Post Election New Start

Post elections present opportunities to re-prioritize how to spend one's life, re-commit to important causes, re-affirm higher values and make a brand new start. On this first day after a decisive national election, when the future seems uncertain, I propose a simple action that could change your life. I signed and made an important pledge today in support of a worldwide movement to end extreme poverty and global AIDS in my lifetime. And I invite you to do so as well.

An impossible goal, you say? Perhaps. But suspend your disbelief for a moment and read on. Consider the possibilities. Dare to believe what could happen when critical mass of people of faith, good will and commited action are mobilized and deployed in the Name of God and Spirit of Christ. A critical mass of people of good will whose faith "is the substance of things hoped for, evidence of things not (yet) seen." (Hebrews 11:1)

Go to WWW.ONE.ORG "The Campaign to Make Poverty History."

Read the ONE DECLARATION signed by over 2 million people.

See why so many world Christians, people of good will, and faith-based organizations have joined the movement. Perhaps you will join us in this new and positive campaign. Each of us doing our part. Electing and supporting only those leaders and politicians that seek to follow and be faithful to the homeless Rabbi who opened the scroll of Isaiah 61 in the temple and declared that he has come to bring good news to the poor...and proclaim the year of Jubilee.

ONE.ORG was started by my favorite rock star--Bono of U2. Bono is also my favorite preacher. If you missed what Jim Wallis calls "his best sermon yet' last year at the National Prayer Breakfast in Washington D.C., then here's link:

http://www.sojo.net/index.cfm?action=sojomail.display&issue=060203

Go there and read it for yourself. May Bono's prophetic words, and the Spirit of Jesus, move you today to take commited action in behalf of the world's poor, especially in caring for the AIDS orphans and widows in Africa.

"For true religion, pure and simple, is this: to visit orphans and widows in their distress, and to keep oneself unpolluted by the world." (James 1:27)

Liberation Spirituality: Henri Nouwen and Gustavo Gutierrez in Dialogue

Liberation Spirituality: Henri Nouwen and Gustavo Gutierrez in Dialogue Lecture Notes: Presented by Michael J. Christensen, Ph.D., Associate Professor in the Practice of Spirituality and Ministry, Drew University; and International Director, Communities of Shalom, The United Methodist Church Introduction “There is a little man in Peru, a man without any power, who lives in a barrio with poor people and who wrote a book. In this book he simply reclaimed the basic Christian truth that God became human to bring good news to the poor, new light to the blind, and liberty to the captives. Then years later this book and movement it started is considered a danger by [the USA, or Rome], the greatest power on earth. When I look at this little man, Gustavo, and think about [the President of the US, or the Pope], I see David standing before Goliath, again with no more weapon than a little stone, a stone called A The...

First Generation Lambs Club Reunion

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Not Afraid of Death by Julia Esquivel

In reading your blog, Michael, I immediately think of these two poems is poem by Julia Esquivel, from Guatemala, whom I had the pleasure of meeting years ago. Un abrazo, Ada Maria I AM NOT AFRAID OF DEATH I am no longer afraid of death I know well Its dark and cold corridors Leading to life. I am afraid rather of that life Which does not come out of death, Which cramps our hands And slows our march. I am afraid of my fear And even more of the fear of others, Who do not know where they are going, Who continue clinging To what they think is life Which we know to be death! I live each day to kill death; I die each day to give birth to life, And in this death of death, I die a thousand times And am reborn another thousand Through that love From my People Which nourishes hope! THREATEN WITH RESURRECTION They have threatened us with Resurrection There is something here within us which doesn’t let us sleep, which doesn’t let us rest, which doesn’t stop the pounding deep inside. It is t...

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