Administrator

At a press conference announcing Christians for Comprehensive Immigration Reform, Jim talked about "welcoming the stranger" and "the least of these." Watch it:

See Jim and others respond to questions about the breadth of the campaign

If our usual response to an annoying situation is a curse, we're likely to meet emergencies with a curse. In the little events of daily living we have the opportunity to condition our reflexes, which are built up out of ordinary things.

- Madeleine L'Engle
from The Irrational Season

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The rhythm of life for a kingdom dweller puts chronos in service of kairos, the cyclical in service of the directional, the calendar in service of the kingdom. ... As we submit our anarchy to a rhythm, in a sort of earthy, mystical way, all of life is lived lucidly, intentionally, and to the glory of God. Every washing becomes a baptism; every eating a Communion. Every sleeping becomes a dying; every rising a resurrection.

- Kenneth Gottman
from Ministry and Mission

Covering the Daily Digest while Duane Shank is taking a much-deserved long weekend, I read this chilling report of Zimbabwean president Robert Mugabe's threats against the Catholic bishops in his country:

Once [the bishops] turn political, we regard them as no longer spiritual and our relations with them would be conducted as if we are dealing with political entities and this is quite a dangerous path they have chosen for themselves.

We've had

Therefore, somehow, we have to learn to get our satisfaction and our joy in faithfulness and in our intimate relationship with Christ. Then the question of effectiveness and success, in the usual sense of those terms is not the issue. We can transcend that and get energized and nourished by faithfulness knowing we are doing what we must do to live- not what we must do to change the neighborhood. The constant struggle is the deepening of faith that enables us to really trust that somehow the [...]

Living God, you want us to have hearts that are completely simple, to the point that the complicated things in life do not bring us to a halt. Through the Holy Spirit, the spirit of the Risen Christ, you come to open a way for us, a way that is possible; on it we understand that you love us first, before we loved you.

- Brother Roger of Taize
from Life from Within

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At present, however, I am going to Jerusalem in a ministry to the saints; for Macedonia and Achaia have been pleased to share their resources with the poor among the saints at Jerusalem. They were pleased to do this, and indeed they owe it to them; for if the Gentiles have come to share in their spiritual blessings, they ought also to be of service to them in material things.

- Romans 15:25-27

Four years after George W. Bush landed on an aircraft carrier and declared victory in Iraq in front of a banner that said, "Mission Accomplished," spoken word artist Steven Connell asks what has and hasn't been accomplished. Steven has teamed up with Robert Greenwald (Wal-Mart: The High Cost of Low Prices and Iraq for Sale: The War Profiteers) to produce a video promoting both a contest to decide what should go on that infamous banner, as well as reminding Americans about the [...]

Ah, you who make iniquitous decrees, who write oppressive statutes, to turn aside the needy from justice and to rob the poor of my people of their right, that widows may be your spoil, and that you may make the orphans your prey! What will you do on the day of punishment, in the calamity that will come from far away? To whom will you flee for help, and where will you leave your wealth, so as not to crouch among the prisoners or fall among the slain? For all this [God's] anger has not turned [...]