all is not lost

image: The Brilliance

In December I listened to a Podcast that really challenged and inspired my thinking. I don't want to give it away, but simply, it's a tragic and beautiful story of a man who is a gay priest. I laughed, I cried, I thought about it for days. But one phrase at the very end has really stuck with me. I even wrote it on Facebook at the time: "Christ is born, all is not lost."

The context of that quote is this, "Where love is God is present; this is what we mean by the incarnation of Christ. And Jesus was born in a stable full of sh*t. So in the sh*t of our lives, God is there. Born in sh*t! In the thing itself! Not hovering above. Engaged! And that's what we mean by incarnation. Not just Jesus as the only begotten son of God...but as Paul says, the first born! Not the only born. The First born, so we are the second born and the third born...Christ is born, all is not lost."

ALL IS NOT LOST

Right now in our world it's so easy to feel the opposite of that phrase. If were honest, we know it's a chaotic mess. But because of Christ and what He's done for us, dying on the cross and rising to life so that in Him we can breath new life again, every day of our lives, all is not lost. And this is my hope, my joy and my peace. Christ is born, all is not lost.


Amen.

Into the Mirror

This.

The truest test of faith
And it all comes down to
This.

With angst we fought for love
We thought
How could this be?
Thousands have died a million deaths
And today we sit in disbelief

Because the wars that were fought in schools
and in homes
and in streets
Were fought so that WE could be free

From hate
From racism
From inequality

And yet it has come to This.

I believe the question rising is:
Did we ever love our enemies
one bit?

We disagree and bicker
Point fingers and think
THEY are the ones who have caused our Land of the Free
to be a land saturated in malice, deceit and hypocrisy

Yet
It is not our place to blame
It is not our place to blame

We must look into the mirror
We must rise above the hate

By Tiffany Oliveira

Written the week of the November 8th 2016