Andrew Jones is a missionary, blogger, and example for me of grace in the internet age. For the last 10* years he's written about the emerging church movement and other expressions of Christ across Europe and America. He's originally from New Zealand and about 6'5" tall, hence the name of his blog: http://tallskinnykiwi.typepad.com/.
He posted this a week ago, which I'm shamelessly reposting here. It seems that we always rediscover the real truths when the unexpected disasters happen. (But really, we know that disaster will come sooner or later - are they really unexpected? No. What if we acted on Sam's call before the C-word comes to us from the doctor, or the earthquake shakes us to our knees, or the hurricane removes our city? Perhaps there would be fewer statistics, and more relationships.)
Among the words that were spoken, two speeches seemed to strike a cord with me. The most profoundly simple and yet stirring was from Sam Chapman, leading Christian Maori spokesman.
"Why we do wait for a crisis to realise just how precious we are to each other? We've got a whole society out there saying, "Love me before I become a statistic! Don't wait till something goes wrong. Love me today!" I hope that out of the rubble, not just materially, but spiritually, psychologically, that the lessons we learn from tragedies like today, and there will be more . . . lets love each other! Lets not wait."
Amen.
A celebration of people who are living out their God-given dreams in all sorts of unconventional ways and places. An exploration of the obstacles to life that we often encounter - some of our own making. A place for stories about people, ideas, culture, history and God.
