Hopewit

  “ God calls us to be followers of Jesus Christ and, by the power of the Holy Spirit to grow as communities of grace, joy and peace so that God’s healing and hope flow through us to the world.” There are plenty of clichés going around regarding the gun-control controversy. For instance, “Guns don’t kill people, people kill people,” and on the other side, a parable that goes something like this: if a kid is hitting other kids on the playground with a stick, you don’t give everyone a stick to protect themselves against him, nor do you choose some “good kids” and give them really big sticks to protect the vulnerable, YOU TAKE AWAY THE BOY’S STICK. Both carry enough logic to draw nods; they make sense. Repeating them over and over again, however, doesn’t explain the fact that the US has conflated the ownership of lethal weaponry with freedom , has made the “right to bear arms” a central political stance . . . and is experiencing an unbelievable epidemic of “people kill

Taboga Island, Panama, 2017 Whoever pursues righteousness and love finds life, prosperity and honor. (Proverbs 21:21 NIV) If only it were so. If only living by maxims, proverbs, folk and conventional wisdom would make life as predictable as “if you have twenty chickens and you buy twenty more, you will have forty chickens and twice as many eggs, twice as much income as you had before.” Life just ain’t as mathematical as the wisdom of Proverbs implies. Chickens get diseases and die, markets rise and fall, foxes get into the hen house, ducks might be a better choice altogether.      In today’s Western world, a badly skewed “market-system” governs the bulk of public affairs. It’s not hard to imagine—given this environment—that the greedy and sly son of a deceased mine owner will inherit the gold while the son who “pursues righteousness and love” will end up with the shaft. Prosperity in the proverb had better mean “prosperity of spirit,” because wealth as we generally know

O Lord God of hosts, the God of Israel, awake to visit all the heathen: be not merciful to any wicked transgressors. Selah. They return at evening: they make a noise like a dog, and go round about the city. Behold, they belch out with their mouth: swords are in their lips: for who, say they, doth hear? But thou, O Lord, shalt laugh at them; thou shalt have all the heathen in derision. Because of his strength will I wait upon thee: for God is my defence. The God of my mercy shall prevent me: God shall let me see my desire upon mine enemies. (Psalm 59:5-10, KJV) Psalm 59 is a song, an ancient hymn meant to be sung, not primarily read as we now do. I’d love to hear it as it might have been heard at King Solomon’s court, accompanied by the instruments of the day. The “Selah” is Hebrew and may either be a musical direction or a sacred salutation, almost like the “Amen” with which we’re familiar. For hundreds of years now, Protestant churches generally have held in c