Author Intrusion

Justice in the Burbs Promo Video finished!

Our promo video for Justice in the Burbs is finished. Award-winning documentary filmmaker John Paget, (Route 66, Almost Elvis) came and filmed in Lexington and put together this video. If you'd like to use Justice in the Burbs for Sunday School or small groups, this is a great resource to send to your pastor or ministry director. Let us know what you think?

forgiving and forgetting

Ty and I heard a wonderful story at mass yesterday morning.

In France in the 1600's a nun, Sister Margaret-Mary, was having visitations from Christ. The priest who ministered to the convent, Father Claude, would listen to her confessions and they'd talk. She told him of the visitations, how Christ had such great love for the world, He wanted everyone to know the full depth of His heart.

Father Claude, testing to see whether or not her experiences were real, said, "Ask Jesus, next time you see Him, what I confessed at my last confession."

A while later he came back to the convent and he asked Sr. Margaret-Mary if she was still seeing visitations of Christ.

"Yes, Father" she replied.

"And did you remember what I asked you to ask Jesus?"

"Yes. You asked me to ask Him what it was you last confessed."

"Exactly. And what did He say?"

"He simply said, 'I've forgotten.'"

(Lisa here) Well I just started crying right in church. I mean, how beautiful a picture of the God who says He remembers our sins no more. How many times I beggar my relationship with Him by recalling over and over again what He's already forgotten.

great endorsements for JitB

“Will and Lisa Samson remind us that Jesus and those who have loved and followed him over the centuries have cared about the poor and about justice. They invite us to discover afresh this truth and this way of life today in our communities and our world.”

Mark Earley, president, Prison Fellowship Ministries

 

Will and Lisa Samson invite you to join them on a very scary journey that begins in the suburbs that could change your life and make a little difference in God’s world.  If interested in taking Jesus seriously I suggest you read this book with a few friends and see what happens.

Tom Sine
Mustard Seed Associates

little girls in Mexico need our help

Here's an opportunity for us to really lend a hand (or a deep pocket) to help girls who are kidnapped for the sex slave trade in Mexico.  If you'd like to donate to help supply building materials for the Safe House going up, go to www.god4girls.com.  If you're handy with tools and can go to Mexico to renovate, go on over to the site as well.  Please, please, please give.  The paypal page is easy and even if it's just a little, it all helps.  What a worthy ministry to support. Gospel undefiled right here.

And pray for these little girls and their families.  Dear Lord, have mercy. Get them out of this and give them peace. Keep them safe and bring them through somehow.

From my friend, Patty Hickman:

Additonally, over this past year we became aware of the plight   of little girls in Mexico who are being kidnapped and forced into the sex slave trade. It is a heart breaking crisis. We found through missionaries we support some donated land and we are working with a woman who has experience in helping these girls out of prostitution. She emailed of their progress this week. They have the land and a house that is still in need of renovation. But she was hit with 400 calls when she got word out on the street, 400 girls begging to be brought home and helped. Her counselors are to the breaking point and in need of a break. One counselor, having worked night and day without rest, resigned, exhausted and desperate for help. This area was reported through a TV news magazine as being Grand Central Station for this evil trade. Then word was out on the street this week that 400 little girls'   bodies were found, murdered by these monstrous men called the Mexican Mafia   who kidnap these children. There are now 2000 children kidnapped in Mexico, their families desperate to be reunited. We are working to rally some Christian   psychologists, and the money to get them over there. We also need to organize   a group of people willing to go in and help renovate the safe house. So we need funds and willing and capable help. I thank you for praying for this project. It is called Girls 4 God. They have to work in secrecy or risk attack themselves. It is a very dangerous work, but God isn?t afraid of anyone and He is the source of our   supply. But this week they?re especially asking for prayers for a covering of protection.

yes, we have a patron saint

For all you writers, Francis de Sales is your man. 

Right now, I also need a patron saint of lost keys, sleeplessness, inability to manicure my own nails or make a decent pie crust, and back pain!

Got any favorite saints?

It was a lovely weekend here in Lexington!  I sat on the porch Saturday, the day I took for a sabbath this weekend, and read and read. It was so great. Right now, Sunday evening, I back out here, working on my rewrites for Embrace Me (Thomas Nelson, Feb. 2008).  It rained a while ago (we need a dozen more of those rains, you?) and the atmosphere is clearer than it's been in a while.  The sun is low and golden and the temperature has dropped just slightly. It's the prettiest evening we've had all year.

At our church gathering tonight our oven fried potato wedges were a huge hit! Here's how you do it.  (Don't faint, I'm actually putting up a recipe!) Cut those yummy russet red-skin potatoes in wedges and throw on a large baking pan, douse liberally in olive oil, mix with your hands. Arrange potatoes in single layer, dust with Old Bay seasoning and throw on some kosher salt.  Bake at 375 for 45 - 60 minutes, turning them with a spatula in the middle of cooking.  Dip in this sauce: four parts mayo to one part ketchup and a little horseradish sauce to taste.

Oh my garsh!

How was your weekend?

praying for the sick

I long for the day when sickness will be no more.  In the meantime, we can bear one another's burdens in prayer.  If you are dealing with illness or someone you know is and would like prayer, please leave the request in the comments (make it a pray wall this weekend) and allow me and whoever will to pray for or with you this weekend.

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PW Review on Justice in the Burbs. Sweet!

Publisher's Weekly Magazine has given Justice in the Burbs a great review. You can pre-order here. Download a copy of the intro and chapter one here.

Justice in the Burbs: Being the Hands of Jesus Wherever You Live Will and Lisa Samson. Baker Books, $14.99 paper (208p) ISBN 978-0-8010-6809-6

Award-winning Christian novelist Lisa Samson (Songbird; Quaker Summer) and her husband, sociology doctoral student Will Samson, intertwine fiction and nonfiction in this challenging and inspiring book about justice. Lisa Samson's novella features the Marshalls, a suburban family with all the accouterments: Matt climbs the corporate ladder, Christine cares for their three children, and both are busy with numerous church leadership positions. One day, however, Matt and Christine visit an inner-city mission, and their ideas about how they should be living gradually, but dramatically, change. The nonfiction portion of the book examines the issues these characters (and most of the book's readership) face. The Samsons talk about why God cares what we eat, where we live, how much electricity we use, and to whom we minister. Astonishingly, the authors manage to do this without hitting a sanctimonious note. On the contrary, they repeatedly highlight the heartbreak and complexity of what they refer to as "thinking and living in keeping with God's heartbeat of justice," and frequently acknowledge their own struggles and failures. The Samsons include short meditations at the end of each chapter written by a variety of Christian authors, as well as a series of helpful discussion questions at the end. (Aug.)

New Wineskins interviews Will!

Here's one of the questions from an interview Will had with New Wineskins linked to below.  I love this little blurb from the interviewer Fred Peatross's bio:

Fred makes "ordinary attempts" to evangelize through relational acts of kindness and enjoys praying behind his friends' backs . . .

Gotta love that!

Link: New Wineskins.

3) I don't know if it would be fair to call you an environmental activist but tell us a little about the environmental concerns?

Scripture talks of humanity as coming “from the dust of the Earth.” In this way, concerns about what we eat, what we drive and how much we consume are not dissociated from me. Instead, because I eat food and breathe oxygen and rely on vitamins and minerals from the Earth, care for creation is caring for the future “me.” This frightens some Christians. It sounds like pantheism. I see it as a holistic view of humanity and all of creation. I hope this perspective is being shaped by my attempts to be faithful to scripture and the Christian tradition – time will tell. But because of this hope, I might not think of myself as an environmental activist – maybe more of a kingdom activist, one who sees care for creation as inseparable from living in faithful relationship to God and my neighbor.

love on the day of judgment

At mass on Friday afternoon the priest said something in his homily which really struck me.  "I have to wonder if on the day of judgment the real question we'll be asked is, 'Did you love?'"

If what Jesus said is true, that all the law and the prophets hang on Love God and Love Your Neighbor As Yourself, and if what Paul said was true in I Corinthians 13, that we can prophesy and move mountains and sing songs and give away everything we have, but if we don't have love it means nothing . . . well, it makes me think the priest is right.

Love leads us to charity.
Love leads us to purity.
Love leads us to graciousness.
Love leads us to forgiveness.
Love leads us to the kingdom.

If everything we did and said was filtered through the fine-tuned mesh of love, just what would that look like like? And would we be "free indeed?" I think so.

Have a great weekend everybody.  See you back here on Monday!

love, (hopefully more and more each day)

lisa

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if love stops, was it love to begin with?

After listening to Shane Claiborne's interview on NPR that I linked to yesterday, I was so taken aback by a quote he gave from Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. about love. How that no matter what anyone could do, his community would love them. That they would wear down their opponents by love.

It's so easy to give up on people, isn't it? To let their opinions of us and those we love color our feelings and our actions toward them. But love doesn't give up. Ever. Let's wear out our opponents with love, whether that be in the personal arena where interpersonal conflicts threaten to keep our eyes off of our Kingdom purposes, or in the larger arena of serving the Kingdom of God.

What does it look like to be a friend who loves at all times?  Lord help me.

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