A Fine Quotation Worth Notation...

"I have tried to keep away from discussions about the politics of the contemporary liberal nation-state called the United States. First, I don't want to get sucked into the left-right dynamics in living and thinking as a Christian. Second, I don't think that the United States is 'real' -- I've never met the United States; I've never even seen it. It is a projection of human imagination that helps authorize certain individuals to control violence in a certain geographical area without fear of sanction. It's reality is only what we give it -- unlike the church which is real, the bodies of the poor are real, Christ's presence in the Eucharist is real. This is why I don't understand immigration issues because it presupposes that there are real lines on the earth called 'borders' that divide one part of humanity from another. I understand migration, mind you, just not immigration. The contemporary nation-state is merely a projection of human imagination, upheld by certain interests who benefit from such an imaginary construct." ~Pastor John Wright

Amen.

And the Skies Came Falling...

"As the curtain falls on act one, the leader reappears to take the place of his fallen predecessor. He boldly announces that the reign of God – with its dreams of justice and love, equality and abundance, wholeness and unity – is dawning. So begins act two, where, in a distant province, this leader begins gathering troops (oddly, common working folk, local residents), with whom he will mount his campaign, to overturn the rule of the powers. In this prologue, Mark wields the scythe of apocalyptic symbolics, clearing narrative pace from among the weeds so that the seeds of a radically new order – to borrow the authors own metaphor (4:7) – might be pressed into the weary soil of the world. This subversive story is what Mark entitles good news."