Aurora... All We Can Do Now...

We don't always understand why the bad and senseless things happen in our world...   and we aren't always in a position to do anything about them when they do happen...  but we can always pray.

Today, we learned of a shooting rampage that occurred in Aurora, Colorado last night, as fans who were watching the new Batman movie, were attacked by a man armed with tear gas and several weapons.  At least 12 people died in the attack and many more were injured.  The various news stations on radio and tv can fill you in on other details.

At this point, the only thing most of us can do to help this situation is to pray...  for the people shot and injured, for those who were killed and for their families and friends.  I would suggest that we also pray for the gunman (who authorities believe they have in custody) and his family and friends who may be trying to make just as much sense out of this as the family and friends of those who were shot.

At times when our hearts ache, it is hard to know what to pray.  I saw this on Facebook and am using it in this post... if you are not sure what words to use as you pray, borrow these...   but also know that God's Holy Spirit is also praying to God for you with deep "groanings that cannot be expressed in words" (Romans 8:26 NLT).

This incident reminds us that life is fleeting...  don't wait to tell those you love, your friends and family, how you feel about them... and spend some extra time with them... and remember those whose lives have been changed forever because of this event, and countless others like it that never make it into the news.

... amazing love

Trayvon Martin... Tragedy in Sanford, FL

A tragedy has occurred in Sanford, FL.  It happened a month or so ago...  a young man lost his life when shot by another person.  By this point in time, probably most of you who are reading this post have heard some if not all of the news coverage surrounding this event.

As I have thought about this, I have come to the conclusion that this tragedy shows that we humans still have a ways to go in how we relate to other people and in how, at the core of things, we think of and view other people.

Jesus viewed all with whom he came into contact through the eyes of love.  He went out of his way to relate to the people in his day who were thought of as being on the margins of society - women and children, "tax collectors and other sinners", the sick, the lame, the blind, the deaf, those who were not Jews...  Jesus brought healing and reconciliation wherever he went... and his act of dying on a cross for us and for the sins of the whole world was the ultimate act of healing and reconciliation... 

In thinking of this, I wrote the following blog post and posted it on my Tumblr blog:
 dear world... postcards from life...  I offer it for your consideration.

Trayvon Martin and Hermeneutics for Life

I'm guessing that you may be wondering what the word "hermeneutics" means...  in theology, it is a fancy word for how people approach the reading, study and understanding of the Bible...  are we unbelieving or suspicious of Biblical scripture even before we read it ... or do we approach scripture with a mind-set of acceptance and belief before reading it?  You can think of these as ends of the "hermeneutics spectrum" with a whole lot of ways to approach scripture in-between...

Now you are wondering, "So what?"... 

I suspect we all have a hermeneutic for how we approach other people - our family, our friends, our acquaintances, the people we don't know... that this hermeneutic is different and shifting for the various people we encounter and the times we encounter them... that there are other complicating factors we are not even aware of that influence how we approach others... factors that have been ingrained in us through family and/or societal expectations from the time we were infants...

We rarely even think of any of this, as we see another person and evaluate, judge and approach them...

Again, "So what?"

I think we need to be honest with ourselves... to recognize and pay attention to the underlying factors that guide how we approach others...  our "hermeneutics for life", as it were... and I believe that we need to push back against the ones that would have us immediately be suspicious and perhaps fearful of the people we don't know, the people who are dressed differently, or who talk differently, or who (       ) differently (you can fill in the blank)... the people who we think of as "those other people"... 

Maybe Trayvon Martin might still be alive if George Zimmerman had done just that...  

Maybe all the Trayvon's of the world might still be alive...