A Hole . . .

There's a hole in the world tonight.
There's a cloud of fear and sorrow.
There’s a hole in the world tonight.
Don‘t let there be a hole in the world tomorrow.

– The Eagles

Limitations of the Linear

Nature connected her things in a net, not a chain; but humans can follow only by chains because their language can't handle several things at once.

- Albrecht von Haller

Micah Challenge

The Old Testament prophet Micah reminds us that there are three things God requires of us: ‘to act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with our God." (Micah 6:8)

Perhaps the Micah blueprint can be visualized by the following: 

Walk Humbly With God - addressing our spiritual lives: personal commitment to Christ, spiritual disciplines, worship, serving God, becoming a devoted follower of Jesus, sharing in and seeking to build up the Christian family and community.

Love Mercy - addressing individual symptoms of brokenness, lostness and need in our neighbour and others around us, locally and globally; through acts of kindness and service, by meeting basic needs such as food, clothing, shelter, medical assistance and care; by sharing of our abundance with those who have little - and especially who have few choices, if any, in life.

Act Justly - addressing the causes that create the symptoms; job creation andjob training, teaching how to read, helping people prepare for life; fighting for liveable wages and sustainable jobs; tutoring, mentoring; helping change issues of unemployment and under-employment

Many Christians think that the whole of their spiritual life and discipline happens only in the context of the first aspect. The need is for individual disciples - and for churches - to prepare and respond holistically to the challenges and opportunities of all three.

Dare

It is not the critic who counts: not the one who points out how the strong man stumbles or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the one who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs and comes up short again and again, because there is no effort without error or shortcoming; but who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself for a worthy cause; who, at the best, knows, in the end, the triumph of high achievements; and who, at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat. 

-- Theodore Roosevelt

May It Be

May it be an evening star

Shines down upon you
May it be when darkness falls
Your heart will be true
You walk a lonely road
Oh! How far you are from home

Mornie utúlië (darkness has come)
Believe and you will find your way
Mornie alantië (darkness has fallen)
A promise lives within you now

May it be the shadows call
Will fly away
May it be you journey on
To light the day
When the night is overcome
You may rise to find the sun

Mornie utúlië (darkness has come)
Believe and you will find your way
Mornie alantië (darkness has fallen)
A promise lives within you now

A promise lives within you now
- Enya