Reform This!

This is the beginning of a series of posts in which I'll engage in what Bill Coffin calls a "lover's quarrel" with the Church.  Either that, or it's the beginning of vocational suicide.  

I'm not one of those who believes that every answer to our current ills is found in our past. To be sure, what we know of what's been, and what it can teach us in what is can be helpful. In fact, we'd do well to reflect upon what shall be in light of what we find in the rear view mirror.

The "process" theologian in me can honor what's past, but cannot hold it as the sole means to inform, instruct and inspire what is and what will be.

I value orthodoxy, doctrine and canon. I've vowed to honor, keep and teach these things.
But I will not be held captive to it.

"The wind blows where it will. You neither know where it comes from or where it goes."

I find in it something essentially "true" even when I'm convinced some of it, if not all of it is tainted by the marks of human bias, prejudice and the endless lust for exclusive access which, by definition, "excludes" someone - usually always someone not understood because of who they are, where they live, who they love, what language they speak.

As it is with decisions claimed under the banner of divine sanction - our human propensity to royally screw things up is far less "thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as in heaven," and far more "God, bless this mess----please."

Ask any member of a Bishop's cabinet forced to appoint those whose track record reveals them to be inept in the pastorate while excelling as one person congregational wrecking crews, and you know that "God bless this mess---please" is a petition prayed without ceasing.

The crisis in the stagnation of mainline systems and structures has us languishing for relevance in a world that no longer operates under the 1950's "Leave It to Beaver" simplicity.  And while the world doesn't look like that (and I'm not sure it ever really did) we need to stop acting like the panacea for all our problems is a simple recovery of what's past in order to embrace and respond to what is and what will be.  Our frantic quest for relevance and reform has us doing "leadership summits" that, unless it's just short of 95 Theses being nailed to the General Conference's door, will change nothing.

We have it within us to be more than we are.  We have it within us to reform what we've been.  Ours is a movement whose genesis is reform.

Consider- had we not grown beyond what's been, women would not be clergy in The United Methodist Church.  We pat ourselves on the back that we're so progressive on this front (at least we do now), but let's be honest--we were late to this.  Our Nazarene cousins were forward looking long before we were.

If we were only looking backwards for our future vision, this one would have never happened (unless, of course, we went back to the time of Jesus).  It's one thing to "feel good" about what we've done on this front, it's another thing altogether to have the truth of what we say so fully enmesh into the lifeblood of the Church that it is "truth" no longer in need of an apologist for why it is as it is. It just is.

Some of my United Methodist clergy brothers still struggle with that. They may acquiesce to the concept of women who can be clergy, but see if they want a woman to be their pastor, or even their equal. That women are not appointed to churches with the same consideration as I have been (which is now likely to change, like I care), reveals what we really believe. I have heard a DS  lament his problem of having too many women to appoint in a given year.  The same people who bemoan congregations who don't want women pastors are more likely those who wouldn't want a woman to be their pastor.  The truth is, our system provides rhetorical cover for systemic misogyny carried out every day.  And we all know it.

Let me be clear. Of the very small number of clergy (very small indeed) who I'd seek to be my pastor, there are more women on that list than men.

To be sure, not all women who are clergy are effective.  Not all women ordained clergy should have been.
That puts them in the same company as the men.

I wished cabinets would do more about ineffective clergy content to phone it in while living under the perceived protection of a guaranteed appointment. We don't need an "ineffectiveness policy." We've got one in the Book of Discipline. We haven't the sufficient fortitude to motivate complacency into meaningful ministry or itinerate folks to another means of paying bills, because that's all their appointment is to them. And in the meantime congregations needing someone to help them drink from the well that never shall run dry are parched because their pastor hasn't a damned clue where that well is, and those needing a prophetic swift kick in their status quo aren't getting it for lack of visionary leadership.

Let's have a "leadership summit" on that...shall we?

Lent Over? Not Yet.

Lent is a call to weep for what we could have been and are not. Lent is the grace to grieve for what we should have done and did not. Lent is the opportunity to change what we ought to change but have not. Lent is not about penance. Lent is about becoming, doing and changing whatever it is that is blocking the fullness of life in us right now.  Lent is a summons to live anew. Sr. Joan Chittister, OSB

Aren't we done with Lent yet?  Can't we just move on?

Sure, we were all earnest 3 weeks ago when we gathered on a Wednesday night, had scriptures read about our mortality, and capped off with the mark of palm ashes thrust upon our foreheads.  But that seems so...yesterday.  It was still very much winter.  Spring has been flirting with us, we've gained an hour's sunlight in the evening, and the signs of life's renewal are within site...very much in reach.

Or so it seems.

Why bother doing all the spirit work any longer?  We're good, right?


We can tolerate self examination and introspection only so much.  We'll do it if we think we're supposed to.  That's what the invitation to observe a holy Lent implies.  It's church-speak...ok, then I guess I'm supposed to do it, it's the "Christian" thing to do.

But a Lent well lived emerges not from what we're supposed to do, but from what we need to do.  It is not so much what we need to give as it is what we need to take on.  Lent's invitation might open the door to launch inner work, but it's up to each of us to jump in head first and see where that takes us.

Early Christians used this time to prepare.  For what?  To take on Christ in their baptism come Easter.  It is the Lenten "summons to live anew" as suggested by Sr. Joan.

I've spent too many of my Lents thinking of the season as one in which I deprive myself of life lived to the full.  But deprivation is what I do when I don't attend to what gives life, joy and peace, and that happens far more frequently than the 40 days of Lent.


This Lent I hear the summons to live so that when Easter breaks out, I am, God willing, prepared to follow where that leads.

Practicing What I'm Preaching

"The place God calls you to is the place where your deep gladness and the world’s deep hunger meet."  — Frederick Buechner (Wishful Thinking: A Seeker's ABC)

My God, how many times I've used that line?  I've preached it for years. It's the framework on which so much of my sermon work is based. It's often shared in connection with Parker Palmer's "Let Your Life Speak," a book I've preached a series of sermons on a couple of times and referred to endlessly through the years.

Buechner's words ring true across time and space as both affirmation and provocation.

It's affirming when you know the moment (whenever that is and however it reveals itself) is matched with opportunity, and that opportunity elicits a Joseph Campbellesque proclamation of anthems and celebration of bliss.

It's provocation when the context of life is examined from the standpoint of "gladness" and "world's need," and neither of them have clear answers--or at least we're not willing to admit they do.

"What makes you happy?" "What makes you glad?" "What makes your heart rejoice?"

The wilderness wanderings of Lent makes the whole enterprise of finding real answers to those questions as hard a work as being in the wilderness in the first place.

But if Easter is about life springing forth from what once was dead--life resurrected and bursting from the tombs that bury our hopes, dreams, aspirations, character--even our integrity, then seeking the answers to those questions are the keys to passionate ministry, spiritual renewal, meaning itself...

I've preached those words for years. And this Lent? I'm living with them as I traverse the labyrinthine wilderness that is my life and what it will yet mean in the years ahead.

A hard thing, that....actually living into the words you proclaim. Maybe what makes it so difficult is resisting the notion that it could lead to places unexpected and outcomes unforeseen.  It might require a little faith...another thing often preached.

But if in the end gladness matches need...then it is the reflection of what God desires of us and for us, and it's worth the journey as tumultuous as it can sometimes be.

Right?

Proving Ground

That the Lenten journey starts in the wilderness is no accident.  It is as real as anything could ever be.  As it was with Jesus, how could it be anything other than that for those of us who are his companions?

I shared in my sermon last Sunday..."If you've known life in the wilderness, you understand.  If you haven't yet, I've got some news for you that you may not interpret as good...it's not a matter of if, it's one of when."

If you think that being a Christian exempts you from the perils of life, the pains of relationships, the uncertainty of what your life means and where it's headed, to say nothing of wondering what difference the life you've had thus far has made on anything or anyone--then you're a fool.

None of us is exempt. And we shouldn't be.

As it was with Jesus, so the wilderness is for us; a proving ground.

It's a place where the examination of if what we claim to be true and what of our life's trajectory ultimately matters withstands the temptation to be anything other than what we believed our lives were really about.  The wilderness is that place where the adversary (that which is adverse to who God has made us) makes us ponder the "what ifs" of our futures from the standpoint of something that seems authentic, but is not.

My old friend, Ed Kilbourne is want to say..."a temptation is a temptation only if it is something you actually see yourself doing, and doing so gladly...otherwise, it's just a suggestion."  And suggestions are just like opinions, which are like, oh, never mind...everybody has one.

Wilderness temptations seduce us to entertain the prospect of living an alternative reality.  If our initial stint in the wilderness (Jesus was there forty days before temptations came) has us wrestling with the "whys" of our lives, the real power of temptation is fantasizing in the "what ifs" of what isn't but could be.

And the "what ifs" are not in themselves bad.

Hungry?  You've the power to remedy that.
Endangered?  You're protected.
Empowered?  Think of what could be done if you had the reigns and were in charge.

But to live in any reality but the God reality, even if the product of it could be interpreted as good, creates problems...it is inauthentic.

To make anything other than God the main thing, even if it's a good thing, is the wrong thing to do.  Bible language calls that idolatry.

In the proving ground of wilderness wrestlings, we each must determine what the "God reality" is for us to pursue.  For Jesus, it was a time to affirm if the witness of the Spirit at his baptism was enough for him to stand upon when forced into the extremes of existence.

The thing about a proving ground is that you can't know the outcome until you've endured it.  You hope for an outcome, even project it, but that's just speculation...maybe an educated guess.  The "you" you anticipate being can only be born out in the proving ground of the wilderness.

For some it's an affirmation of what's always been.
For others it's declaration of independence from what's been to new doors to walk through.

I'm ever aware that I'm now at the age of many people who are just now answering the call to ministry.  From the wilderness proving ground a new chapter, a new door, a new claim to God's reality for them is clarified and they walk through it.  It's not a rejection of what was.  Rather, it's an affirmation of what is now.  In fact, my experience with second career clergy is that the lives they lived previously informs their ministry in powerful ways.

And then there's folks like me...having never done anything other than this. I "answered the call," and started the candidacy process 30 years ago this summer.  What does my current wilderness wanderings reveal to me about what I've been, its value and import in God's Realm, and what I shall be over the next 20 years?  I haven't the answer to that...yet.  But I'm working on it.  Or more honestly stated, it's working on me.

If you're in the "proving ground" of the wilderness this Lent, I'm there with you.  My hope and prayer for us all  is that we claim the holy boldness it's going to take to respond to what we discover about God's reality for us and live it out.  Because once we've "come out the wilderness," we're more prepared than ever to be the vessels God calls us to be.

Ash Wednesday - Open Wide and Say "Aahhhh", in Jesus' Name

Sunday's palms are Wednesdays ashes as another Lent begins; 

thus we kneel before the Maker in contrition for our sins.

We have marred baptismal pledges, in rebellion gone astray; 

now returning, seek forgiveness; grant us pardon, God, this day!

We have failed to love our neighbors, their offences to forgive,

have not listened to their troubles, nor have cared just how they live.

we are jealous, proud, impatient, loving over-much our things;

may the yielding of our failings be our our Lenten offerings.

We are hasty to judge others, blind to proof of human need; 

and our lack of understanding demonstrates our inner greed;

we have wasted earths resources; want and suffering we've ignored;

come and cleanse us, then restore us; make new hearts within us Lord.  -Rae B. Whitney (1991)

Today is one of reflection, purpose and introspection.  For we who observe Ash Wednesday, we know that we'll receive the mark of our mortality upon our foreheads and be reminded that but for God's grace we are lost.

And yet, this Ash Wednesday...this beginning of the Lenten journey is one that brings us back to the places we've been before.  Lent confronts us again with the "tempers and affections" we've brought to the altar during Lents past, presumably left them there, only to find we're far more comfortable with them in our lives (as sick as they make us) as we'd trust being liberated from them.  

The imagery of the palm fronds that last year's Palm Sunday were waved as we sang, "Hosanna!  Blessed is the one who come in the name of the Lord!" being now burned into the ashes which will mark us as the words, "Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return," are spoken, is a potent thing to consider.  For most of my time in ministry, I've taken it upon myself to burn the palms.  It's not like I enjoy it.  In fact, on a windy day like today, burning dried out palms can turn into an adventure!

So, what's this Lenten journey about?  A fool's errand?  Is there something that can be found, given up, or taken on that can differentiate this Lent from so many others before it?

Maybe.  Hopefully.

Lent was and still is for many an intentional time of preparation and examination of one's faith as they prepared to come to the baptismal font at Easter.

Examination is still a good word, and maybe that's why we're not really sure what to do with this season.  I mean, really, who likes exams?

I had  a series physical, mental and spiritual exams a little over a month ago.  First physical since I had to take one to enter Vandy, and that was 1987.  Why?  Hate them.  Why?  Because it's one thing to live in the denial of what is true about me, it's another thing to have it quantified, written down in a chart, and measured as data that can both be interpreted about the reality of my health now and the measure against how I proceed toward health or digress from it in the future.

If we observe a holy Lent, then who we are and what we discover about ourselves, including and especially the places in us that do not foster love and life can be brought into the Light, and from there we can determine what we do with them and how we can go forward.

But to bring that which does not foster love and light into the Light makes it possible for others to know what we dare not acknowledge and work so hard to hide.  That vulnerability is scary, and that's why so many don't do it.  Truthfully, it's not as if others can't see it anyway....denial again.

In the end, and at the end - the life that Lent pushes us to aspire is one made sacred...if all we do is witness Jesus' life made sacred through the ultimacy of his self-giving, and think of it only in the abstract and not the particularity of our lives, then we've missed so much of an opportunity, and this Lent is just another Church season full of empty symbols.  

Let's take the journey.  Let's take it with brutal honesty and utter humility.  If we do, I suspect Holy Week will be one of great revelation that can steer our course in the reality of a resurrected life.

"Repent, and believe in the Gospel."

Memphis and Shelby County - From "Us" and "Them" to "We"

Some acknowledgments and qualifiers on the front end.

I've served in the city of Memphis for most of my appointed ministry.

I'm a graduate of Memphis City Schools.  W.W. Herenton's name is on my high school diploma.

I first moved to Memphis in 1979.  I was 15.  I lived in Fox Meadows when that was still a very well established predominantly white, middle class community.  I attended and graduated from Wooddale, which was at that time probably 70%-30%, white/black.  African American kids were bused into Wooddale from the Bethel Grove and Orange Mound parts of town.

From what I've seen (strangely enough through Facebook) of folks with whom I attended high school, both white and black, it is clear to me that quality of education we enjoyed at Wooddale was very good.

I lived and worked in Whitehaven from 1983-1987.  The demographic shift was in full effect by that time for those who could afford to uproot and move to Mississippi, Germantown or Collierville, which was still at that time pretty much a sleepy little bedroom community.

I moved back to Memphis in 1992--back into the same community I lived in while in high school, Fox Meadows.  Over the five and a half years of ministry there, the demographic shift was on....reminding me very much of Whitehaven only ten years earlier.  The pressures of serving what was once a "community church" that found the elements of community eroding provided profound challenges to determining what it means to be the church.

It is among the ongoing issues and questions of theological identity for any church in a transitional community. The United Methodist Church in Memphis has had and continues to struggle to find good answers to some of the tough questions such transitions raise.  Visionary leadership and prophetic witness are among the attributes notably lacking in the face of the struggle to find meaning.

In 2001, I returned to Memphis/Shelby County.  Lived in Germantown, worked in Midtown.  Lots of reasons for that which we determined as a family was the best choice at that time in our lives.  And yes, where our kids went to school was among those reasons.

I served in Midtown for 8 years in a place at the crossroads of wealth and abject poverty.  Because Midtown had already transitioned many years before,  I was there as new life emerged.  What some called renaissance (myself among them), others called gentrification.

In 2009, my appointed service shifted back into the county, now serving in Cordova, a community not unlike how I remember Fox Meadows in the late 70's.  It is a community impacted deeply by the downturn in the housing market and the economic crisis of the past couple of years.

In each phase of my life in Memphis/Shelby County, there is always the undercurrent of certain "givens" that frame policy.  While race is chief among them, it does not stand alone.  The place where race, crime, economics and education meet--that's the thing that's always in the room with any conversation of citizens of Memphis/Shelby County about Memphis/Shelby County.  This amalgum of issues long predates my life here, and while the ways we talk about it may be shrouded in more carefully chosen language, it's still alive and well.

Now, how does any of this qualify me to say anything about the status of our city and county, and the school systems that work within each?

I don't know, maybe nothing.  Except that I've seen the biases of people who live in certain parts of the city/county toward those who don't.  There's plenty folks who live in the county who are pretty certain that if you live in the city, especially deep into the city it's pretty certain that you'll be robbed, raped or shot.

And I know plenty folks who live in Midtown who believe that if you live outside the 240 loop...heck, if you live east of Highland that you're a part of the evil system that perpetuates the divide of the city/county and that no one who lives "out there" (me included) can say anything about what could/should be done.  "Sell out" is often a label placed on us folk.

The divide perpetuated by our biases and fears does not make for the best witness of "the city of good abode." It is bias based upon every demographic and pejorative stereotype of "the other" that each can conjure about the other. Some of those biases are not without credence. Abuses of power, leadership that has been at times negligent at the least, and perhaps corrupt at most do not inspire confidence.  Boss Crump may be long gone as a man, but the remnants of how he manipulated and controlled everything lingers still.  That said, our biases provide cover to excuse our behaviors.  And they absolutely prevent us from looking at new ways of being community.

But here's what I know deep within--
We can argue about how and why, but the time to come together as one in the city/county is here.

This will not be easy to do.  I expect it to be among the most difficult things Memphis/Shelby County will have done in its history.  I suspect things will likely get worse before they get better, But it is the right thing.  As a man of faith, I believe it to be the most faithful thing.

It will need to happen for economic reasons, if for no other.
It will need to happen to position our region for growth.
Maybe it will even unify us in ways we've never considered.

Nashville, Louisville, Indianapolis...they seemed to figure it out.

Why can't we?

As I write this the Memphis City School Board has upheld its previous decision to surrender its charter and thus fall under the mantle of the Shelby County School System.

The fears, the biases and prejudices are flying fast and furious at each other about each other.

The "citizen of Memphis" side of me wants to see Memphis City School be better than it is.  I want to see excellence from teachers and students and efficiency in how the system is governed.  I want to see the Memphis City Schools perform like...well, the Shelby County Schools.  I want to be able to watch a meeting of the MCS Board and not wonder "what the hell are they doing?" If I'm a parent of a child in MCS, and I couldn't stay up all night in the optional school line, why wouldn't I want the school my kid goes to performing like the schools I see "out there?"

The MCS teachers and administrators that I know are masters at their craft.  They are very talented people doing amazing work.  And yet even the best of talent when operating in a system that seems to be dysfunctional have to feel they are swimming upstream against the current..always.

As a "citizen of Shelby County" and a parent of three in SCS, I look at the implications of a consolidated district and it can't help but give me pause.  What does it mean?  What does it do to my kids?  Does it do anything?  Does it negatively impact the education my kids are getting now?  In short, what does it do to me and mine?  It's a question that rises naturally in us when there is a potential change.  But the better part of me want MCS to be better, too.  And I want to be able to observe the leadership of the SCS Board operate address the issues without feeling like there's something else they're really trying to do without actually saying it.  Our community is better, safer, more productive when all of our schools excel.

There comes a time in our lives when we have to begin to think about the implication of choices and decisions and work with "the other" to find a new reality to frame our future.  I have to wonder...are we the answer we've been waiting for to long held unresolved issues?  Is it for such a time as this that our community moves from too many policies based on old notions toward something new?

As it was when I served in Midtown, and now in Cordova, our churches celebrates its relationship with a school.  It is one of support, care and sponsorship.  The role of the church in community seeks the best for our children.  It is one of the ways in which our village raises up our future leaders.

What lessons will they learn from us through this?

No, I have no expectations that this is something with easy answers.  But I have trust in two of our leaders.  I trust A.C. Wharton and Mark Luttrell.  I think they are both very good men and represent the best of what our city/county has produced.

Whatever happens with the schools...whatever happens in matters of government--we have to stop this us/them dynamic.  It does not bring about the best in any of us.

It's time to move to "we."

Sticks and Stones Break Bones---Words Do, Too

vi·o·lence noun \ˈvī-lən(t)s, ˈvī-ə-\

Definition of VIOLENCE

1  a : exertion of physical force so as to injure or abuse (as in warfare effecting illegal entry into a house)b : an instance of violent treatment or procedure

2  : injury by or as if by distortion, infringement, or profanation: outrage

3 a : intense, turbulent, or furious and often destructive action or force

b : vehement feeling or expression : fervor; also : an instance of such action or feeling

c : a clashing or jarring quality : discordance (from m-w.com)

I'm not sure there's anything more narcissistic than to ascribe blame for catastrophic events. We all do it. Something awful happens and we want to know why. What makes it narcissistic is that the blame we place gladly is always elsewhere...usually on the diametrically opposite pole of where we are in life or the world view we hold thereby propping ourselves up as the paragons of virtue, truth and supreme importance while "they" are the embodiment of evil, corruption and that which must be purged lest the Republic fall. Whether or not the blame is real or imagined, when we do such a thing we enjoy the presumably safe cover of taking easy shots at those whose positions we abhor.

And when that happens we perpetuate the violence--just of another sort.

It's happened too much since last weekend.  It's easy.  It's petty.  It's tacky.

So self absorbed is the media about how a mentally ill person did what he did from which connections are drawn based on what one hopes is the reason rather than what really is (something which may never be known), that shattered bodies are not even  yet cold before we skew what is ultimately important about a tragic situation.

He's a Commie.  He's a Nazi.  He's a liberal.  He's a conservative.  He's influenced by cross hairs on a map.  He's influenced by the moon.  Who's knows?  It's Sarah Palin's fault.  It's not Sarah Palin's fault.  And today the term "blood libel" was used--which does not help.  I wonder if she knew what that meant historically when she said it.  My hope is she didn't. Because if she did, the cycle of violence continues.  

To have this tit for tat argument now bespeaks the larger issue.  There's murder in Tuscon, but look at me!!!!

Everybody, SHUT UP!

We do violence of another kind if, for now, we do anything but offer prayers of comfort and support for the grieving, and prayers for healing and wholeness for the injured.  If, for right now, our focus is more on a blame placing "why" than it is celebrating the profound courage of those who rose up and ended this murderous spree before more bullets could fly then we are revealing our true intent, and it is not noble.

But there's a conversation that must be had...someday, and soon.  While not drawing a causal relationship between what occurred in Tuscon and the ways in which differing sides speak to their constituents about others ---anyone who honestly thinks our lack of civility in matters of public discourse has nothing to do with heightened tensions isn't listening.  Speak "violence" enough, be it overt or coded and muted, how then can we be surprised when violence comes (as it does everyday all over the place) and causal relationships are not sought? 

We're better than this.  At least I think we are.  Well, I hope we are.

We all grew up with that old saying "sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me."  Sticks and stones do break bones, and despite our protestations to the contrary, words can break bones, too - just not always directly.

Words can inspire, yes.

Words can provoke, of course.

But words can incite, too.

Is speaking violence even when we don't mean it the best way to communicate a point?
Is constant hyperbole the best persuasive tool to shape hearts and lives, or does it, if left unchecked merely stoke the lesser angels of our nature?

Too often, chronic hyperbolic speech masks the weakness of the point one is trying to make.  And yet once said, we must live with the consequences of what hyperbole brings. Some of us can take it, measure it and contextualize it on the spot, thus, governing our reaction to it. And for some of us hyperbole so inflames us that we're guided by fear of what we'll lose if something dramatic isn't done right here and right now.  We can't process it.  It is what it is and our reaction is framed out of blind zeal rather than considered thought.

If I were to ever wonder how I sound with the words I speak and the manner in which I speak them, I've only to listen to my children instinctively regurgitate what I've conditioned them to say because they heard it first from my mouth.  Some of those words make me proud. Many make me cringe.

One of the great challenges of the journey for those of us on the Way is to match holy words with holy actions.  We are to match the language of love with love's actions in a broken world.  We are to match belief in forgiveness and justice with mercy from a loving God to be lived out in right relationships with those around us, especially those alien to us.  Whoever "other" is for you - that's your measuring stick.  Don't believe me?  Read the Gospels.

What words are you saying now?  Do they speak "violence?"

Dare we speak the language of a revolution based on love?

And let's be clear what we mean by "love."  It is the love of God that transforms the world. Sometimes that transformation means that our words confront the principalities and powers whose actions and/or inactions have propagated a violence against those whose lives have been determined to have less value than others.  But words that confront, from this standpoint, are prophetic words that bespeak the heart of God whose most earnest desire is for us "to do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly."  Those words are revolutionary because they call us to be the living expression of God's love through Jesus in what we say and do.

I'm going to try something for the next month and I'm inviting you to be a part of it, too.  I want you to be very conscious about what you say and how you say it toward those whose positions you have the most problem. And right now in our country to say nothing of our City and County, there's polarizing issues aplenty.  Seek to avoid the language of violence.  Seek to avoid dehumanizing "the other."  Let your love for the One you call Lord guide your words and actions more than those seeking to incite.

If words matched with actions can break bones, maybe they can heal, too.

I believe they can.