A Thanksgiving hymn calling for an end to oppression
The hymn “We Gather Together,” often associated with Thanksgiving, is a song for any who are oppressed and look to God for help and for justice.
And the cares of tomorrow can wait ‘til this day is done
When Martin Luther King, Jr. wrote “Why We Can’t Wait,” he was correct. Day after day, our voices and actions are called upon to labor for justice. Yet burnout is counterproductive to our advocacy for the least of God’s children, which may be why Jesus told his followers, and us, not to worry about tomorrow.
Walking around a Confederate cemetery
As I walked around a Confederate cemetery, I wondered what other choice the young soldiers buried there could have made. The values they were raised to believe to be true were affirmed by their schools, their textbooks, their newspapers, their families, friends, their whole culture, and worst of all, their churches.
Our country, may she always be in the right
Neither Jesus nor Paul taught blind patriotism or a simple accommodation of the state’s or country’s actions. For both, the Kingdom of God is where our hearts reside and “our citizenship is in heaven.”
Did Jesus preach about being woke?
An image I recently saw on Facebook depicted Jesus preaching to the crowds, with the phrase boldly proclaiming: “Being ‘woke’ is literally what Jesus preached about his entire life.” Is that accurate? “Woke” wasn’t in use the way it is today when Jesus preached, but would the core of his message qualify as being “woke” as we understand it today?