parables of a prodigal world

The wolf shall live with the lamb, the leopard shall lie down with the kid, the calf and the lion and the fatling together, and a little child shall lead them. The cow and the bear shall graze, their young shall lie down together; and the lion shall eat straw like the ox. The nursing child shall play over the hole of the asp, and the weaned child shall put its hand on the adders den. --Isaiah 11:6-8 How will all this happen? It's almost to optimistic to accept as a reality. The animosity between the wolf and the lamb, the calf and the lion, these are of the natural order of things, right? It has nothing to with human sin and fallenness, with the weakness of the love of God in the human heart, right? The vision of Isaiah 11:6-8 has got to be a metaphor, right? How big is your vision of the redemptive power of God? How big is your vision of the power of love? They will not hurt or destroy on all my holy mountain; because the earth will be full of the knowledge of the Lord (i.e., lov...

It’s the middle of the night. A two-year-old girl is asleep in her room. Her mother is sleeping alone in the master bedroom. Her grandmother is sleeping in a detached guest house. Her father is sleeping in another part of the country, but she knows not where. The young girl wakes up, perhaps from a nightmare. She has been having a lot of those during her brief life. She is frightened, in a half-conscious way, and instinctively proceeds to the comforting presence of her grandmother. To get to her, she must exit the main structure of her home, cross a narrow, outdoor hallway, and knock on the door of the detached guest house. She has done all this before, and her fear has routinely been subsided by the grandmother who has forsaken her own life to, as best she can, play the role of the father who has left to pursue other roles. In her half-conscious state, however, the girl forgets that Grandma is not home that evening. She exits the main structure, closing the door behind her. Unbeknowns...

The 234th Christian Carnival is up today at A True Believer's Blog , and I'm proud to say, for the second week in a row, that one of my posts made the list. The Christian Carnival is a weekly collection of some of the best posts of the Christian blogosphere. It's open to Christians of Protestant, Orthodox, and Roman Catholic convictions. I think it's a great way to bring a sense of community to the blog world, to the extent that such a thing is possible. Grace and Peace, Raffi