Dear All of Us,
As a boy back in the 1940's
(and is that ever BACK!)
my Mother taught us that
it was impolite to say,
"Shut Up".
These days of
Empire's
darkening danger
it's critical
that we don't
"Shut Up".
These dark days it is imperative
that we
SPEAK UP
in
word and action.
To Shut Up is to say OK to
Empire's
foul depravity.
Jesus didn't
in his day and way.
We dare not
in ours.
As his followers, we model our
Response
on Him.
Jesus
Lived
God
and then
Spoke Up
Godly Corrective
to
Empire's
Godless, Loveless,
Depravity.
There it is.
Live it then talk it
in word and action.
All this was in bold relief
for me a week plus ago.
Here in the USA
Empire
broad cast bombast.
It was an hour
and forty minutes
of
UNREALITY TV
in a
bilious, buffoonish
travesty of truth,
and
denial of love -
The State Of The
Dis-Union Address
That evening and
the next day
I witnessed response,
SPEAK UP
lived and spoken
in word and action
Over dinner a dear friend
shared that his daughter,
a high school senior
planning to be a nurse,
is already taking
nursing courses
while in high school.
She recently went to one of
those horrid, God-awful
nursing homes of neglect.
She visited a very old man.
He mentioned that
he had not had a shower
in a long time.
She took it upon herself
to gave him one.
Then she decided
to change his sheets.
They looked like
they had been
on the bed
since the Civil War.
The next day
that old man died.
He died anointed in
God's Love Lived,
administered by
a high school student.
That old man
was a victim of
selfish Empire.
That young girl
"actioned"
a
SPEAK UP
of
God Love Lived
It talked.
The morning after the travesty of
The State Of The Dis-Unity Address
two thousand United Methodist
from around the country
gathered on Capitol Hill
here in Washington, DC.
They
talked-prayed-walked a
SPEAK UP
a
God Corrective
to the current abuses in
migrant deportation.
It was peaceful and pointed.
They then proceeded to
congressional offices to claim
humane treatment of migrants.
It talked.
Harry Truman remined us that
those who don't know history
are bound to repeat it.
We need to remember that
the sinful silence of Germany's
two major Religions,
Roman Catholic
and
Lutheran,
was tacit acceptance
that green lighted
the rise of Naziism.
It culminated
in the hideous
twin horrors
of
Holocaust and World War.
The times bid us
Beware
Speake Up
Three articulations
we have to
Speak Up
in the midst of
Empire's
rapidly metastasizing
bedevilment
are
- Be all in on
personal
and
communal
Gospel Living.
A
Light Bright
in the midst of
Dark Empire
like the
high school student.
Living Witness
It Talks.
AND
- To peacefully,
lovingly do
what those
dear Methodists did,
find ways of
Faithful Resistance,
clearly, peacefully,
animated by
Godly Love.
AND
- Speaking of
SPEAK UP
we do so in
prayer.
Individually
and as a
community
we pray that
"Thy kingdom come,
thy will be done
on earth as in heaven."
Matthew 6:10
We are one in
God's will and way
for all Creation.
We praise.
We thank.
We hold in
God's Love
all those
damaged, hurt,
violated by every
form and instance of
Empire.
We hold in that prayer
all those working
the evils of Empire.
We pray that
our shared life
as a society
be purified of
lust for
power,
acquisition,
dominance,
selfishness,
victimization,
injustice,
scapegoating,
militarism,
materialism,
aggression,
dishonesty and
distortion of truth.
We pray for the world
The Fruits of the Spirit:
"...affection for others,
exuberance about life,
we develop a willingness
to stick with things,
a sense of compassion
in the heart,
and a conviction that
a basic holiness permeates
things and people.
We find ourselves involved
in loyal commitments,
not needing to force
our way in life,
able to marshal and
direct our energies wisely."
Galatians 5:22-24
The Message
We have
a lot to say
and
not just in
words or church.
People of honest,
palpable spirituality,
cannot help but do things like
give an old man blessed comfort,
march to Capital Hill,
pray kingdom come,
always as
lived words and ways
of Jesus,
ways to
SPEAK UP
******
WELCOME
Online Postings
Thursday mornings
East Coast USA time.
A few past postings
are available by
scrolling well down
beneath
this one.
"Speak up
for the people
who have no voice,
for the rights of all
the down-and-outers.
Speak out for justice!
Stand up for
the poor and destitute!"
Proverbs 31: 8-9
The Message
Empire explodes
all across the
Middle East.
From our hearts
let us pray
that somehow
order and peace
will take root
and blossom
in the Middle East
and while we're at it,
in all places,
for all peoples.
See you next week
Love to all.
God Bless.
John Frank
frankly speaking
spirituality for the street
johnfrankshares.blogspot.com
******
