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Restoration Harvest

Please listen to today’s selected podcast message at the link below to augment the brief written reflection that follows on “Restoration Harvest”.

https://www.spreaker.com/episode/41182465

Many Voters Continue to Support, Pray and Cheer the Right to Vote On

Churches,community organizations and Get Out the Vote have revved up their engines. Well organized efforts of prayer, voting and volunteer networks have sparked unprecedented early voting turnouts across the nation. Actions have also generated legal challenges in states such as Florida. There voters are embroiled in a legal battle to extend the early voting deadline. "Souls to the Polls","Get Out the Vote", election commissions and persons having insight into the myriad issues local jurisdictions such as Detroit face. A total of 18 separate proposals are on the ballot alone, making efforts to educate and inform needed. One notable such proposal is No. 4 where the fight is on to make affordable home health care available so seniors won't feel,as the President states in the telephone call being made to voters "like they are being warehoused". Me and fellow siblings know this all too well as caregivers to two elderly parents, one faced with daily challenges of adequate elder care. The importance of a proper understanding and resultant vote in favor of making quality home care available cannot be overemphasized. The mantras are typically clear and resounding "Go to the Polls"and "Get out and vote". Rides, child care and any other incentive within reason and geared to assist voters in fully participating in this election,making their ballot count are happily being provided. Poll watchers are being recruited and trained by such organizations as the Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights Under Law. The influential civil rights organization has been running an informative ad on radio networks across the country. It's down to the wire and election eve is upon us. The Presidential race is a tight one and the numbers are close enough to generate nothing more than a dead heat in some states. Some might wonder how the Republican candidate who was trailing Obama just months ago has managed to improve upon his image weakened by a consistently chameleon like wishy washy stance on the issues that matter most. Yet he has managed to do just that with the aid of negative campaign ads and the influx of millions of dollars from super-pacs and super-rich donors. Your vote is needed and could make the difference. Vote your conscience, vote your candidate of choice and vote like your life depended on it!

"Be a Blessing"

Perhaps one of the toughest challenges in our interactions with others,and there are many, is to not repay the harm another has done with the same,but instead repay them with a blessing. New testament scriptures which come to mind are Galatians 5:14: ¹⁴For all the law is fulfilled in one word, even in this;Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself and I Peter 3:8-11,"8...be like minded,be sympathetic, love one another, be compassionate and humble. 9 Do not repay evil or insult with insult. On the contrary, repay evil with a blessing,because of this you were called so that you may inherit a blessing. 10 For whoever would love life and see good days must keep their tongue` from evil and their lips from deceitful speech. 11 They must turn from evil and do good; they must seek and pursue it (NIV).  In the Old Testament, Leviticus 19:18 states "Do not seek revenge or bear a grudge against one of your people, but love your neighbor as yourself"; 

I don't think it would be an overstatement to say that many have fallen short of the glory of god on this one. Getting even, making sure someone pays for doing you wrong and "tit for tat" can be tempting traps to fall into, if not simply perceived as the needed way to respond. In a world full of trouble, unexpected trials,unfair dealing, push and pull among factions for power and control, to do what is justified and timely to alleviate human suffering borne of war, and the constant strivings of the individual to come out ahead and ontop at the office, the political contest and other public forums is something with which we grapple continually. 

During this election season, the political ads are fired off with an intensity that makes you wonder if the insults and the tearing down would ever be replaced with a fuller examination of the issues and the candidates' true value. Toss into the arena daily back and forths and casual spats among family members and serious slights and abuses which strangers and sometimes close friends hurl at one another either intentionally or unintentionally.

The  Golden Rule which just about every religion and spiritual culture in the world has applied as an ethical principal since ancient times, crossing the boundaries of religious practice and applied by world cultures to resolve issues,"Do unto others as you would have them do unto you" needs to rain down on us today. Like a mighty cloudburst, as it could stand broader and stauncher application today. A great number of prominent religious figures and philosophers have restated its reciprocal, "two-way" nature in various ways...1 

The simple question,  piercing in its accuracy is what will your ultimate act be? How will you respond when flashbacks of the bad things done to you by another i.e., the hurt, the inconvenience,trouble and trauma tug on your heart and mind?  Will your heart strings, your compassion and natural inclination for decency spur you on to do good, respond to the help for request and be a blessing? Will you give them a drink of water when they are thirsty? Or will you cut off the faucet as you reflect on the ugly things they have done to you?  If they are hungry, do you share your food or instead close the pantry door and lock it up?

Pray to God for guidance as you work through the challenge and strive to"Be a blessing..."

In the words of the song by Mary,Mary "Go Get It , Go get your blessing...Its your time. You can also be a blessing! Be a blessing. It's your time...

Cynthia Wilson
_________

¹http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_Rule

A Balm in Gilead...Lay Your [Automatic] Weapons Down:The Weapons War Revisited Locally and Globally at Aurora,Colorado

To the horror of many, on July 20, 2012, a mass shooting occurred inside a Century 16 movie theater in Aurora, Colorado, United States, during a midnight screening of the film The Dark Knight Rises. 24-year-old James Eagan Holmes set off tear gas grenades and shot into the audience with multiple firearms.

Calling on the faithful, the prayerful people of God to pray and for God to send a powerful healing balm to that community.

The Balm in Gilead, that Biblical medicinal  healing balm, derived from a plant which has reached mythical porportions in culture and religion, made reference to in scripture, literary books, articles, poems and song is once again implored to present itself as a remedy, if not spiritual panacea for the troubled spirit of these times. This spirit which some have labeled evil, has embodied and manifested itself once again in the physical frame of a young low key, quiet, shy suburban man. This profile  has come in recent years to epitomize an unimaginable weapons war, the likes of which we have never before experienced in outlying quiet rural areas and suburbs.

 The serene locales of our society which have always until Columbine,Virginia Tech and now Aurora have been havens of safety, if not in actuality at least in our minds.  Real mad men are the soldiers who as if out of nowhere appear upon occassion, citing the lines or making reference to a new movie or song release, as monsters firing machine guns propelling bullets snuffing out the lives of unsuspecting grown folks and their innocent children.

 The “balm in Gilead” is a reference from the Old Testament, but the lyrics of this spiritual refer to the New Testament concept of salvation through Jesus Christ.

The Balm of Gilead is interpreted as a spiritual medicine that is able to heal Israel (and sinners in general). In the Old Testament, the balm of Gilead is taken most directly from Jeremiah chapter 8:22: "Is there no balm in Gilead? Is there no physician there? Why then is not the health of the daughter of my people recovered? Jeremiah 8:22


The obvious understanding for both; "my people" and "the daughter of my people" in Jeremiah 8:22 refers to the Jewish people living in the land of Israel. Rabbinic commentators like Rashi interpreted the balm as a metaphor for teachers, as if to say

 "Did they not have any righteous men from whom to learn so that they should improve their ways?"

Some Christians interpret this same passage as a prophetic allusion to Jesus. This symbol recurs in some Christian hymns and popular song lyrics. In the refrain to the gospel song "Healing" (1999), Richard Smallwood and his choir ensemble sing the assertion "There is a balm in Gilead".

We call on god, our great and nagnificent healer to comfort and heal now i  the mighty and matchless name of Jesus. Let there be a Balm in Gilead to bring healing and comfort to the victims of this atrocity and their grieving families. Keep them all lifted in prayer. Continue to pray for victims of gun violence everywhere as well as the proponents of harmful weapons and other killing machines that could only based on obvious design and construction be purposed for mass murder. 

Pray for forgiveness and that god will intervene and help us improve our ways.