Over and over, when I ask God why all of these injustices are allowed to exist in the world, I can feel the Spirit whisper to me, You tell me why we allow this to happen. You are my body, my hands, my feet.

Jesus taught us a prayer of community and reconciliation, belonging to a new people who have left the land of 'me'.

There's an understanding of common prayer that I think we're seeing grow, more and more. When I travel, I hear from people who are deeply touched that our common prayer takes time to remember some of the terrible tragedies that have happened around the world.

One thing that's clear in the Scriptures is that the nations do not lead people to peace; rather, people lead the nations to peace.

Someday war and poverty will be crazy and we will wonder how the world allowed such things to exist.

When we put too much hope in a candidate or a party we set ourselves up for disappointment. When I see a poster with [Barak] Obama's image with the word "hope" under it, something in me cringes - our hope is built on nothing less than Jesus' blood and righteousness, the old hymn goes, all other ground is sinking sand.

There is a certain power when old and young come together - we can do more together than we can on our own.