There's a great youTube clip over on Sean Winter's blog (http://seanthebaptist.typepad.com/) featuring Bono's acceptance speech at the NAACP awards ceremony earlier this year.
It's vintage Bono.
'True religion will not let us fall asleep in the comfort of our freedom,' he says. 'Love your neighbour is not a piece of advice, it's a command. That means in the global village we're going to have to love a whole lot more people - that's what that means.'
Earlier, he'd described Martin Luther King as 'a man who refused to hate because he knew love would do a better job.'
Once he hits his stride, he says: 'the poor are where God lives...God is with the poor and he is with us if we are with them. This is not a burden, it's an adventure.' The words have a liturgical as well as rhetorical rhythm. And I love that last sentence. Our lives with God in mission among the poor, in sharing what we have, in pooling resources and energy, insights and hard labour is an adventure not a burden.
Check it out - it's great.
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3 comments:
Hello simon,
andy amoss here, your comment on my blog led me to this space. It's funny, the line you mentioned from the Bono speech has been going round in my head for the past week or so; the one about 'living in a global village just means we have more neighbours to love'. It's quite a body blow when you couple it with the challenge of 'doing for the least of these...'. Our 'love' has to go beyond 'thinking kindly of' and supporting telethons, when it comes to the poor around the world if they are to be as Christ to us.
Also, did you realise your profile has you down as being 251 years old, i feel like i should already've heard of you before you came to my blog. do you get a telegram every year after 100, or is it just one a century?
That explains why I feel so old - and I thought it was coz I'd just mowed the lawn! Profile corrected -thanks for spotting it, Andy.
Loving the poor/developing world - can it be done without imposing western culture?
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