Tag: cruelty

The Stones Themselves Will Start to Sing: Against Every Cruel, Merciless Power

barnstormingblog1 Comment

I arise today through the strength of heaven
Light of sun, radiance of moon
Splendor of fire, speed of lightning
Swiftness of wind, depth of the sea
Stability of earth, firmness of rock

I arise today through God’s strength to pilot me
God’s eye to look before me
God’s wisdom to guide me
God’s way to lie before me
God’s shield to protect me

From all who shall wish me ill
Afar and a-near
Alone and in a multitude
Against every cruel, merciless power
That may oppose my body and soul
~from “The Deer’s Cry”

photo by Bob Tjoelker

A cruel and merciless dictator dominates the headlines, not because he is unique in the course of world history, but because the toll of his actions are witnessed by the world in real time. We flinch and cringe at every directed missile hit and explosion of citizens’ property and lives to dust and ash.

What makes this evolving war so compelling to those of us who watch from a distance is the powerful resistance of the Ukrainian leader and his brave countrymen who will not submit to cruelty and destruction.

“…even if you destroy all our cathedrals and churches, you will not destroy our sincere faith in God, in Ukraine. Faith in people. We will restore every house, every street, every city. And we say to Russia: …you will repay everything you did against Ukraine. In full. And we will not forget those who perished, and God won’t…
~President Volodymyr Zelensky (March 2022)

St. Patrick, in the fifth century, returned to Ireland to face merciless cruelty and violence in defense of his Christian faith. His story lives on centuries later while those who persecuted him are relegated to the ash heap of history.

History repeats itself; there always will be cruel men who seek merciless power over others.

Yet God is, was, and always will be. So we sing:

God’s eye to look before me
God’s wisdom to guide me
God’s way to lie before me
God’s shield to protect me
~from St. Patrick’s breastplate prayer

This year’s Lenten theme for Barnstorming is a daily selection from songs and hymns about Christ’s profound sacrifice on our behalf.

If we remain silent about Him, the stones themselves will shout out and start to sing (Luke 19:40).

In His name, may we sing…

Christ with me, Christ before me, Christ behind me,
Christ in me, Christ beneath me, Christ above me,
Christ on my right, Christ on my left,
Christ when I lie down, Christ when I sit down,
Christ in me, Christ when I arise,
Christ in the heart of every man who thinks of me,
Christ in the mouth of everyone who speaks of me,
Christ in every eye that sees me,
Christ in every ear that hears me, Christ with me.
Text from Saint Patrick’s Breastplate

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We are Sharers in the Guilt

barnstormingblog2 Comments

…if I respond to hate with a reciprocal hate
I do nothing but intensify the cleavage in broken community.
I can only close the gap in broken community
by meeting hate with love.
If I meet hate with hate, I become depersonalized,
because creation is so designed that my personality
can only be fulfilled in the context of community.
Booker T. Washington was right:
“Let no man pull you so low as to make you hate him.”
~Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. from Stride Toward Freedom

Do you know why this world is as bad as it is?
It is because people think only about their own business, 
and won’t trouble themselves to stand up for the oppressed, 
nor bring the wrong-doers to light. 
My doctrine is this: 
that if we see cruelty or wrong
that we have the power to stop, 
and do nothing,
we make ourselves sharers in the guilt.
~Anna Sewell from Black Beauty

As nightfall does not come at once, neither does oppression.
In both instances, there is a twilight
when everything remains seemingly unchanged.
And it is in such twilight that we all must be most aware
of change in the air
– however slight –
lest we become unwitting victims of the darkness.
~William O. Douglas in a 1976 letter to Young Lawyers of the Washington State Bar Association

We live in a time where the groaning need
and dividedness of humankind
is especially to be felt and recognized.
Countless people are subjected to hatred,
violence and oppression which go unchecked.
The injustice and corruption which exist today
are causing many voices to be raised to protest
and cry out that something be done.
Many men and women are being moved to sacrifice much
in the struggle for justice, freedom, and peace.
There is a movement afoot in our time,
a movement which is growing, awakening.

We must recognize that we as individuals are to blame
for every social injustice,
every oppression,
the downgrading of others
and the injury that man does to man,
whether personal or on a broader plane.…
God must intervene with his spirit and his justice and his truth.
The present misery, need, and decay must pass away
and the new day of the Son of Man must dawn.
This is the advent of God’s coming.
~Dwight Blough from the introduction to When the Time was Fulfilled (1965)

No matter how big a nation is, it is no stronger that its weakest people, and as long as you keep a person down, some part of you has to be down there to hold him down, so it means you cannot soar as you might otherwise.
~Marian Anderson, American opera singer at two presidential inaugurals, Presidential Medal of Freedom recipient and US State Dept. Goodwill Ambassador

We have a new definition of greatness:
it means that everybody can be great,
because everybody can serve. 
You don’t have to have a college degree to serve. 
You don’t have to make your subject and your verb agree to serve. 
You don’t have to know about Plato and Aristotle to serve. 
You don’t have to know Einstein’s theory of relativity to serve. 
You don’t have to know the second theory of thermodynamics
in physics to serve. 

You only need a heart full of grace,
a soul generated by love. 
And you can be that servant.
~Martin Luther King, Jr.  in a February 1968 sermon:  “The Drum Major Instinct”, A Knock At Midnight: Inspiration from the Great Sermons of Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr.

Dr. King’s words and wisdom in his sermons and letters written over fifty years ago continue to inform us of our shortcomings as a society.

We flounder in our flaws and brokenness, persisting in our resistance to serve one another out of humility, grace and love.

Perhaps this week, we can be forgiven and start afresh.

Instead of spewing lies, profanity and hatred,
can we unite despite our fear of one another?
-to no longer be divided by strife and disagreements,
-to no longer support actions that result in senseless killings,
whether in the streets or in the womb,
-to finally be able to hold up one another,
born and unborn,
as a holy and equal in God’s eyes.

May we join together as the light dawns on this day knowing, as Dr. King knew, a new day will come when the Lord God wipes tears away from all faces, all colors, all people, created in His image.

Sharers in the Guilt

barnstormingblog3 Comments

sunsetnewyears

 

Do you know why this world is as bad as it is?
It is because people think only about their own business, 
and won’t trouble themselves to stand up for the oppressed, 
nor bring the wrong-doers to light. 
My doctrine is this: 
that if we see cruelty or wrong that we have the power to stop, 
and do nothing,
we make ourselves sharers in the guilt.
~Anna Sewell from Black Beauty

 

foggydrops18

 

As nightfall does not come at once, neither does oppression.
In both instances, there is a twilight when everything remains seemingly unchanged.
And it is in such twilight that we all must be most aware of change in the air
– however slight –
lest we become unwitting victims of the darkness.
~William O. Douglas

 

 

barnsunsetcentral

 

 

We must recognize that we as individuals are to blame
for every social injustice,
every oppression,
the downgrading of others
and the injury that man does to man,
whether personal or on a broader plane.…
God must intervene with his spirit and his justice and his truth.
The present misery, need, and decay must pass away
and the new day of the Son of Man must dawn.
This is the advent of God’s coming.
~Dwight Blough from the introduction to When the Time was Fulfilled (1965)

 

 

foggydrops10

 

Be careful whom you choose to hate.
The small and the vulnerable own a protection great enough,
if you could but see it,
to melt you into jelly.
~Leif Enger from Peace Like a River

 

fogdrops

 

A true revolution of values will soon cause us to question
the fairness and justice of many of our past and present policies.
On the one hand, we are called to play the good Samaritan on life’s roadside;
but that will be only an initial act.
One day the whole Jericho road must be transformed
so that men and women will not be beaten and robbed
as they make their journey through life.
True compassion is more than flinging a coin to a beggar;
it understands that an edifice that produces beggars needs restructuring.
America, the richest and most powerful nation in the world,
can well lead the way in this revolution of values.
There is nothing, except a tragic death wish,
to prevent us from reordering our priorities…
~Martin Luther King, Jr. from a speech April 4, 1967

 

roadeast921171

 

As we walk this life, this Jericho Road together,
we cannot pass by the brother, the sister, the child
who lies dying in the ditch.
We must stop and help.

By mere circumstances of our place of birth,
it could be you or me there bleeding, beaten, abandoned
until Someone, journeying along that road,
comes looking for us,
sent to take our place,
as Substitution
so we can get up, made whole again,
and walk Home.

Maranatha.

 

foggydrops17

 

 

 

 

God’s Keyboard

barnstormingblogLeave a comment

392613_3049721161175_1428161787_n

 

The whole concept of the Imago Dei (or)…the ‘Image of God’ is the idea that all men have something within them that God injected…

This gives him a uniqueness, it gives him worth, it gives him dignity.
And we must never forget this…there are no gradations in the Image of God.

Every man from a treble white to a bass black is significant on God’s keyboard,
precisely because every man is made in the Image of God.

One day we will learn that.

We will know one day that God made us to live together as brothers
and to respect the dignity and worth of every man.
– Martin Luther King, Jr. from his “The American Dream” sermon, July 4, 1965

 

sunsetdrama

 

When I was a boy I was told that anybody could become President;
I’m beginning to believe it.
~Clarence Darrow

 

chillychilean

 

Remember the goodness of God in the frost of adversity.
~Charles Spurgeon

 

Hate-filled words leave us frozen solid;
immobilized as our tears freeze in place.

Even when such cruelty leaves us aching,
longing for relief,
the coming thaw is real
because God is good.

Even when we’ve been flattened,
stepped on, broken into fragments —
the pieces left are the beginning
of who we will become,
made whole again
as we were created to be
because God is good.

The killing frost lasts not forever.
The sun causes a glisten and glitter
as ice melts down to droplets
over the thorns.

We become the goodness of God,
His imago dei
His full keyboard
His eyes and ears
heart and soul
hands and feet

Even more so,
we become His tears
no longer frozen
but flowing, streaming, flooding
for one another.

 

freezingrain4

 

 

A good man brings good things out of the good stored up in his heart,
and an evil man brings evil things out of the evil stored up in his heart.
For the mouth speaks what the heart is full of.
Luke 4:65

 

freezingrain8

Sharing the Guilt

barnstormingblog1 Comment

dusk1176

As nightfall does not come at once, neither does oppression.
In both instances, there is a twilight when everything remains seemingly unchanged.
And it is in such twilight that we all must be most aware of change in the air
– however slight –
lest we become unwitting victims of the darkness.
~William O. Douglas

Be careful whom you choose to hate.
The small and the vulnerable own a protection great enough,
if you could but see it,
to melt you into jelly.
~Leif Enger from Peace Like a River

Do you know why this world is as bad as it is?
It is because people think only about their own business,
and won’t trouble themselves to stand up for the oppressed,
nor bring the wrong-doers to light.
My doctrine is this,
that if we see cruelty or wrong that we have the power to stop,
and do nothing, we make ourselves sharers in the guilt.
~Anna Sewell from Black Beauty

dusk11711

Solidarity and Silence

barnstormingblog2 Comments

madrona

 

We hear so much today of the word solidarity. It has become a part of our vocabulary in the past twenty or thirty years. Today our solidarity with brothers and sisters of our faith, and of other faiths, in a part of the world where there is clearly an effort to eliminate them is something that we simply cannot in conscience ignore.

Often we are asked: “How was it possible that in human history atrocities occur?” They occur for two reasons: because there are those prepared to commit them, and then there are those who remain silent. And the actions in Iraq and in Syria today are happening to women, children, men—their displacement not the least. Things happening to them is something that we really are not free to ignore, and sometimes all we have to raise is our voice. . . .

I ask myself: Where are these voices? Where the voices of parliaments and congresses? Where are the voices of campuses? Where are the voices of community leaders? . . . Why a silence?
~Cardinal Donald Wuerl at the 2014 convocation at the Catholic University of America

frontyardwalnut 

“Silence in the face of evil,” he said, “is evil itself. God will not hold us guiltless. Not to speak is to speak. Not to act is to act.”
~Dietrich Bonhoeffer