Responsibility!
Lenten Study on Teachings of (Dietrich Bonhoeffer): Wednesday, March 12, 11:30 a.m. We will put the? Zoom info up tomorrow evening!
"Responsibility!"
"Do not withhold good from those to whom it is due." (Proverbs 3:27.)
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"Those who act responsibly place their actions into the hands? of God and live by God's grace and judgment" (Dietrich Bonhoeffer).
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?? ??? Bonhoeffer wrote this in his book "Ethics" in the midst of his involvement in the conspiracy against Hitler. He was conflicted for he was working to kill another human, and knew his guilt could only be reconciled under the grace of God. The conspirators wrestled with getting caught up in the crimes of their country, to sit idly by as the crimes were committed, and to conspire to kill Hitler.
??????? In either case they would be guilty of perpetuating violence against another human being, or they would be guilty of allowing the continued against the weak and vulnerable.
??? So, responsible action was not a matter of making the guilt-free choice. Responsibility meant throwing oneself into the hands of God and accepting both his grace and his judgment.
??? In the end the conspirators could only ask for one thing: the grace of God on their lives.
??? In our day we might be tempted to inflict harm on another and justify ourselves under the guise of God's grace--as we have seen with Proud Boys and others. But that would be a false and twisted application,
??? Our responsibility is to seek God and the peace of Jesus in all we do. Responsibility means relying on the grace of God to participate in radical acts of peace. Responsibility means taking the hard path of resisting the violence of the world while mediating the grace of God!
??? Through the years my way of mediating the grace of God that has been radical is needle exchange, I have in the cold of night help people inject, as there body shook, I give out condoms, and offer the Sacraments to any one.
??? The goodness of God fills all gaps of the universe without discrimination or preference. God is the goodness glue? that holds the dark and light of things together, the energy? that carries all death across the great divide and transmute it into life. When we say that "Christ paid the debt once and for all," it simply means that God's job is to make up for all the failings, deficiencies in the universe. Grace is not something God gives: grace is who God is. Grace is what God does to keep alive-forever--all things that God has created in love.
??? Responsibility means we commit ourselves every day to walking in the way of Jesus--the way of nonviolence and love for all! Deo Gratias! Thanks be to God!
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"All Love Is Wasted!"
Steven Garners Holmes i
All Love is wasted
It is not a wise investment
It is not a powerful tool.
It is given away
without thought of profit or outcome.
Often it is swallowed up by ingratitude,
or falls into gaping wounds,
or it is sown among evil and hatred
where no amount of love can succeed.
Love is wasted gladly on the unknowing,
the ungrateful, the undeserving.
Even your love of someone
dear is a waste
for their love can only be a gift
not a return.
We tread on the seeds
of divine love.
Daily we go out to sow
wastefully, scattering
as much love as possible."
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Temenos Catholic Worker
P.O. Box 642656
San Francisco, CA 94164
Dr. River Damien Carlos Sims, D.Min, D.S.T.
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“People ask me why do you write about food,
and eating and drinking. Why don’t you write
about the struggle for power and security and
about love, the way others do? The easiest answer
is to say that, like most other humans I am hungry (M.F. Fisher!”
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