"For Yours is the ______, the power, and the glory...forever.  Amen."

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From the site...

"When we think of a king or a kingdom, we imagine a dictator imposing his will on a helpless populace, draining them of their resources to be used for his own personal aggrandizement. Even if we picture him as a benevolent despot, he is at best an efficient bureaucrat.

But when we speak of God and the concept of kingdom, we refer to a completely different model.

The model we have in mind is of a king who has a picture of good and bad, an ideology of right and wrong, and teaches the society around him those ideas and values. That society is then awakened to what is really right and structures itself and its institutions accordingly. When society has finished this process, it thereby amplifies and proclaims those values that the king had in his heart and mind.

That society is thereby not only expressing the king's norms and values, but showing that these norms and values are really the inner norms and values of the people in the country.

While we do not live with kings and it might be difficult for us to picture this, we can definitely use the illustration of a good teacher. A teacher who allows the students to "do as they wish" is not a teacher at all. The students have not received anything from him.

On the other hand, a teacher who forces his students to do as he says has merely imposed external shackles on them. He has not really affected them in any way, and he is not a teacher. The real teacher is the one who inspires his students, so that they realize that their own real feelings and values are those espoused by their teacher.

This is malchut in the true sense. It is God's actions and attributes – not as expressed by God, but rather as human beings express them. It is as if God's actions have struck a resonant chord in us, and we thereby act in a similar manner.

This requires that we do God's will, and not sin, and that we do so with free will. For if we do not do God's will, then we are not a reflection of the Divine process in the world. But if we do God's will out of fear then we are responding like the students who are forced by their teacher to do the teacher's bidding, and not from an inner sense of connection with God.

(More at the link)

I KNOW you like this, Tom... 

Post Edited (One Love) : 12/10/2009 11:57:16 AM (GMT-6)

Love this. 

Wyclef Jean
"Gunpowder"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qvqtTDKUvVU

I asked my mother why do you cry
She said your brother here... he just died
Well I told him not to go outside
He said he had to fight for his country's right
But don't you know that mo-mother
Don't you know that we can't stop the violence, no
Because the war is not over
Until you can feel love, peace, and hear silence
But I smell gunpowder (pow)
My brother's been dead ever since
I didn't beleive it, but when I saw him I was convinced
Two shots to the head he was already dead Lord,
I headed for revenge in the city of Port Au Prince
Screaming bro-brother
Don't you know that we can't stop the violence, no
Because the war is not over
Until you can feel love, peace, and hear silence
But I smell gunpowder (Pow)
Zion's gunpowder (pow)
L.A.'s gunpowder (pow)
I wanna know why
Christians pray for a new day
We don't need no, we don't need no, we don't need no
But it's still the same way
I wanna know why
Ghetto people pray for a new day
Hey, hey, heeey
And it's still the same way
But the preacher man told me
Good things come to those who wait
Do good things come to those who wait?
I wanna know tell me
Good things come to those who wait
Do good things come to those who wait?
We wanna know, we wanna know, we wanna know [pause]
Pe-people
Don't you know that we can't stop the violence, no
Because the war is not over
Until you can feel love, peace, and hear the silence
But I smell gunpowder (gunpowder)
Brooklyn's gunpowder (gunpowder)
Shaolin's gunpowder (gunpowder)
Uptown's gunpowder (gunpowder)
Jersey's gunpowder (gunpowder)
Even New Zealand's gunpowder (gunpowder)
Australia's gunpowder (gunpowder)
Brixton's gunpowder (gunpowder)
Even New Haven's gunpowder

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I love the lyrics, especially...

But don't you know that mo-mother
Don't you know that we can't stop the violence, no
Because the war is not over
Until you can feel love, peace, and hear silence

I think about the state of the human heart...and the simple fact is that it is TRUE: the war is not over, until the heart experiences love, peace, and silence in God.

But I live in the hood...

and I smell gunpowder...

Lord, help.