Disgraceful Bearers of Imago Dei

The Peace of Wild Things

When despair for the world grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children's lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting with their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.

— Wendell Berry

Jesus, Gin, and Juice

All too often, we place God in a box. We bring God on our side of a debate. God is a Democrat. God is a Republican. You've seen legitimate followers of Jesus yelling at each other from opposite sides of the fence throughout history. Whether this is for self preservation, out of shere ignorance, or both, I'm not sure. What I do know is that we are more often wrong about God than we are right (and I am pretty sure God is sick of His name being taken in vain for the sake of our personal debates).

In an email I wrote from Southeast Asia a year ago, I began with the words, "The more I travel, the bigger my God gets". Am I making a call for moral relativity? Certainly not! Am I saying that all religions lead to heaven? By no means. And to prove my point of boxing God in, the last two questions and their answers made many sigh with relief and others get angry. This blog is meant to reflect a story/journey/movement towards finding the image of God in all things, in all people (even Right Wing Nut Jobs and Flaming Liberals...just to name a few dichotemies we have created). The title reflects the nature of the written word in these pages, for the goal of my journey is to free God from my restraints and allow Him to show me how to live as a citizen of the Kingdom here and now.