"Tipping Scales of Justice"

Lectionary Reading – Luke 4:21-30 (NRSV)


"Then he began to say to them, "Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing." All spoke well of him and were amazed at the gracious words that came from his mouth. They said, "Is not this Joseph's son?" He said to them, "Doubtless you will quote to me this proverb, "Doctor, cure yourself!' And you will say, "Do here also in your hometown the things that we have heard you did at Capernaum.' " And he said, "Truly I tell you, no prophet is accepted in the prophet's hometown. But the truth is, there were many widows in Israel in the time of Elijah, when the heaven was shut up three years and six months, and there was a severe famine over all the land; yet Elijah was sent to none of them except to a widow at Zarephath in Sidon. There were also many lepers in Israel in the time of the prophet Elisha, and none of them was cleansed except Naaman the Syrian." When they heard this, all in the synagogue were filled with rage. They got up, drove him out of the town, and led him to the brow of the hill on which their town was built, so that they might hurl him off the cliff. But he passed through the midst of them and went on his way."

“Tipping Scales of Justice”

Healthcare reform is dead – at least that’s what some want you to believe. Who are these folks? Well, they are healthcare insurance corporations, pharmaceutical companies, corporate healthcare providers and folks of a certain political persuasion who think the working poor should adopt the words, “cure yourself.” For these folks, the notion is anathema that we should bear together the healthcare needs of all our fellow human beings. It’s anathema because it puts too much dent in corporate profit margins or too much dent in the financial bottom line. But those folks can rest easy now that healthcare reform has been put off one more time. Thank you Massachusetts! Thank you that the health insurers’ most egregious practices will continue to injure and harm us all.

One of those practices in case you’re unaware, is that the industry will continue to care less that nearly 40 million of our countrymen (children, women, and men) have no health insurance coverage. Another practice is that the industry will continue to be free to deny payment for services considered medically necessary. In certain circumstances, they’ll also be free to deny payment for treatment of pre-existing conditions. They will also be able to continue to place spending caps on someone’s healthcare. And when the going gets tough and a patient’s treatment becomes too costly, they’ll end coverage thus leaving individuals and families headed toward bankruptcy and if the situation is bad enough, having to go onto the Medicaid rolls.

Maybe it’s time to immigrate to Canada. How about it my Canadian friends, can I come back? You at least understand that access to basic healthcare is a fundamental human right. We Americans however have to make profits off nearly anything and everything we do. In fact, it’s so firmly etched in our psyche that we’re quite content to let tens of millions of our fellow countrymen suffer without access to healthcare even with the knowledge that many of that number will probably die. Never mind that we have the costliest healthcare per capita in the world, i.e. over $8,000 per year while other countries provide basic healthcare as a right of citizenship at $3,500 or less. But we can’t do any better because the shareholders have to be taken care of. And truth be told, we don’t mind how much our health insurance costs rise each year or that the increases will lead to more of us being uninsured. What I can hear in my ears already from those delighted that healthcare reform has failed probably goes something like this, “Wonderful! Fantastic! No chance now that my taxes are going to increase to cover the uninsured. Dang it, I worked hard to get where I am and have the health benefits I do. If I did it, so can all those others who aren’t insured.”

Here’s what I think about all this if it isn’t clear already. Healthcare reform is going to happen someway somehow. It may take another 10 or 20 years, but read my lips health insurers and pharmaceutical companies, “It’s going to happen.” And along with it there will be a public option and far more cost effective means for people getting the medicines and medical care they need. So like the priests, rabbis, and Pharisees of the Nazareth synagogue so long ago who tried to kill off Jesus and the reform that he sought to bring for a more compassionate approach to the world, you too should get to thinking about a different way of doing things. You’re going to need a completely overhauled business model, a totally new business plan, or perhaps a new line of business altogether. This country will get fed up with you and your sense of entitlement and your contribution to skyrocketing healthcare costs.

Why do I say this, well it’s because a step was taken in the right direction in the early 1990s. It involved a minor piece of healthcare reform. It gave us portability, meaning that if we had already been covered by insurance through an employer and then that coverage ended due to going to a new job, then it was illegal for the new insurer at the new job to refuse to cover a pre-existing condition for months or a year or more. Other steps have been taken in the years since to hold you even more accountable.

This time health insurers, you nearly had your head handed to you on a silver platter for your inhumanity, greediness, and willing failure to serve ALL of your fellow citizens. One vote was all that things fell short of bringing a profoundly new reality to your way of being. Yes, another 10 or 20 years ought to do it insurers and pharma. Enjoy the lavish boardrooms, the big perks, the costly bonuses that come at others expense. For even though the synagogue goers tried to throw Jesus and his movement off the cliff after he pronounced that things were going to change, they were not successful and the movement became more alive and prominent then anything anyone had ever seen before. That’s what will happen as well to efforts to try and kill off healthcare reform. And like Jesus, it will be back and eventually back with so much power that you’ll want to run and hide like the demons Christ cast out so that lives could genuinely heal.

“Justice rolls like a river,” insurers and pharma and medical providers. Have you ever heard the song? If not, I suggest you check it out because justice is a coming and it’s a coming soon!

"Justice over Status Quo"

For Sunday, January 24, 2010

Lectionary Reading:

Luke 4:14-21 (NRSV)


"Then Jesus, filled with the power of the Spirit, returned to Galilee, and a report about him spread through all the surrounding country. He began to teach in their synagogues and was praised by everyone. When he came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up, he went to the synagogue on the Sabbath day, as was his custom. He stood up to read, and the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was given to him. He unrolled the scroll and found the place where it was written: "The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor." And he rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant, and sat down. The eyes of all in the synagogue were fixed on him. Then he began to say to them, "Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing."

“Justice over Status Quo"

Jim Wallis is editor-in-chief of “Sojourners” magazine. In an article in the May 1977 edition of the magazine, he shared some rather provocative thoughts. Recently, he shared the article again on the Sojourners website (www.sojo.net) as his reflection and commentary on the lectionary scripture above for this coming Sunday. What I found amazing is how that 33 year-old article resonated so deeply with me today. Below are three paragraphs from the article that stand out particularly for me particularly. In the first paragraph, Wallis comments,

“According to the scriptures, one cannot conceive of the possibility of relating to the Lord without relating to the purposes of the Lord. And conversely, to try and relate to the purposes of the Lord without relating to the Lord is also misguided and futile. The connection is clear between the personal character of one's relationship to Christ and the purpose of justice for which that relationship is given.”

Wallis then shared that,

“Laying down our lives for justice, for reconciliation, for liberation, and for healing among the nations is not merely an implication of the gospel; it is the gospel. And that is inseparable from being personally related to Jesus Christ; it is the purpose of that relationship. It seems to me that the connection between the anointing of the Spirit and radical participation in God's purposes is key to understanding our mission and identity as Christians.”

Lastly, in one of the closing paragraphs, Wallis comments,

“Clearly then, the vocation and the very identity of the Christian community is to lay down its life for the sake of bringing forth the purposes of God's justice in the world. When the church serves only itself, meeting only the needs of its own members, it has failed in its primary calling, which is to exist for the sake of the world. An exclusive, internal focus on its own life is nothing less than a betrayal of the identity and mission of the body of Christ.”

In my experience, the insights that Wallis shared three decades ago continue to have much relevance today. I say that because in my experience and the experience of many others, a great number of Christians continue to miss the point that the relationship Christ gives to us is first and foremost about making the world a just place for everyone. Yet many Christians confine their faith to the format of what amounts to a Sunday social club. And in regard to service to others, overwhelmingly it means members focusing on and serving each other. The concept therefore of laying down our lives for justice, reconciliation, liberation, compassion, healing and peace is so absolutely foreign that many Christians simply cannot relate. It’s a failing, as Wallis puts it, of faith communities not understanding their primary calling as Christians. Therefore the manner in which they choose to exist is nothing less than a betrayal of the relationship Christ has given as well as betrayal of the identity and mission of the body of Christ.

Wallis’ words are pretty stern, but from having been in his presence and having sat under his ministry and having been arrested in political protest alongside him, I have no doubt he meant such words thirty-three years ago and no doubt that he means them today given his choice to republish the article. Furthermore, having watched him call elected leaders and the Religious Right to accountability for behavior and ways of being contrary to justice, I’m certain he wouldn’t hesitate to repeat the above convictions face to face to any minister or pastor or judicatory official or denominational leader who decides to take the path of least resistance and let the status quo rule the day. Truth be told, countless thousands would stand in support at his side while he admonished people who should be living prophetic lives. Thank God that we manage to have people like Jim Wallis who are willing to stick out like a sore thumb and speak prophetically to all people of faith no matter what the cost.

As to my voice regarding such things, I am left to wonder why so many Christians allow the kind of Christianity that Wallis criticizes above. It’s an important question when one stops to consider the vast amount of resources being held and/or expended by faith communities for their own sustenance, their own benefit, their own ego, and their own enjoyment rather than valiantly expended those resources in liberating, reconciling, and healing our broken world. Any local Christians-Only Club leaves me anxious to find alternative forms of discipleship. I’m especially eager for these alternative forms when all about us in this world there are families who haven’t enough food to eat, who don’t have resources to see a doctor or get medicines or obtain adequate employment or education or are at risk of losing their homes or have no safe and secure housing or who have to take on debt they can’t afford to in order to pay for their needs. I am particularly restless about the use of resources for comfy forms of discipleship when we think about the hundreds of thousands, even millions of human beings who lives have been devastated by war, famine, tsunamis, hurricanes, and now the earthquake in Haiti that has claimed 200,000 lives that we know of so far. How is it that in the face of all these things, faith communities justify focusing and spending on themselves? Why aren’t we realigning our resources to maximize their impact for the common good? Why aren’t we breaking down the doors of our leaders and elected officials and demanding better from them? Why aren’t we holding protests at the city hall or state or national capitol until irresponsible selfish corporations and arrogant wealthy elite are brought to heel for their greed and abuse that have damaged and limited us all in terms of bettering and providing for the common good?

As I see it my friends, we need to reclaim authority even as Christ did and affirm to one another that the Spirit of the Lord is upon us and has anointed us to bring good news to the poor, to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor." The year of the Lord’s favor applies today if we’re willing to claim. It applies whenever any of us have the courage to say that “the status quo shall not have place in my life” and then we literally move on from that situation of status quo. Those words were at the base of Jesus’ life and ministry and message and each one of us becomes Christ when those words stand at the very base of our lives, ministry, and message. In living out God’s favor and being restless and therefore like Christ in our unwillingness to simply let the status quo be, we can look to new forms of being the Body of Christ and thus transform the world. We can look to new possibilities like wraparound ministry as a form of congregational life (see http://peace-n-justice.blogspot.com/2009/11/wraparound-what-concept-for-sunday-nov.html).

We can also look to new forms that genuinely capture the imagination and commitment of younger generations for bettering the common good. In that regard, let us look at congregations like a Hispanic house church of 26 members in our community who meet regularly in a two bedroom apartment. Let’s look at how they provide social service to the community while supporting one another in distinct and concrete ways that keep their kids away from violent gangs. Let’s look at the lay minister-pastor whose message and mission and vision have been successful enough that two gangs asked him to help them find healthier ways of competing with each other rather than resorting to violence.

Or let’s look at the example of an Assembly of God minister who concluded that trying to get people to come to church was no longer working and no longer a useful strategy for bettering the common good. What did he do? He decided to provide “church” at a local sports bar on Sunday mornings. With support of the bar’s owner, the minister provided a worship service during the halftime break and he certainly had takers. And as you might imagine, he had to get comfortable with his church members drinking a beer during the service. Hey, if that’s a problem for you, just recall that Jesus was often at meals where wine was served. He even changed water into wine for one banquet and quite likely he drank wine himself.

The radicality of Jesus is what speaks to the world now rather than the sanitized Christ that much of the world has come to know in the centuries since the Crucifixion. Let us recapture that radicality. For those of us in the United States, some of us see that necessity of that having just observed Martin Luther King Jr Holiday in the United States. Many have expressed concern that we’re losing the radicality of King as one of Jesus’ followers, i.e. that the holiday is “sanitizing” the revered civil rights leader and stripping his memory of the fire and passion in message and ministry. They call us to recapture King’s energy and forthrightness in order to better the common good.

Resurrect Jesus’ radicality in your life, ministry, and message my friends especially when you’re face to face with people who simply want more of the same, i.e. more of the same that has done precious little to further the work of God’s Peaceable Kingdom here on earth. Do not allow the evil of maintaining the status quo when so many are suffering, living under oppression, or dying from injustice. You are the key to ending the world’s failure to take action. Do what you can wherever you can, knowing as Jesus did that the Spirit of the Lord is upon you.

"Pursuit of the Common Good"

Lectionary Reading
First Corinthians 12:7-11

"To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good.  To one is given through the Spirit the utterance of wisdom, and to another the utterance of knowledge according to the same Spirit, to another faith by the same Spirit, to another gifts of healing by the one Spirit, to another the working of miracles, to another prophecy, to another the discernment of spirits, to another various kinds of tongues, to another the interpretation of tongues.  All these are activated by one and the same Spirit, who allots to each one individually just as the Spirit chooses."

“Pursuit of the Common Good”

The Apostle Paul’s letter to the Corinthians provides the kind of counsel about spiritual gifts that would be good for any person of faith to measure themselves against, especially in terms of how one uses one’s gifts to better the common good. The context for this portion of scripture is that the Corinthian Congregation had lost track of the need to improve the common good. Displacing that important work was an unfortunate spirit of competitiveness among the Corinthian members over who possessed the most and best of spiritual gifts. Through his letter to the congregation, Paul worked to get the congregation back on track for the cause of the common good and God’s Peaceable Kingdom.

For me, not only is Paul’s counsel helpful when I need to get back on track but I also think of a humble and honorable elderly lay minister who died eleven years ago. His name was Harold Crooker. Harold entered my life in 1988 in Roseburg, Oregon when I was consulting with a congregation there in that community. Harold had heard of my meetings with the congregation and as he was a lay pastor for a small church in the nearby community of Klamath Falls, he wanted to observe and see what my consulting was all about. As things tended to go with Harold, he not only observed but he also did a fair portion of sharing while observing. It was the kind of thing I came to love and value in him and his ministry.

Eleven years later in Vancouver, Washington, at a congregation where we were both members, I found myself presiding over the sharing portion of Harold’s memorial service. What was remarkable about Harold’s memorial is that visitors from the community hugely outnumbered the members of the congregation and it was pretty much standing room only. Variously, individuals shared their stories of Harold. Some described him as the driving force in establishing the local interfaith association. Other’s regarded him as a tireless advocate for homeless men through which he committed himself to forging relationships with such wandering souls in hopes of stabilizing their lives and helping them find meaning.

Remembrances of Harold included mention that when the shelves of food banks ran low, he would go calling on influential persons in the community to get those shelves restocked. He also served for a number of years on the county’s mental health advisory board, a watchdog group of citizens overseeing the use of publicly funded mental health dollars. He also initiated the first Community Peace Symposium of the local interfaith association. One pastor from an African American church passionately referred to Harold as God’s “Hound of Heaven” for the Greater Vancouver area.

Harold’s efforts didn’t go unnoticed by the local newspaper either. A reporter had stumbled onto Harold’s good works a few years ago and sympathetic to Harold’s passions, he followed Harold around and reported on Harold’s efforts to better the common good in the community for the poor, the hungry, the homeless and hurting. He reported as well on Harold’s commitment to the causes of peace.

Harold once explained his philosophy of life to me, i.e. that he was put on this earth to help people get their needs met and if ever there came a point in life that he could not do that work any longer, he wanted God to take him home. So at 82 years old and experiencing severe limitations from the damage of two heart attacks in the year prior to his death, Harold couldn’t understand why he was still alive. He reasoned he couldn’t do anything more, so why was God keeping him alive? Perhaps it was too tie up a few loose ends.

One of those loose ends was Harold’s desire to be sure that our church would continue its interfaith involvement, so he twisted my arm to attend a few meetings with him prior to his death. At the last meeting that Harold was able to attend, he issued a final challenge to eighteen friends and associates from other faith traditions. The challenge was nothing less than that they stay the course toward peace and justice for all of God’s children. Harold then closed his remarks with bidding them all a loving and final good bye. I remember that so many of the folks at the meeting responded with denial that Harold’s days were drawing to a close, but Harold reassured the doubters that his time was at hand. One person did take Harold seriously. He was the outgoing president of the interfaith association and he put it this way to Harold, “We will hope to see you again dear brother, but if not then go with God, and know that our prayers go with you as well.”

Dozing in front of the television two weeks later, Harold gently slipped from this life into the next. The “Hound of Heaven” had been taken home while he slept. Romantic notions have always left me thinking that at the moment of passing, Harold was greeted with nothing less than, “Well done good and faithful servant.”

Harold’s life witness was nothing less than prophetic in bettering the common good. Through it all he demonstrated the spiritual gifts of wisdom, vision, love, faith and healing. Harold should be example for us all. I know that he is for me.

"Discern the Call"

For Sunday, January 10th, 2009

Lectionary Reading - Luke 3:15-17, 21-22 (NRSV)

"As the people were filled with expectation, and all were questioning in their hearts concerning John, whether he might be the Messiah, John answered all of them by saying, "I baptize you with water; but one who is more powerful than I is coming; I am not worthy to untie the thong of his sandals. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. His winnowing fork is in his hand, to clear his threshing floor and to gather the wheat into his granary; but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire.

Now when all the people were baptized, and when Jesus also had been baptized and was praying, the heaven was opened, and the Holy Spirit descended upon him in bodily form like a dove. And a voice came from heaven, "You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased."

This week's post - "Discern the Call"

There’s no indication in the above scripture that Jesus knew or expected that God would be so demonstrative the day John baptized him. Think for a moment how overwhelming the whole event might be. Think of how it would alter your life forever. The experience of baptism can be profound enough by itself, but then to be praying afterwards and have a cloud filled sky part and open up with sun rays bathing down directly upon you. Something about that would leave many of us sensing a deep and loving affirmation from God for what we just did. But it doesn’t stop there, moments later a dove flies to you coming to rest upon your head or shoulder. Now your attention has peaked beyond any other moment of your life. You’ve already sense a certain mission or calling from God for your life, but then a voice is heard by all – whether audibly or simply within your heart and the hearts of others, and it shares an affirming undeniable message, “You are my Child. You are Beloved, with you I am well pleased.” Other gospel accounts add that God spoke to the crowd as well, saying, “Hear him.”

At the youthful age of thirty, it was quite an experience to have. The impact was so profound that Jesus spent the next 40 days wandering and fasting in the wilderness trying to discern what the experience from God meant for his life. From what the scriptures tell us, Jesus completed that discernment during his wilderness wanderings and then he did one other thing. He cast out any remaining demons in himself that Evil might try to exploit, such as wealth and power and invincibility. Whatever storms and struggles Jesus experienced to that point trying to understand what God wanted from him were now over. Those vexing concerns left him the moment he emerged from the wilderness. He would not struggle again for understanding until the moments in Gethsemane before his crucifixion. He would struggle again during his dying hours nailed upon a cross as he slowly suffocated to death. Yet even at the end, he commended his spirit to the divine one whom he called, “Father.”

What’s important regarding the above is that you too are a child of God and if you feel confused or feel that you’re struggling to understand God’s will for your life, you can find that and bring clarity to it. And not only will you find it, but God will affirm it to you in ways that undeniable. What it requires however is that you create space and time and place through which you can listen to God’s voice even as Jesus did. Few of us can probably arrange for a wilderness wandering like the one Jesus had, however most of us can carve out the sacred space and time that’s necessary for such discernment.

My own story regarding this need took place between the age of 18 and 19. It was the middle of my freshman year at university. Like many young adults of that age I was struggling. I knew that time and money were precious and not in huge abundance. I needed to find a sense of direction for my life and my studies and I needed to find it fast. More importantly – and not unlike Jesus -- I had felt a sense of calling from God since childhood. I had felt it powerfully and phenomenally. So I needed to find some clarity -- and for me -- it was the only thing that was going to lead to a full and meaningful life.

I therefore began a daily ritual of fasting from lunch and using the time for scripture study, prayer, and meditation. I did this for several months yet no heavens opened, no dove came to rest upon my shoulder or head, and certainly no voice spoke to me. Eventually I decided to give up. The evening I did so, it was right before bed. I was laying in my bed praying and said to God, “I have been as open to you as I know how to be. I can’t spend any more time with this task. It frustrates me too deeply. I’m letting God, just wanted you to know.”

With those final words in mind and sleep drifting in upon me, I suddenly felt a wave of energy rushing through me as though pins and needles were everywhere. As quickly as the energy had come it withdrew. Then it rushed in again. This time it felt like static electricity dancing all over my body. Then it withdrew. It rushed in once more, this time so strong that I literally convulsed. Yet this time I recognized the source of that energy and turning on my side, I simply said, “Lord, I’m ready for whatever you want me to see.” And then I fell into deep sleep.

In a dream that followed which I can only describe as vision, I subsequently found myself standing beside a missionary in the back of what appeared to be a small church somewhere in Latin America. The missionary was reading scripture to the congregation. Yet as he spoke I heard no words. Moments later, the book of scripture appeared before me as though I was seeing it through the missionary’s eyes. Looking down the left facing page to about two-thirds down the page, I noticed an area of scripture underlined in red. The area was blurred, unreadable. I tried to focus my vision but to no avail. With my frustration mounting tremendously, I suddenly woke to the alarm clock buzzing on my nightstand.

For weeks I pondered that dream off and on. I knew the minister in the dream as we were attending the university together. His name was Ben and he was working on a doctorate in Spanish. He grew up near my father and they bore such striking resemblance to each other that people often mistook them for brothers though there was no relation.

Eventually I phoned Ben and said shared with him that I had experienced something and asked if we could get together. Ben didn’t hesitate in making time for me and we agreed to meet a few days later. When I arrived at Ben’s home for our meeting, I relayed to him the events in my dream and then said, “I don’t know if any of this makes sense to you, but I spoke to my parents and they suggested sharing the dream with you; that perhaps it might mean something to you that could help me sort this thing out.” Ben replied, “Well a thought does occur to me. When you saw the scripture in front of you, was it your book or mine?” I replied that I thought it was his.

Ben then left the room and returned a few moments with his scriptures. He leafed through the pages until he found the passage he’d been looking for and then read it out loud. As he finished reading, he stood and walked over to me placing the book into my hands. Taking the book from him, my attention drew immediately to a passage of scripture on the left facing page in the same area of the page as had been in my dream. Now however, the print was clear and sharp into focus and underlined in red, allowing for me to read the scripture for myself that had been in my dream. The scripture talked about prosecuting the missionary work as far and wide as I may. It further advocated that all persons are called to God’s work according to the gifts God has given them with the intent being that all of us labor together for the accomplishment of the God’s Peaceable Kingdom here on Earth. My heart leapt within me much like I imagine Jesus felt at the experience that followed his baptism. “Finally,” I thought, “after all this time, the call is clear.”

Much like the wilderness wandering of Jesus, aspects of the experience and calling preoccupied me for some time after. The summer following that experience, I had another dream and in it I found myself sitting in a meadow but I noted that all of the life and nature about me felt and appeared very different. A summer breeze as perfect as any you might have experience enveloped me. I looked to the sky and found it to be the most perfect blue I had ever seen. Sitting in the grass and looking at the trees, their greenery astounded me given how vibrant and alive it looked. In that moment, I realized that I no longer needed my glasses to see; even as the Earth and Nature had been healed, so had my vision been healed. Finally it dawned upon me that everything was at peace and full of the knowledge and life of God. I knew that the time of God’s Peaceable Kingdom had been finally established upon the Earth. I have only ever found a couple of scriptures to describe such a time, my favorite comes from the Hebrew Scriptures in Isaiah which reads, “The wolf shall live with the lamb, the leopard shall lie down with the kid, the calf and the lion and the fatling together, and a little child shall lead them. The cow and the bear shall graze, their young shall lie down together; and the lion shall eat straw like the ox. The nursing child shall play over the hole of the asp, and the weaned child shall put its hand on the adder's den. They will not hurt or destroy on all my holy mountain; for the earth will be full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea.”

The combination of the experiences above have led me to understand that my call in life is to do whatever I can from wherever I am in whatever circumstances I find myself to help build this world and my community toward the kind of peace and the kind of justice that God will one day chose to embrace and embrace completely so our world can be healed and made whole from the greed and self-serving avarice we wreak upon it and one another.

Count me a friend and fellow sojourner if you feel the same. If you’re uncertain what you’re calling may be in relation to the above things, consider the approach Jesus used to find out what God wanted from him or consider mine or someone else’s whose life and faith journey have impressed or spoken to you. Whatever you do, don’t settle for not knowing and please know that it’s never too late to begin your discernment. Be aware too that the path will not be easy, heartbreak and heartache will be a part of it. Jesus’ life was a witness to that. It’s been true for me and countless others. But you are called – you are called to help establish “God’s Day of Peace for All.” You are called to that task according to the gifts of God unto you. And no one, I repeat, no one has the right to limit the expression of those gifts nor the happiness or fulfillment you experience along the way. And if by chance, you are someone who does limit others or tries to oppress or force them into certain moulds then consider me your worst nightmare. If your path ever crosses mine and I see your narcissism, selfishness, self-serving nature/avarice -- or whatever sociopathy possesses you -- limiting the life and happiness and genuine expression of God given gifts in others, then know this, I will call you out. I will call you out like Jesus did in his own time and I will label you and your cowardice for the evil you represent. Get to healing that stuff my friend, take it into the wilderness for a 40 day fast/exorcism with God, or to a really good therapist. If you can’t do that, then get out of the way because God’s Peaceable Kingdom is coming through and it’s full steam ahead!