Peter has always been one of my favorite Biblical characters. I think it's because he reminds me of a hot-headed mill worker who throws down a few in a bar and hits the first guy who looks at him cross-eyed. The type of guy who will give you the shirt off his back and who you know you can call at any time and he'll be there.
Tonight I saw some pictures of the town in which Peter once lived. During it's hay day, the city held approximately 1,000 citizens. Now, it's just a bunch of crumbling buildings overlooking the Sea of Galilee. Yet, the impact of a man who lived there continues to be felt all these thousands of years later.
I guess that's my hope--that, even after the material things of my life crumple and decay, I will have lived in such a way that I positively affect others years after I'm gone. I want to live in the ruins.
“This is a call to the living,
To those who refuse to make peace with evil,
With the suffering and the waste of the world.
This is a call to the human, not the perfect,
To those who know their own prejudices,
Who have no intention of becoming prisoners of their own limitations.
This is a call to those who remember the dreams of their youth,
Who know what it means to share food and shelter,
The care of children and those who are troubled,
To reach beyond barriers of the past
Bringing people to communion.
This is a call to the never ending spirit
Of the common man, his essential decency and integrity,
His unending capacity to suffer and endure,
To face death and destruction and to rise again
And build from the ruins of life.
This is the greatest call of all
The call to a faith in people.”
~Algernon D. Black
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