choices

Tis good to be encouraged by the sufferings of Christ. Not because I'm enduring those specific pains or acutal physical wounds - for I most certainly am not. Nor am I the poorest of the poor or the most loving or gentle or kind or meek individual of which Jesus says will inherit the earth. In all of these Christ and many others surpass me as well as the rest of us. But rather the cross of Christ deepens my active pursuit of him and his vision for the world to be perfected in love because I am combatting the same powers and authorities, giving the alternative love offering of Christ to those in need.

I am choosing to look myself in the eye until the tears fall down my cheeks when I'm not seeing at the world through the eyes of Christ.

Choosing to step away from the empire's illuions of grandeur purchased with the blood of classism, Jesus leads my way into the neighborhood where people - whether in want or plenty - need alternatives to the domineering, economically-driven, and politically veiled hyper-modernist social myths of american dreams, violent freedoms, bloody materialisms, justified inequalities, and terrestrial pillage. Choosing to take a slap in the face and turn the other cheek when asked if I am a middle-class American taking part in the rape and self-righteous saving of the world. Choosing to both apologize for myself and my country as the shrouded suppressor of many regions throughout the world that have yet to see the love of Christ from the nation who assigns God's name to its economic stability. Choosing to offer myself as an ambassador for a full life outside the confines of hollow religious myths or dogmatic superiority. Choosing to work and play, learn and grow, rise and fall in harmony with the all of creation. Choosing to embrace the lovely life of Christ replete with all the suffering on the behalf of a fallen world which true love seeks to set free.

Jesus as the light, illumine and guide
Jesus as the strength, sustain and uplift
Jesus as the way, to the right and the left
Towards the Kingdom We ride...