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Written by Brian E Volck
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Monday, 12 May 2008 |
God's Grandeur
The world is charged with the grandeur of God.
It will flame out, like shining from shook foil;
It gathers to a greatness, like the ooze of oil
Crushed. Why do men then now not reck his rod?
Generations have trod, have trod, have trod;
And all is seared with trade; bleared, smeared with toil;
And wears man's smudge and shares man's smell: the soil
Is bare now, nor can foot feel, being shod.
And for all this, nature is never spent;
There lives the dearest freshness deep down things;
And though the last lights off the black West went
Oh, morning, at the brown brink eastward, springs--
Because the Holy Ghost over the bent
World broods with warm breast and with ah! bright wings.
Gerard Manley Hopkins (1877)
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Written by Debra Dean Murphy
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Tuesday, 06 May 2008 |
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Today is a beautiful spring day in central North Carolina. The summer heat and humidity that will oppress us for weeks on end is not yet upon us. Recent rains have made everything green and lush. The azaleas  are past their prime but the camellias are in top form. It’s a beautiful day.
It’s also the day that voters go to the polls to decide local, state, and national primary contests. Holding our primary as we do in the month of May, we’re not used to mattering much on the national scene. Party nominees are usually firmed up long before now. But you know that your state counts when the former President of the United States visits places like Louisburg, Lenoir, Elizabeth City, and my humble town of Apex.
But there’s a downside to all this attention (isn’t there always?). To matter this late in the process is also to experience the worst that politics can become. Instead of appealing to our better selves, the campaigns now exploit our baser instincts: our suspicion of difference—religious differences, especially and our vague, unarticulated fear of the other. And they encourage perhaps our worst tendency as the myopic Americans we are: we look at the global situation around us (politically, economically, socially) and end up feeling most sorry for ourselves.
All of this poses problems for Christians who want to be engaged in this historic election, since we believe that the Christian life is not about seeking our own security but about denying our comfort for the sake of those who suffer; that is, for the sake of Christ in the world.
It’s a beautiful day here in North Carolina. But it’s not so lovely in Myanmar today, where the level of death and destruction staggers the mind. You’d hardly know this, though, from the stingy coverage by the election-obsessed media. We’re having fun in the Tar Heel state, secretly thrilled to be in the national spotlight for a day, but people in places like Sudan, Iraq, Zimbabwe, and Congo (to name just a few) are not having a very good time.
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Last Updated ( Tuesday, 06 May 2008 )
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Should I Stay or Should I Go? |
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Written by Jessie Shuman Larkins
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Thursday, 01 May 2008 |
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Ascension Sunday
Acts 1:1-11; Luke 24: 44-53
Should I Stay or Should I Go?
When I read the Ascension texts for today (or this upcoming Sunday if you are in a Protestant tradition that celebrates the Ascension on the following Sunday), my tendency is to immediately jump to the conclusion of Luke’s report in Acts 1 when the angels appear to ask the disciples: “Why do you stand looking up at heaven?” I hear in this question an affirmation of my own need for action—the angels are telling those disciples to get on with it already. There is work to be done witnessing, proclaiming, releasing the captives, caring for the sick, and forgiving enemies, among other things! |
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Last Updated ( Thursday, 01 May 2008 )
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