"We are people of faith." - Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, SC, Reacts

Christian Faith

Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, South Carolina, has been at the front of news since it suffered an attack last Wednesday evening. A group was meeting in fellowship to pray and study the Bible with their pastor, Rev. Clementa Pinckney, also a state senator. A visitor in the group sat with them for one hour before drawing out a gun and killing nine people, including the pastor, and critically wounding others.

In reaction, some, including media, worried that the most common recent reactions to such tragedies--protests growing into violence--would be the case; because the congregation of the church is historically black and the attacker who killed on Wednesday night is white. (Investigation into the shooter's behavior showed evidence of racist motivations.)

However, the remaining church members quickly united in a rare example of faith. Amid their pain and the shocking awareness that evil had entered their church in deadly disguise, they chose to rely upon God. The church has called the slain Christians "the Mother Emanuel Nine."

From USA Today online (with video), the words on  Sunday of interim pastor Rev. Norvel Goff:

"A lot of people expected us to do something strange and to break out in a riot. 

Well, they just don't know us. We are people of faith....

"The blood of the Mother Emmanuel Nine requires us to work until not only justice in this case, but for those who are still living in the margin of life, 
those who are less fortunate than ourselves, that we stay on the battlefield 
until there is no more fight to be fought." 

Our nation hungers and thirsts for righteousness, for cleansed hearts in spiritual revival. Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, SC, shows signs of the spark of revival that through the ages has often ignited from events of persecution.  

Aware of Evil

The Incoherence of Atheism by Christian philosopher, Ravi Zacharias

We think we are aware that evil exists. Yet, do we know how to recognize its seeds? Its roots can be very deceiving, appearing to promise something far different from what we expect. I, therefore, think we do not recognize many seeds of evil; I think we are more likely to train ourselves unwittingly to bear silently with the wrongs that we see developing.  What some of us see is a creeping inhumanity cloaked in social compassion. That's a hard thing. If carried to logical conclusion, it is deadly. And death can enter the mind and the social fabric parading as a flower.

When I had read half of a biography of  Mao Tse Tung, the leader of China whose portrait remains at the entrance to the royal gardens of the past, I put it down. His cruelties and hatefulness sickened me. I will return to it these two years later. I want to know the strategies and the lives of influential evil actors on their generation's stage, disguised as purveyors of good for their countrymen and the world.

The video link above, if you have not yet opened it, contains a talk by Christian philosopher Ravi Zacharias. He mentions Dachau and Hitler's inspiration, a book by Nietzsche. But that is not why I post the link. I hope you will listen.

I have visited Dachau, and I had thought as Ravi says he had, there was no need to visit Auschwitz, which unlike Dachau was a death camp. I have turned away from the evils evident in some places of history. I remember that I did not want to visit Robben Island when in Cape Town, South Africa. My husband convinced me to take the ferry with him. It was a troubling and, because of its later change, a hopeful story. Yet, still a troubling place to visit for more than a few hours, a last institutional face of apartheid.

Having heard Ravi Zacharias on YouTube again, I have decided to read beyond Malcolm Muggeridge, who eventually renounced atheism and was ridiculed by former so-called friends. I need, I think, to read Nietzsche, and I expect to see the reason behind the need after reading.

Atheists blame evil on God whom they not only reject. They deny His existence. Who can break barriers of closed minds? It is not their fault but their failure to think it through, what they think about the non-existence of God. One cannot help being unable to see through closed eyes. That is not blindness, but a failure to open the mind, to entertain the possibility of God. 

I have written about these things before. Hearing Ravi Zacharias's arguments I see the importance to ask, "If man kills belief in the existence of God, where then would notions of what is moral come from?"

What got my attention most was Ravi's story about Stalin, overseer of the murder of million of USSR citizens, and the chicken. The lesson Stalin taught was his belief that tortured people will follow their torturer anywhere. This would mean, if true, that mistreated people will follow their cruel master or leader, that beaten-down people will follow the one responsible for causing their low estate. Learn how Stalin accomplished this, but not forever. His secret, he believed, was to feed them, give to them, something.

I thought of men, women, children under the thumb of Hamas terror in their apartment buildings, schools, hospitals, markets, and everywhere else. I also, on the other hand, thought of the pack of U. S. politicians that continue to add legal burdens to the backs of USA citizens. I thought, as well, of careless leaders among Christians, those who have gained authority by many means. No generation is immune to wrongs; every generation is faced with trying to prevent and/or right those wrongs.

For every one who is devoted to Jesus Christ there is a need to trust God fervently. He is good. He gives us everything we need, wrote St. Peter, for life and godliness through Him who gave Himself for us.

Evil  is here. Atheism is here. The battle is here.

Christian philosopher, Ravi Zacharias:
The Incoherence of Atheism

Her Words, Poet Maya Angelou

When I Think Of Death 

Maya Angelou (1924-2014)

When I think of death, and of late the idea has come with alarming frequency, I seem at peace with the idea that a day will dawn when I will no longer be among those living in this valley of strange humors.
I can accept the idea of my own demise, but I am unable to accept the death of anyone else.
I find it impossible to let a friend or relative go into that country of no return.
Disbelief becomes my close companion, and anger follows in its wake.
I answer the heroic question 'Death, where is thy sting? ' with ' it is here in my heart and mind and memories.'

Maya Angelou

Source: When I Think Of Death - Maya Angelou - A Popular Funeral Reading

Funeral helper.com - today 

Patience

Image via Wikipedia

Now and When

But that on the good ground are they, which in an honest and good heart, having heard the word, keep it, and bring forth fruit with patience. (Luke 8:15)

The commercial slogan "I want it now" works because it connects with people. How quickly credit cards would  have gone out of style if that were not so. 

     We think of productivity as a short-term matter because we can move things, ideas, and people quickly. "Have you been productive today? How many units did you sell? How many pages did you write? How many books did you start? How many newspapers did you read? How many new ideas did you come up with? How many people did you contact?" In one day. Productivity is measured by such things today.

     Could patience ever win over productivity when "now" is the measurement? When numbers can be made to rise quickly? When gadgets or gimmicks can create an immediate stir? 

     Patience is part of productivity in matters of the spirit. The "now" is "patience now." Does this mean that God does not work in the "right now"? God works in the "right now," of course. We have experienced and witnessed this, when faith shot up instantaneously and supernaturally, being wondrous and beautiful to behold. We have been amazed, knowing that only God could bring forth such a thing as a changed heart! New eyes to see with! Fresh air breathed into physical and spiritual lungs! Only God can do such a thing! 

     Yet also only He could see what was going on long before. He who sees and knows the human heart saw what worked silently and quietly within. Only He could see and nurture the struggling growth of faith to burst forth, to break through the heart somehow softened toward even the possibility of God existing. That dark, damp, rain-soaked, sun-fed or dried soil of the heart. Invisibly, it pumps automatically and then suddenly, on that rare occasion, it leaps literally for joy. The soil of the heart lying there inert, seemingly, is bringing forth something that only God's feeding can make possible. When the soil of the heart is good. When it is willing and ready.

     There the soil lies, of no particular attractiveness, yet its fertility is now allowed. It hardly can know how ready is the seed of the Word of God about to take root there, ever so quietly. The seed will fall at the moment the somewhat ignorant soil will yield a bit so that the seed can embed and then begin to grow. 

     What is written on that seed? Can we read what it says? What did that special seed of faith and new life proclaim? We cannot detect for others, only for ourselves, if even that. 

     

Does the Lord say that we are to bring forth fruit with patience. (Luke 8:15)? That would not be a bad reading. Yet read again: The fertile soil of the heart, allowing the seed, the Word of God, will bring forth fruit with patience. This is the seed that fell on the good ground, the eternal Word that fell upon willing ears, eyes, and heart. The soil of the heart was good, ready, and therefore received it and let it grow. This speaks of your heart and of mine, of our neighbor's heart, our enemy's, and all human hearts that still are beating.

     The patience of God is what He calls us to participate in, with Him. What a glorious calling if we see it like this. He sees into the soil,the human heart, not we. But, He lets us know it is there, and it can be deceitful above all things. Yet, it waits as God's corrupted Creation to be good, ready to accept good seed for good productivity. God sees the dark workings of the soil, the human heart, which we can only imagine or guess at; but He tells us that if we will not hinder, there may be a patch where some seed can hold on and live, coming into a new form, new life springing forth with its own fruitfulness to bear. 

The psalmist wrote, in effect, "Search me and know me, O God, and see if there be any wicked way in me. And lead me to life everlasting." He invited God to search his heart, its soil ready for wickedness and death or goodness and life in all its fruitfulness, or productivity. The psalmist concluded that when all of God's work in him was done, then he, having yielded himself to God's work, would come forth as gold. 

Copyright (c) Opinari Writers, Jean Purcell

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Japanese Caught Near Nuclear Plant Need Compassion of Habakkuk and Jeremiah Now

Image via Wikipedia

The figure of Jeremiah on the Sistine Chapel ceiling by Michelangelo.

Commentary
Jean Purcell

Compassionate American aid workers in Japan remain set up to help in the  nuclear area affected by a recent storm. People in the area have been told to evacuate, but they have no help on their own to do so. The helping groups are staying there, too, to do what they can to help, with supplies running out. "We will stay," they say. Their outcome is now linked with the lives of those they went to help.

A spokesman with the group reported that the patient Japanese there are losing patience. The Japanese government has been slow to send help to places  overflowing with homeless and hungry people. An American carrier is in view from where they are, yet no help comes from there either. Food supplies are draining fast. "We have been to 87 disasters over many years around the world," he told Greta van Susteren on Fox News. "This is the worst we've seen." He said that tempers are beginning to flare, with the first fight where the aid worker is today. The workers there will not leave until the people they went to help can leave. 

Habakkuk wrote of the time when every supply might fail. He said to the Lord that he would continue to trust in the Lord. 

Jeremiah went to help repair a broken down wall of protection around Jerusalem, destroyed by war and disasters that go with war. He gave of himself to go and help. He left the comforts of a palace, where he served a king.

The most desperate people near sites like Japan's Fukushima nuclear plan need people of hope and faith, able to cope and persevere in disaster response, and willing to seek help for them until the end or until evacuation, whichever might come first. Without food or potable water, they cannot survive for long. Many family members became separated and remain out of touch, not knowing who is still alive, who is in hospital, and who died. In recent days, help is coming to many, though not all, and very slowly. The magnitude of the numbers of people requires a magnitude of response from many, many people and places and resources.

Will governments fear law suits if they send workers in, or does the help depend, primarily, on the humanitarian and Christian workers staying there? Will governments at least send food and other essential supplies by ship or trucks, and let the "contaminated" meet them and take the supplies the rest of the way? What is the answer?

When the worker signed off on Greta van Susteren's program tonight, he said, "We need help." He repeated it more than once. There was no reassurance to give him that help. At the end, he said, "Pray for us." There was no indication that would happen, either. It seemed that Ms. Susteren was overwhelmed.


The news today reported that  over 500,000--half a million--Japanese are now waiting across Japan, for places to stay, even the simplest accommodation. Those who can do something must do something with the strength and broken hearts for this need.


Earthquake. Tsunami. Loss and grief. Fires. Complete destruction. Food shortages. Water shortages. Electricity shortages. Hunger. Thirst. Homelessness...Freezing cold and snow. Nuclear disasters in multiples. Such a mass of tragedy does remind of the man, Job, who faced disaster after disaster. Through medic today, the Japan disasters are before our eyes anywhere in the world and before the faces, directly ...in fact. in the faces...of the people most in need near the reactors along the nuclear coast of Japan.
(c) 2011, Opinari and Jean Purcell

Related links

From Opinari

Sacramento Fundraiser -Fundraising Concert for Japan Relief Is at Sacramento's Japanese UMC This Saturday (cnumc.org)

International Medical Corps-Hardest-Hit Coastal Communities (internationalmedicalcorps.com)

Charity Navigator -free financial evaluations of America's charities (charitynavigator.org)

FamilyLinks-International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) For persons unaccounted for in connection with the earthquake in Japan (icrc.org)

From Zemanta:

• Japan's Hardest-Hit Areas Await Food, Aid (online.wsj.com) 
• Other related articles from Zemanta:
• Triple-whammy slows Japan relief effort (msnbc.msn.com)
• Troubles Mount at Quake-Stricken Japanese Nuclear Reactor - Voice of America (news.google.com)
• US authorizes American evacuations out of Japan (ajc.com)
• After Japan's quake and tsunami, freezing weather threatens relief efforts (guardian.co.uk)
• U.S. offers evacuation flights from Japan (cbsnews.com)
• US and France both giving much bleaker appraisal of Japanese nuclear crisis than Japanese government (americablog.com)