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Fimnora Westcaw over at Quantum Hermit has invited me to take up a challenge she’s doing. Thanks, Fim. I probably would have said no, but this one is about quotes, and I LOVE quotes! She posted one yesterday from the Lord of the Rings, and I told her I would see her LOTR and raise her one Silmarillion! But that one’s going to have to wait till tomorrow because Pastor Gary used one at church this morning that really captured my attention.

He was talking today about the murders at the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, South Carolina where nine people died during a Bible study. Gary’s sermon was passionate about how we need to get beyond that whole “Us and Them” theology/mindset. It was a wonderful sermon and I was on board with every word.

After the service the folks in our congregation took turns signing a huge card to be rolled up and sent to Emanuel AME Church. I was thrilled because I think the more we invest ourselves in the lives of other people, the more we will begin to see we are all a part of each other’s stories. And the way the members of that congregation are conducting themselves in the midst of this tragedy is truly inspiring.

The quote that Gary used was one of Martin Luther King’s:

MLK quote

Oh how I believe that! People who are full of hate are weighted down with the darkness of the world. And nine dead, good people in a church in South Carolina is what that darkness looks like.

None of us are immune to that darkness. I was absolutely appalled after President Obama’s singing of Amazing Grace at the funeral of Senator Clementa Pinckney, the South Carolina state senator killed in the mass shootings, that commentator Ann Coulter suggested we ban the singing of that hymn because it was written by a slave trader. She was so full of anger and hate that she failed to have her “people” look up the background of the writing of that song by John Newton, the captain of a slave ship. Had she done so she would have found that Newton wrote it after leaving that business and coming to believe that it was an abomination to God. What a stupid, stupid response from this woman who is in the public eye all the time.

And the scariest thing to me is that we, like sheeple, have gone astray and believed every word we hear on the airwaves…

Don’t let hate be the burden you carry. Choose love instead. Maya Angelou said:

Love builds up the broken wall and it straightens the crooked path. Its breadth, depth, and height cannot be imagined, yet it is small enough to live comfortably in a mustard seed.

 

It’s your choice. Choose love. It’s a beginning and…

  The beginning is the most important part of the work.

…Plato (not the Groovy one, the really, really old one.)

(Gee, I guess I kind of sneaked three in here today, didn’t I! Oh well. Just consider two of them bonuses…)

* * * * *

The rules of the road:

I – Post your favorite quotes or your own quotes for three (3) posts in a row.

II – Thank the person who nominated you.

III – Pass it on to three (3) other bloggers per quote, each time you post them.

IIIb – Or pass it to nine (9) bloggers if you choose to post all the quotes together, in the same post.

Today I’m passing this along to:
HeavyCloud at aliensoulmates.wordpress.com
Elizabeth at ekpreston.wordpress.comand
Emily at acupofenglishtea.wordpress.com

But remember, dudes, you only have to do this if it tickles your fancy!