some news from taize
Christ Jesus, in your Gospel we listen to the call you address to us: "Follow me". And we understand that following you is above all taking the risk of putting our trust in you.
Prayers from Taize
A pilgrimage of trust...It seems that I have missed the boat once again. Young people (Am I young anymore?) from around the world will be gathering with the brothers of Taize in Zagreb for a four day prayer vigil and retreat. Incredible. One noteworhy tidbit is that several church leaders have sent messages,
epistles of a kind, to be read to the participants. And they are lovely. Patriarch Alexis of Moscow says this:
Your annual gathering is called a “pilgrimage of trust on earth”. For you the young, as for all, it is very important to look at life as a pilgrimage, undertaken in trust in God. Let us strive to remember how short the road of earthly life is. Each of us can say with David, the holy psalmist: “I live as a foreigner on the earth, do not hide your commandments from me” (Ps 119:19). The awareness that we are foreigners on the earth in no way implies pessimism or a feeling of despair. We Christians are convinced that our earthly journey does not lead to nothingness, but towards a new and eternal life. We must always remember that orienting ourselves only towards money, success, comfort and pleasure takes away life’s meaning. That road seems attractive, but inevitably it leads to a dead-end. Invite rather people of your age to entrust their lives to God; he alone can give us the fullness and the joy of living.
And there you have it...the Patriarch himself sounding more liberal than many of us so-called liberals in the us. So, in truth, his statements are not liberal at all. No. They are Christian. It is sad to me that I immediately go to the false dialectic. But I am an American after all. I live in a "versus culture." When Christianity asks me to simply be, I have to be for or against something.
Simply trust Jesus.
Got it.
Right.
In other news, Mike the cat was out all night. I locked him out on the porch. Oops. Um, so, yeah. I have been trying to make it up to him all morning. Poor bugger. He came inside and promptly threw up. Ah, cats. Ew.
Finally, I just subscribed to Geez. It is a neat magazine. Give it a gander here.
Posted by tripp at December 15, 2006 05:59 AM