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Don and Mary Thomas, who devote themselves to an effective AIDS ministry in Malawi spoke yesterday about their work. 6,500 people there die every day because of AIDS. Though you won't be able to see the video portion of their presentation, you can learn of their work and what specific things people like you and I can do to make a difference there. The people who attended in person were very moved by the presentation. I think you will be as well.
Read moreGuest Speaker: Bruce Felker
The Journey of Hope is a speaking tour led by family members of murder victims who favor alternatives to capital punishment. Their stories of forgiveness, compassion and reconciliation are powerful.
Read moreI have, for as long as I can remember, been interested in how come we do
things the way we do. How do various customs and rituals get started? For
example, why do people fold their hands in prayer? For our ancestors, one of the
most ancient and reverential gestures that accompanied prayer was the
spreading of arms and hands heavenward. In time, the arms were pulled in,
folded across the breast, wrists intersecting above the heart. Each of these had
some intrinsic logic and intent - God was thought to be up and the heart was the
seat of emotions. But why folded hands? It is mentioned nowhere in the Bible. It
appeared in the Christian church only in the 9th century. After then, sculptors and
artists rewrote history by going back and depicting scenes from early religious
history with people praying with folded hands. The origin of it has nothing to do
with religion or worship. It comes from the world of subjugation and servitude.
Religious historians trace it back to the act of shackling a prisoner's hands
together. Joining the hands together came to symbolize one's submission to the
creator.
"The longest journey is the journey inward." Those are words by Dag
Hammarskjol. "The longest journey is the journey inward." Let's see if we can
free ourselves to take some steps in that direction by seeing more clearly how we
got to where we are.
I have just discovered Amy's Ice Cream. If you like ice cream, or even if you
don't, I highly suggest you pay Amy's a visit. Does that sound like a reasonable
thing for me to say? I tried the double chocolate with walnut pieces pounded into
it and I think you might like that flavor. Does that also sound like a reasonable
thing for me to say? If, however, I were to say - and if I had the power to enforce
it - that from now on, when it came to ice cream, all that you would be permitted
to have was Amy's and double chocolate with walnut pieces at that, you probably
wouldn't like it. And, if I passed a law that condemned you as a bad and
dangerous person if you spoke out against this position, I can safely assume that
you wouldn't like that at all. Yet this is precisely the kind of thing that goes on in
the name of religion every day. It is, as I hope to show today, how what we call
"Christianity" came into being with the shape it has now.