A World of Graves

Death puts on all kinds of clothes

For a hungry child, an empty stomach, a tomb
A no-job father finds Death in idle hopelessness
A mother fears Death's darkness, blackened in by her baby's tears
The homeless veteran cannot escape his plot defined by fear and hard, hard memory
Dying folk face Death in the eye, trying to stare it down, but no
Rejected, marginalized people move in and out of Death's shadows
Hated immigrants feel a Death separating them from home, while serving their captors right well
A poor beggar, standing at a busy urban intersection, wrestles Death a car at a time
The lonely know Death's solitude, resigned
Prisoners endure a life behind Death's locked door
The naked experience Death as humiliating uncovering
All sorts of blind people live in a darkness no one understands but Death
Abused, violated women live in a hellish sector of Death
Oppressed people know Death's weight
Homeless strugglers know Death in the great ourdoors
Crippled, broken bodies linger around souls chasing Death away
The world can be understood as a tomb
Death's home

What we need is a way out, through, beyond, up--liberation
The Liberator overcomes
The Warrior drives out fear
The Rescuer kills death
Leaving only an
Empty Tomb!

Our faith, in a world of graves

Where love lives. . .

When I reflect on "how I got where I am" today, I quickly think of the very special church of my childhood and my last parish ministry. The Richardson East Church of Christ is that congregation.

As I say, I grew up there.

In something of an unusual development, I also returned to serve as senior minister at the church for 14 years from 1980 until 1994 when I move to Central Dallas Ministries.

I've always had an unusual relationship with "church" in general--more on that later, maybe. But, this church has seemed to always major on acceptance and love, inclusion and high-touch ministry to people in trouble. No, not every member, but certainly the vast majority and almost always the leadership.

On Easter Sunday this year the church experienced what must have been an incredibly inspirational celebration of "lives resurrected." We witness a lot of the same sort of reality in the lives of the people we touch here at CDM. The two settings are very different. The renewed hope and determination to move forward, very much the same.

Take a look at what's been captured on YouTube. As always, reactions are welcomed.