GRACEMAIL SUBSCRIBERS FIND ‘LITTLE GRAY SQUIRRELS’ TO THEIR LIKING
If essays had emotions, one might suppose that last Sunday’s gracEmail titled “Little Gray Squirrels” is tingling with delight at the warm reception it received from gracEmail subscribers. Following is a representative sampling of feedback from “Little Gray Squirrels.”
Amen! (Jerry Pardue) . . . Excellent response (Craig Churchill) . . . In Missouri, we find little gray squirrels tasty (Greg Carman) . . . I love it! (Sharon Green) . . . Great answer (Gordon Wilson) . . . Awesome! (Don Jankoski) . . . Very well said! (C. Pollner).
There was also this thoughtful musing by retired Texas Court of Appeals Justice Sam Griffith, who jumped on the metaphor and rode it a little farther.
Sam replied: “Joy, grace, Jesus, and little gray squirrels” – yes, often “joy, grace (and) Jesus” do seem as ungraspable as fleeting squirrels scampering in tree tops. Why? My favorite passage is Paul’s description of his life in Philippians 3 — “I want to lay hold of why Jesus laid hold of me.” He was saying he could not fully comprehend Jesus’ grace for forgiving him, but Paul wanted to understand. He could have described that incomprehensible grace simply as “little gray squirrels” (Sam Griffith).
REFUGEE CRISIS
GracEmail subscriber Tihomir Kukolja, director of Renewing Our Minds, and executive director of Forum for Leadership and Reconciliation, invites us to set aside a few minutes and watch the video feature “Refugees are Beautiful People” at: youtu.be/sxuvRcLQ3VE . The ROM Community Refugee Response action in Serbia has provided three days of service to Syrian and other refugees at the Hungarian and Croatian borders in Serbia, and refugee ministry continues. A truck filled with warm clothes and shoes is on its way from Romania to help refugees in Serbia at this moment, and several more actions are planned. Unfortunately, the refugee crisis in Europe is here to stay for a long time. Europe has not witnessed a crisis of this magnitude which since the end of World War II.
The trail of refugees from Syria, Iraq and beyond follows the countries such as Turkey, Greece, Macedonia, Serbia, Croatia, Hungary, Slovenia, Austria, and Germany. The unofficial estimate is that within the last three weeks at least 100,000 refugees entered Croatia, and twice as many are expected to arrive in the weeks to come as winter is quickly approaching. “Sojourners” recently told Tihomir’s story at: sojo.net/articles/meeting-jesus-refugee-trail