Too much news. New Jersey counted 478 new coronavirus cases yesterday with seven more deaths. For a week or more, the state hovered around 400 new infections. As we face a possible second wave of sick people this fall, it’s important to be vigilant and careful. It’s not what it was but we still need to remember not just to wear masks in public but to use hand sanitizer or sanitary wipes when touching items such as shopping carts or door handles outside our homes.
Too much news. Parroting Putin, Trump says there’s no evidence that Putin’s leading critic Alexei Navalny was poisoned. This contradicts the diagnosis of the doctors, but who believes doctors anyway? Certainly not Trump.
Too much news. Anti-racism training programs for federal agencies are to be eliminated because it’s “anti-American” to think that there might be systemic racism in our Nation. But what else would you expect from a President who defends the display of the Confederate battle flag? Too much news.
Prayer for the Day
Blinded by our inability to admit to our failings as a people, O God,
We fool ourselves into thinking that we can ignore reality;
Staring into the abyss of our sin we ask you for forgiveness, O God,
But we know there can be no forgiveness without repentance.
Hear our cry, Holy One, and open our eyes, our ears, and our hearts,
So we become a new people committed to repairing our broken lives.
In the name of the One who shows us how to live,
Even Christ Jesus our Lord, Amen.
Thoughts for the Day
Moral inquiry and political activism start where reasons are missing. When righteous people suffer and wicked people flourish, we begin to ask why. Demands for moral clarity ring loud, long bells because it is something we are right to ask.
- Susan Neiman, moral philosopher
Act in such a way that you treat humanity, whether in your own person or in the person of another, never merely as a means to an end, but always at the same time, as an end.
- Immanuel Kant, German philosopher (1724–1804)
So teach us to count our days that we may gain a wise heart.
Psalm 90:12