We were meant to be outcasts, not the establishment.

When I hear about prayer in public school, I become automatically sympathetic. However, formal prayer become rote, and perhaps we took it for granted.

Coming back to what we were: outcasts, martyrs, and rebels that transformed the world and establishing a worldwide religion of believers, willing to sacrifice to spread our faith.

But then we became the establishment, and such horrors as the Inquisition and stake burnings occurred we Christians became the mainstream. We became the opposite of what we were commanded to be. The most horrific crimes committed were done by theocratic states.


The Apostle Paul, John the Baptist, Dietrich Bonheoffer, and others like them, were anti Establishment and therefore not corrupted by it. They faced inhumanity and enslavement and fought back and created an example for all of us to follow. When Christianity became the Establishment, it had a new master to follow, and as a result the faith became the state along



Today in a multicultural world, more people are coming to faiths other than Christianity, such as Islam, Witchcraft, and Buddhism.


True, they took formal and prescribed prayer out of public schools, but something great happened to fill the void. Bible study groups and student led prayer have formed all over America. Some time it was against a court's ruling, but did it anyway despite the consequences. Students seen a void in their schools and sought to fill it, not by law or statute by an outpouring of yearning to fill what was missing.



Let's get back to our roots and become hungry again. Being establishment makes us complacent, and that's something the early Disciples were not. Let's become rebels again and regain that lost zeal.

Leaving the Media Bubble

Perhaps the one mistake we have in assuming is that the media mirrors all cultural aspects of our lives. What we see on TV and read on the internet must reflect on all of our attitudes and behavior.
Cable news, social media, and talk radio have created an angry right and left divide. Pundits on all sides yelling and interrupting each other on so called news outlets. From there, people in the streets trying to outdone another by shouting and holding up signs in street theater, vying for attention. If aliens obtained our digital signals, they would never arrive here for fear of landing in a war zone judging by what they seen and heard.


Sometimes, though, you just have to go outside, leave the digital bubble, turn off the TV, and put down you smart phone to see what is really happening out there.


I did that, disheartened after seeing more news about the anger brewing in our country. So I left the house and entered the daylight and went to a café of people of varying views and race. Laughter, debate, discussion, people making friends, but no yelling and casting aspersions. Just everyday people of different backgrounds who came together by happenstance and enjoying a communal environment together. I guess when you meet people face to face, you no longer see an enemy or stereotype created by other people or prejudice, but just another person just like you trying to navigate life's problems.


A good time, new ideas, fresh perspectives, and a reminder there is a life of kindness and tolerance beyond the digital world.