Race

This could almost become an age-old adage, “It took something so horrible for people to pay attention to…”. We could fill in the blanks with a plethora of choices from the social issue buffet that plagues Canadian societies.

Ponder the path of your feet, And let all your ways be established. - Proverbs 4:26

India’s Covid-19 Crisis

Covid-19 cases in India have overwhelmed the country's medical system.  People are amassing outside of hospitals and the deaths are too numerous to handle in timely fashion.  Into this place we pray:

Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob, that he may teach us his ways and that we may walk in his paths. - Isaiah 2:3

A Prayer for Daunte Wright’s Family, Friends and Community

On April 11, 2021, Daunte Wright, a 20-year-old African-American man, was fatally shot by Brooklyn Center police officer Kim Potter during a traffic stop in the Minneapolis–Saint Paul metropolitan area. 

As the world is beginning to reopen and life picks up again, I’m asking the questions: Should life go back to normal? If not, what is the new normal? Have we learned what we should have? Where do we go from here? 

The answers to these questions hold lots of implications. From a political stance- what have we learned? From a racial reckoning stance- what is the new normal? From a pandemic stance - where do we go from here? While I don’t have all the answers to these questions I think I have a starting place. 

"Be gracious to me, O Lord, for I am in distress; my eye is wasted from grief; my soul and my body also." - Psalm 31:9

When the dog bites
When the bee stings
When I'm feeling sad
I simply remember my favorite things
And then I don't feel so bad

(My Favorite Things, Oscar Hammerstein II and Richard Rogers, 1961)

 “She gave this name to the Lord who spoke to her: “You are the God who sees me,” for she said, “I have now seen the One who sees me.” - Genesis 16:13

Revelations about Sexual and Spiritual Abuse

With the further revelations about evangelist and apologist Ravi Zacharias’ sexual and spiritual abuse heard this week, we pray for the victims of abuse who have been silenced in the church.  

Lord who sees, 

"I walk in the way of righteousness, in the paths of justice."  - Proverbs 8:20

I am hoping that someone reading this will learn from my failures. I am still developing the muscle-tone at midlife to have conversations with people of color where I mostly just listen, the way God listens to me. I am a white male leader at a multiethnic, majority-white church, and I’m learning from my mistakes. I’m offering them here in the hope that if you need to, you might learn from them too.