Monday, November 3, 2008

Brian’s Reflection: November 4, 2008


Change will not come if we wait for some other person
or some other time. We are the ones we've been waiting
for. We are the change that we seek.




The people of Israel, around 30 BC, wanted and needed change. This was not new in their history. Read the Hebrew Scriptures. Lots of wailing and lamenting. About hardship. About oppression. About bad leaders. And yet, we human beings are very odd. God is depicted as listening to His beloved people, hearing their cry, and reaching out to them. Sending them judges and prophets. Almost all were rejected by the people to whom they were sent. Jesus was no different, then and still now.

No Christian of any stripe or denomination would disagree that Jesus came to His people offering comfort, wisdom, guidance, authority in teaching, acts of compassion and wonder. He offered a path towards liberation and greatness, by which people could understand where true freedom from oppression comes from. It comes from within. From choosing what seems at first a “hard” difficult path, but which, when embarked upon, carries us upward on eagles’ wings.

What a World we live in today. Division, hatred, war, fear, selfishness, oppression, indifference to suffering, cruelty, militarism.

Perhaps we can choose another way. It is, and has always been, our choice. God never forces us to change. We are the change that we seek.

Brian+

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