http://www.goshen.edu/devotions/polluted-and-contaminated/ Advent and Lenten devotions by Goshen College students, faculty and staff Tue, 02 Apr 2013 01:56:50 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.4.2 http://www.goshen.edu/devotions/polluted-and-contaminated/#comment-237 Sharon Kraybill Tue, 24 Mar 2009 13:15:41 +0000 http://blog.goshen.edu/devotions/?p=165#comment-237 Your devotional thoughts were as refreshing as your references to breathing fresh air. With lungs sensitive to spring and fall allergies, I especially resonate with the line, "salvation is fresh, pure and crisp just like those mornings at Yosemite." Although I have never been there, you helped me imagine what it is like and to savor a new image of God's full life. Thank you. Your devotional thoughts were as refreshing as your references to breathing fresh air. With lungs sensitive to spring and fall allergies, I especially resonate with the line, “salvation is fresh, pure and crisp just like those mornings at Yosemite.” Although I have never been there, you helped me imagine what it is like and to savor a new image of God’s full life. Thank you.

]]> http://www.goshen.edu/devotions/polluted-and-contaminated/#comment-236 John Hackman Thu, 19 Mar 2009 15:33:54 +0000 http://blog.goshen.edu/devotions/?p=165#comment-236 Thanks Carlos for that refreshing analogy of air refreshment and spiritual refreshment. Things really haven't changed much from what Paul or whoever is describing in the letter to the Ephesians. Being a business professor you must be able to see the lust and greed for more-more-more and that somehow that is seen as better economically. Our mistake has been allowing it to become a fundamentalism of endless growth and gratification of artifically created appetites, losing sight of the grace that saves us. So thanks for the reminder. Thanks Carlos for that refreshing analogy of air refreshment and spiritual refreshment. Things really haven’t changed much from what Paul or whoever is describing in the letter to the Ephesians. Being a business professor you must be able to see the lust and greed for more-more-more and that somehow that is seen as better economically. Our mistake has been allowing it to become a fundamentalism of endless growth and gratification of artifically created appetites, losing sight of the grace that saves us. So thanks for the reminder.

]]> http://www.goshen.edu/devotions/polluted-and-contaminated/#comment-235 Heidi Siemens-Rhodes Thu, 19 Mar 2009 13:09:22 +0000 http://blog.goshen.edu/devotions/?p=165#comment-235 Having lived in Fresno for some years (affectionately referred to by residents as "the armpit of California"), this reflection brings back such vivid memories of trips to Yosemite. Opening the car window as you get into the foothills, the smell of warm evergreens, that first lungful of sparkling mountain air! I am reminded of Elizabeth Alexander's inaugural poem: "I know there's something better down the road." Both the valley and the mountains are realities, but praise God for those trips into fresh air! Having lived in Fresno for some years (affectionately referred to by residents as “the armpit of California”), this reflection brings back such vivid memories of trips to Yosemite. Opening the car window as you get into the foothills, the smell of warm evergreens, that first lungful of sparkling mountain air! I am reminded of Elizabeth Alexander’s inaugural poem: “I know there’s something better down the road.” Both the valley and the mountains are realities, but praise God for those trips into fresh air!

]]> http://www.goshen.edu/devotions/polluted-and-contaminated/#comment-234 Jon Thu, 19 Mar 2009 08:34:32 +0000 http://blog.goshen.edu/devotions/?p=165#comment-234 --Goop, Erratum, Please reverse 'former' and 'latter' in the first paragraph. ...Thanks.... –Goop, Erratum, Please reverse ‘former’ and ‘latter’ in the first paragraph. …Thanks….

]]> http://www.goshen.edu/devotions/polluted-and-contaminated/#comment-233 Jon Thu, 19 Mar 2009 08:27:22 +0000 http://blog.goshen.edu/devotions/?p=165#comment-233 Dear Brother Gutierrez, Thank you very much for your meditation on this scripture. The thing that's preemptively hitting me over the head is a sense of our communal guilt. As applicable both to what we've done to the environment, and the doctrine of original sin. ...The latter as a symptom and manifestation of the former, theologically primary reality. ...There is none righteous [aside from the obvious Exception], No, Not one. It's not good enought to acknowledge our sin communally, as well as individually. We need to acknowledge the communal, structural nature of much of our sin--proceeding, as it does, from the same tainted motives common to each of us. Perhaps then God will see us, and heal our land. Dear Brother Gutierrez,
Thank you very much for your meditation on this scripture. The thing that’s preemptively hitting me over the head is a sense of our communal guilt. As applicable both to what we’ve done to the environment, and the doctrine of original sin. …The latter as a symptom and manifestation of the former, theologically primary reality.
…There is none righteous [aside from the obvious Exception], No, Not one. It’s not good enought to acknowledge our sin communally, as well as individually. We need to acknowledge the communal, structural nature of much of our sin–proceeding, as it does, from the same tainted motives common to each of us. Perhaps then God will see us, and heal our land.

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