Do Not Be Afraid

“Do not be afraid; for see—I am bringing you good news of great joy for all the people…”  Luke 2:10, NRSV

I was driving home from working at The Open Table last week and had just heard the news about yet another shooting, this time in San Bernardino, California.  My heart sank.  I was out of words, out of prayers, and was feeling low on hope as well.  The amount of gun violence in 2015 was overwhelming–how can we make a difference when the problem seems so big, so out of our control?  “What Child Is This?” came over the radio and its message, like church bells, rang loud and clear.  Even in our darkest times, when winter nights seem endless and as humans we are not at our best, the hope of God’s story in the Christian faith tradition offers another narrative by which we can live:

Forge Your Way to Freedom

“Who Are You?”
A Poem by Camilla Sanderson

They don’t interest me, the superficial details of your life..

I want to know
If you contemplate death—
Not in a morbid way,
But in a way that determines how you will live your life.

It doesn’t interest me what you think you’re supposed to do….

Read the rest at Elephant Journal: http://prsm.tc/NnIz65

You may say I’m a dreamer

Last night in Paris there were attacks on several public gathering places, a tragedy which follows other attacks on the city in recent months.  I felt sorrow and anger as I read about yet another act of violence in our world.  I felt sympathy for the caregivers and emergency workers who encountered the bodies of over 125 persons who had died, along with hundreds of others who were injured.  I felt compassion for those who lost their loved ones so unexpectedly and may not have heard the news until hours after it happened.  I even felt some compassion for the group who planned and initiated the shootings and bombings.  What happens to a person, a group of people, to cause them to choose this way of being in the world?