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Showing posts from May 11, 2014

Conversion

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Do you remember the book Dead Man Walking ?   Or you might have seen the movie that was made, starring Susan Sarandon (who got the Oscar that year) and Sean Penn.   About ten years ago it was made into an opera!   It recently was performed where I lived, and there were many (free) public events for almost two months leading up to the performance.   In the couple of days prior to the opening of the opera here Sister Helen Prejean (who wrote the book), longtime Catholic activist, who speaks often about her own conversion regarding the death penalty, was in Madison.   She and Jake Heggie, the composer of the opera, spoke to about 800 people at First Congregational UCC.   Helen talked about her own conversion – which began when she finally understood that the Jesus of the Gospels went about doing justice , not just being kind to people.   (And in the case of the first man she accompanied to his death he was clearly guilty !) In this country it costs millions of dollars to exec

A New Year of Life

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Celebrating a birthday or as I like to call it- a new year of life, always puts me in a reflective mode.   It makes me look at the years gone by and see how I have grown or maybe not grown in the ways I would like to.    A few weeks ago I almost got into a serious car accident.   I have heard people speak about having your whole life flash in front of you.   I don’t think my whole life flashed in front of me, but I do know that that experience made me more grateful and thankful for my life. My life is a precious gift from God and what I do with my one life is my gift to God.   After my near tragic experience some people may say that there was probably a logical and scientific explanation to why I am safe today.   Today I say that it was a miracle. Whatever we chose to call this mysterious awesome being is irrelevant; I know I was kept safe from harm on that day.   To make matters even more interesting after my near collision the song that came on the radio was, “My God is Awesome.