Prayer of Confession

Gracious God, we bring into your tender presence, what seems always to be with us: broken things within us that never seem to mend; empty places within us that always seem to ache; buds within us that never seem to flower. O God of love and grace, help us to accept ourselves.  Lead us to do those good and true things that are not compromised by anything within us. In your strength and in your mercy, mend us, fill us, make us bloom, so that our lives may show forth your glory. Amen.

--from Federated Church, Orleans MA, June 5 2011 Sunday service led by Pastor Sally Norris, photo by David Green, Orleans MA, spring 2010

Martin Luther King Jr. predicts tech malaise of 2010

I just ran across this post by Casey Chan at Gizmodo where he highlights a section of the Nobel lecture given by Martin Luther King Jr on December 11, 1964.

From Chan's post :

"In his 1964 Nobel Lecture at Oslo, Norway, Martin Luther King Jr reminded us to not let our "moral progress" fall behind our progress in science and technology. He said:

Yet, in spite of these spectacular strides in science and technology, and still unlimited ones to come, something basic is missing. There is a sort of poverty of the spirit which stands in glaring contrast to our scientific and technological abundance. The richer we have become materially, the poorer we have become morally and spiritually. We have learned to fly the air like birds and swim the sea like fish, but we have not learned the simple art of living together as brothers.
...
This is the serious predicament, the deep and haunting problem confronting modern man. If we are to survive today, our moral and spiritual "lag" must be eliminated. Enlarged material powers spell enlarged peril if there is not proportionate growth of the soul. When the "without" of man's nature subjugates the "within", dark storm clouds begin to form in the world."

 You can read the full text of the speech here at Nobelprize.org .