Deus Misereatur

  On the holy mount stands the city he founded; the LORD loves the gates of Zion more than all the dwelling places of Jacob. Glorious things of you are spoken, O city of God. Selah. Sometimes, Lord, we forget that you love the gates of Zion more than all the dwelling places of Jacob. Sometimes we think you should cherish our country more than you do your Church. Sometimes our constitutional concerns become more important to us than the cares of your kingdom. So, remembering that you love the gates of Zion more than all the dwelling places of Jacob, we still pray for our country as you have bidden us to do. Tensions abound on the right hand and on the left. There are places and spaces of injustice in our courts, on our streets, on top of buildings, behind closed doors, and out in the open. Therefore, we implore your kindness and goodness to come and smother the seething cinders and to promote civil righteousness, fairmindedness, helpfulness and benevolence. Thank you for the many who ar

  Instead of allowing clinic diagnoses to dictate the direction of life and become one's destiny, John Swinton, a one-time mental health nurse and now Chair in Religious Studies and Divinity at the University of Aberdeen, encourages a different approach. Swinton's 2020 book, "Finding Jesus in the Storm: The Spiritual Lives of Christians with Mental Health Challenges" is geared toward giving people with serious mental health challenges (notice, not mental illness), and those who care for them, a more respectful and wholesome way of perceiving their situation. It's not an anti-psychiatry diatribe, though he does challenge assumptions. Rather, for example, he shows the pros and cons of allowing DSM V to narrow what we see and how we engage those living with these mental health challenges. Since there are plenty of other reviews, I'll make this simple. Swinton's stated goals for the book are very clear, and run the entire volume. First, "to provide reader

  Transgression speaks to the wicked deep in his heart; there is no fear of God before his eyes. For he flatters himself in his own eyes that his iniquity cannot be found out and hated. The words of his mouth are trouble and deceit; he has ceased to act wisely and do good. He plots trouble while on his bed; he sets himself in a way that is not good; he does not reject evil. Our hearts, O God, grieve for those who have never repented of their sins, believed in Christ and avowed him as Lord (…). Save them, work mightily penetrating their resistance and draw them into your family.   But we also pray for those in our world whose words are trouble and deceit, who plot trouble on their beds, who set themselves in a way that is not good and don’t reject evil. Restrain, O God, and vanquish their bloodlust and bring order and honor to fill the void. Your steadfast love, O LORD, extends to the heavens, your faithfulness to the clouds. Your righteousness is like the mountains of God; your judgm