The Rev. Dr. Agnes Norfleet is pastor of Shandon Presbyterian Church in Columbia, SC.
The Rev. Dr. Agnes Norfleet is pastor of Shandon Presbyterian Church in Columbia, SC. She was formerly pastor of North Decatur Presbyterian Church, Atlanta, GA.
While these opening verses of Genesis come first in the Bible, they were written much later than many of the biblical narratives which follow. They were written during a terrible season of violence and oppression-the Babylonian exile. Israel was a defeated nation, uprooted from their homeland, refugees shackled together, led across the desert into captivity. They were a people oppressed by political, national and economic systems, and the Babylonian gods seemed to be in control. In Babylon, which means-geographically, of course-just east of the Euphrates River, south of Baghdad, in the very heart of war-torn Iraq-there the people of God asked way back then: "Where on earth is our God?" Into the resounding chaos of their displacement and exile-the proclamation of Genesis One was sung.
Read full transcript...The early Celtic people who lived in the British Isles believed that you could go to certain places to be closer to God. These places have long been called "thin places." Thin places are geographical locations scattered throughout Ireland and Scotland where a person experiences only a very thin divide between the past, present, and future.
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