Millions Aborted

Having tackled war in recent posts, let me turn to another
inflammatory topic: abortion. I am pro-life, although not militantly
so that I would justify violence and murder in the defense of my
position. (How ironic is it that there are some that are?)

Anyway, I wanted to share a couple of articles I've read recently
that hopefully add something to the pro-choice / pro-life debate.
According to Jonathan Last's column last weekend
(http://www.philly.com/mld/philly/news/columnists/16561108.htm), 48
million babies have been aborted in the last 30 years. (By the way,
the baby boom generation numbered 75 million babies.) 48 million
aborted babies represents about a quarter of the babies that were
conceived in this country. Last goes on to quote a few other stats
that show that the kinds of abortions that pro-choice folks like to
cite as examples of why abortions should be legal are few and far
between, and the vast majority are simply situations in which abortion
is seen simply as another form of contraception.

The Grey Lady featured a piece on China's growing gender imbalance:
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/23/opinion/23russell.html.

This is of
personal relevance to me, since the party line is that all of us
Americans adopting Chinese girls is taking a generation of females
from China. Except that, as the article points out, the supply of
adoptable Chinese girls has been steady if not diminishing, even as
the demand for adoptable Chinese girls has exploded (partly because of
people realizing China's adoption program is well-run, partly because
people are having more fertility issues and are therefore adopting in
greater numbers, and partly because other popular countries' adoption
programs are falling apart).

The real loss of girls can be explained by the country's one-child
policy and its elevation of sons over daugthers. Some of those
undesired and illegal daughters end up in orphanages and get adopted
by Americans, but that number fell from 8000 in 2005 to 6500 in 2006.
But the vast majority were aborted: 70% of China's 7 million abortions
each year are of girls. (I shudder at the thought that my daughter's
biological mother probably entertained the possibility of abortion
before eventually deciding to bring her baby to term.) That's 50
million baby girls every decade.

We can talk morality and philosophy and society all we want, and
indeed that is usually the context for our nation's abortion debate.
I think it's wrong, you think it's right, and we can talk politely
about it or rant and rave about it. But let's remember that, both
here in this country and all over the world, we're talking about
millions and millions of babies, mostly girls, who are brought into
being but not able to see the light of day. In my mind, we as a
planet are worse off for their loss.

Asian Philanthropy

Interesting article in the Grey Lady about the increasing
philanthropic split between upper and lower class Chinese. In
Manhattan, rich Chinese uptown are penetrating into the elite crowd
when it comes to writing big checks and attending chi-chi benefits;
meanwhile, agencies that serve poor Chinese downtown are getting most
of their donations from other poor or formerly poor downtown Chinese.
(Btw, here's a link to the article:
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/20/nyregion/20philanthropy.html.)

We don't have as stark a divide here in Philadelphia, but it does it
remind me of a discussion I had with a local foundation that brought
me and other Asian leaders together a few years ago to converse on the
topic of Asian philanthropy. I did echo what the Times article spoke
about, which is that my parents' generation is likely to have a
pan-Asian identity and more interested in funneling dollars to its own
country or region of origin.

I also spoke of how the importance of family in Asian cultures can
sometimes work at cross purposes with the American notion of
philanthropy, in that it is engrained in us to take care of our
family. So a lot of our generosity resources are already in play when
the charity comes knocking at our door with its hand out.

Those were two strong forces working against stimulating giving among
Asians in Philadelphia toward Asian causes in Philadelphia. But as
with all aspects of culture, those forces begin to dissipate and even
disappear in the second and third generation. Us youngers are more
likely to have a pan-Asian conscience and thus feel a greater sense of
connection to other Asian groups in need, and less of need to be
solely concerned for our own. We're more familiar with philanthropy
as it's done here in the US, more comfortable with and interested in
rubbing shoulders at benefits and balls.

There's no right or wrong way to do this, of course. Would that those
of us hyphenated Americans be similarly attuned to the perspective of
those who have gone before us and those among us who are in need.
What is common to us all, after all, is our connectedness as a human
race, and the great responsibility and joy that is to be found in
being generous.

Super Bowl Prediction

I can't help but put myself on record in terms of making a prediction
for Super Bowl XLI. As is often the case with my predictions, I'm
hopelessly contrarian. And as is often the case with my predictions,
I will most certainly be almost totally wrong. But then what's the
fun of not putting your neck out there?

So here's my line of thinking. This feels a lot like Super Bowl
XXXVII four years ago, when the Raiders' unstoppable offense met the
Buccaneers' immovable defense. No one thought you could stop the
Raiders' offense, forgetting that the Bucs' offense wasn't too bad,
either. Final score, much to my chagrin as a lifelong Raiders fan,
48-21.

Flash forward to the present. I think Manning will have a good game;
in fact, I'm rooting for him to have a great game. But I can't help
but think that good defenses always beat good offenses. You might say
the Bears didn't play well the last quarter of the season. So what?
They've had two weeks to rest and to prepare. They're still studs on
the defensive side of the ball, no matter what that five or six week
stretch made you think. I have to think their defense is going to be
responsible for about ten points, whether turnovers leading to
immediate points or great field position.

And while we're at it, put me down for whatever bet that says Devin
Hester will be taking one to the house. If he doesn't, he'll take it
back close enough that the Bears' offense can punch it in pretty
quick. That's another seven points. No such contribution from the
Colts' defense or special teams.

So I'm thinking Manning gets the Colts four scoring drives out of ten
or twelve possessions- yes, that's how stout the Bears D is going to
be - and we'll call that two touchdowns and two field goals.

Grossman is pretty good when you give him two weeks to prepare, and
I've heard so much press about how awful a QB he is that I have to
think he'll have a pretty decent game. Add a frisky running game,
sprinkle in a couple of deep bombs, and we're looking at two
touchdowns and a field goal, or one touchdown and three field goals,
or something like that.

Finally, we've now seen three straight major one-sided contests that
ended up being one-sided in the other direction: the Eastern
Conference's Heat beating the Western Conference's Mavs, the NL's
Cards thumping the AL's Tigers, and the powerhouse Buckeyes getting
thrashed by the upstart Gators. Frankly, I just don't see how the
Colts are so highly favored in the first place, but that's what the
talk has been, so watch me go to the other side.

In the end, it's 34-20, Bears, with an MVP for Ricky Manning, Jr. Not
what I'm rooting for, but what I see.

Control Your Urge to Just Do Something

We Americans want our leaders to take action. Which is usually
unfortunate when it comes to government, because this urge to do
something often causes more harm than the problem in the first place.

You see, government is like a hammer, and the better solutions are
often a scalpel. Government can't help but dominate the podium, when
in fact it would be better for us private citizens to have a voice.

Natural disasters, corporate scandals, poverty - government has a role
to play at all levels and in profound ways. But way too quickly and
way too ineffectively, government "help" stifles private
responsibility and organizational nimbleness.

Effective is the political leader, then, who is courageous enough to
take on a problem head-on, caring enough to see it through, audacious
enough to think it can be solved . . . and humble enough not to use
the problem as an opportunity to prance and preen, humble enough to
act in a way that catalyzes and doesn't squelch.

Somebody please send me a reasonable anti-war position, whether your
own or a link to someone else's. Seriously. I really want to
understand the other side. I'm just tired of arguments that gravitate
towards one of the following points:

1) "Bush is an idiot." If you believe that, tell me why he was an
idiot in terms of the "why" of the war, not the "how." I agree that
there were tactical blunders, even strategic ones. But I want to know
why the overall decision was a poor one.

2) "Immediate and full pull-out." Think that one through for more
than a second, and consider what present chaos and future handicap
that will cause. Whether or not continued US presence will get us
closer or further to peace in the Middle East and safety in the US,
immediate and full pull-out most assuredly will not.

3) "War is evil and people are dying unnecessarily." I heard a
protestor, when asked by a reporter what he wants, proclaim, "An end
to all wars by all nations." Sorry, pal, we're fighting groups that,
if we stop fighting, will only fight all the more.

4) "We're bearing too much of the cost when there are so many domestic
issues to deal with." Have we become so dulled by our freedom that we
have forgotten that it came at a price? Are we so naive to think that
if we close ranks and take care of ourselves, the oceans and borders
around us can keep the big, bad world from creeping into our utopia?

5) "No one else is risking as much as we are in this war." So we're
deciding whether something is right to do based on what others are
doing, and not on what we think? We're deciding that though we have
the resources and position to act on a world stage, we'd rather
distance ourselves from that responsibility? Did we ever as a country decide that what the right thing to do had to be in sync with what the rest of the world was willing to do?

So if you'll tell me a reason why we shouldn't have gone to war, and
what we should do now that we're in it, that doesn't involve the five
lines of thinking above, I'll read it carefully and with an open mind. Please, I'm begging you.

O Salve

Today we celebrate the first birthday of our car, a 2006 Chevrolet
Aveo LS (the post title is an anagram). It's the perfect car for us,
and not just because it was the cheapest new car I could find when our
other car suddenly broke down on the side of the road with Amy and
Jada in it.

To begin with, it's a tiny little thing, which is great for jamming it
into the smallest of on-street spots in a neighborhood that is getting
increasingly harder to find spots in. At the same time, it
comfortably fits the three of us, with room for a week's worth of
groceries, or an overnight's worth of luggage, or a second car seat
(which we'll be putting in later this year for our second child).

Finally, it's new. I married into the only other car I've ever owned,
a 1993 Pontiac Grand Am that Amy got in the late 1990's and that by a
couple of years ago was costing us more money in maintenance and
repairs than I'd like to admit.

The Aveo, on the other hand, is such a simplistic car that there just
aren't that many things that can go wrong with it. Plus we haven't
even put 7500 miles on it in the year we've owned it, so we're not on
our way to driving into the ground.

Consider me a satisfied customer, Chevrolet. For you've made the
perfect urban car for our family.

Double Down on War

I don't normally take a stridently conservative position in this
space, but all the recent anti-war talk has me itching to post
something on the subject. Probably the thing that the anti-war crowd
is most lathered up about is the rising American body count. The
argument there is that that is way to much US blood to be shed on this
war.

I find this argument incredibly offensive to those who have made the
ultimate sacrifice and to those loved ones who are left behind. These
young men and women were in the prime of their lives when they were
cut down. They are brighter and smarter than John Kerry gives them
credit for. Are we to tell them they risked their lives in vain?

Think also of those who died on the battlefield in previous wars, and
their loved ones. History usually proves out that the wars we
entered, no matter how bloody and messy, were worth the sacrifice.

Consider World War II, which cost our country tens of thousands of
young lives in a shorter period of time. In retrospect, we would deem
this war necessary for preserving freedom in the US and around the
world.

Yet this current war we are waging is in a world that has become more
interconnected and more geopolitically volatile. Our enemy has more
hatred towards us and practices a more insidious form of extremism.
The fact that no one else is putting their men and women on the line
in significant numbers is not proof of our folly but rather of
cowardice and short-sightedness by others. When I consider the
alternative of leaving a powderkeg region half-secured and a war on
terror half-won, I can only think of frightening scenarios.

Don't get me wrong: I have a lot of beef with the implementation of
the president's strategy. But not with the overall intent.

Why Riding Transit is Spiritually Good for You

I've had a spirited email conversation with a good friend of mine
concerning the Christian interest in issues of inequity. In other
words, why do we who follow Jesus care if there is inequity in the
world?

We tentatively agreed that a really important reason, if not the most
important, was this notion that we are interconnected, locally and
globally. God grieves inequity and we should too because we're all in
this together. God rages against inequity and we should too because
it represents a faction saying to another faction that we want nothing
to do with you.

I'm personally kind of sour on other reasons for caring about inequity, such as:

* "Because God says so" - Well, He says so because we're interconnected.

* "You should feel guilty about having so much money in the midst of
such abject poverty." - This line of reasoning only makes sense to me
if I believe I who am rich am interconnected to others who are poor.

* "It makes you feel good to help someone in need." - Whoo boy, this
very easily becomes uncomfortably self-centered, imperialistic, and
downright insulting.

So what does this have to do with transit? When you drive a car, you
get into your hermetically sealed vehicle, set the temperature and
music to your preference, and go about your merry way, isolated from
others near you, until you arrive at your destination.

In contrast, when you ride transit, you join with others in a shared
experience. The transit system is an asset that is used collectively
by the public. You literally and figuratively rub shoulers. You
might overhear a sob story or a funny story. You might even strike up
a conversation.

In short, you're reconnecting with the notion of being connected.
Your trip from Point A to Point B becomes one continuous experience of
life in an interconnected world, rather than an opportunity to tune
out from that world and enjoy your climate-controlled, music-filled
vehicle bubble.

The next time you're not in touch with God's feelings about inequity,
hop on a bus or a trolley or a train. You'll connect with your fellow
man, and that connectedness will connect you more deeply into God's
reasons for caring about inequity.

Spiritual and Secular

I'm going to shamelessly crib my friend Jason's insight on asset-based
community development because I found it so stirringly profound.
Asset-based community development is contrasted with needs-based
community development, in that instead of responding to and orienting
around needs, it responds to and orients around assets. Needs-based
community development would look at a neighborhood's weaknesss and
prescribe solutions to overcome them; asset-based community
development would look at a neighborhood's strengths and prescribe
solutions to utilize them.

My friend Jason's insight is that the reformed world is warming to the
spiritual version of asset-based community development. The previous
line of reasoning was that man was totally depraved and need of
salvation. The new line of reasoning does not abandon that truth
doctrinally, but alongside that notion is the notion that there is
still some sense that people are created in the image of God and thus
there are good aspects that can be nurtured to become more dominant.

It is always fun to riff with my minister friends, wise as they are in
spiritual matters while I am irretrievably secular in my viewpoint.
We find manifold parallels in our work, whether community development
versus personal salvation, or market feasibilities versus church
plants, or managers having to pastor their staff while pastors manage
theirs. They tell me my perspective helps them, and remind me that my
secular work is no less important to the Kingdom. Praise be to a God
who is big enough to be Lord over spiritual and secular, and who helps
us to see His lordship and presence in both.

Roads and Transit

If you've been reading my blog for a bit, you know I've been banging
on this idea of raising the federal gas tax. However politically
suicidal and emotionally visceral the notion is, it would certainly
align incentives to reduce oil consumption and spur demand for and
supply of alternative fuels.

Interestingly enough, though, as pointed out by Governing Magazine, if
this sort of thing is effective, it could have the adverse consequence
of drying up a major source of funding for transportation. As
Governing pointed out, if we Americans are successful in achieving
that 20% reduction in gas guzzling that President Bush urged us to
strive for in his State of the Union address, the federal government
would be out some $7 billion for transportation projects.

So where is the money going to come from to pave our roads and upkeep
our rails? The technology is close to being there to tax vehicle
miles traveled directly instead of by proxy via the gas tax. Thus,
there will be a more direct connection in terms of users (i.e. people
driving cars that put wear and tear on roads) paying for their use of
roads via taxes. Versus a gas tax, which perversely brings in less
revenue for transportation if more people buy fuel-efficient cars, use
alternative fuels, or forego roads altogether for alternative forms of
transportation.

You might be saying, "OK, fine: tax me by the number of miles I travel
in my car . . . but then why should some of that money go to subsidize
public transportation that I don't use and that can't turn a profit on
its own?" Consider, though, that just as public transportation is
subsidized, so are roads: we are nowhere near paying the full price of
our roads in our current user taxes. Just as with transit, government
has decided that there is a public gain in subsidizing roads, for the
purpose of facilitating commerce and leisure.

Further (and this is the subject of another post, hopefully coming
soon), riding transit is spiritually good for you. I'll end on that
note.

Broken Body

I am unable to share details here, but I want to say that for the past season or so I have been discouraged about things at my church.  We are going through a messy situation and I am increasingly sensing that people are depressed, confused, and angry about it.  Some of it is because people don't know the whole story, while some of it is precisely because people do know the whole story.  Still others of it is because people are generally hurting, and this incident provides a platform to feel and express that hurt.

I was reminded recently, though, at a congregational gathering, that the church is always made up of depressed and confused and angry members.  The Bible speaks of God using ordinary, earthen vessels through which to showcase His glory.  The apostle Paul urges us to rejoice when others among us rejoice, and also to suffer together when one among us is suffering; he also heard from God that his human weakness was somehow a conduit for God's power to be perfected.

The Biblical analogy of the people of God is that we are the body of Christ here in this world. My church right now is a broken body.  And so long as we remember that we are just that - broken, yet God is still in the business of working in spite of and even through our brokenness; and a body, sticking together, rejoicing together, suffering together - then Satan watch out. 

Mighty and Tender

The fortieth chapter of the book of the prophet Isaiah has taken me three mornings to get through, so thick is it with meaning and application.  If you have a Christian background, you may be familiar with some of its verses, whether the ones John the Baptist quotes as he's "preparing the way" for Jesus, or the ones that speak of the grass withering and the flower fading but the word of God enduring forever. 

What I found so profound in this most recent read-through of mine is this notion that God is both supremely mighty and intimately tender.  The prophet toggles through both of these facets in this chapter.  The chapter is book-ended by reminders of the availability of God's comfort to His people, and there is a wonder image right smack dab in the middle of the chapter about how He gathers His people into His arms like a shepherd would do with his sheep. 

Yet there is no doubt that God is also to be feared and revered.  There is a long section that hearkens God's "brag session" in the book of Job; He mocks idols and those who make and worship them, He reduces rulers to nothing, and proclaims He has no equal.  And right before the verse about God tenderly gathering His people to Him is a verse that speaks of His mighty and ruling arm.

My take-away from all this juxtaposing is that we cannot disentangle God's might with His tenderness.  When we call on God to be mighty, we must remember that mighty God is also a tender God.  And when we call on God to be tender, we must remember that tender God is also a mighty God. 

A lot of people have picked and chosen their way through the fortieth chapter of the book of the prophet Isaiah, quoting one verse here or another verse there, and that's all well and good.  But my hope for them and for me is that they'll live in response to the God who is portrayed in the whole of the chapter, and in the whole of the Bible.  And that God is both mighty and tender.

Learning Citizenship

The University of Pennsylvania and the Philadelphia Inquirer have been sponsoring a series of neighborhood forums as part of their Great Expectations initiative, which seeks no less than to overcome Philadelphia's inferiority complex and push it into the pantheon of great cities.  Coming off the National Constitution Center's recent announcement that former president George HW Bush will be its new chairman, this is a great time to showcase Philadelphia's storied role in American democracy and citizen participation.

So of course when I found out that one of the neighborhood forums was being hosted by The Enterprise Center, where I worked for ten years and where I am now on the board, I just had to go.  And I had to bring my two-year-old daughter, to get her immersed in civic pride at an early age. 

Now, the forum's intimate feel precluded me staying too long; my daughter is way too young to sit still and quiet in the back for too long, despite the considerable and considerate efforts of the forum staff who brought paper and markers for her to play with.  Still, I got a lot out of the fifteen or so minutes I was there: a project overview from the forum's moderator, some handouts about future related events, and an update from a colleague of mine on how this year's City Council election is going to play out. 

I ducked out at a break in the action and apologized to the forum moderator for my daughter's chattering in the bac.  To which he replied, "that's what this forum is all about - chattering!"  And then he encouraged me to keep exposing my daughter to these kinds of civic events.  I certainly will.

Good Friends

Friends are everything when you're a teenager, and then when you get
to college, they really are everything. Well, I'm well past my teen
and college years, but the importance of friends in my life, while it
has evolved, has not diminished. I'm not constantly gabbing with them
on the phone or living with them in the dorms anymore, but I cherish
my good friends no less.

Why, just yesterday I caught up with an old friend by phone, who I
hadn't spoken with in years. We were immediately able to jump right
into meaningful conversation, and I confided some deep issues with him
that I had been wrestling with and that were really helpful to talk
out with him about.

Later that day, I met with a close friend of mine, as we are in the
habit of doing weekly, to pray. This, too, was a reunion of sorts,
even though we see each other regularly, because we had been apart
during the holidays. This, too, was a delight to partake in:
meaningful, intimate discourse with a trusted confidant.

We even talked a bit about the importance of friendship, both with
those whom we see regularly as well as others we picked up at various
stages in our lives. We encouraged one another to be good friends to
those other friends of ours, to not take lightly the deep bonds of
friendship we had with so many around the country, and to make every
effort to be available to those friends for an encouraging word or a
sympathetic ear.

Of the many ways God has blessed me, I feel particularly rich in
friends. I must respond, not only with thanks to God, but with a
doubling down of commitment to be a good friend to these friends.
With God's help, and the wonders of modern technology, I will seek to
be just that.

The Audacity of Hope

A friend of mine is back from the mission field for a couple of weeks,
and he preached at our morning service today about "the audacity of
hope." Not Barack Obama's view on American politics, but God's
perspective on how we Christians can and should respond to all the
hopelessness in and around us nowadays.

I appreciated my friend's spirited message, as well as the steady
influx of Scripture references he used to make his points. Certainly,
Christian hope ought to be God-centered and Bible-centered. It is not
a good thing for our relationship with God, or for our witness of His
reality in this world to this world, to be either blindly optimistic
or coldly pessimistic.

So, without simply regurgitating my friend's message from this
morning, what is Christian hope? A topic far too big for one post,
but let me riff on a few things that wandered through my mind as I
listened to today's sermon:

1) The good thing about the Bible, and about people who exposit out of
it, is that it gives you a much broader perspective than the "now"
that we are stranded in. In other words, partly by our human
finiteness and partly by our cultural influence, it is hard to wait
for months and years and generations for things that we pine for. Yet
when it comes to the very things that make it hard to be a hopeful
person, whether it is our own wounds, our family dysfunctions, or
(especially for us urban Christians) the systemic injustices that
ravage those around us, God's timetable is usually not tomorrow, but
rather months and years and generations. So Christian hope is
sustained by a perspective that is challenged to grow to include more
time for God to work a greater work.

2) In the midst of that long time frame, though, there are some
awfully strange events that we have to be able to accommodate as part
of God's plan. In other words, it's not just about having the
patience to wait long enough for God to deliver on His promises. For
that by itself is easily shaken by events in the interim that seem to
suggest we are heading in the wrong direction. But think of the great
promises and promisees in the Bible. Abraham waited a long time for a
son, and eventually he got him, but oh the family dysfunction and
spiritual testing that happened along the way. The prophets were
given a vision of what was to come - judgment on God's people,
followed by a great restoration - neither of which were warmly
accepted by the fat and happy contemporaries who heard these words.
>From David to Jesus is some pretty far-out sin and violence, both in
the temple and in the king's court. Hope understands that along the
way are crazy twists and turns that can easily be seen as evidence to
the contrary of God's goodness but that somehow God uses to work out
for good.

3) In the end, there is an audaciousness to our hope. Or don't you
think Noah got ridiculed for building an ark, or John the Baptist for
ranting in the wilderness, or the disciples for being willing to die
for Jesus once they had seen Him resurrected? Similarly, there are
voices in our society, in our families, and in our own heads, that
tell us to stop waiting for a miracle, to get on with a comfortable
life and let go of that brazen life goal to see God's kingdom come in
our lives and in our families and churches and communities and
nations.

Hope has a long-term perspective, and it leaves room for strange stuff
. . . but ultimately it's a bold trust in a God who is ultimately
bankable and yet the world would vehemently disagree. As audacious as
Obama's desire for a friendlier, unified political climate, how much
more audacious for us Christians to live like we trust our God. Yet
we ought to seek such a hope, not to be audacious for audaciousness
sake, but to be found trusting Him who is trustworthy.

Reacting to Jesus

Almost every day since we got Jada, I've read to her from the Bible,
starting from the beginning (literally) and plowing right on through.
Almost fifteen months later, I'm into the New Testament. By the end
of the week, I will have finished the book of John.

Reading through like this has been fun, especially as I'm now on the
fourth of four gospels. I'm struck as I read these accounts of Jesus'
life of how preposterous it must have been to take this man at face
value. Usually, we Christians roll our eyes at the disciples'
bumbling ways or the Pharisee's hardened ways - how could they not see
that this was the Son of God?

Yet neither group had the benefit that we have, of knowing the whole
story from beginning to end. At the moment, all they had in front of
them was a man, albeit a miracle-working and wonderfully compassionate
one. Still, how could it be that a mere man was claiming to be the
Son of God, to be one with the Father, to be as the Father?

Like the disciples, I find myself reacting to Jesus' words with a
confused, dumbfounded face - what the heck does he mean? Like the
Pharisees, I find myself reacting to Jesus' words with an angry, cold
heart - how dare he make such an outlandish claim! The few people
Jesus does encounter who respond with faith and welcome, I find I can
scarcely relate to.

Thankfully, I was not there when Jesus was in the flesh; instead, my
crossroads with him comes at a point in history when I can consider
the whole of his story. Thankfully, also, God is at work to enlighten
me where I am dumb and thaw me where I am frigid, that I may have
insight and acceptance where I might not otherwise.

Still, while we are not likely to encounter Jesus in the flesh today
as those in his time did, we are confronted with moments nontheless,
to believe or doubt, to embrace or scorn. God is still working on my
heart to choose the way of faith and acceptance and not of unbelief
and rejection. He is preparing me for the day I will be face to face
with Jesus, that I might react appropriately: with worship and
thanksgiving and relief and joy.