Moving Beyond Hate


 

 

Returning from a part of New Hampshire where I was pretty much cut off from the world, it seems little has changed.  It was just as dry up there – no rain for weeks with political signs littering the landscape as well.

 

Reading about Russians being deported back to Putin’s gulags from certain neighboring countries so they could be silenced, dissidents should have gone further to the West. Russian authorities are issuing international arrest warrants with false accusations against almost anyone critical of the regime.

 

In the meantime, the political vitriol has grown exponentially here with attacks not only on migrants but now on U.S. citizens.  No matter what your politics are, you can’t call an entire group of people “garbage.”  The hateful language only seems to get worse and worse.  What has happened to us as a country, as a society?

 

Prayer for the Day

 

Feeling we are fraying as a society, we come to you, O God,

  For you can offer not solace but direction to build community;

Concerned that we are being drawn to hate our neighbors,

   We pray that you will move us beyond fear, O Lord.

You call us to be one even with those who hate us,

   Bur it is so difficult to reach beyond our own boundaries.

In the name of the One who healed the Syrophoenician,

   Even Christ Jesus our Lord, Amen.

 

Thoughts for the Day

 

Community cannot long feed on itself; it can only flourish with the coming of others from beyond, their unknown and undiscovered brothers.

            Howard Thurman, theologian, civil rights leader (1899-1981)

 

A good story lets you know people as individuals in all their particularity and conflict; and once you’ve seen someone as a person – flawed, complex, striving – you’ve reached beyond stereotype.

            Hazel Rochman, author, editor at ALA booklist for young people

 

The idols of the nations are silver and gold, the work of human hands.

   They have mouths, but they do not speak; they have eyes but they do not see;

They have ears but they do not hear, and there is no breath in their mouths

   Those who make them and all who trust them shall become like them.

            Psalm 135: 15-18