Image: Solitude by Phil McDarby

Image: Slipping The Datastream (c) 2003 Shaun Ferguson

(Seen on Alan Creech's blog)

We must be content to live without watching ourselves live, to work without expecting immediate reward, to love without instant satisfaction, and exist without any special recognition.

Thomas Merton

Remember...

Remember the dead...the grieving...the lost...the abused...the casualties of war...your enemies...

(seen via Adam Beach)

if we don't love, we're as good as dead... and if I hate someone, I'm a murderer.
It's a solid message that makes me re-evaluate my love-o-meter and really check where I'm at.
Who am I indifferent to? What kind of actions (or inaction) do I justify and even defend, when in reality I know I'm off the mark.
Sometimes when I get challenged it's easy to just whip off a prayer and leave it at that...
but this leaves me thinking:
"who's throat is my knife at?"

(image originally seen at A View From the Sacristy)

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Love Conquers All

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(seen via Jason Evan's blog)

In the consideration of activism and revolution that is self-consciously spiritual in nature the revolutionary/empowered cycle remains. This metamorphosis is no mere state/political reality--as if spiritual matters were somehow categorically different or apolitical. The historically verifiable reality of the movement from oppressed-to-oppressor is the inevitable outcome of any revolution that seeks to not only disrupt, but to disempower an entrenched power system. The institutional outcomes of this cycle often catch the, would be, spiritual revolutionary by surprise (consider Joan of Arc) and, in one form or another, is the source for innumerable transitions from idealistic revolution to disillusioned political despondency.

(original article at ::seven::)

(from gooddogbaddog)

We must not force one another to hide.
We must stop presuming that because someone writes of a difficult season in their journey that they are inviting our learned advise, instead of simply needing to tell, be heard, find a hand to hold. How long is it too long for anyone to write about a painful time, a month, a week, a year? If she/he filled their writing with nothing but gratitude and praise, how long before it is too much happiness then?

(from Greg Silver's blog)

Killing Saddam closes the door to repentance, forgiveness and most of all love. I’d hate to think of someone wanting to kill me because of my sins.

(referred via Jordon Cooper's blog)

(from here...)

So, in light of Jesus’ words,

“Do unto others what you would have them do unto you.” (Matthew 7:12)

it should never be easy to drop a bomb on them. In light of Jesus’ words,

“Love your enemies…” (Matthew 5:44)

it should never be easy to load a machine gun with a belt of bullets. But if these things must be done (again, with a heavy heart, with a sense of defeat even before we begin), we must ask, “What do we wish others would do for us if they attacked us and made war against us?”