A Frozen River Over a Just Land
In the indie movie Frozen River two poor mothers, one American and one Mohawk, tangle themselves in a web of need, greed, and exploitation until the frozen river has literally and figuratively melted before them.  The needs of the First Nations are shown as desperate in Frozen River, yet we have come to a place in movies where the American settlers are shown as just as desperate, too.  The system that brought injustice on the Native Americans has now begun to swallow itself in its own injustice: two single mothers, poor and desperate to make enough to provide for their children, living in beaten down trailers in the forgotten parts of upstate New York.The need is desperate, and

Two Books for the New Year
My desire for cultivating an "everyday liturgy" has been to be in constant prayer with the story of God.  Cultivating God's story within your own life, your family, and your church is a long, arduous adventure in unlearning the ways of the world.  We tell time not by Black Fridays but by Good Fridays, not Columbus Day but Transfiguration Day, not Election Day but the Feast of Christ the King. We, like Israel in the Exodus, are called out of the world's story and  into God's story. As Bobby Gross writes, by some mysterious grace, the light of Christ who lived in history comes into our present experience with spiritual power, and the hope of the Christ who will return in glor

Is the Number One Source of Persecution Other Christians?
In the small, unscientific sample which is my small group, the number one source of persecution is other Christians. It seems odd doesn't it?  We read in our Scriptures and Church History about the persecution of Christians, then somewhere in the Middle Ages, as the Church becomes more powerful, the Church becomes it's own source of persecution. I have a lot of respect for Sir Thomas More, but he burned "heretics," or Protestants, at the stake.  Protestants then burned Catholics.  Then Queen Mary burned some Protestants to even things out. And there was that whole Spanish Inquisition bit, and the shocking scene of the Christmas Armistice during World War

Four Hundred Years and Still We Disobey
"The translation I have used is the King James Version, not only because of my love and respect for the language of that version, but also because it is the version that most English-speaking Christians have been reading for the last four hundred years while disobeying or ignoring Christ's commandments and praying for His help in their wars." ---Wendell Berry, on why he chose the King James as the version for the excerpts from the gospels in his book Blessed Are the Peacemakers: Christ's Teachings About Love, Compassion and Forgiveness Implicit in this choice is the lesson that to create change we must speak the language of the past.  How many of us w

What to Do When the Empire Strikes Back
In developing my lesson for our small group on the last two beatitudes (Blessed are the peacemakers... & Blessed are those who are persecuted...) I started playing the word association game with empire and kingdom to lead toward a discussion of how to exist as peacemakers who are active in a world of persecuting empires. EMPIRE.............................................................................KINGDOM War.........................................................................................Peace Brute force..............................................................Purposeful Service Live by the sword......................................Be