Nothing is ever really lost, or can be lost . . .

Nothing is ever really lost, or can be lost,
No birth, identity, form—no object of the world.
Nor life, nor force, nor any visible thing;
Appearance must not foil, nor shifted sphere confuse thy brain.
Ample are time and space—ample the fields of Nature.
The body, sluggish, aged, cold—the embers left from earlier fires,
The light in the eye grown dim, shall duly flame again;
The sun now low in the west rises for mornings and for noons continual;
To frozen clods ever the spring's invisible law returns,
With grass and flowers and summer fruits and corn.

~ Walt Whitman, Leaves of Grass

The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much

"Confess your faults one to another, and pray one for another, that ye may be healed. The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much."
James 5:16 KJV

Your Bible and your newspaper

"Take your Bible and take your newspaper, and read both. But interpret newspapers from your Bible."
~ Karl Barth

Let's Keep Praying!

LET'S KEEP PRAYING!
Ephesians 6:18

Irina Ratushinskaya's childhood quest for God, even while she was hearing school lectures promoting atheism and mocking Christianity, led her to a deep and unflinching faith. Her poetry expressed that faith and brought inspiration and hope to believers all over Russia.
It also brought her to the attention of the KGB. At age 28, Irina was arrested and sentenced to 7 years hard labor in the Bareshevo labor camp. There she was subjected to relentless interrogations, chilling cold, starvation, hard labor, and months of solitary confinement.
Irina's faith did not break. During the lonely nights, huddled against the cold wall of her cell, she composed poetry in her head about God. When Irina was finally released, she credited the prayers of believers for sustaining her. In one of her poems, she wrote:

Believe me, it was often thus:
In solitary cells, on winter nights
A sudden sense of joy and warmth
And a resounding note of love.
And then, unsleeping, I would know
A-huddle by an icy wall:
Someone is thinking of me now,
Petitioning the Lord for me.

I wonder, have we been faithful in praying for people who are going through difficult situations? Our prayers can make a difference!
- David C. Egner

You can expect God to intervene if you're willing to intercede.

What’s Before Identity Politics - The Galli Report

The Galli Report
email, 8/17/2018
Mark Galli, Editor-in-Chief, Christianity Today

What’s Before Identity Politics

This next piece gave me more empathy for people who are deeply invested in identity politics. I’ve noted many times how unhealthy I think this has become, but I hadn’t considered the root of the passion so many have to understand who they are and do so by fixating on their culture, ethnicity, gender, sexuality, disability, or whatever. Nathanael Blake at Public Discourse argues that it goes back to Nietzsche’s proclamation of the death of God.

Without a transcendent worldview, all that remains is what we can see and touch—that’s the only reality left to find meaning in. But we also recognize how contingent and relative: “Consequently, tribal identity is no longer a secure psychological retreat into a stable source of meaning but a contested construct. Getting ‘woke’ and engaging in identity politics are attempts to find meaning in something that is an acknowledged social construct.”

This is behind the increasingly common claim that to challenge people’s sexual behavior or gender identity is to question, deny, or attack their humanity and even their existence. This seems insane to those who still reside in a Christian cosmos, for whom sexual desire or one’s feelings about gender are not at the core of one’s identity, and for whom criticizing sinful acts is a far cry from enacting a genocide of the sinful. But to those whose experiential sense of self is only that which they have created or adopted from their culture and their own desires, this makes sense. If self-creation is the fullest expression of our humanity, then critiquing someone’s self-constructed identity is to critique his humanity.

José Micard Teixeira – I NO LONGER

José Micard Teixeira – I NO LONGER

I no longer have patience for certain things, not because I’ve become arrogant, but simply because I reached a point in my life where I do not want to waste more time with what displeases me or hurts me.
 I have no patience for cynicism, excessive criticism and demands of any nature.
I lost the will to please those who do not like me, to love those who do not love me and to smile at those who do not want to smile at me.
I no longer spend a single minute on those who lie or want to manipulate.
I decided not to coexist anymore with pretense, hypocrisy, dishonesty and cheap praise.
I do not tolerate selective erudition nor academic arrogance.
I do not adjust either to popular gossiping.
I hate conflict and comparisons.
I believe in a world of opposites and that’s why I avoid people with rigid and inflexible personalities.
In friendship I dislike the lack of loyalty and betrayal.
I do not get along with those who do not know how to give a compliment or a word of encouragement.
Exaggerations bore me and I have difficulty accepting those who do not like animals.
And on top of everything I have no patience for anyone who does not deserve my patience.

~ José Micard Teixeira
Portuguese author

Brother Roger: Love your neighbor, whatever his or her religious or political outlook.

Brother Roger’s purpose in forming the ecumenical monastic community in Taizé, France was to provide safety and the love of God to those fleeing the hurts and conflicts of World War II. As he wrote in The Rule of Taizé,

Never stand still: advance with your brothers, race towards the goal in the steps of Christ. His path is a way of light – I am, but also, you are the light of the world” (John 8:12 and Matthew 5:14). In order for the light of Christ to permeate you, it is not enough to gaze on it as though you were purely spirit: you need to commit yourself resolutely, body and soul, to that path. Be a sign for others of brotherly love and of joy. . . .
Love the disadvantaged, all those who experience human injustice and are thirsting for justice. Jesus had a particular concern for them. . . .
Love your neighbor, whatever his or her religious or political outlook.

Brother Roger, The Rule of Taizé in French and English, Brewster, Mass.: Paraclete Press, 2013, 9-13.

Fearing God

WISDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS
The remarkable thing about fearing God is that when you fear God you fear nothing else, whereas if you do not fear God you fear everything else.
"Blessed is every one that feareth the Lord"; . . .