I need not run from a Christ-Centered world view to embrace all people with compassion and love.
Being passionately concerned for others who do not "look, act or think" like me, while refusing to embrace their values, isn't hateful. It is the ultimate expression of Christ-like love. Reaching out in spite of a great divide, seeking to build bridges.
Amazing grace.
bN tGit
Culture in America is on an inverted spiral out of control--devolution. "Civil rights" have replaced "the moral imperative" as the final arbitrator in America. We've come to embrace the idea it's (here's the irony) "immoral" to deny the rights of individuals to act as they see fit as long as "no one is hurt in the process." But this rubric fails to understand that morality isn't defined as just "the absence of a victim." Debased behavior, wether it's Wall Street, the Silver Screen, Congress, Education, Church or at home diminishes the entire culture and has set in motion a "death by a thousand cuts" cultural bleed-out.
In the name of freedom we have acted in ways that have produced unintended consequences. We have come to believe that because we have the protection under law to do something, produce something, say something--we can. The problem is that liberty in that context is license--and license leads, inevitably, to lawlessness. One of the most important lessons I learned at home was this; just because I CAN do something, doesn't not mean I SHOULD do it.
If we as a culture, can get back to this simple lesson and apply it with consistency to the way we LIVE our lives, run our companies, invest our money, lead our homes, churches, communities and our nation, THEN I believe we will have taken a FIRST-STEP toward restoring sanity to our decision making process and rebuilding the ramparts that protect our culture from evil and devolution toward certain destruction.
But mark this, healing our culture must ultimately address our spiritual need. The Older Testament prophet Micah lived in a truly evil world. The theme of his prophetic letter stresses the integral relationship between true spirituality and righteous conduct. Toward the end of his letter he turns to an axiomatic concern: Micah 6.6 "...with what shall I come to the Lord and bow myself before the God on high?" In today's vernacular it might sound something like this..."What kind of life will reflect and infuse truth in a world whose reality is based solely on pragmatism, pleasure at any price; driven by relativism?" He reveals that answer to us in chapter 6, verse 8...
"He has showed you O man, what is good. To act justly, and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God." Micah 6.8
Friends, it's not a fiscal cliff we see looming on the horizon.
bN tGit
Lake slips into a mist of gray
Horizon broken by trees stripped by Fall, bracing for winter.
Seasons change, storms pass.
A metaphor for life?
Fifty shades of gray, stripped by storms bracing for loss.
Where is hope?
A
Blue Herron floats over the water.
The Spirit floats over the chaos of life.
Seasons change, storms pass.
Flashes of color break through the mist.
God--not lost in the gray.
There is Hope.
bN tGit
I need not run from a Christ-Centered world view to embrace all people with compassion and love. 
