I believe the remembrance of the life of George H. W. Bush this week and going forward give this man one final mission: to demonstrate the values that reveal who genuine leaders are, contrasting the values (or lack thereof) that reveal who are not. What does a leader do or not do? What are the markers of true public service that differentiate it from public exploitation?
The dimming of the Advent wreath also reminded me of civil rights activist Valarie Kaur’s poignant question: “What if this darkness is not the darkness of the tomb, but the darkness of the womb?” “Remember the wisdom of the midwife: ‘Breathe,’" she says.
Everyone is supposed to love Christmas and the holidays. It’s supposed to be a time of family and gratitude. But I dread them. I dread the weeks leading up to Christmas, starting the day before Thanksgiving when Christmas carols begin permeating the radio and stores and build to a crescendo through Christmas Eve. The growing darkness in the absence of daylight saving time doesn’t help.
A recent U.S. climate assessment made headlines last week for its conclusion that the victims of climate change are no longer some future generation, but us — and we’re feeling the effects now.
The space of Samuel Oliver-Bruno’s “home” while in sanctuary is filled with signs he thought he’d return from a biometrics appointment at U.S. Customs and Immigration Services (USCIS) in Morrisville, N.C., scheduled at the immigration control office’s request. His work on construction projects around the basement at the CityWell church in Durham, N.C., seems stalled in time. Painting supplies, clothes, other personal items stilled exactly as he left them, where he was working diligently just days before his life was altered irrevocably. A prayer room he helped to build is silent.
We hope that the suffering we’ve seen on our social media feeds will provide consensus. We convince ourselves that this moment, this tragedy, this picture of suffering will provide the common denominator that will spark people’s compassion. How can anyone look at the picture of a child running from tear gas and not feel compassion? By calling to mind these images in our sermons, we hope to open people up to hearing about different political solutions to the problem at hand. If anything, we’ll all agree that we must do something.
Like Chau, I wanted to be a missionary from the time I was a teenager. I too gorged myself on the stories of Bruce Olsen and David Livingstone. Inspired by their attempts to spread the Gospel around the world, I graduated from high school a year early and enrolled in a two-year missionary school in Florida. Jesus, I believed, would not return until every people group on earth had received the good news of salvation through faith in Jesus. Someone would have to go. If not me, then who? This is one of the exact questions Chau left behind in a letter to his friends and family.
Roaring lions that tear their prey, open their mouths wide against us. They beat us, arrest us, incarcerate us, shoot us, then blame us. We are poured out like water, and all our bones are out of joint. Our hearts have turned to wax; they have melted within us.
The United Religions Initiative, The Charter of Compassion, and The Parliament of the World’s Religions released a joint statement yesterday calling for “an immediate cease-fire in the civil war between the Yemen government and the Houthis rebels.”
The letter states that aid workers from religious and humanitarian organizations have been restricted from administering food, water, shelter, and healthcare to 14 million people enduring a deadly famine.
1. Feds deport undocumented immigrant whose church supporters went to jail to protect him
Samuel Oliver-Bruno took refuge in a church basement for 11 months until he was detained during an appointment with immigration authorities last week.
2. At Capacity: Weaponizing Inefficiency at the Border
“The asylum process is inefficient, and no one has an incentive to fix it.”