The Urban Resident

Tag: forgiveness

  • Which Is Easier?

    Which Is Easier?

    [Guest reflection on health and illness from Scott M., aspiring healthcare professional.] Which is easier, to say to the paralytic, ‘Your sins are forgiven,’ or to say, ‘Rise, take up your bed and walk’? But that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins”—he said to the paralytic— “I say to…

  • Cheap Justice, Cheap Grace

    Cheap Justice, Cheap Grace

    [Originally written for the ESN blog.] In watching people die, I have come to better appreciate how much meaning people attach to a body and how death has a way of revealing our most elemental beliefs about what remains. I have talked to patients in their final moments, have shoved long needles into pulseless vessels,…

  • To Save Much People Alive

    “Who are you going to jump?” I asked sharply.  “Look me in the eye and tell me.” He couldn’t do it.  We kept talking in circles, getting more and more frustrated.  There was big talk earlier about it, about banding together with friends to beat up some kid.  I had confiscated a stick that he…