Watch this video. It's worth the tears and touches the Spirit.
Brian
Friday, May 26, 2006
Sunday, May 21, 2006
First, I have received nice comments on this space and I thank you all who wrote them.
Next, I have a different opinion on the illegal immigration issue: I now just don’t know what I think. My previous stance was basically “if you’re an illegal immigrant, you are a criminal, end of story.“ On Headline News a few days ago, I heard a story about a woman who crossed the Mexico-United States border when she was fourteen. She went on to get jobs wherever she could get them such as a part-time job at Taco Bell. She eventually married and started a family.
So far this story can be repeated if you ask half of the so-called “illegal immigrant population” which I do not have numbers on how many millions they number lately. Where this story gets tragic and probably unique is coming.
This woman wanted to have something her husband and children had: a U.S. citizenship. She looked for help in obtaining her goal and found a place that promised that help…for a fee. Over a number of years, this woman spent around $8,000 paying for whatever this firm said she needed to pay for. In the end, the people involved in the firm, which ended up a scam, were arrested for fraud and disappeared after posting bail. What happened to the immigrant woman?
After everything hit the fan, she became visible on the federal radar. She will be deported, probably without her family, back to Mexico on June 10 of this year.
When we are dealing with political issues, we lose our focus on who we’re dealing with: real people. The decisions that are made in Congress and signed by our President into law affect each and every one of us.
I don’t like the idea of people who are living in the United States illegally getting away with their crimes, but I don’t like splitting up families either. Where is the compromise?
Next, I have a different opinion on the illegal immigration issue: I now just don’t know what I think. My previous stance was basically “if you’re an illegal immigrant, you are a criminal, end of story.“ On Headline News a few days ago, I heard a story about a woman who crossed the Mexico-United States border when she was fourteen. She went on to get jobs wherever she could get them such as a part-time job at Taco Bell. She eventually married and started a family.
So far this story can be repeated if you ask half of the so-called “illegal immigrant population” which I do not have numbers on how many millions they number lately. Where this story gets tragic and probably unique is coming.
This woman wanted to have something her husband and children had: a U.S. citizenship. She looked for help in obtaining her goal and found a place that promised that help…for a fee. Over a number of years, this woman spent around $8,000 paying for whatever this firm said she needed to pay for. In the end, the people involved in the firm, which ended up a scam, were arrested for fraud and disappeared after posting bail. What happened to the immigrant woman?
After everything hit the fan, she became visible on the federal radar. She will be deported, probably without her family, back to Mexico on June 10 of this year.
When we are dealing with political issues, we lose our focus on who we’re dealing with: real people. The decisions that are made in Congress and signed by our President into law affect each and every one of us.
I don’t like the idea of people who are living in the United States illegally getting away with their crimes, but I don’t like splitting up families either. Where is the compromise?
Monday, May 15, 2006
(I just read this today...)
ROOTS & WINGS : Finding common ground with others
Lowell Grisham lgrisham@arkansasusa.com
Posted on Monday, May 15, 2006
URL: http://www.nwanews.com/nwat/Editorial/40670/
What is essential for the Christian faith is that we know we have seen the face of God in the face of Jesus Christ. It is not essential to believe that no one else has seen God and experienced redemption in another place or time or way.
— Dr. Joseph Hough, President of Union Theological Seminary One of the fruits of practicing a traditional form of Christian contemplative prayer is the enjoyment of being able to share a common expression of spiritual experience with people from other religious traditions. My practice is called Centering Prayer, and it is a version of the Christian prayer tradition from the 14 th century "Cloud of Unknowing," St. John of the Cross, Cassian, St. Teresa of Avila and others. Centering Prayer is a discipline that opens us to the experience of contemplation, which some describe as union with God or the inner infusion of grace. St. Paul speaks of the help that the Spirit gives us, interceding "with sighs too deep for words" (Romans 8:26). In Centering Prayer we set our intention to consent to the presence and activity of God within, and let the Spirit pray for us in the contemplative deep silence that Thomas Keating calls "God’s first language." Centering Prayer is a Christian spiritual practice that I can talk about with my Buddhist friends. Buddhist meditation shares much in common with Christian contemplative prayer. Another acquaintance who leads Native American spiritual exercises tells me about a similar discipline from his tradition. The Sufis and Quakers, Orthodox and even pain management clinics share similar contemplative prayer practices.
Maybe that is one reason why it has been easy for me to appreciate the wisdom and holiness I’ve witnessed from non-Christian traditions. For a long time it has made sense to me that the God who speaks to me through Jesus Christ is the same God who has spoken through history "in many and various ways" (Hebrews 1:1).
I know that I have experienced the face of God in the face of Jesus Christ and I embrace his promise that in him we have seen the truth, and that the Spirit will lead us into all truth (John 14:17). But that does not mean that Christians have a monopoly on truth. I am happy to say that in Jesus, God is incarnate in a particularly transparent and ultimate way. But that does not mean that God is incarnate in Jesus alone. God is free to be present, manifest and incarnate as God will be. It is a form of idolatry for Christians to claim that God’s revelation is exclusively ours.
In a century when religious intolerance and fundamentalisms are threatening to tear apart the planet, it is time for faithful people from the many religions to call forth their highest and most generous expressions from within their own traditions. That’s where the mystics can help us. The mystical traditions of every faith share a common experience of the ultimate. That’s where the ethical values of compassion and love can help us. Every enduring religion affirms the centrality of compassion and love.
Diana Eck, who studies the world’s religions says, "Jesus Christ reveals to us the face of God, which is love. And Jesus Christ reveals to us the meaning of the human, which is love. This double revelation is enough." That is our witness as Christians, that God is love. I would add also the witness of justice, which is simply love made active in our common life, in our politics and economics. The language and experience of love, compassion and justice is a common language that is present not only in all religious traditions, but also in many non-religious expressions. Wherever there is love or compassion or justice, there is God. It is our duty to honor God, to venerate God, however God may be manifest, especially in the surprising or unexpected person or place.
Now more than ever, we need to be able not only to tolerate our diverse religious traditions, but even to venerate how God is present and revealed "in many and various ways."
Lowell Grisham is an Episcopal priest from Fayetteville.
Copyright © 2001-2006 Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, Inc. All rights reserved. Contact: webmaster@nwanews.com
-----------
How can this teacher say such things? Didn't Jesus say that He was the way, the truth, and the life and that no one could come to the Father but by Him? Doesn't the word "the" imply a so-called monopoly, as in there is no other way? I am shocked that a teacher of God's Word would misunderstand a scripture like Hebrews 1:1 where the author (we believe it's Paul) says that in times past God revealed Himself "in various times and in various ways through the prophets, has in these last days spoken to us by His Son..." Lowell Grisham quotes the verse as far as it would strengthen his view.
Let's be real. Jesus is the Son of God. You have read or have heard it said that religions are man's way of getting closer to God. A relationship with Jesus Christ is God's way of getting closer to man. How did He do this?
He became a man. Jesus Christ is God in the flesh. He came to this world to die for our sins. His work on the cross paid that price. There is no other way to heaven than through the atoning blood of Christ. By saying otherwise, Lowell Grisham is discounting the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. I pray that his students can see through his errors.
ROOTS & WINGS : Finding common ground with others
Lowell Grisham lgrisham@arkansasusa.com
Posted on Monday, May 15, 2006
URL: http://www.nwanews.com/nwat/Editorial/40670/
What is essential for the Christian faith is that we know we have seen the face of God in the face of Jesus Christ. It is not essential to believe that no one else has seen God and experienced redemption in another place or time or way.
— Dr. Joseph Hough, President of Union Theological Seminary One of the fruits of practicing a traditional form of Christian contemplative prayer is the enjoyment of being able to share a common expression of spiritual experience with people from other religious traditions. My practice is called Centering Prayer, and it is a version of the Christian prayer tradition from the 14 th century "Cloud of Unknowing," St. John of the Cross, Cassian, St. Teresa of Avila and others. Centering Prayer is a discipline that opens us to the experience of contemplation, which some describe as union with God or the inner infusion of grace. St. Paul speaks of the help that the Spirit gives us, interceding "with sighs too deep for words" (Romans 8:26). In Centering Prayer we set our intention to consent to the presence and activity of God within, and let the Spirit pray for us in the contemplative deep silence that Thomas Keating calls "God’s first language." Centering Prayer is a Christian spiritual practice that I can talk about with my Buddhist friends. Buddhist meditation shares much in common with Christian contemplative prayer. Another acquaintance who leads Native American spiritual exercises tells me about a similar discipline from his tradition. The Sufis and Quakers, Orthodox and even pain management clinics share similar contemplative prayer practices.
Maybe that is one reason why it has been easy for me to appreciate the wisdom and holiness I’ve witnessed from non-Christian traditions. For a long time it has made sense to me that the God who speaks to me through Jesus Christ is the same God who has spoken through history "in many and various ways" (Hebrews 1:1).
I know that I have experienced the face of God in the face of Jesus Christ and I embrace his promise that in him we have seen the truth, and that the Spirit will lead us into all truth (John 14:17). But that does not mean that Christians have a monopoly on truth. I am happy to say that in Jesus, God is incarnate in a particularly transparent and ultimate way. But that does not mean that God is incarnate in Jesus alone. God is free to be present, manifest and incarnate as God will be. It is a form of idolatry for Christians to claim that God’s revelation is exclusively ours.
In a century when religious intolerance and fundamentalisms are threatening to tear apart the planet, it is time for faithful people from the many religions to call forth their highest and most generous expressions from within their own traditions. That’s where the mystics can help us. The mystical traditions of every faith share a common experience of the ultimate. That’s where the ethical values of compassion and love can help us. Every enduring religion affirms the centrality of compassion and love.
Diana Eck, who studies the world’s religions says, "Jesus Christ reveals to us the face of God, which is love. And Jesus Christ reveals to us the meaning of the human, which is love. This double revelation is enough." That is our witness as Christians, that God is love. I would add also the witness of justice, which is simply love made active in our common life, in our politics and economics. The language and experience of love, compassion and justice is a common language that is present not only in all religious traditions, but also in many non-religious expressions. Wherever there is love or compassion or justice, there is God. It is our duty to honor God, to venerate God, however God may be manifest, especially in the surprising or unexpected person or place.
Now more than ever, we need to be able not only to tolerate our diverse religious traditions, but even to venerate how God is present and revealed "in many and various ways."
Lowell Grisham is an Episcopal priest from Fayetteville.
Copyright © 2001-2006 Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, Inc. All rights reserved. Contact: webmaster@nwanews.com
-----------
How can this teacher say such things? Didn't Jesus say that He was the way, the truth, and the life and that no one could come to the Father but by Him? Doesn't the word "the" imply a so-called monopoly, as in there is no other way? I am shocked that a teacher of God's Word would misunderstand a scripture like Hebrews 1:1 where the author (we believe it's Paul) says that in times past God revealed Himself "in various times and in various ways through the prophets, has in these last days spoken to us by His Son..." Lowell Grisham quotes the verse as far as it would strengthen his view.
Let's be real. Jesus is the Son of God. You have read or have heard it said that religions are man's way of getting closer to God. A relationship with Jesus Christ is God's way of getting closer to man. How did He do this?
He became a man. Jesus Christ is God in the flesh. He came to this world to die for our sins. His work on the cross paid that price. There is no other way to heaven than through the atoning blood of Christ. By saying otherwise, Lowell Grisham is discounting the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. I pray that his students can see through his errors.
Tuesday, May 09, 2006
How much longer until the Fair Tax is seriously approached in Congress? I, for one, am tired of the way things are. The Fair tax would address one area of concern: take home pay. Please check out their site and sign the petition. Wouldn't you like to take home 100% of your paycheck instead of 75 or 80%?
The website is www.fairtax.org.
Brian
The website is www.fairtax.org.
Brian
Tuesday, May 02, 2006
Word is that Iran will "retaliate" against Israel if an "evil" United States attacks them. Does Iran just want to incite Armaggedon? What are they thinking? Actually, I'm more interested in what China and Russia are thinking. Iran will attack Israel if the United States attacks them and Russia and China want to use diplomacy. Where's Iran's diplomacy? How did Israel get involved?
I wonder how, if war were to break out, sides would play out. Would this be World War 3? Who would be with whom? The United States and European Union on one side with Iran, China, and Russia on the other?
Where's the panic button?
I wonder how, if war were to break out, sides would play out. Would this be World War 3? Who would be with whom? The United States and European Union on one side with Iran, China, and Russia on the other?
Where's the panic button?
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Posts
