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Author: Doug, the patient.

Ashes, Ashes. We all Fall Down.

Published February 23, 2012 by Doug, the patient.

For some time it has been rumored that the children’s rhyme, “Ring around the Rosie,” was a creepy rhyme born during the era of the Black Plague.   That may be more the stuff of legend than of history, but it also makes a little sense.   For when faced when imminent and pervasive death, humans, and children in particular, have interesting ways of coping.    These little mechanisms also shine  a little light on why it is such good news to have an Ash Wednesday to take pervasive death and darkness and turn it on its head.

Continue ReadingAshes, Ashes. We all Fall Down.

Tohu-Bohu

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On the eve of hope, into such a world.

Published December 25, 2011 by Doug, the patient.

 

Today I listened to even more stories hard to hear, Stories that were never meant to have to be told. I am reminded there are places where life is still taken from the young, children are unwanted or used, and innocence can be traded for cigarettes and bags of chips.

It is this very world into which every child is born. This life, with all of its risks and violence, is where every human body has to live. We like to think we do our best. Not everyone does. Some tearthrough the landscape of life like a wildfire out of control. This is the world into which every baby is born.

It is in this molested, abandoned, cockeyed world that Mary has her baby. God was born into all of our danger like every child and in fact even he didn’t make it out alive, …at least as far as we could see at that time. Perhaps that is as far was we can see now.

God knew the mess Jesus was getting into and Jesus came anyway. There is no darkness God refuses to touch, or to be touched by. There is no darkness into which the light is not willing to shine.

Let this be our last night of waiting.

 

related post:

Yeah, Actually, Mary Did Know.

 

29 Days of Hope

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