麻豆约拍

Good morning. On this day in 1974, America was on the cusp of one of its greatest political scandals, with The US Supreme Court about to order that President Nixon surrender tape recordings of White House conversations about the Watergate affair.

When the tapes were finally released, frustratingly vital minutes of the key discussions had been wiped clean. Accidently or deliberately either way Nixon resigned before Impeachment proceedings could begin and Gerald Ford put the whole affair to bed by quickly pardoning his predecessor.
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Watergate may have emboldened journalists to expose the dubious behaviour of those in power, and that must surely be a good thing, but few of us live lives that could bear investigative scrutiny and emerge unindicted. Most of us have done things, accidently or on purpose, that have left people wounded and broken. Even if there were no evidence of a misdemeanour, we need only examine our hearts to know that our intentions are not always pure.
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Sadly God is sometimes portrayed as the worst type of investigator, searching for some evidence of wrongdoing and keen to prosecute us on our faults. But in one of the most enduring stories that Jesus ever told, God is described as a father who loves us even when we've harmed him, the one who is forever ready to run down the road and embrace us and forgive us for the many times we have messed up.
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It's not that God simply disregards whatever we have done, nor is it that we can ignore the need to change our lives or put things right, but if there is some heavenly tape-recording of the secrets that would incriminate us all, I believe that God is all too ready to erase the worst and let us start again.
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Dear God
we've all got figurative recordings
that haunt our imagination and play through the darkest hours.
Embrace and forgive us in this new morning
wipe us clean
that we might begin this day afresh
Amen听