READING . . .

I'm still reading Philip Yancey's "Soul Survivor." Sooo interesting and so varied. I am utterly sucked in. I have been lifting from the book like you wouldn't even believe. But this, I could not relegate to my other site ...

I have begun to realize how hard it is for a lot of people to think of living without someone to look down upon, really look down upon. It is not just that they will feel cheated out of someone to hate; it is that they will be compelled to look more closely at themselves, at what they don't like in themselves. My heart goes out to people I hear called rednecks; they have little, if anything, and hate is a possession they can still call upon reliably, and it works for them. I have less charity in my heart for well-to-do and well-educated people -- for their snide comments, cleverly rationalized ones, for the way they mobilize their political and even moral justifications to suit their own purposes. No one calls them into account. The Klan is their whipping boy. Someday all of us will see that when we start going after a race or a religion, a type, a region, a section of the Lord's humanity -- then we're cutting into His heart, and we're bleeding badly ourselves.

-- from Martin Luther King, Jr.'s personal interview
with Dr. Robert Coles,
"Soul Survivor," by Philip Yancey

A reminder that in all things, in all ways, in all circumstances, in all responses, in all actions, in all thoughts, in all service, in all of life, I need to look at myself first, that we all need to look at ourselves first before we start to even lift our eyes to anything or anyone else ...