Cynicism and Hope

If your enemies are snowbound, shovel them out. If they are shivering, bring them hot chocolate. In doing this, you will heap freezing icicles on their heads.
      —a winterly paraphrase of Romans 12:20

My friend Cindy Wallace, one of the best writers I know, suggests I break my blogging drought (too much happening!) with a link to her reflections on a summer evening in Chicago.

A good suggestion. Enjoy and ponder.

One of my favorite authors, Edwidge Dandicat of Haiti, writes in the New Yorker about family members gone and still living.

“Adopt a tragic view of history and don’t place your hopes in temporal power. You’ll experience fewer disappointments.” —my colleague Richard Kauffman, of the Christian Century, on the morning after the Scott Brown Senate victory in Massachusetts

This from my friend Dave Lowitzki, on the Scott Brown victory in Massachusetts:

Too bad Scott Brown didn’t need to get 60% of the State of Massachusetts to decide that the State was allowed to vote on whether Scott Brown could become the next Senator of MA.

(Too busy to blog; not too busy to pass on what my friends are saying.)

From Harold A. Penner, in The Mennonite:

If Obama is right, then Mahatma Gandhi and King were wrong. If Obama is right, then the nonviolent Jesus is wrong. But no, Obama’s stated support of war is wrong. Jesus’ followers must insist on the Way of nonviolence.We need to teach and practice love for enemies. We need to renounce the just war theory. Morally flimsy from the start, it is now absolutely inapplicable because its conditions cannot be met. The fire power of modern warfare has made the theory completely obsolete. More so, it is inadmissible because Jesus commanded otherwise.

A friend who was once homeless sends me this memory:

When my older daughter was little and my younger one was a baby, we went to the Haitian office on Lunt when other food pantries would not help us. They were only supposed to give assistance to Haitians. The old lady took one look at us and gave us diapers, formula, and food, and offered me money as well (which I did not take). She said we are all mothers. I have never forgotten her kindness.

From my friend Lisa Martin:

This morning I am watching the news…

Haiti…

I saw the faces of children screaming with empty hungry eyes, bodies covered in blood that the living had to literally walk around to get to a food line, and poverty beyond imagination…

the news then showed a missionary team from the states, hurrying to the plane to LEAVE…

and then with tears in my eyes, I watched a group of Haitians lift their hands and sing, praising God in the middle of destruction and horror..

Lord give grace to the people of Haiti. provide them what they need as they call out to you in their poverty, praising your name and holding on to you, when faith is all they have…

and Lord, call us to accountability as a supposed Christian nation who speaks the name of Jesus, then walks away…

Amen

What are you think, feeling, praying?

Mennonite Central Committee has been doing good work for years in Haiti. You can donate online to aid their relief efforts.

(Light posting continues. Lots of changes going on around here.)

Says my neighbor who spends her days walking, “By your house is always clean. You know I many walk. Thank you.” Then she beckons me to the unshoveled section where the alley crosses the sidewalk. Saying “Please,” she motions for me to shovel there too. I do, and I enjoy her gratitude.