Tag Archives: advocacy

Martin Luther King Jr. Day

Embrace the human condition and choose to live within it rather than watching it from a distance. Be present and attentive and when someone is talking, listen. Don’t judge others based on your own limited perspective. This life is a collective. Every color and culture is beautiful as it is. Let the colors bleed together in this mosaic where we live. There is one race, one human species on this tiny earth. Each person with a history and heritage determined by birth. Every story needs heard. We’re all ghost writers in the book of time and space and fate. Will you use your pen for peace or stab holes through the pages in hate? Together we have more change to deliver than a government that keeps getting bigger and bigger and bigger. But the answer is not in the trigger, it’s in the pen. Make sure your pages aren’t empty when the story ends.

-Vagrant Saint

 

“Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.” MLK

“The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy.” MLK

“We must accept finite disappointment, but never lose infinite hope.” MLK

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On the Turning Away

On the turning away
From the pale and downtrodden
And the words they say
Which we won’t understand

“Don’t accept that what’s happening
Is just a case of others’ suffering
Or you’ll find that you’re joining in
The turning away”

It’s a sin that somehow
Light is changing to shadow
And casting it’s shroud
Over all we have known

Unaware how the ranks have grown
Driven on by a heart of stone
We could find that we’re all alone
In the dream of the proud

On the wings of the night
As the daytime is stirring
Where the speechless unite
In a silent accord

Using words you will find are strange
And mesmerized as they light the flame
Feel the new wind of change
On the wings of the night

No more turning away
From the weak and the weary
No more turning away
From the coldness inside

Just a world that we all must share
It’s not enough just to stand and stare
Is it only a dream that there’ll be
No more turning away?

-David Gilmour (Pink Floyd)

By this we know love, that he laid down his life for us, and we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers. But if anyone has the world’s goods and sees his brother in need, yet closes his heart against him, how does God’s love abide in him? Little children, let us not love in word or talk but in deed and truth.  (1 John 3:16-18)

“Thank you for letting me borrow your jacket. It kept me warm in a cold place. Some people, no matter how much money they make, can’t get out of their own way.”

(Art= German Painter: Caspar David Friedrich 1774-1840)

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Invitation/Invocation

My haunted temple: Enter. Find my innermost being, my epicenter. Through my corridors, rooms, and stairwells take flight. Flood the deepest darkest corners with light. False gods will flee from within me at the roar of Majesty. The Holy Trinity has no capacity for impurity. Fill my courts with angels singing of Your glories and speaking the stories of Jesus and how He frees us and puts back together the broken pieces and completes us. A mosaic that was once broken and torn is now strong enough to weather any storm. New life, new form. Make me an intentional, spiritual, productive citizen of Your vision. Not just religion or superstition, Godly wisdom. Separate me from crooked culture. Free me from the clenches of the vulture.

-Vagrant Saint

 

Here I am! I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with that person, and they with me.     -Revelation 3:20

(Art= American Painter: Frederic Edwin Church 1826-1900)

 

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Martin Luther King Jr. Day

Embrace the human condition and choose to live within it rather than watching it from a distance. Be present and attentive and when someone is talking, listen. Don’t judge others based on your own limited perspective. This life is a collective. Every color and culture is beautiful as it is. Let the colors bleed together in this mosaic where we live. There is one race, one human species on this tiny earth. Each person with a history and heritage determined by birth. Every story needs heard. We’re all ghost writers in the book of time and space and fate. Will you use your pen for peace or stab holes through the pages in hate? Together we have more change to deliver than a government that keeps getting bigger and bigger and bigger. But the answer is not in the trigger, it’s in the pen. Make sure your pages aren’t empty when the story ends.

-Vagrant Saint

 

“Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.” MLK

“The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy.” MLK

“We must accept finite disappointment, but never lose infinite hope.” MLK

 

 

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Come, Ye Weary

The Way, the Truth, the Life. Transformation comes through Christ. He’s making all things new, not just you. Want to be a part of it? Me too. His voice is not an echo in the distance. The Kingdom Of God is within us. The name is Jesus. His hand reaches into the smoke and flames of the hells that we create and though we can’t always see Him from the inside, He never leaves our side. We think we can hide behind lies. We think we need to clean up our lives before presenting ourselves to Christ. If you can’t swallow your pride today, it will be twice as hard tomorrow. How much more time can we borrow?

Come as you are, with your bruises and scars. With your shame and your hell, with a story to tell. You’ll find that Jesus looks upon you in love, and His story includes a lot of the things that yours does. He’s not angry or ashamed, He’s not casting blame. He wants you to carry His name and overcome what He overcame.    

-Vagrant Saint

 

For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through Him.     -John 3:17

(Art= Swedish Painter: Marcus Larson 1825-1864)

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Shadowboxing

Often we feel like we are battling the media, at odds with an agenda that seeks to dismantle truth and love. Yet, we are so plugged into it, attached to it at all times. We feel conflicted, we feel like we are fighting the ideals that this machine is promoting. But we’re still attached to it, somehow dependent on it. Not actually challenging it, but empowering it as it slowly chips away at our truth and we unintentionally conform to its standards over time. All the while we do very little to promote truth and love in our community, with real human beings that have real needs. Subtly losing touch with the reality of it all. Losing the fight.

-Vagrant Saint

 

“Prayer in action is love, and love in action is service. Try to give unconditionally whatever a person needs in the moment. The point is to do something, however small, and show you care through your actions by giving your time … We are all God’s children so it is important to share His gifts. Do not worry about why problems exist in the world – just respond to people’s needs … We feel what we are doing is just a drop in the ocean, but that ocean would be less without that drop.“

– Mother Teresa

(Art= Swedish Painter: Marcus Larson 1825-1864)

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