Hate may be stupidly persistent, but Love always wins.

Hate practices exclusivity, but Love’s inclusivity always wins.

Hate denigrates, but Love elevates—everyone.

Hate is self-righteous, but Love does not judge.

God is Love. Hate is evil.

To everyone in the whole wide world, Love sent us Jesus.

And anyone, everyone who believes in God’s Love is saved.

The Well of Dyersburg welcomes people of all races, all sexual identities, all ethnicities, all conditions, all abilities, all life stages, all income levels, all immigration or citizenship statuses. The Well of Dyersburg welcomes all.

In 2012, a book written by Allan Boesak and Curtiss Paul DeYoung was published which puts to rest the notion that Christ-like reconciliation can be accomplished without sacrifice of power. The work, which has a foreword by Desmond Tutu, is titled Radical Reconciliation: Beyond Political Pietism and Christian Quietism. Rev. Dr. Boesak is a professor at the Christian Theological Seminary and was an anti-apartheid activist in his homeland, South Africa. The co-author, Rev. DeYoung, is a civil rights activist in Chicago, now heading the faith-based organization Community Renewal Society (CRS). These authors, one Black and one White, joined together to challenge readers to understand that true racial reconciliation cannot be achieved without working together to undo systematic injustices.

In 2010, a book written by Dr. Elizabeth Anderson was published which provides a compelling analysis of the connection between racial segregation and social inequality and the necessity for racial integration as a justice issue. This book, titled The Imperative of Integration was one that I read during my PhD studies. I was most interested in it because it supports my argument that it is critical that the Church take a proactive leading role in normalizing racial integration, something which we cannot do while worshipping in racially separate congregations. A most helpful part of this book is the chapter titled “The Folly and Incoherence of Colorblindness” which makes important points more of us need to understand as we work earnestly to connect meaningfully with each other.

Today I would like to share a blog written by Dr. Alan Bean.

Please click HERE.

Today I am full of gratitude to my father and all the service men and women who have passed on. My father served well, with honors, when he was sent off to war in other countries. Then he came back home to fight Jim Crow in Tennessee.

Dad, I thank you with all my heart for your hard fight in the armed service and your hard fight back at home. I thank you and all the others who did the same, every one of you who never gave up.

In your memory and in their memory, I ask everyone who is not registered to vote to please pay their respects to you and others like you by registering to vote on this Monday. Yes! Our participation in the democratic process is not over yet! Keep the faith. Stay informed and engaged.

The next opportunity to vote is not four years from now. It’s at the midterm elections. Let us not let the brave service that the women and men performed for us and our great country be forgotten or wasted! Register! Read! Vote!

The next midterm election is Tuesday, November 6, 2018, and it’s a critical election day because all 435 seats in the House of Representatives and 33 out of 100 seats in the Senate are up to us to decide by our vote. We can make a tremendous difference in how our country is governed on November 6, 2018 and, of course, again at the next general election on Tuesday, November 3, 2020.

Do your homework! Be prepared! Get ready! I pray that you continue to pursue all your dreams and hold your heads up high. You matter.

Dear America, our first 240 years have continuously brought us to higher and higher ground, though it certainly has not been easy, and there have been some backward steps. Yet, we continue on, rising higher than our past, with God’s help.

I am proud to be an American, but I know there is still much good work to be done. I wish we could all be here when the 300th celebration on the 4th of July takes place.  We won’t.

Let’s do our best to leave the legacy of God’s unconditional love for all as a foundation of unity and diversity so that our free and brave grandchildren and great-grands who will be here at that 300th celebration will see that star-spangled banner waving and welcoming all in peace.

The year will be 2076, another election.  May God bless America and keep her faithful.

I offer our condolences to the Orlando community at this time of its terrible loss. I proclaim solidarity with the entire LGBT Community who, in all parts of the world, still face violence, discrimination, and exclusionary practices.

I mourn with all who mourn the loss of LGBT family members, friends, and loved ones resulting from this tragedy and all previous acts of violence against LGBT people.

I pray that it will end. I pray that Christians everywhere will courageously speak out against all types of mistreatment of LGBT people. I pray in the name of Jesus the Messiah, whose life, death, and resurrection demonstrate the unconditional love of God for every person, each one of us created in God’s own image.

This is the last day of January.

Thirty-one days of 2016 will soon have gone right past me, in just a few more hours.

And I haven’t started any of my New Year resolutions…well, maybe I’ve partially started a couple of them, just a few days ago, at least while it was still January.

But what happened to the other ten or so resolutions I put on my list on New Year’s Day, when I had all the time a new year can bring, when I was so full of plans and determination and…resolution?  Where did that go? And where is that darn sheet of paper I listed them all on?

Maybe it’s stuck in one of those three big piles of paperwork still sitting on my desk and chair and sofa, the piles I promised myself I would sort through and take care of. Oh, now I remember: that was an item on my list.

What about you?

Have you, like me,  maybe–kind of–sort of  begun some things on your list and forgotten about others? Or even reneged on some? Backed away from giving up some item or some person–an attachment stronger than your will, though you know it isn’t good for you?

Apostle Paul wrote,

“What I don’t understand about myself is that I decide one way, but then I act another.” He goes on to say, “I obviously need help! I realize that I don’t have what it takes. I can will it, but I can’t do it.”

Been there, done that, Paul. Nice to know I’m not alone.

Paul goes on to say (the Message version, Romans 7),

“My decisions, such as they are, don’t result in actions. Something has gone wrong deep within me and gets the better of me every time.”

Well, maybe not every time, Paul. Too much wallowing! I stick to good decisions lots of time.

But, I do admit this: When I disappoint myself with a misstep, yes, it feels like the despair Paul describes, whether the misstep has surprised me or whether I saw it coming all along, and let it.

But God sent me help through Jesus–not the kind of help that turned me into some kind of a robot who never makes mistakes but real help. Such good news that it turned me inside out! So I could focus more on God and not myself.

I no longer had to worry about keeping the law that kept tripping me up, me and Paul, making us pay more attention to that worry than to God.

Paul learned the hard way, too. He reminds me (in Romans 8) to “simply embrace what the Spirit is doing” in me and trust God, not the law, and that “those who think they can do it on their own end up obsessed” but that “those who trust God’s action in them find that God’s Spirit is in them–living and breathing God!”

So, me and Paul (and you, too) can say, Yes! Welcome, welcome in me Holy Spirit of Christ! May our lists be abandoned! May God reign in us! Yes, may God reign!

Jesus was born to an unwed mother, and although she was engaged at the time, her fiancé was not the baby’s father. Like many of us, Jesus emerged from the womb into a messy situation of human uncertainty (baby daddy, baby mama drama). But while her pregnancy wasn’t the result of longterm human intentions, it was truly the result of God’s plan. In the same way, none of us were born–and none of our children are ever born– outside of God’s planning.

Despite Mary’s surprise at learning she would give birth to Jesus, God was not surprised. Despite her fiancé Joseph’s initial lack of enthusiasm, to say the least (he was going to dump her), God enthusiastically anticipated the birth of Christ our Messiah.

New life and new purpose is possible for all of us because of God’s gift.

Yes, Jesus is the reason for the Christmas season, just as all those bumper stickers say. And God’s great love for us is the reason for Easter. That means hope for everyone, according to plan.