“we are all on a journey. each of us finds what feels best for us. looking around at others is not the answer. looking inside, asking yourself the hard questions you are asking is how you know what the path looks like for you.” (Melissa Espiritu, as quoted by Hannah)
lovingly remembering, joyfully treasuring, with deep gratitude, a precious gift
“There is nothing that can replace the absence of someone dear to us, and one should not even attempt to do so. One must simply hold out and endure it. At first that sounds very hard, but at the same time it is also a great comfort. For to the extent the emptiness truly remains unfilled one remains connected to the other person through it. It is wrong to say that God fills the emptiness. God in no way fills it but much more leaves it precisely unfilled and thus helps us preserve — even in pain — the authentic relationship. Furthermore, the more beautiful and full the remembrances, the more difficult the separation. But gratitude transforms the torment of memory into silent joy. One bears what was lovely in the past not as a thorn but as a precious gift deep within, a hidden treasure of which one can always be certain.”
Q. 1. What is your only comfort, in life and in death?
A. That I belong—body and soul, in life and in death—not to myself but to my faithful Savior, Jesus Christ, who at the cost of his own blood has fully paid for all my sins and has completely freed me from the dominion of the devil; that he protects me so well that without the will of my Father in heaven not a hair can fall from my head; indeed, that everything must fit his purpose for my salvation. Therefore, by his Holy Spirit, he also assures me of eternal life, and makes me wholeheartedly willing and ready from now on to live for him.
[THE HEIDELBERG CATECHISM (4.001)]
pcusa.org/resource/book-of-confessions
Isaiah 35:1-2 (NIV)
35:1 The desert* and the parched land will be glad;
the wilderness will rejoice and blossom.*
Like the crocus,* 2 it will burst into bloom;
it will rejoice greatly and shout for joy.*
The glory of Lebanon* will be given to it,
the splendor of Carmel* and Sharon;*
they will see the glory* of the LORD,
the splendor of our God.*
“We have also come to this hallowed spot to remind America of the fierce urgency of now. This is no time to engage in the luxury of cooling off or to take the tranquilizing drug of gradualism. Now is the time to make real the promises of democracy. Now is the time to rise from the dark and desolate valley of segregation to the sunlit path of racial justice. Now is the time to lift our nation from the quick sands of racial injustice to the solid rock of brotherhood. Now is the time to make justice a reality for all of God’s children. …and we will not be satisfied until justice rolls down like waters and righteousness like a mighty stream. … I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, every hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places will be made plain, and the crooked places will be made straight, and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together.”
(The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., 28 August 1963 in Washington, D.C.)
Remembering fifty (and a hundred plus) years ago….
“The pale history books in Harlem and Birmingham told how the nation had fought a war over slavery. Abraham Lincoln had signed a document that would come to be known as the Emancipation Proclamation. The war had been won but not a just peace. Equality had never arrived. Equality was a hundred years late.
“The boy and the girl knew more than history. They knew something about current events. … They knew that, for years, their own lawyers had won great victories in the courts which were not being translated into reality.
“They were seeing on television, hearing from the radio, reading in the newspapers that this was the one-hundredth birthday of their freedom. … But freedom had a dull ring, a mocking emptiness….”
–excerpt(s) from the Introduction in “Why We Can’t Wait”, Martin Luther King, Jr.
In the context of now more and more deliberate decrease of privacy in the new millennium, with the incessant deluge of data littering the information super highway, while traversing through the plethora of crass unbridled naked exposures marked by uninhibited blatant lack of discretions manifested via today’s burgeoning social network media environment, the sore stark need for raising the level in quality and character of public discourse with civility and higher education to facilitate such is that much more magnified and readily apparent, writ large on the internet’s web in the eternity of virtual space …. what a mess for all of the whole wide world to witness such a sad state, needing saving grace — Lord, in your mercy, hear
|
Subject |
Brooke’s Place Spring Newsletter |
|
From |
|
|
antonpayne
hannahespiritu
lgraceespiritu
prayersForMelissa
rexespiritu
Melissa Espiritu
Sara Espiritu
Prayers For Melissa 
Comments