I've looked at love from both sides now (I really don't know love at all)

Love your neighbor
          Love your enemies ¹

If you love those who love you, ²
           Any run-of-the-mill sinner can do that. ³

Anyone who loves their son or daughter
                     more than Me
                                 is not worthy of Me. ⁴

Whoever has been forgiven little
            loves little. ⁵

Anyone who loves Me
               will obey my teaching.
                           My Father will love them,
                                 and we will come to them
                                          and make our home with them.⁶
References:
1- Matthew 5:43-44
2- Matthew 5:46
3- Matthew 5:47 (Message)
4- Matthew 10:37
5- Luke 7:47b
6- John 14:23

Sportscenter (At the Hunger Games)

But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness,
 faithfulness,  gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law.
Galatians 5:22-23
Coming up on Sportscenter …..

Porn defeated love
Misery destroyed joy
War handed peace another loss
Rush to judgment shut down patience

Selfishness beat kindness
Evil had its way with goodness
Indifference upset faithfulness
Gentleness was manhandled by violence
And Decadence laughed self-control off the field.

Later, our panel will discuss the question:
“When will these fruit of the Spirit teams
mature into winners?”
It’s all coming up next.

Blown by the Spirit… We Know Not Where

***Walter Brueggemann Prayers for a Privileged People


We hear the story of the wind at Pentecost,
Holy wind that dismantles what was,
Holy wind that evokes what is to be,
Holy wind that overrides barriers and causes communication,
Holy wind that signals your rule even among us.

We are dazzled, but then – reverting to type -
We wonder how to harness the wind,
how to manage the wind by our technology,
how to turn the wind to our usefulness,
how to make ourselves managers of the wind

Partly we do not believe such an odd tale
because we are not religious freaks;
Partly we resist such a story,
because it surges beyond our categories;
Partly we had imagined you to be more ordered
and reliable than that.

So we listen, depart, and return to our ordered existence:
we depart with only a little curiosity
But not yielding;
we return to how it was before,
unconvinced but wistful, slightly praying for wind,
craving for newness,
wishing to have it all available to us.
We pray toward the wind and wait, unconvinced but wistful.