Karl Barth said it well: "We have to read the Bible in one hand... and the newspaper in the other." Our faith should not cause us to escape this world but to engage it.

And since we are people of expectation, we are so convinced that another world is coming that we start living as if it were already here.

So even as we see the horror of death, may we be reminded that in the end, love wins. Mercy triumphs. Life is more powerful than death. And even those who have committed great violence can have the image of God come to life again within them as they hear the whisper of love. May the whisper of love grow louder than the thunder of violence. May we love loudly.

I would love to see the Church on the right side of history.

We say it is idealistic to think we can continue to live the way we live - with 5% of the world using half the world's resources, with $20,000 a second being spent on war.

Jesus did not send us into the world to make believers but to make disciples.

We are setting ourselves up for disappointment if our hope is built on anything less than Jesus.