Friday, September 30, 2011

THE QUESTION

"Jesus raises the question: 'Are you living now the way you want to live forever?'"


From The End of Religion by Bruxy Cavey
A good introduction to the Way of Jesus.
Get the whole book free via the Internet
at amazon.com

http://www.amazon.com/End-Religion-Encountering-Subversive-Spirituality/dp/1600060676/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1317414051&sr=1-1




In the Light,

Daniel Wilcox

Sunday, September 18, 2011

Change Our Minds/Our Lives (Metanoia)

Great spiritual guidance, life-changing ways, have come from this one Greek word (metanoia: change one's mind) in Scripture. One powerful study on this came from Clarence Jordan, the Greek scholar and Southern farmer, who helped start an interracial community committed to equality and nonviolence in Georgia back in the 1942. Despite hatred, repeated violent attacks and several bombings, the interracial farm shone as a witness to the love of God for all. Not only was their community a powerful example, but the farm eventually led to the founding of Habitat for Humanity.

A second explanation of this enlivening word came today in a spiritual study by Rick Bloom based on 2 Timothy 3:2-5. How are we to change our minds, our lives?

We need to confess humility, pray with tenacity, seek God with intensity.
AND we need to change our minds by turning from these wrongs which plague modern life (as they did ancient times):

TURN from
philautos--self absorbed, egotistical

philarguros--focused on money, greedy

alazon--self-promoting

huperephanos--status conscious, stuck up

blasphemos--God-insulting, contemptible

apeithes--rude, disrespectful

acharistos--unappreciative

anosios--crude, profane

astorgos--unkind, heartless

aspondos--unwilling to forgive

diabolos--slander, gossip

akratess--uncontrolled, impulsive

anemeros--loves violence, cruelty, brutality

aphilagathos--cynical

prodotes--back-stabbing, double-dealing

propetes--reckless, rash, irresponsible

tuphoo--puffed up with pride

philedonos--choosing pleasure over God ("addicted to lust, allergic to God")

Sounds like the description of a new show on HBO or ABC doesn't it? Or a new movie
about the "beauty of revenge"? Or a talk show on the radio? Or the present U.S.A. political campaign for president? Or how we treated our coworker or neighbor or a driver on the freeway yesterday?

Time to change our mind! Time to change our lives!
To know Jesus and to make him known.

In the Light,

Daniel Wilcox

Thursday, September 8, 2011

Peacemaking versus Warmaking

Insightful points from an article by Dave Zarembka of Friends Peace Teams:


"Let us imagine that in the last decades the international community had supplied everyone in_____________[Fill in the blank with one of the many places on earth where war is destroying humans]
with clean water/sanitation, basic medical care, universal primary education, decent housing, and those other things are are needed for a wholesome life. To do this for the whole world would have cost much less than what is presently spent on the military.

At the beginning of the genocide in Rwanda, all expatriates who wished were evacuated (while their Rwandan colleagues were left behind
for slaughter). This included 257 Americans.

However one American, Carl Wilkens, a Seventh Day Adventist aid worker, evacuated his wife and four children but refused to leave his Rwandan colleagues himself and stayed behind. During the genocide, the interahamwe were closing in to kill the Tutsi boys at an orphanage that Carl was supplying with food and water.


By chance, Carl ran into the Rwandan Prime Minister, Jean Kambanda, and asked him to call off the interahamwe.

This the Prime Minister did and the boys were saved. In other words, this one American who stayed behind saved more Rwandans from genocide than did the total US Government with its military might of fearful bombs, ships, guns, and billions of dollars."

Now, of course, those who argue for military might--probably will--point out that usually such an appeal by one caring human like Carl Wilkens will go unanswered. But that isn't the point Zarembka is making.

"What if there were 150,000 Tom Fox's [a peace witness in Iraq who was murdered by the Islamic militants] or 150,000 Carl Wilkens in ____________?"

What if we in the United States and other countries spent as much money on mission and peace outreach as we give to their governments to conduct war now, and pay for past wars, and create new weapons for future wars?
by David Zarembka,
coordinator of the African Great Lakes Initiative of Friends Peace Teams

*Read David Zarembka's whole article in PeaceWays, a magazine of Friends Peace Teams.

In the Light,

Daniel Wilcox