Jesus Wants to Save Christians

Sometimes, other people speak in words better than you can what your heart is crying out. Today? One of those times. Her street name--for anyone who does not know--is Addie Jo. However, I think when Jesus talks about her, he calls her "Beautiful." She has an incredible heart, an inspiring connection to God, and an impelling way of expressing these things in words. This same woman wrote the following post in her blog, blackbirdberry.blogspot.com, and like I said, her words speak better than any I have right now.

"Anger

I am so sick.

I hate this world. I hate it. When, when did we decide that it was acceptable, fine, commendable to ignore the needy in the world and focus always on ourselves? When did we decide that we could 'help' people by bombing their country, tearing their world apart and forcing ideas and systems of governance foreign to them on their lives? When did we decide that we could put down other people to the point that they actually think they're as worthless as we make them seem? When did we make the choice to stop seeing humanity and start seeing us and them?

When did we decide that it's fine to have people living on the streets, out in the cold, without a house, when we have so much extra room in our houses, extra guest rooms, huge living rooms, game rooms, multiple dining rooms? When did we decide that we could waste our money on food we don't even want, that we're going to throw away, that we're going to turn our noses up at, when there are people dying, dying, as in never get to eat another meal because they're dead, dying of hunger? When did we decide that we could ignore the rest of the world as long as we are fine?

What are our institutions, our places of learning, our high towers and money systems, banks and corporate offices schools? What are our sporting events? How much money there is laying around, how many resources used for these things, when we could save the world, fix so many problems with what is spent in idle pleasure?

I'm sick of it. I'm sick of spending hours studying things that don't matter, that I won't use, that won't make a difference in the world, or that only make a difference in my tiny sliver of the world. There is injustice and oppression. There is murder and genocide and starvation and disease and hate, hate, hate, hate and anger and waste. The waste of the entire human race, do you realize that? Do we realize what potential we have, what we could do, if we would just save us from ourselves? And I'm angry and I don't want to spend another day being less than this world needs me to be. If I'm going to wear a cross of ashes on my forehead, I want to be Christ to the world, not have to hang my head down and ignore the people who are freezing outside because I don't know their situation or how I can help them.

No, and I know there are noble things to follow in this society of ours. And I know there is good. But fuck it all, because that's what's keeping us complacent, keeping me complacent, that's what's stopping us from waking up and realizing that there are problems that need to be addressed. We're comfortable, we're fine, we don't need to do anything yet.

And I'm afraid to see what it's going to take to make us change."

--Addie Jo Schonewolf

"Jesus wants to save us from making the good news about another world and not this one. Jesus wants to save us from preaching a gospel that is only about individuals and not about the systems that enslave them. Jesus wants to save us from shrinking the gospel down to a transaction about the removal of sin and not about every single particle of creation being reconciled to its maker. Jesus wants to save us from religiously sanctioned despair, the kind that doesn't believe the world can be made better." --Rob Bell (Jesus Wants to Save Christians)