Hope Just to Live

Today I am thinking about the refugees in the world and keep them in my prayers.

" We see so many human beings around the world dying like Jesus Christ. ...But in spite of so much sin, so much death, so much suffering, there is something in our history which gives us hope....How is it possible there is hope?....Hope for what? Just to live....For those of us who take life for granted, life cannot be an object of hope....In the presence of death, life itself makes sense. It is good to live."

"Clarence learned that reconciliation at the lunch table, where black and white shared together, was as scandalous as to his neighbors as reconciliation on the cross.  He spoke about fear as 'the polio of the soul which prevents our walking by faith.'

"In a story that has been quoted many times, Clarence again showed the courage and quick wit that became his trademark.  A group of men came to the farm.  Their spokesman said to Clarence, 'We're from the Ku Klux Klan and we don't allow the sun to set on people who eat with niggers,'

Clarence glanced over the western sky and noticed that the sun was creeping low.  He thought a bit, swallowed a few times, and suddenly reached out, grabbed the man's hand, and started pumping away, saying, 'Why, I just graduated from Southern Baptist Seminary, and they told us about folks who had power over the sun, but I never hoped to meet one here in Sumter County.'
They all laughed, and nobody noticed that the sun had slipped down below the horizon.'

"A blade of wheat, dried with age, lay on Clarence's desk (after his death)....It seem appropriate to find it there.  I can think of no better symbol for Clarence's life.  'Unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit.'

Isolated quotes of Clarence Jordan, Theologian in Overalls, by Joyce Hollyday in Cloud of Witnesses

I hope for each of you that your life bears much fruit and that you have touched the lives of many others with compassion in a way that fosters hope and peace.

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