Not Without Them

 Our work is not to withdraw but to engage, to have the fights, discussions, everything. Not over Facebook, not online but face to face. I don't want healing, happiness or peace if it means going on without those who disagree with me. I want us to be together come what may. I would rather be miserable with those who I think are loonies, nazis, stalinists, totally wrong weirdos than be happy without them. I would hope those who think me a bleeding heart dumb liberal pinko commie would want the same.

Shine

 

We are all far too familiar by now with “cancel culture.” Bullying has lessened but been replaced by this far crueler practice, a practice which we can see throughout the Bible. In Genesis 2, when Adam sinned, “he hid from the face of the Lord.” In Isaiah, the man of sorrows, Lord Jesus, is one from whom “men hid their faces.” I must confess that there have been times when hearing a knock on the door, I went and hid in the bathroom until the visitor gave up and went away! But God is different; he goes out. He walks in the garden in the morning breeze and seeks after Adam and Eve when they have hidden themselves. In the New Testament also, the Lord persists.  When the disciples lock the door on him and everyone else, he passes through that door and speaks to them and breathes on them the Holy Spirit. He seeks and saves the lost. My ancestor, Robert the Bruce betrayed the freedom fighter William Wallace and caused his death by agreeing to meet with Wallace and then avoiding him for the next month. But the Lord is different, he seeks us out, his face shines on us. In Genesis when darkness, “covered the face of the deep,” his word went out, “let there be light,” and there was light. Though we hide our faces from him, closing the eyes of our hearts and turning away, he looks for us and has compassion. He really is the Good Samaritan who sees us and comes to us and heals us and carries us. He looks at us hiding in darkness, hiding from our neighbor and from him and his heart goes out to us. He loves us still and proves it. “May the Lord make His face to shine upon you and be gracious to you; may the LORD lift up His countenance toward you and give you peace.”