http://www.madetomatter.org/apps/articles/default.asp?blogid=4631&view=post&articleid=74783&link=1&fldKeywords=&fldAuthor=&fldTopic=0
Tuesday, May 24, 2011 • Randy Kilgore • Hope
Shortly before 10 a.m. on Saturday, May 21, the sun burst out of the clouds, blessing the courage of a risky decision by Gordon College's leadership to host their graduation ceremonies outdoors. Given the nearly unbelievable stretch of sunless, rain-swept days of the prior month, it seemed incredibly brave. But indoor graduations severely restrict who may attend, and this was to be a celebration unfettered by those restraints.
http://www.madetomatter.org/apps/articles/default.asp?blogid=4631&view=post&articleid=72860&link=1&fldKeywords=&fldAuthor=&fldTopic=0
Monday, February 21, 2011 • Randy Kilgore • Forgiveness
"They're never going to be able to forgive me, are they?"
--The man who years earlier murdered a neighbor in a drunken stupor;
--a recovering alcoholic whose family refuses to believe "this is the time I really mean to change";
--a daughter whose last words to her father were venomous and hateful, spoken only hours before a hemorrhage claimed his life.
What do we do when we realize someone we've wronged will not forgive us? How do we cope with mistakes we've made that destroy relationships, and even lives? How do we keep them from disabling us spiritually; how do we keep others (including Satan) from using them to disable or discourage us?
http://www.madetomatter.org/apps/articles/default.asp?blogid=4631&view=post&articleid=66265&link=1&fldKeywords=&fldAuthor=&fldTopic=0
Wednesday, April 28, 2010 • Randy Kilgore • Active faith
The whole world stopped, or so it seemed in that instant, to watch this woman throwing things at me in the grocery store. She screamed and cursed and cried as she vented in rage, and nothing I said sank in or slowed down the torrent. Eventually she did stop throwing things, but the yelling continued. She was telling everyone-at the top of her lungs-how I'd just fired her husband at Christmas and now she couldn't even buy groceries for her children.
http://www.madetomatter.org/apps/articles/default.asp?blogid=4631&view=post&articleid=54307&link=1&fldKeywords=&fldAuthor=&fldTopic=0
Wednesday, February 18, 2009 • • Active faith
We're an all-or-nothing culture at the worst possible moment in human history. Except for the psychopaths incapable of clear thought, even the hardest hearts among us hide this secret: We want heroes.
But every man has another level to this secret: Not only do we want heroes, we once wanted to be those heroes. It's why we cry at courage but not at loss; why we'll march to war but not in protests; why we hate war but love warriors.
http://www.madetomatter.org/apps/articles/default.asp?blogid=4631&view=post&articleid=53907&link=1&fldKeywords=&fldAuthor=&fldTopic=0
Friday, February 6, 2009 • • Active faith
Over the past thirty days, American culture has turned a corner, shifting what was once an inexorable, uncomfortably rapid slide away from the God into a stampede. While it isn't fair to lay this shift on President Obama's shoulders, it is his election which has emboldened those who are responsible for the stampede.
America was clearly tired of how the country was being managed, and the shift from Republican to Democratic leadership was their way of telling their leaders they wanted change. But the change the American people demanded with their vote was not a repudiation of Christianity and it was not an invitation to throw out the principles which were used to build this country. In fact, it was a call to return to those principles.
Unfortunately, nobody is listening. (Click through on the title to read more.)
http://www.madetomatter.org/apps/articles/default.asp?blogid=4631&view=post&articleid=50671&link=1&fldKeywords=&fldAuthor=&fldTopic=0
Tuesday, October 21, 2008 • • General
Nothing stirs the soul of a human more than courage; nothing haunts that soul like cowardice. Shakespeare knew this, and tapped into it when he penned the famous St. Crispin's Day speech in Henry V. "And gentlemen in England now a-bed shall think themselves accursed they were not here---". Samuel Johnson knew it, too, when he suggested every man "thinks meanly of himself for not having been a soldier, or not having been at sea," the two places an ancient could count on measuring their courage.
