Did a little tweaking...

I tweaked the overall look of the blog a bit. Let me know what you think!

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Saint Ruby Yenkala

I have noticed that there are people in this world that seem to change everyone around them. It seems like merely speaking with them, or shaking their hand, is enough to transform you. I believe that this is what Paul meant by a "fruit of the Spirit." Saint Ruby Yenkala was not always sunshine and roses, not always happiness. Sometimes, she was frustrating and infuriating, but she changed us, and I think, she changed us for the better, and she changed us for good. She was a white woman of Jesse Helm's generation who thought nothing of worshiping with, embracing, and helping people regardless of their color. She was a woman who should, by all rights, been sitting in the back of the church, keeping her mouth shut except to responsively pray or sing. And yet, ever since she walked in the door of Northminster, she was standing in church, telling us what was needed in the community, giving us the good news and the bad news. Ruby was Christ's eyes and ears and hands and fee...
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Halloween, the Christian Holiday

We talked about this week before last, but I wanted this on the blog too, especially for folks who weren't there. I think Halloween has the potential to be an incredibly effective, meaningful, and joyous Christian festival. Now, most of the times when you read a statement like that, the proponent is imagining re-styling Halloween into some kind of "Fall Festival", scrubbing it clean of all ghost stories or anything scary, and maybe using it as some kind of "morality tale:" a variation on the Christmas-time song "you better watch out." That's not what I'm advocating. I think that there is a great Christian witness in sitting in a dark room and telling ghost stories. I think there is something more than morality to be gotten from October 31. (Not that there isn't morality there: just look at any pre- Scream horror movie and watch who gets massacred first, and who makes it through.) Halloween, more than any other festival, is about story-tell...
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Love Not Fear

Well, I guess it's about time I took some time to describe what the title of the blog means. It's one of those cool phrases that change meaning depending on the punctuation, like "God Rest Ye, Merry Gentlemen". Love, Not Fear: With the comma, it gives a choice. "God is love" says the Bible. "Fear not," it also says in numerous places. I think the choice the Bible wants us to make is pretty clear. And it is a choice. Love and fear are both emotions, and you can't really help what you feel, but you can help what you do. Love and fear are also verbs. I don't believe that God wants you to be so concerned with your own survival that you jump at shadows. When Christ calls us to love our neighbor, I don't think he means for us to fear our other neighbors. Now, there are a lot of people who say that I should not tell this to you young people. I constantly see advice that young people need to be made afraid for their futures, either their et...
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