The world watched while Republican lawmakers in Tennessee voted to expel two out of the three democratic representatives from the legislative assembly who joined a gun control protest. The protest was brought on by the murder of three children and three staff by an armed shooter in their school. While local Nashville leaders have voted on representative back into the state legislature, the whole incident is troubling.
We pray for grace and truth to come into the horrific tangle of brokenness, power, idolatry, grief and justice this story reveals.
Jesus, when a disruption of decorum gets more government action than preventing murdered children, we are lost. You said you came to seek and to save the lost. So seek out the farthest of us, move us to mercy and keep us from control. Save us by arresting our own fearful hearts by your refusal to harm your enemies and teach us to refuse the tools of death.
During the seasons of Passover, Ramadan and Easter has flared up as it has so many times before. In constant cycles of damage and retribution, even this past holy week has seen sacred spaces of prayer desecrated and two sisters and their mother killed.
We join with God’s people to pray for Jerusalem, for the people on all the sides that wound and are wounded.
We pray for the peace of Jerusalem. The never-ending cycles of wounding breaks hearts and families and we can only imagine how your heart breaks for your holy city. We pray for laying down of weapons. We pray for softening of hearts and policies. We pray for the roots of conflict to be revealed and healed. We know you are with the oppressed and with the vulnerable. May your kind of peace, that takes the tools of death and fashions them into tools for life, be what reigns in Jerusalem.
In the Canadian Arctic, a unique educational effort to better understand and combat climate change is happening. A group of 40 researchers, students and Inuit knowledge-holders participating in the first-ever Arctic Snow School, held in early April at the Canadian High Arctic Research Station (CHARS). Because the huge area of the Arctic helps to regulate the world’s temperature, the more Arctic ice melts the warmer and more unpredictable our world becomes. Participants from different countries, backgrounds and research fields will bring greater understanding how the environment is changing, how quickly it is happening and can help craft solutions.
For this collaboration and many more like it we give thanks and praise.
Thank you Lord of the heavens and earth that even in times of violence and fear, your creation can work together. The earth is made so wonderfully complex and you gifted us with the privilege of serving and keep it. We are grateful that small groups of people around the world can work together across differences to learn and collaborate for the flourishing of all. It may seem small but small communities of open-handed people are how you do your best work. Thank you for this story of hope.
Trees. Solar panels. Education. These are some of the ways people of faith are fighting the effects of climate change. That’s why we created a new documentary series, This is Hunting Park. Learn how people of faith in one Philadelphia neighborhood are coming together to make a difference. Watch the films and download the study guide here.
Join Jonathan Nicolai-deKoning (the director of the Micah Centre at King’s University, which helps students explore ways of seeking justice in today's local and global contexts. He joins Chris to talk about the lines of thought in two of his recent blogs on Do Justice which lent inspiration to the theme “Long Obedience in the Same Direction” of this season of the podcast.
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