SPEAKING TRUTH TO POWER: WHY BRITAIN YEARLY MEETING DID NOT...

I've just posted a new blog on my views on Britain Yearly Meetings action on addressing the monarch of the UK, Elizabeth Windsor.

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Lamentations 4 – This section of Lamentations is about what it was like to be in Jerusalem after its fall in 586 BC. As much misery as we may have experienced, it is not anywhere near the desolation that affected the inhabitants of this city. There are places in the world where life is as terrible, but I have not known anything like this.

“Happier were those killed by the sword, than those pierced by hunger, whose life drains away, deprived of the produce of the field.…

I understand why we should treat the Bible with exceptional reverence, taking it as the single most essential book we have among the millions that have been written. The Bible is the best account of Jesus’s life and ministry, the best account of the teachings, travels and travails of His disciples as they began to preach the Gospel. It opens with the best account of God’s efforts to draw the Israelites into faithful covenant life, an account that provides the necessary context for Jesus’s…

Lamentations 3 – If you are not torn apart by the words of this lament, I do not understand it. The comments I have in my notes on this reflect the many different “states of mind” I have brought to it over the years. It slays me every time.

Here are the first three verses:

“I am one who knows what it is to be punished by God. He drove me deeper and deeper into darkness and beat me again and again with merciless blows. He has left my flesh open and raw,…

 Paul Bock gave the message this week called "Go & Make Preparations" on the Last Supper.

Last weekend my partner and I visited friends in Manchester, two couples with young children who live in intentional community. We got to witness some of the ins and outs of communal living, especially the joys and challenges that small children bring to the community dynamic.

We were struck by the ways devotion and liturgy were as much a practical part of the house routine as putting out the compost. They shared their house grace with us (a song from the Iona community), and…

Listen to this post: http://www.turtleboxstories.com/audio/whisperingwords.mp3

"The price of recognizing Jesus is always the same: our idea of him, of the church, of the spiritual journey, of God himself…

Lamentations 2 – “The Lord has become like an enemy; he has destroyed Israel . . . he has destroyed his tabernacle . . . and in his fierce indignation has spurned king and priest” (2:5-6).

“The Law is no longer taught, and the prophets have no visions from the Lord” (2:9). ” All the favors and blessings God’s people have enjoyed, all the marks of redemption, are destroyed or rejected.

“My eyes are worn out with weeping; my soul is in…

Easter poses a fundamental question to us: what god is it that we worship, into whose image we are then created?  Too often we hear and read of the Gospel demeaned as a tool of violence and division, of how it is used by ‘us’ against ‘them’, but only really succeeding in expressing a society ‘we’ construct with the materials of lurid imagination and bitterness.

Easter is the barrier to our wilful culture-wars, and the crucifixion and Resurrection are in fact the vindications of a God…

Lamentations is a poetic description of the desolation Jerusalem suffered in the wake of its destruction in 586 BC—attributed to Jeremiah. Each “chapter” of Lamentations consists of a 22 verse poem.

Lamentations 1- “How lonely lies Jerusalem, once so full of people! Once honored by the world, she is now like a widow; the noblest of cities has fallen into slavery” (1:1).

The “bride” of Yahweh cries and is without any allies or…

Jeremiah 51 – Oracle Against Babylon Again – Jeremiah here repeats that the “moral arc” of God’s dealing with Israel and Babylon will be long, but in the end Babylon whom God used to punish the unfaithfulness of His people, will also be brought low by its “kingdom from the north” [Persia].

“The Lord made the earth by his power; by his wisdom he created the world and stretched out the heavens. At his command the waters above the sky roar; he brings clouds from…

Bridge Film Festival 2012

Judges' Choice Awards Nominees

Jeremiah 49 - Oracle on the Ammonites – The lands of Gad, on the east bank of the Jordan, had been taken by Ammonites after the collapse of the northern kingdom. (Amman, Jordan today).  Milcom is the God of the Ammonites.  Jeremiah promises destruction of them as well and eventual restoration too

Against Edom – an implacable enemy of Israel, they profited from Judah’s downfall. They were renowned for their wisdom, but it does not…

In the beginning was nothing.

No gasses, no matter, no slime, no proteins,

no matter, no dust, no universe, no nothing.

Well then; if there was nothing then how

did all that is come about.

The Non-Religious Christian community in

Oil City, Pa has one possible answer to this

question.

The answer they have could be acceptable to

both Atheist and Religious community’s alike.

Atheist say

Continue reading on Examiner.com…

QuakerQuaker This Week, 3/25/2012

In Five Snippets, Doug Bennett looks at the places where the Bible talk about homosexuality as a sin with the premise"And so it matters how we read the Bible." Stephen Angell maps the…

New blog post: "Quaker Plain II: Plain Dress"
http://wp.me/p1OXtI-1u

Jeremiah 48 – Oracle against Moab – Bitter enemies of the Israelites (conquered by the Babylonians in 582 BC, two years after Jerusalem. “Because you trusted in your works and your treasures, you also shall be captured” (48:7). The Lord says through Jeremiah, “Moab has always lived secure and has never been taken into exile. Moab is like wine left to settle undisturbed and never poured from jar to jar. . . So now, the time is coming when I will send people to pour Moab out…

So it comes down to five Bible verses.

The argument that homosexuality is wrong, that homosexuality is sinful, has no other leg to stand upon – if it has any at all – than these five verses: two from Leviticus, one from Romans, one from First Corinthians, and one from First Timothy.

Some want to argue that…

Jeremiah 46 – The next four chapters are Jeremiah’s oracles on the nations: Egypt, Philistia, Moab, Ammon, Edom, Damascus and others. He begins with an oracle against Egypt. This is a poetic look at their defeat under Neco at Carchemish (605 BC) on the Euphrates.  The poetic retelling of the battle of begins with the Egyptian side, getting ready for what they are confident will be a victorious assault.; but the Lord is not going to favor them today. Nebuchadnezzar will conquer…