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eauty and the beast there is certainly weight behind the beast s nightly proposal to beauty the terms of the beast s enchantment will be lifted not when he can entice another being to feel some abstract emotion but when that love is lived out in action in the agreement to marriage with all the mundane daily acts of commitment and self sacrifice that entails there is something far more real far more tangible behind the traditional tale s call for beauty to be willing not just to feel some warm fuzzy feelings for the beast but ultimately to agree to marry him it makes for a much more powerful story love requires action for all that the disney version seems to promote an abstract concept of emotional feeling we nevertheless see the end of the beast s imprisonment only when that love is followed up in action the beast allows belle to return to her father belle comes back and admits her feelings to the beast we hear many cries for love all around us genuine love for one another is the solution to the gaping racial chasm that exists in our country love will heal our political divisions in the language of our faith we speak of love for god and for our neighbor as the source of our salvation and yet love is not an abstract feeling love especially christian love must be an incarnational reality our love is lived out and made know in how we give of ourselves to one another one might say indeed we are indeed saved for lack of a better term not by faith or love alone but by the works of charity compassion self sacrifice born out of our love for one another what will we do to make that love known blacklivesmatter again july 7 2016 revrachel23 4 comments while recently on vacation leeman and i spent most of amanda s daily naptime binge watching the latest season of orange is the new black i was fixated on what this latest season had to say about the corporate for profit prison system and what happens to our collective humanity when we view one another as profits rather than people i was totally on board with this being the strongest season of the show to date then the last two episodes happen here be spoilers the climax of the season occurred in the penultimate episode of the season when tensions between the new authoritarian guards and the prison inmates culminate in a peaceful demonstration the guards rush in to break up the protest and in the ensuring chaos a young inexperienced guard inadvertently takes the life of fan favorite character poussey washington given the racial dynamics explored over the course of the season and the staging of poussey s death to evoke the real life police killing of eric garner the writers made an undeniable connection to the blacklivematter movement that would all be well and good except that the series attempts to portray a balanced outlook on the reality of law enforcement repeatedly taking the lives of black men and women as the series comes to its conclusion we see two warring perspectives on what went down in that fatal moment on the one hand the guards immediately jump to a defensive narrative poussey must have been armed she made the first attack their colleague was just defending himself the inmates on the other hand demand justice for the death of their friend she was innocent someone must pay adding to the complexity of the situation we see the prison s public relations team searching for the right angle they ultimately determine the guard in question must be the sacrificial lamb for the good of the prison s reputation they find the most aggressive pictures they can to paint a picture of this confused young man as potentially dangerous and hardened indeed what makes this plot point particularly odious is the appropriation of what the media actually does when a young black man is killed by the police the season ends with a press conference in which joe caputo prison warden refuses to give in to the narrative that the guard is totally to blame for poussey s death caputo lays out the complexities of working in a prison system even a minimum security facility ultimately he argues the young man made a mistake but did the best he could in the situation caputo s failure fully to indict poussey s killer leads to a full fledged prison riot and a cliff hanger ending for the season it is difficult to know how to interpret caputo s final moments the whole season laid out something of a battle for caputo s soul as he sought for ways to affirm the humanity and dignity of the women in his prison against the corporate interests of his employers one might read caputo s comments as his utter failure of moral courage but i m not sure that is what the writers were communicating in the midst of all the various agendas whether the guards defending one of their own the inmates passionately demanding justice or the corporation looking to defend its public image caputo lays out a seemingly nuanced measured take on the situation he speaks from his own personal convictions not defending or exonerating the young man but not indicting him either indeed the actor who plays the guard in question has encouraged a nuanced reading of the situation noting that good people make mistakes a part of me can appreciate what the writers were trying to do it is tempting always to look for nuance in complex situations indeed the story of an immature young man thrown into an impossible circumstance where he makes a horrific unintentional mistake makes for really compelling drama it is also a grossly irresponsible statement to make in light of current events we live in a world where police repeatedly kill black men and women without just cause or due process and get away with it this year alone the police have killed well over 100 black men just this week two more names were added to the tragic black victims of police brutality alton sterling and philando castile both deaths caught on video nothing to suggest the police who killed them were in any immediate mortal danger it is all well and good to look for nuance and complexity it is all well and good to explore what leads someone sworn to serve and protect to make the fatal mistake that results in the the loss of a life but there then comes a time when we must stand up and say that some issues are not complicated some situations do not merit nuanced discussion there come times when we must declare that mistakes that lead to the repeated executions of black men and women don t deserve discussion or measured responses we must declare that black live do indeed matter and that those who take them should be held responsible we must name injustice for what it is if we are to have any hope of working together to create a world that reflects the true love and equality of god s kingdom the other option is to be joe caputo no one wants to be joe caputo out of the locked room april 5 2016 revrachel23 leave a comment this past sunday christians around the world read the gospel account of the risen christ appearing to his followers john 20 19 31 traditionally this 2nd sunday of easter is known as thomas sunday as this annual gospel passage features the infamous figure of doubting thomas and his need to see the wounds on christ s body to believe the account of the resurrection but if we only focus on thomas we miss so much of what this text has to offer us we miss for example that as the scene opens all the disciples are locked away for fear of the jews we ll bracket aside john s problematic anti semitism for the moment the point is not so much what the disciples are afraid of but the fact that they are indeed locked away in the absence of their teacher their mentor and their friend they are trapped by their own fear they have trapped themselves in a metaphorical tomb of fear even as christ himself is rising from the literal tomb when jesus appears among them he does a couple of interesting things he greats them with words of peace he breathes on them that they might receive the holy spirit and then he commissions them as the father has sent me so i send you more specifically he commissions them specifically to go out into the world to proclaim the forgiveness of sins he sends them out into the world in other words to bring life peace and freedom to a world desperately in need of them which brings us to poor unfortunate thomas yes he doubted but when he encounters christ the second time when he has the opportunity to see and touch christ s wounded body thomas becomes the first disciple to make the proclamation my lord and my god this story for the second week of easter is not just about making a intellectual argument for accepting the truth of christ s resurrection important as such arguments may be rather it is a story about those of us who proclaim to be followers of the resurrected messiah it is a challenge for us to move out of the tomb and prison of fear which can so easily beset us to a faith which embraces life and freedom it is a faith that compels us to go forth in the name of christ and proclaim the presence of god s outrageous love for our world and it is a faith that calls us to the courageous conviction that sometimes the way to true life more abundant requires dying to ourselves now let us discuss certain legislation being passed around our country in the name of protecting religious freedom and places of worship legislation which gives organizations the right to discriminate against fellow human beings on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity legislation which denies certain individuals the ability to use a public bathroom without embarrassment even legislation that gives security teams at churches the right to kill in the name of security i know that i am for the most part effectively preaching to the choir in this blog post i know most people reading this are appalled by such legislation but i think it is worth considering for a moment why such legislation stands against the spirit of the christian proclamation for one thing these laws hurt our fellow human beings whatever the position certain religious communities hold on human sexuality surely there is a way to express those convictions without actively harming others made in the image of god but perhaps more importantly such legislation gives into a spirit of fear it reflects a mentality of drawing battle lines and protecting what is one s own in place of a proclamation of christian hope the question for all of us wherever we fall on the political theological spectrum is that challenge can we leave the place of fear and accept the challenge to share in christ s risen life can we live in hope faith and love of one another on annunciation and good friday march 25 2016 revrachel23 1 comment good friday 2016 tamely frail body abstain to day to day my soul eats twice christ hither and away she sees him man so like god made in this that of them both a circle emblem is whose first and last concur this doubtful day of feast or fast christ came and went away she sees him nothing twice at once who s all she sees a cedar plant itself and fall her maker put to making and the head of life at once not yet alive yet dead she sees at once the virgin mother stay reclused at home public at golgotha sad and rejoiced she s seen at once and seen at almost fifty and at scarce fifteen at once a son is promised her and gone gabriell gives christ to her he her to john not fully a mother she s in orbity at once receiver and the legacy all this and all between this day hath shown th abridgement of christ s story which makes one as in plain maps the furthest west is east of th angels ave and consummatum est christ is placed in the arms of his mother stations designed for harcourt parish by barbara tazewell john donne wrote those words in 1608 one of the rare years such as now in 2016 when good friday falls on march 25 the date one which the church typically recognizes the festival of the annunication to the blessed virgin mary it is indeed seemingly incongruous to fall on the same day indeed it will not happen again for another century the promise of the birth of christ linked together with christ s bloody brutal death donne s poem hints at this incongruity with lines such as the cedar plants itself and falls and that wonderful image gabriel gives christ to her and he her to john and yet donne also makes the observation that these two events incongruous as they might seem are indeed two sides of the same coin as in plain maps the furthest west is east indeed there was a period in the early centuries of the church when dates were always shifting around when the annunciation and good friday coincided intentionally while we could get side tracked with many many implications from that there is one that i particularly want to highlight this is something of a theological soap box for me namely the place of the doctrine of the incarnation in our observance of the crucifixion in my palm sunday sermon i mentioned that a central image at the heart of our christian faith is the kenosis the self emptying the outpouring of christ that self giving begins in the the work of the incarnation when god comes to dwell with us in human form but it culminates in the work of the cross the ultimate act of self denial self sacrifice utter humility good friday is a day when we look with honesty at the darkness of our world both the cosmic terror attacks on going racial injustice and the utterly personal short tempers unreflective consumerism this is a dark day but it is also the day that god confronted that darkness head on in defiance of the powers and principalities of a world that so often tells us to look out for ourselves god gives of himself utterly completely willingly the ultimate act of love the work of reconciliation that is first signaled in the angel s proclamation to mary comes to its completion in god s willing self sacrifice and so christ can cry from the cross it is finished many of us are uncomfortable with good friday which is fair enough because there are some terrible theories in the christian tradition about what it is that happened today we rightly push against the idea that of a vengeful god who demanded human blood to atone for our sinfulness but i also want to push against the idea that i hear preached and affirmed in our more progressive christian circles that jesus wasn t really supposed to die he was a victim of human betrayal good friday didn t need to happen the violence of this day says more about us than it does about god it seems we either cast jesus as the hapless victim of a tyrannical deity or an angry mob but in doing so we often rob the christian narrative of its drama the drama of god s totally self giving love for us the drama of power displayed through weakness of defeat that will give way to victory there is another poem that links this theme of incarnation and crucifixion together this one by madeline l engle o you who bear the pain of the whole earth i bore you o you whose tears give human tears their worth i laughed...
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