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What's the matter with us?
October 13th 2009
A three-year-old named Marcus was found wandering the streets in an Ohio town and then quickly placed in foster care. Some time later, Marcus was found bound and gagged, wrapped in a blanket and dead in a closet. His foster parents decided to put him there when they left town for a few days to attend a family reunion. The temperature outside was in the 90âs. The temperature in the closet went well over 100. Marcus died in a closet, tied up like an animal. The flesh on his feet was blistered and torn from his struggle to get free⦠He was just three-years-old.
He was just a baby.
âA half-million children like Marcus are drifting through foster care, dependent on a system that too often fails to meet their needs. Blaming the current system will not fix it, and looking the other way is no longer an option. As long as there are children, there will be children who cannot depend on their parents to take care of them. As long as the government shoulders responsibility for their daily care, there will be children who suffer. Until the community steps forward to right the wrongs of vulnerable kids, their childhoods will vanish, along with our hope for a better future for all of our childrenâ¦â
(from INVISIBLE KIDS, by Holly Schlaack)
Marcusâ family failed him. The foster system failed him. The community failed him. But more than half a million foster children like Marcus are still here⦠waiting to be given a chance at a childhood. We canât fail them.
I live in Jefferson County, Alabama. In my city alone, there are more than 2,000 children in the foster system and less than 200 âapprovedâ foster families willing to help.
How is this possible? Whatâs the matter with us?
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BURNSIDE WRITERS COLLECTIVE
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Burnside is Reborn
September 14th 2009
We're back, with an all new site.
BurnsideWriters.com.
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The missing cross
September 13th 2009
It's easy to be critical of the church, especially retrospectively. Like Monday morning quarterbacks, we can all look back through the centuries and see the folly of crusades, colonization, slavery, and the unholy marriage of political power and wealth with the name of Jesus. These failures are, ostensibly, the reasons offered by millions for their rejection of Christ and, especially, of the church.
Surely our failures are part of the story, but I suspect there's more to it than that. Thomas Merton said something to the effect that the crisis among believers and unbelievers is really the same - we are, all of us, recoiling at the cross.
Of course, the church claims to embrace the cross. We sing songs about it; we wear it around our neck as jewelry; it figures prominently in our architecture; and most significantly, we teach it's centrality. The problem, though, is that in teaching it's centrality we tend to teach the reality that Jesus died FOR us, and so our responsibility is to receive this free gift so that we can be pardoned for our failures and be made right with God.
To declare that this is the heart of the gospel would be like saying that cutting down trees and making bats is the central theme of baseball. Talk about missing the point! The reality is this: Christ walked the path of the cross and then triumphed over the grave. Our journey with Christ begins by acknowledging our need for this gift and receiving it, but this is just the beginning, like receiving our bat and glove. The point is wholly other. The point is that we're now empowered with the same capacity to walk the road of our own cross, laying down our lives in literal and/or spiritual ways for three reasons:
#1 - because Jesus tells us that this is our calling
#2 - because this is where our credibility and life imparting power lies
#3 - because we believe that there's more to life than THIS life.
The early church gave validity to Christ's claims because it was the Christ followers who, in the time of the plague, were willing to open their homes and provide hospitality to the dying, often at cost of their own lives. Wherever the faith presents itself as powerful and real, it does so because there are real and tangible acts of relinquishing rights (to life, our happiness, or being first, or secure, or powerful, or vindicated) on the part of Christ's followers. Of course, the sad testimony of the church is that, too often, we've appropriated Christ's death FOR us, while overtly or covertly avoiding our own calling to die WITH Him. Thus does the church's lust for power, wealth, and prestige, mar the church's testimony, creating a caricature of Christ.
Yes, Christ died for us. But He beat death in order that we might be freed from the fear of death, in order that we might have the entire world opened up before us as we listen for the voice of our Guide and follow Him wherever He might take us. We know this, though, that the path that will impart life to others will only be seen to the extent that we say YES to the Guide who calls us to lay down our own agenda, instinct for survival, or lust for pleasure or power, choosing instead our own CROSS because we believe that life goes on, and on, forever.
As I begin the fall routine, I pray that I'll be willing to walk the path of the cross.
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BURNSIDE WRITERS COLLECTIVE
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New Burnside on Monday
September 11th 2009
This may very well be the final post on the Burnside Blog.
On Monday, barring any unforeseen disasters, and requiring a load of work this weekend, we will launch our new site. We've been working on it for a while, and we're thrilled to finally show you what we have. We've also changed our URL. The new site will be at burnsidewriters.com.
The blog will still be up, but posts won't go here. Our old site will link directly to our new one. The blog and main site will be integrated. Some of the posts you've seen here will become articles. For shorter pieces, our site will offer an Asides department, for quick links, posts, and videos.
I get a lot of the glory around here for making this thing happen, but the truth is John Pattison did a thousand times more work than I did bringing this all together. I also want to thank John Whitaker for helping build our site, Metaleap Design for our logo, and a whole host of others who consulted and helped us out along the way (in particular, John's.
More thanks to those who donated to Burnside. Your incentives for giving will be sent out as soon as we get copies of Million Miles.
We're still working out bugs, but the submissions process will be greatly streamlined. Upon launch, we'll be welcoming open submissions, and we'll be much better in fielding them and responding.
Thank you for visiting so far. Spread the word about our new site!
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Genesis - The Facebook Edition
September 11th 2009
I'm so glad I have access to David Sessions' Google status, or I would've missed this.
And speaking of our friends at Patrol Magazine, they have a terrific editorial on profanity and Christian magazines.
We've got a similar piece on censorship and profanity as it pertains to Burnside coming with the launch of our new site...stay tuned.
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