Best of the Web - Videos For Your Soul

Videos For Your Soul.com - This is actually a project by a friend of mine (Randall Curtis - The Holy Geek.  I'm pretty sure you're going to run into him again later in this series).  It began as a spiritual practice during Lent.  He gathered together some of the best and most inspiring videos on YouTube.  Then he offered up a comment or a question with each one and opened it up to discussion.  The framework for the progression is the Christian practice of Lent but the videos are not especially Christian or even religious in nature.  He uses them to open a wider discussion of who we are and what we are doing in our lives.  Randall even notes in his description of the site that his goal is beyond the walls of the church:

 I hope that some of these videos and reflections might even turn in discussions at Sunday school classes, at coffee shops and at bars.

 You can come at this website from a variety of angles.  Certainly you can approach it from a faith based direction.  Or you can simply appreciate the effort to sift through the enormous number of videos out there (48 HOURS of new video is loaded per minute on YouTube) to find ones that will make you laugh, make you think, make you cry or make you want to change the world.  Or maybe a little of both.

It's a faith based site that isn't preachy or condemnatory or designed to make you feel bad.  It's intent is to lift you up.  Nice to find out here on the Wild Wild Web.

I know there's a whole new series coming for Lent 2014 (Lent begins this year on March 5.  I wanted to give you time to enjoy what's already there before the new ones start flowing)

A comment on faith and health care

I will admit to being somewhat surprised and appalled at the furor of some of my Christian brothers and sisters over health care reform.  I'm astounded when I hear people of faith arguing against universal health care.

Because it seems to me that scripture speaks directly to this point.  And not in the all too common manner of "needing a bit of interpretation".  I'm talking about a story that addresses the issue virtually point by point.  It's the story of the Good Samaritan.

This is a story about health care.  It's a story about caring for those who are incapable of caring for themselves.  It is a story about caring for the stranger, the unknown, the member of another "tribe".  It is a story about paying for that care and committing ourselves to the cost of that care, now and in the future.

Pious, religious people, members of the same tribe, found reasons why they couldn't stop and help.  In the context of their time and place their arguments were perfectly socially acceptable.  The cost for them was too high.

And Jesus rejects them and their logic out of hand.

Health care for everyone is part of our calling to care for one another.  We ARE responsible for the stranger.  That it will cost us is not an acceptable excuse to avoid the requirements placed upon us by our faith.  Are we truly willing to place our devotion to some idealized vision of a governmental form ahead of our God's expectations?  Our nation has been in a constant state of governmental evolution that began within decades of our founding.  Jefferson changed the form of our government, Jackson changed the form of our government, the Civil War changed the form of our government.  The process has continued since.

If you insist on stating this is "A Christian Nation" (a statement with which I disagree and for which there is no particular historical basis) then you have NO CHOICE WHAT SO EVER but to support universal health care.  To refuse to fulfill this mandate is to affirm that in fact this is NOT a Christian nation.  I would argue that as Christians it doesn't matter whether or not the nation itself is Christian.  What matters is how we work in this world to fulfill the calling of God.

So who is your neighbor?  And what kind of neighbor do you choose to be?

Peace
JP