Thursday, May 15, 2008

Bloggers Unite

Bloggers Unite is an initiative designed to harness the power of the blogosphere to make the world a better place. By challenging bloggers to blog about a particular social cause on a single day, a single voice can be joined with thousands of others to help make a real positive difference; from raising awareness for cancer, to an effort to better education systems or support 3rd world countries.

Today's the day to blog about Human Rights.

It always fascinates me how people sometimes react when we talk about human rights within the context of Spirituality. Some people seem to think theirs no relationship between the two. I believe that Human Rights and Spirituality are extremely closely related.

Spirituality is, in part, about becoming truly human and so anything that robs us of being truly human is an issue of Spirituality.

A few days ago I was teaching about the "Kingdom of God" that Jesus spoke about so frequently when one lady suddenly said, "Doesn't that mean that we (Christ-followers) should be more involved in politics?" and I was overjoyed because that's exactly it.

Jesus said, ""(God) has chosen me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim liberty to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to set free the oppressed (Luk 4:18)

He also taught his followers to pray saying, "may your Kingdom come; may your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. (Mat 6:10)

The Kingdom of God that Jesus was talking about is realising God's dream for the universe
here and now not escaping this world one day when we die.

We are all invited to bring good news to the poor, proclaim liberty to the captives, recovery of sight to the blind, and to set free the oppressed. That's Spirituality!

So, whatever we do, we should striving to liberate people from oppression and injustice. Whatever your passion is let's make sure that our Spirituality is not divorced from the realities around us.

Stand up for Human Rights today and every day in small ways and in big ways - any way you can.

Saturday, May 03, 2008

spoilsport

personally
(and please don't
take this personally)
there are those times
when i wish i were an
orphan . . .

then,
i could ditch
my Easter outfit
and put on my
all-too-human skin
again;
then,
i could
be cranky
without guilt
belaboring the point;
then,
i might just enjoy
treating people
the way they seem
to enjoy treating me.

But nooooo!
You have to go
and make Spirit
my sibling . . .

and spoil all my sin.

(c) 2008 Thom M. Shuman
(based on John 14:15-21)
http://prayersfortoday.blogspot.com/2008/04/spoilsport.html

I have never met Thom but I wish I could - he is one of my heroes of the faith.