It is the church's responsibility, the government's responsibility, and the personal responsibility of every one of us to love.

Philadelphia caught my attention in 1995 when a group of homeless families were living in an abandoned cathedral. Even from the beginning they connected theology with what they were doing. They put a banner on the front of the cathedral that said, "How can we worship a homeless man on Sunday and ignore one on Monday."

God can use anything, and anyone - even a king or a president, even a tax collector or a businessman, a priest or a prostitute, a Republican or a Democrat.

There are folks who burn the Koran and hold signs saying, "God hates fags" and all sorts of sick things - and they often hijack the headlines with hatred. We know that is not what Christ was like.

We can also cling to the treasures of our faith and get rid of the things that are cluttering that. It is a time we are seeing some trending away from the things that were cluttering our faith.

MOST of the ugliness in the human narrative comes from a distorted quest to possess beauty. COVETING begins with appreciating blessings: MURDER begins with a hunger for justice. LUST begins with a recognition of beauty. GLUTTONY begins when our enjoyment of the delectable gifts of GOD starts to consume us. IDOLATRY begins when our seeing a reflection of God in something beautiful leads to our thinking that the beautiful image bearer is worthy of WORSHIP.

This common prayer project has taken years of energy, but we see it not as a way to leave our individual churches, but as a movement we hope to see permeate the larger Church.