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Leader's Insight: One-Raspberry Holocaust

New gifts from the death camps, plus a new book on quitting church to follow Jesus.

My youngest grandson (aged 10) and I went to Boston a few days ago and walked a part of the Freedom Trail. Along that path you encounter the New England Holocaust Memorial: six equally-distanced 54-foot glass towers (I'm guessing 15 feet square). Coming closer you realize that the glass is etched (bottom to top, in very orderly fashion) with the numbers (not names) that were tattooed on the arms of the six million Jews (and others) who died in the death camps during World War II. Smoke slowly rising from the base of each tower reminds the visitor of how most of them died.

As the two of us took in this specter, a young couple next to me suddenly dissolved into sobs. Seemingly unaware that anyone was near them (and there were many of us), they embraced and kissed each other so passionately that it seemed as if they desired to become one flesh. Frankly, there was nothing sexual about their frenzy. Rather, it appeared that the towers, the smoke, and the etched numbers had stirred a mutual grief ...

March
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