Bulletin 2.4.24

The sun burned hot, it burned my eyes
Burned so hot I thought I'd died
Thought I'd died and gone to hell
Lookin' for the water from a deeper well
I went to the river but the river was dry
I fell to my knees and I looked to the sky
Looked to the sky and the spring rain fell
I saw the water from a deeper well
Well
Lookin' for the water from a deeper well
Well
Lookin' for the water from a deeper well

— Emmylou Harris, Daniel Lanois, David Olney; “Deeper Well”;
Track 6 from the 1995 Album: Wrecking Ball (TY2AM)

We see them daily in the streets in our living rooms, we pass by them on the streets. They are our colleagues and neighbors, some of them even our spouses. The others are among us; they are part of us. They remain others, often pushed to the margins. How should we relate to them? Should we celebrate their difference, and support it, or should we bemoan and suppress it? The issue is urgent. The ghettos and battlefields throughout the world, testify indisputably to its importance... I suggest that the categories of “exclusion and embrace” as two paradigm responses to otherness can do a better job. They need to be placed at the center of a theological reflection on otherness, an endeavor I would like to term a “theology of embrace.”

— Judith M. Gundry-Volf and Miroslav Volf,
A Spacious Heart: Essays on Identity and Belonging

Matthew 9.11-13

And when the Pharisees saw this, they said to His disciples, "Why is your Teacher
eating with the tax-gatherers and sinners?" But when He heard this, He said, "It is
not those who are healthy who need a physician, but those who are sick. But go and
learn what this means, "I desire compassion, and not sacrifice,  for I did not come to
call the righteous, but sinners."