I Must Confess I Keep Putting On Chains...

“Stand fast therefore in the liberty by which Christ has made us free, and do not be entangled again with a yoke of slavery.” – Galations 5: 1

  

“I freed a thousand slaves. I could have freed a thousand more if only they knew they were slaves.” - Harriet Tubman

Ms. Tubman was speaking of the literal condition of human beings enslaved by other human beings when she made this statement.  It's almost incomprehensible, but there were men and women in that generation who just knew no other life was possible, and would never struggle to be free of the only living they had known.

Confessions, Frustrations, & Thanksgivings: Why Thanksgiving 2014 is Vitally Important

Colossians 3: 16 - "Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom, teaching and admonishing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your hearts to the Lord. " (NKJV) 

I have to confess that I have been weary… so very weary this week.  At times I found it difficult to sleep when I was supposed to, and to stay awake at other times.  Lately my mind has been alternately caught in a torrent of angry reds and melancholy blues that seem to wash over me and steal my breath.  They leave me gasping, and heaving for what?...  Air? Hope? Love? Mercy?  Maybe all of these.  I hear so much venom in people’s voices and see it dripping from the words they write as they express this opinion or that.  Why have we as a society seemingly lost the ability to treat one another with basic kindness? 

In the course of a week, I have witnessed the destruction unfold in a suburb of St. Louis, and seen up close the devastation wrought by a single horrible incident that resulted in the loss of the life of a young man; irrevocably changing the course of so many lives around the principle characters who are at the center of this tragedy.  With these occurrences also come the inevitable proclamations of right and wrong, what we should do’s, and what went wrongs.  Then more attacks begin…  “He did this because he is a [fill in your angry adjective here].”  “That person needs Jesus!”  “It’s because this country has turned its back on God and now we’re being judged.”  “It’s God’s will.”  Or more often by contrast: “There is no God and this proves it.”  “Where is your God now?”  “Seems like a loving God would have stopped this from happening.”

UUHHHGGGGGG!!!!!!!!

I Must Confess That I Sometimes Have Spiritual Laryngitis

 

“First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out — because I was not a socialist.  Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out — because I was not a trade unionist.  Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out — because I was not a Jew.  Then they came for me — and there was no one left to speak out for me.”

– Martin Niemoller

  
These words were written by a pastor imprisoned in Dachau, one of the three concentration camps in Germany, for publically opposing the Fuhrer and his agenda.  He shared these thoughts after his liberation from Dachau at the end of WW II.  They were an indictment of the Church’s unwillingness to speak out earlier in Hitler’s rise to power… and an admission that, ultimately, even good people can be complicit in evil deeds by their own inaction.  Silence in the face of evil can lead to our own destruction as well. 

So why am I sharing such a dark quote when I normally seek to lift people?  Because I’m hoping that this quote WILL lift people... out of their indifference.