriter/Musician/Activist, February 2008

“When I was in my late teens, I wanted to be a preacher. When I was in my late twenties, I wanted to be a good preacher. Now that I am older, I want more than anything else to be a Christian. To live simply, to love generously, to speak truthfully, to serve faithfully, and leave everything else to God.”

--The Rev. Dr. Fred Craddock, Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) minister and scholar

"We must love them both, those whose opinions we share and those whose opinions we reject. For both have labored in the search for truth and both have helped us in the finding of it."

-St. Thomas Aquinas

"How do you find your vocation? You locate where your passion meets the needs of the world. The first part of that equation is to engage yourself in those activities that you feel you were put on this earth to do. The second part of the equation is to carry out those activities so as to benefit others. The world is filled with unhappy people who are doing work that they do not care about, all for the sake of making more money or because they are trying to fulfill someone else's dream."

--David Batstone, Not for Sale: The Return of the Global Slave Trade--and How We Can Fight It