November 2013 – Red Pill Brethren

Loving the Hell out of the Suburbs

from Rev. Robin Bartlett:

We know its our job to destroy hells so that we can help make a world worthy of our kids’ promise. But that job is hard, friends. It’s hard…

…Hell is all around us; even, I suspect, in the Metrowest suburbs of Massachusetts. Hell is in our separation from one another, our loneliness and isolation, our fear of losing our houses and jobs in the economic downturn, our credit card debt, our panic, our drug addictions, our shame, our secret alcoholism, our secret domestic violence, our SECRETS IN GENERAL, our cancer diagnoses, our mental illnesses, our need to consume, to buy more, to one-up and keep up with the Joneses. Hell is in our depression and our inauthentic relationships with the people we are trying so hard to impress. Hell is in our lack of trust of our neighbors; the way we cover up the bad things. Hell is here, and we live in it.

Welcoming the Stranger

From Friend X:

I was asked to sit at a table and “be the church” in the neighborhood. I was given some money and food/clothing vouchers and a page full of guidelines and rules. The church ran a homeless shelter, but the shelter also had many rules and guidelines I was supposed to follow. My guidelines instructed that no family could stay in the shelter for more than 2 weeks. There were limitations on the amount of money I was supposed to give to any individual, and I was supposed to document in a ledger all the referrals to other agencies I made. …