What are you thinking about this March?
For many, their focus is on the NCAA college basketball tournament commonly known as “March Madness.” While others look forward to the wearing of the green in celebration of St. Patrick’s Day.
For Christians, we begin the season of Lent on March 2, 2022. A time to focus on prayer, fasting, and giving. It is a time of repentance, of self-denial and self-sacrifice. It is a time when we look inward to see the status of our hearts and souls. It is a time of reflection, as we begin a new the journey toward growing deeper in faith and love, strengthening our relationships with God and one another.
Yet as March begins this year, all of us are thinking about the madness of war. Our hearts go out to those in harm's way as a war is being waged in Europe upon the people of Ukraine. It is a senseless war brought on by one man's egotistical desire to make a name for himself in history. And he has.
This war which he is waging against innocent people is dragging the entire world into its grasp, inflicting suffering and pain, with the rippling effects of socioeconomic impacts across the globe. While we watch and pray, God is not idle.
Hear the words from Deuteronomy 28:
16 You will be cursed in the city and cursed in the country.
25 The Lord will cause you to be defeated before your enemies. You will come at them from one direction but flee from them in seven, and you will become a thing of horror to all the kingdoms on earth.
28 The Lord will afflict you with madness, blindness and confusion of mind.
37 You will become a thing of horror, a byword and an object of ridicule among all the peoples where the Lord will drive you.
The kingdoms of the earth are uniting, rising up against him through imposing sanctions. He faces deep isolation as he is being cut off, ridiculed among the peoples, being called a pariah - made to be a social outcast for his evil ways. And he will face many more repercussions for the evil and harm that he is causing.
Even the people under his oppressive tyranny are protesting this war though they face imprisonment and punishment.
And while our cries for peace grow stronger, we need a miracle to put an end to this crisis- to this needless war.
I would like to share with you a poem, which Rev. Kathleene Card posted. Let us pray for a miracle and for an end to this war.
“I No Longer Pray For Peace”
A Poem by Ann Weems
On the edge of war, one foot already in,
I no longer pray for peace:
I pray for miracles.
I pray that stone hearts will turn
to tenderheartedness,
and evil intentions will turn
to mercifulness,
and all the soldiers already deployed
will be snatched out of harm's way,
and the whole world will be
astounded onto its knees.
I pray that all the "God talk"
will take bones,
and stand up and shed
its cloak of faithlessness,
and walk again in its powerful truth.
I pray that the whole world might
sit down together and share
its bread and its wine.
Some say there is no hope,
but then I've always applauded the holy fools
who never seem to give up on
the scandalousness of our faith:
that we are loved by God......
that we can truly love one another.
I no longer pray for peace:
I pray for miracles.
Amen.
For many, their focus is on the NCAA college basketball tournament commonly known as “March Madness.” While others look forward to the wearing of the green in celebration of St. Patrick’s Day.
For Christians, we begin the season of Lent on March 2, 2022. A time to focus on prayer, fasting, and giving. It is a time of repentance, of self-denial and self-sacrifice. It is a time when we look inward to see the status of our hearts and souls. It is a time of reflection, as we begin a new the journey toward growing deeper in faith and love, strengthening our relationships with God and one another.
Yet as March begins this year, all of us are thinking about the madness of war. Our hearts go out to those in harm's way as a war is being waged in Europe upon the people of Ukraine. It is a senseless war brought on by one man's egotistical desire to make a name for himself in history. And he has.
This war which he is waging against innocent people is dragging the entire world into its grasp, inflicting suffering and pain, with the rippling effects of socioeconomic impacts across the globe. While we watch and pray, God is not idle.
Hear the words from Deuteronomy 28:
16 You will be cursed in the city and cursed in the country.
25 The Lord will cause you to be defeated before your enemies. You will come at them from one direction but flee from them in seven, and you will become a thing of horror to all the kingdoms on earth.
28 The Lord will afflict you with madness, blindness and confusion of mind.
37 You will become a thing of horror, a byword and an object of ridicule among all the peoples where the Lord will drive you.
The kingdoms of the earth are uniting, rising up against him through imposing sanctions. He faces deep isolation as he is being cut off, ridiculed among the peoples, being called a pariah - made to be a social outcast for his evil ways. And he will face many more repercussions for the evil and harm that he is causing.
Even the people under his oppressive tyranny are protesting this war though they face imprisonment and punishment.
And while our cries for peace grow stronger, we need a miracle to put an end to this crisis- to this needless war.
I would like to share with you a poem, which Rev. Kathleene Card posted. Let us pray for a miracle and for an end to this war.
“I No Longer Pray For Peace”
A Poem by Ann Weems
On the edge of war, one foot already in,
I no longer pray for peace:
I pray for miracles.
I pray that stone hearts will turn
to tenderheartedness,
and evil intentions will turn
to mercifulness,
and all the soldiers already deployed
will be snatched out of harm's way,
and the whole world will be
astounded onto its knees.
I pray that all the "God talk"
will take bones,
and stand up and shed
its cloak of faithlessness,
and walk again in its powerful truth.
I pray that the whole world might
sit down together and share
its bread and its wine.
Some say there is no hope,
but then I've always applauded the holy fools
who never seem to give up on
the scandalousness of our faith:
that we are loved by God......
that we can truly love one another.
I no longer pray for peace:
I pray for miracles.
Amen.
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