PREACH LOVE : This land is your land

Sent: 10/17/2002 11:14 AM


This land is your land
This land is my land
This is our land

yet we kill over it, day after day

This earth is your earth
This earth is my earth
This is our earth

yet we destroy her, generation after generation

This God is your God
This God is my God
This is our God

yet we worship humanity, age after age


when
is it enough

to
change


This soul is His soul
This soul is my soul
My soul is His

thus I give Love, eternity after eternity

PREACH LOVE : Leon, me, and a poem

Sent: 10/16/2002 6:04 PM

Chad:

"To Lady Mendl's for tea
At a quarter past three
Quite properly skipping
Twas Leon and me,"

Leon:

"And Leon did note
as bleeted a goat
that blaaaah was the style
o' Lady Mendl's new tote."

PREACH LOVE : Jesus a Warrior?

Sent: 10/16/2002 11:11 AM

Chad,

I've been keeping up with your emails concerning the proposed war in Iraq and had some questions. (Naturally - I'm a midwestern Republican gun-owner!). So here goes.

Would you agree with me that God has in the past used war in His purposes for 1)Rebuking His people for their misbehavior (as when the Babylonians conquered Israel and took them captive), 2)Showing His favor on Israel (as they came into the promised land, they conquered lots of people), 3)Judging unrighteous nations (God brought armies against Babylon after Babylon had taken Israel captive and then released them)? So, we would agree that any thoughtless rejection of war would be foolish, because God has used war in the past to do His good will. Now, you might say that the New Testament changed all that, and I would disagree but be willing to grant your arguement, however, it becomes difficult to hold that position with some of the things that are said about Christ's new position of rule after His resurrection. For instance, in Psalm 2 (a Psalm concerning Christ) says this:

"Why do the heathen rage, and the people imagine a vain thing? The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers take counsel together, against the LORD, and against his anointed, saying, Let us break their bands asunder, and cast away their cords from us...Thou shalt break them with a rod of iron; thou shalt dash them in pieces like a potter's vessel. Be wise now therefore, O ye kings: be instructed, ye judges of the earth. Serve the LORD with fear, and rejoice with trembling. Kiss the Son, lest he be angry, and ye perish from the way, when his wrath is kindled but a little. Blessed are all they that put their trust in him."

Quite a lot of dashing and anger in there! But the point stands - Christ, Who is now at God's right hand ruling, is a mighty Warrior - not having a problem with war. Again, we see this picture of Christ in 1 Corinthians 15:24-26:

"Then the end will come, when he hands over the kingdom to God the Father after he has destroyed all dominion, authority and power. For he must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet. The last enemy to be destroyed is death."

Destroying, putting enemies under foot. Interesting that this should be said of Christ.

Is it safe to say that Christ is indeed a Warrior, and not against war per se?

Sincerely,

M

--------------------------------------------------------------

Dear M,

You have very good questions, and I can only tell you what's on my heart, and I pray that it will make some sense.

My name, "Chad", is Celtic for warrior. Honestly, I always hated those little cards that said so, for I felt that it misrepresented who I was. As a child, the last thing I felt like was a warrior, for fighting was something that I didn't understand and couldn't identify with. When I was twelve years old, I allowed the boys in my sixth grade classroom to throw rocks at me during one break in the school day, and although tearful, I never raised a stone from the ground to fight back. My child believed in Jesus Christ's teaching of turning the other cheek, and although my heart cried in agony over the torment, I knew it was for the good somehow. By resisting my human aggression, I was able to Truly love them. For they didn't know what they were doing.

My adult has fortunately retained that child's faith that guided me that day many years ago. Still today, at twenty-nine, I maintain to turn the other cheek. I’m blessed with the faith that holds my every day’s reality to Christ's Golden Rule: Do unto others as you'd have done unto you. Love your neighbor as yourself. And do it Honestly. =) Granted, I'm human, so it isn't always flawless, but I love God with all my heart, and I strive to be perfect in this Love Christ taught me. The Love that is the very core of our spiritualities. The Love that was glorified in God's Ultimate Sacrifice so that all may live.

If Jesus Christ is a warrior, then I believe He is a Warrior of God's Love for the world. The fact that He walked, taunted and teased, bruised and beaten, ridiculed and bleeding, to the mound of skulls and still felt Love in His heart for each and every guilty face He saw on His way makes Him a Warrior for Love like none other. The fact that He allowed them to drive stakes through His completely innocent hands and still refrained from ripping His executioners from the earth is a fight well won for the Victory of Love. The fact that He allows humanity to continue its existence ages after His Resurrection in order to win a spiritual war beyond our flesh and blood is what God's Love is all about.

Oh, truly, I must ask you, what serves His glory more:

Eliminating a life in His name or representing His Love by giving a life hope?

Faith, hope and love; the greatest of these love.

These are my thoughts, for what they’re worth. I hope they are understandable. =)

PREACH LOVE : Jesus said

Sent: 10/15/2002 11:18 AM


Jesus said to love your enemies

Yet humans seem to have an "unless"
Their own lives, further,
Their own childrens' lives
More valuable than all others
Even those dying for them, yes

Jesus said to love your neighbor

Yet humanity's walls flourish across the earth
Selfishness and pride, further,
Greed and arrogance
Hold them captive within their fences
Their own blades cutting them from Love's birth

Jesus said to be kind to the ungrateful and wicked

Yet True Faith to them appears hard to find
God's Justice, further,
God's Judgment
Not even factored into their spirituality
Mice in wheels following their minds

Jesus said to do good to your enemies

Yet they remain skeptical He is the answer
His Grace, further,
His Unconditional Love
Slandered by scriptured media junkies as
Contaminated self-fulfilling prophecy stirs

Jesus said be merciful, just as your Father is merciful

Or shall humans forever play their own god
Their own condemner, further,
Their own persecutor, further,
Their own executioner

Or will we come at last to really
Trust
What Jesus said


Do it for Real.


Faith
Hope
Love

PREACH LOVE : A little impromptu

Sent: 10/14/2002 8:00 PM

Winter breezes outside my window. I am amazed by the real feeling that comes with the change of seasons. I can't exactly say what kind of feeling that is, but it is a definite one. Something new is in the air, pushing out something which is old, making way for beginnings. And it is all for the good of God.

As we shall see.

* * *

Believe in the good of God and let not your heart be troubled. Find your being rested firmly under His. Go forward into the cold, for God is ever warming you with Hen's feathers.

Protected transistions.

PREACH LOVE : No More Violence II

October 10, 2002

Dear United States Congress:

“No more violence!”

These are the words I have been screaming since September 11th 2001, and yet my government doesn’t listen to me nor the tens of thousands of Americans voicing opposition to a war on Iraq. Presently, you are deciding whether or not to offer one man the sole authority to wage war. Therefore I must scream again,

“No more violence!”

I charge you to vote against the authorization of broad powers to the president to wage a unilateral, preemptive war against Iraq. As an American citizen, I demand that you represent my voice. Furthermore, in the event that you do not vote against this authorization, know that I will work to remove you from office during the next election of your position.

“No more violence.”

What happened in New York City and Washington D.C. a year ago should never happen again, anywhere in the world. I wish our pain on no other global citizen. I want to believe that my country will realize that violence of any kind, “good or evil”, must stop here, with us.

Be strong, feel love, show mercy,

Chad Gurley

PREACH LOVE : Get a grip

Sent: 10/7/2002 10:36 PM


Get a grip, she said
As she steamrolls right over me
My Nature an oddity
As I drive against majority

Get a grip, she said
As my flying is puzzling
Fluttered with insecurity
As she hopes for my conformity

Get a grip, she said
As she let go of support for me
My idealism drifting to crazy
As she diagnoses me mentally

Whose grip? I asked
As my mind thinks Spiritually
Recalling my soul's Priority
As God's Love the Only Reality

One Love, I thought
As he spoke the word "enemy"
Blind my eyes open to see
As Jesus Christ did teach me

PREACH LOVE : Mister President George

Sent: 10/6/2002 10:30 PM


Mister President George
Torment me no more with your turn
Tire me not with your chess match
Checkmate with my pawn no more

Mister President George
Tax none for your merciless kingdom
Fuel not your weapons of violence
Pay nothing for your killing of another

Mister President George
Listen to your starving people
Acknowledge these our voices Living
Pledge solemn allegiance to our Liberty

Mister President George
Remember the Kingdom of Heaven
Value God's Love for Humanity
Cherish the Life He Gave

See. Just see. Please see.

Value you me

* * *

Get Real

PREACH LOVE : Sickness and Health

Sent: 10/3/2002 2:06 PM


The torrents of the night do call
across the canyon of my soul
and despair reigns hard
upon the shattered ground below

Pain seems some sort food
Morsels splish between the cracks
Filling my dusty chamber
With the nourishment I lack

Acceptance brought Renewal.

* * *

Joy.

PREACH LOVE : Can they hear me?

Sent: 10/2/2002 12:48 PM


Can they hear me?
Without the trumpets of scholarly
masters' names beside mine
on this blank empty page


Will they read me?
Minus the green, ivy covered stones
with many varying degrees
of filtered Sonlight strown

Call I sound them?
Much like the tall oak tree falling
quite softly quiet
in doves' fluttered silence


Only God knows.

* * *

Even muted whispers' ripples echo.

PREACH LOVE : Sick

Sent: 10/1/2002 9:45 AM


Sickness provides delirious stillness
Thoughts seem to bud, flower, fruit,
And grow whole worlds until
Sharply guillotined by the very next one