"DEAR LORD, THIS YEAR YOU TOOK MY FAVORITE ACTOR, PATRICK SWAYZIE. YOU TOOK MY FAVORITE ACTRESS, FARAH FAWCETT. YOU TOOK MY FAVORITE SINGER, MICHAEL JACKSON. I JUST WANTED TO LET YOU KNOW, MY FAVORITE PRESIDENT IS BARACK OBAMA. AMEN" from facebook.

I started seeing this copied post a couple of weeks ago. It troubles me for several reasons. The first is obvious. Praying for the death of our President is mean, cruel and anti-American. If one believes that God created every human being, that Jesus' commanded us to love our neighbors and that hate is the same in Heaven's eyes as murder, then how can supposed Christ followers embrace such a prayer? It begs the question, can the people who post this, bow their heads and bend their knees before God and utter these words? We have elected Presidents that I approved of and supported and we've elected a few I really wondered about and disagreed with much of what they did in office. But my allegiance to the country and support of the USA does not come and go with an election. My father served in the Navy for 20 years, I grew up on naval bases across the country, and in that life I learned to respect the Commander In Chief, to speak of that person with due respect and support that person with my prayers and respectful voicing of my opinions. In church, in the Bible, at the foot of the cross I learned that when I speak in hate and anger I'm hurting the God that formed the other person. God doesn't see color or position, right or left, rich or poor, God looks to the heart of his beloved children.

The second serious problem with this prayer is the "You took..." This little piece of incomplete theology brings about more non-believers, marginalized church members than almost anything else. Patrick Swayze, Farah Fawcett and Michael Jackson all died this year. They died at different ages and from different causes. God's original design didn't include death. Humanity sees to it that sin continues and through that sin death continues to be part of life on this earth. All things that live will die. Some deaths seem wrong and tragic and some don't. Sometimes continued life seems wrong and tragic. Either way, death is our greatest fear, deep inside and wrongful, tragic deaths grieve our God more than they grieve us. God never promised that bad things wouldn't happen but rather that he would make good come from everything in the lives of those who love him. I can't explain why or when people die. Times and dates and expectations of life or death are on God's list of things to take care of, not mine. I don't believe God created cancer or addictions, those things are the result of our fallen world. God redeems. God loves. God redeems.

The third problem is this presentation of Christian love in such a hateful way. Those who pray, with open hearts before God, know better than to spew such ugliness in the name of prayer. President Obama is the father of two small children, regardless of politics how could anyone genuinely pray for the death of this young father? He is a human being that God loves. We can't, in Christ's name, pray for anyone's death or harm. The Lord's Prayer teaches to pray, "Thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven." I need look no further than that. Now, in times of extreme grief and mourning people utter awful prayers and the Holy Spirit is gracious and intercedes, transforming those prayers to bring healing to our broken hearts.

Last but certainly not least, we need to think about what we say, write, like, join and post - we are a witness to the world. Facebook and other social networking sites begin to feel like a small group gathered in your home. It's NOT! It's a large, wide-reaching, impossible to delete monster. The things you write and post on Facebook can be copied, pasted and distributed to the whole wide world. The people who are friends of friends and members of groups all read what you write. As Christians we are called to love! We are called to turn the other cheek! We are called to carry the burden an extra mile. That's what it is to follow Jesus the Christ. If you disagree and feel passionately about something, say that. But don't call names, threaten, or make disrespectful comments. It's really simple, disagree as you want to be disagreed with. Go to the groups you've joined and read the posted comments. Take a look at what you are part of and consider how your membership and comments impact the lives and thinking of others. Is that who you desire to be? Maybe so. Maybe not. There are many people watching our lives and reading our thoughts. Some of those people are looking for a reason to judge and some are seeking a role model for life.

Who are you and what do they see?

This morning CNN published an article and picture of a volcano erupting beneath a glacier in Iceland. Check out the photo in my gallery. It is a spectacular pic of a paradigm shifting occurrence. Think about it. The massive mega-heat of lava flowing beneath, through and over a glacier. The greatest danger at this point is flooding! The comments have fallen into the ditch of global warming like that's a relevant topic. The plates shift, the inner earth is hot and molten like all baby planets, our poles are ice covered...nothing to do with global warming but lots to do with the earth's inner nature.

So leave that mess behind and take a look at the picture. A massive fire show atop a glacier. Creation is astounding and breathtaking when it is ordinary, this is certainly beyond ordinary. Creation is always up to something new and different, making scenes we never imagined. So though we have said "Fire & Ice" we didn't really mean it.

What is the iciest place in your life or in mine? You know, those frozen over wounds and hurts, the things that we've hidden away. I lived much of my childhood in a trailer in Connecticut. No matter what we did to insulate or care for our water pipes they would inevitably freeze at some point. The structure of a trailer wasn't enough to prevent extended, cold, windy days and nights from taking their toll. So we'd get up to find no water. My parents would light the blowtorch and go outside to melt the pipes. They'd run the torch for what seemed like and eternity and return inside to running water.

This volcanic eruption is the biggest blowtorch ever! Can you imagine it melting the cold, hardness from within your life? It's something to think about.

Along the front of my house some azaleas grow. I didn't plant them, they were just there. I planted a few hydrangeas in the blank spots but until last summer I never did much with them. Last summer, we improved the walk and put a bunch of mulch along the front of the house. I started fertilizing, watering and tending the other things around the azaleas. I guess they got plenty of run-off attention and they are spectacular this spring.

This has me thinking about "run-off grace". Lots of people believe in a kind of isolated Christianity, a solitary faith that is based on one's own perceptions and maintained entirely in silence and isolation. You know the person who never attends church or a study group of any kind saying that he or she can worship "at the river" or "on the porch" or "with the television preacher" just as well as in person and as a group.

For me, I think that's kind of like my azaleas. If it's just me, all by myself, then I can't pick up on the ideas, the prayers, the energy of worship that others give off. Alone, the things that God is doing in the lives of others, never impact or reach my roots. I just live on the rain that falls directly on me, no run-off, no crumbs under the table.

My azaleas are brilliant and pink, covered in thick blossoms, visible for a whole block and it's all because they got in the group, accepted some hydrangea run-off and went to blooming.

On the Friday evening after planes flew into the sides of the World Trade Towers, on that clear Friday evening a few years ago, I listened to a high school chorus sing, "The Star Spangled Banner" and I wept. I cried for all the horror their eyes had seen. I cried, for the dream I thought they would inherit seemed to have fallen into huge piles of smoking ash and destruction. I cried because we, as adults, had failed them so. It looked on that clear night like the dream was over. These children could never carry a banner of hope, a banner of freedom. If the racial divide of the 60s and the cynicism of the 70s had so deeply affected my own generation, how could these young people believe in anything? So I wept. Week after week and even year after year, I have listened as they sing and I have wept.

But on this day, cold and clear, I see hope and passion reborn. I sense the hearts of the next generation rising to answer the call of freedom and possibility for those in this land and for the children of all lands. Once again there is a vision to be seen, to be known, to be felt, to be chased with passion. Once again the dream is out front rather than down under our feet being trampled by cynicism, greed, and fear.

I remember the day Martin Luther King, Jr. died. I remember 1968 and its hatred and division. I remember the ugly, hate-filled shouts and gestures at my father, the sailor in his "Crackerjacks". I remember the removal of our Alabama license plates out of fear in an unstable country. I remember the signs that read, "Colored" and "White". These things I remember.

On this day, those are memories that shape and form our country's past, but they are no longer chains of bondage and prisons of hate. On this day, the dream lives on, guiding us, empowering us, filling us with hope and promise. On this day I shed tears of joy as the children sing, for the promises of the next generation. "From every mountain, let freedom ring."

When I was a teen-age girl we spent our weekends at "the river", Weiss Lake with my favorite people: Aunt Jayne, Uncle Bobby and their son, Richey. From before the sun came up until the law-required-hour-past-sundown, we swam and water skiied as long as anyone would drive the boat. Then at mandatory quit boating time, we would all pile into the shelter and eat our fill of hamburgers, hotdogs and boxed macaroni and cheese. Sometimes we'd play cards, or "kick the can", or just sit around and talk.

As the night surrounded us we would go for a walk. My cousin Richey and I walked and talked as we made our way to a neighboring fish camp with a store that was still open. We went time after time for the delicious treats only found there, in mid-summer, on starry weekend nights. There they would be, banana flips and to my delight, chocolate flips as well. Richey ate banana and I ate chocolate, along with a Mountain Dew or RC Cola, and as we ate we walked back to the shelter on the other side of the cove.

Time moves on like it always does, we grew and married and raised families. Now, though we live hundreds of miles apart and much more than just a snack cake has faded from our lives, the love and laughter, the joy of being with family and the closeness of a favorite cousin still live sweetly in my heart.