Category: Love

Citizenship, Ethics, Justice, Leadership, Love, Race2 Comments

The Two Cases of Trayvon Martin

Gary Furr

When it comes to the painful problem of race, it’s never about one thing…it’s about everything.  By Gary Furr The explosion that has occurred in recent days over the shooting of a Florida  teenager has reignited one of our oldest and most enduring debates.  The case of Trayvon Martin has caused outbursts between journalists, demonstrations and a weary “Will we ever be able to move past this?” cloud to hover again over us.  The gulf between the races is painfully obvious.  It sounds as though we are talking about two different cases.  And we are. In the late 1980s, I … Continue reading The Two Cases of Trayvon Martin

Cancer, Faith, Hope, Love, Music, Uncategorized

Remembering

Gary Furr

This wonderful arrangement was written by our minister of music, Dr. Terre Johnson, after the Enterprise tornado a few years ago that killed several students at the local high school.  It has been performed across the country, including the White House.  I hope it blesses you today.  There is hope. I put it here today as I mourn the third anniversary of the death of my dear friend, Philip Wise, gone far too soon from cancer at age sixty.  God be with us all in our sorrows, that they purify and call us to our better selves and to the … Continue reading Remembering

Christianity, Creativity, Culture, Ethics, Leadership, Love, Politics

The State of the Union–of Love and Truth

Gary Furr
Gary Furr

Love and truth belong together.  So why is it that they are so often found separated?  Moral life arises from the recognition of eternal truth, the acceptance of the reality of others in that same truth, and the sensitivity to feel the connection between them.  Puritan preacher Richard Baxter said love for one’s neighbor is akin to hunger and food connecting.  It makes possible a new and different conversation.

Truth and love cannot live divorced from one another.  Otherwise we are, in the former case, driven to principles rendered only as power, devoid of kindness and the graces and kindnesses of feeling for the other. Continue reading “The State of the Union–of Love and Truth”

Children, Ethics, Hope, Love, Music, Theology and Life3 Comments

Grandparents, Moneyball and the Call to Worry

Gary Furr

Watched “Moneyball” Sunday night.  I liked it.  It surprised me.  I wasn’t sure that it could be faithfully made into a film worth watching, but, as usual, I know little about the art of that.  Brad Pitt is a great actor, all of the fluff of paparrazinsanity aside, and he hit a homer again.  It’s an interesting story about baseball, change, and the resistance to new things that always comes.  It doesn’t end with exploding lights, a la, “The Natural,” but with the gentle irony that success leads Billy Bean to a fateful choice between one vision of “success” and … Continue reading Grandparents, Moneyball and the Call to Worry

Art, Christianity, Competition, Culture, Death, Fame, Hope, Love, Music, Perfectionism, Pop, Suffering2 Comments

Whitney Houston and the Biggest Devil

Gary Furr

Whitney Houston made your heart soar with that magnificent voice.  You kept hoping for her—so lovely, so achingly vulnerable, so fragile.  “Come on back, girl,” you hoped.   In the end, she didn’t.  There will be moralizing—drugs, bad choices, all the rest.  But such times are wrong for moral lessons.  There is a time to criticize, and a time to refrain from criticizing.  A time to learn a lesson, and a time to let the dead alone and mourn. The story of Whitney Houston makes me think how hard it is to care for one’s own soul when there are so … Continue reading Whitney Houston and the Biggest Devil