a prophetic voice-

Battle lines being drawn...name calling and prejudices and the failure to see  in the human beings around us our similarities  rather than just our differences... states like Indiana passing  laws to justify injustice, to codify the many ways  we separate  ourselves...while prisons are filled with young men of color and LGBTQ folks are held at arm's length by those who convince  themselves  that they- and only they - have the right to decide  who has been created in  the image of God. just live! Moral certainties make my hair stand on end, make my teeth hurt, especially when expounded by those who seem to thrive on drawing battle lines & boundaries… whose goal seems separation & one-upmanship instead of reconciliation & compromise. A bsolutes invite hypocrisy, as we have so often seen among the ‘famous’ of our day, as revelation of another’s feet of clay is met by judgment, anger, and ...

Oxymoronic...that's the only way I can describe the puzzling and almost vitriolic reactions to President Obama shaking hands with Cuba's president, Raul Castro. Will this pose problems for Obama, one news service blares. Should Obama have done this, asks another. Is there something more behind this, queries still another. And I am left shaking my head, wondering yet again if our president can do anything right in the eyes of some people. Were you critics listening, I am wondering, to the eulogy President Obama delivered today? Were you watching, as people from nations all over the globe came together...yes, together, to honor a man who taught the whole world about the meaning of forgiveness...of reconciliation. So within this context, on this day of all days, why wouldn't Barak Obama shake hands with Raul Castro? Why read something more into it? Why not accept and honor this action as the only appropriate thing a gracious man would do, under the circumstance...