Members and Friends of Austin Mennonite Church All of us routinely are caused to reflect on the enduring dilemma which has perplexed human existence from its beginning: how do we manage the distance between things imagined and things experienced? Reinhold Niebuhr suggests that this 'distance' provides us the occasion either to sin against God's design or to be faithful to God's intentions for the creation. Certainly, we easily recognize the urge to move our reality toward what we imagine it can be, and we just as easily can describe in detail how that improvement would appear to us. And hence the dilemma: how do we make it happen, how do we bring about this 'improvement?' Human history is littered with accounts where, for the sake of 'improvement,' persons have quickly and comfortably rejected their professed values, or more accurately perhaps restricted them to a chosen group, in order to make desired changes. Their methods have discriminately assaulted others, jeopardizing, even eliminating the capacity of those assaulted to survive. These vigilantes believe their vision is pure, superior, divine; thus they are obligated to employ any action that might advance their cause. Others in history have managed the 'distance' in different ways even though they may have had the power to force their vision into reality. Who can you think of from your exposure as examples of persons who have embraced the dilemma in less assertive ways? Where can we find guidance in how to manage the 'distance' ourselves? These thoughts will compose the sermon for this next Sunday, "Finding the courage to be humble." May it go well with you. Sincerely, Garland Robertson ...always hold firmly to the thought that each one of us can do something to bring some portion of misery to an end