Madoc's photography at madocthomas.com

Glory!

We rise early today to say, "Well done, good and faithful servants. You are 18, a Wesley intern, graduates, and lights shining in darkness. Elaina, Nathan, Joel, and Kassidy, we love you; we are profoundly grateful for you, for Christ in you."

Foggy Beauty

The beauty of life comes through imperfect vessels. Mozart was a womanizer, Mormon choirs edit hymns to their liking but my disdain, Martin Luther King often drank too much and had questionable relations with women, and William Faulkner had racist qualities; I still love Mozart, The Mormon Choirs, MLK's love of justice, and Faulkner's writing.

I recently commended the Super Bowl ads of inclusive footwashing from hegetsus.com. Some have criticized that affirmation due to some funding and organizational sources. I understand that.

But if I filtered out all the words, works, and beauty that come through "unacceptable" sources I would hear only silence and would be blind to life beauty. Perhaps, for those who are biblically inclined, Phil. 1 applies; Paul didn't give a rip if some folks were preaching Christ for self-aggrandizement; he was just tickled that Christ was preached. If your interest is historical theology you might look at the Donatist controversy in the Fifth Century AD.

I feel the same about the preaching of Christ through Baptists, Global Methodists, and Roman Catholics; I value also the good done by organizations with which I often disagree; I still read Faulkner; and I am listening right now to the life giving music of Mozart. I may be critical of the sources; but I hope to listen and learn from others without pharisaical exclusion of all with whom I have differences.

Perhaps gracious perception of others would look for the beauty in what might be a foggy, flawed source.

Rising Light

The super bowl was quite a spectacle. And a fun game to watch. We had qualms about supporting through our TV the expenditure of all that money for a few hours' entertainment; how many starving people could those three hours have fed?

But there was a sunrise, a rising light among the ads and plays. Jesus gets us indeed. And the few seconds of inclusive footwashing from hegetsus.com were like a rising light in the darkness of our often warped religious and cultural values.

Here is more information on the group behind this:
We've been accused of pushing "our agenda." We thought this might be the right time to make that "agenda" perfectly clear. https://hegetsus.com/en/he-gets-us-has-an-agenda/