Li: ritual, propriety, etiquette. Hsiao: love within the family (parents for children and children for parents. Yi: righteousness--the noblest way to act in a situation. Xin: honesty and trustworthiness. Jen: benevolence, humaneness towards others. Chung: loyalty to the state and authority. --Confucius (Kong Fuzi)

All articles appear in reverse chronological order [newest first].

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I believe the past is relevant, sometimes more than others of course. In most cases we are seeing history being repeated, so it is most relevant.

Friday, September 30, 2005

Control Belongs To God, Not To Us.

Tom Ehrich, Indianapolis Star, 10-29-2005 Religion News Service

…I yearn for the day when we Christians stop fighting about control issues and start doing what Jesus called us to do. We are so concerned about controlling how people behave that we forgot to love them as they are.

We are so concerned about doctrinal cleansing, ethical cleansing and political cleansing that we fail to see the logs in our own eyes, and even more, we fail to give what God gives, namely mercy.  We are so concerned about whom to keep out that we fail to let hope and forgiveness in.

In our concern for fiscal tidyness, denominational victory, ordination privileges and liturgical correctness, we were ourselves out and have too little energy for serving. In our sniping and snapping, we shred the bonds of trust. In our warring and wariness, we tend to see categories, not persons: we see threats, not needs: we wonder how harshly to judge, not how lavishly to love. In our zeal for safety and comfort, we refuse to die to self.

We need to get out of our heads, out of our safe places, out of our concern for winning and out of our propriety and self righteousness, and we need to hear a fellow pilgrim say, "I once was lost, but now am found, and what we do here makes all the difference in the world."

I yearn for the day we care more about making that difference than getting our way. More about listening than speaking. More about being one than being right.

I yearn for the day when we set aside our 2000-year quest to be like Ceasar and instead accept ourselves as the beloved and flawed whom God knows us to be. No more presuming to judge and to rule, no more guarding the gates of salvation, no more guarding the gates of salvation, no more "holy war." Instead, receive the humbler bread that God serves: mercy, acceptance, redemption, grace and hope…"

Tom Ehrich, Indianapolis Star, 10-29-2005 Religion News Service


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