Doing background research for some forthcoming posts, I had to track down George Ritchie’s quotation of the proverb, “Birds of a feather flock together.”
The online copy I found of his report of his near-death experience is not well-written, nor is it well-formatted, but the story is so compelling I thought best to share the below link with my readers now. I urge you to read it.
Sunday night, half a dozen new guys all showed up together. They’re all white, none over age 25, all covered with tattoos and piercings (including facial tattoos), all active addicts and all with significant time behind bars.
I have been spending lots of time at church during the week. I took to looking askance at two particular neighborhood teens who participate in a number of our programs — garden club, after-school, youth group — because they seem to manage always to be in the wrong place (an unauthorized place) at the wrong time, and Shontay in particular wears this mischievous grin, as if she’s looking for trouble.
One Sunday in mid-November, my attitude toward them changed completely.
— Brown University junior Emma Hall
This event was no microaggression.
There was no chapel last night, so at 7:15 we had the option to go straight to bed, with or without taking a smoke break first.
Some of us stood in the smoke pit rehearsing the things we don’t like about chapel. This one newcomer said, “The Bible’s all bullshit. If you read that stuff and you can’t tell it’s all bullshit, you must be mentally retarded.”
If Pastor never says anything I disagree with, I’ll never learn anything from him.
Reblogged 2023-03-09.
The Homeless Blogger 