{"id":81,"date":"2010-03-15T10:12:00","date_gmt":"2010-03-15T10:12:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/thinplaces\/2010\/03\/cities-of-refuge.html"},"modified":"2010-03-15T10:12:00","modified_gmt":"2010-03-15T10:12:00","slug":"cities-of-refuge","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/2010\/03\/cities-of-refuge.html","title":{"rendered":"Cities of Refuge"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>A few years back, I came across a passage  in which God instructs the Israelites to set apart six cities as &#8220;cities of refuge,&#8221; places where people may flee if they unintentionally kill another person. (See <a href=\"http:\/\/www.biblegateway.com\/passage\/?search=Deuteronomy+19&amp;version=NIV\">Deuteronomy 19<\/a> for a fuller explanation.) And it struck me then that I also need cities of refuge, places where I can flee when I have unintentionally gotten off track, made mistakes, hurt others. I also need to flee towards God&#8217;s mercy and grace. <\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>This concept of &#8220;cities of refuge&#8221; comes up again and again in the Old Testament. God wanted to make sure that people who had made a mistake, even the grievous mistake of killing another person, would know protection and grace. God also wanted to make sure that one unintentional death would not lead to a string of vengeance killings. The cities of refuge protected the individual, but they also protected the community.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>Our family just got back from vacation with friends, and as I look back on the week I realize that our time together was more than a vacation. It was more like entering a city of refuge, a protected space. Protection and grace came to us in the form of trips to the beach, the aquarium, the playground, Chick Fil A&#8230; It came in the form of singing songs and blowing bubbles and reading stories. Of running down a shaded trail. Of eating brownies. Somehow, sidewalk chalk and sandy faces and thunderstorms and conversations late into the evening challenged me to look back on the past year and recognize the ways I have failed myself, my family, my God. And challenged me to receive God&#8217;s grace and friendship all over again. <\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A few years back, I came across a passage in which God instructs the Israelites to set apart six cities as &#8220;cities of refuge,&#8221; places where people may flee if they unintentionally kill another person. (See Deuteronomy 19 for a fuller explanation.) And it struck me then that I also need cities of refuge, places&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":88,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-81","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-down-syndrome"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Cities of Refuge - Thin Places<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/2010\/03\/cities-of-refuge.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Cities of Refuge - Thin Places\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"A few years back, I came across a passage in which God instructs the Israelites to set apart six cities as &#8220;cities of refuge,&#8221; places where people may flee if they unintentionally kill another person. (See Deuteronomy 19 for a fuller explanation.) And it struck me then that I also need cities of refuge, places&hellip;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/2010\/03\/cities-of-refuge.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Thin Places\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2010-03-15T10:12:00+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"amyjuliabecker\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Cities of Refuge - Thin Places","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/2010\/03\/cities-of-refuge.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Cities of Refuge - Thin Places","og_description":"A few years back, I came across a passage in which God instructs the Israelites to set apart six cities as &#8220;cities of refuge,&#8221; places where people may flee if they unintentionally kill another person. (See Deuteronomy 19 for a fuller explanation.) 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Two major life experiences have shaped her writing and her faith\u00e2\u20ac\u201dcaring for her mother-in-law as she battled cancer and welcoming her daughter Penny into the world after she was diagnosed at birth with Down syndrome. Both experiences expanded and enriched her understanding of what it means to be human and to receive each and every person as a gift.\u00c2\u00a0 A graduate of Princeton University and Princeton Theological Seminary, she is the author of Penelope Ayers: A Memoir, and the forthcoming A Good and Perfect Gift (Bethany House). Her essays have appeared in First Things, The Philadelphia Inquirer, The Christian Century, ChristianityToday.com, and Bloom, among other online venues.","sameAs":["http:\/\/amyjuliabecker.com"],"url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/author\/amyjuliabecker"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/81","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/88"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=81"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/81\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=81"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=81"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=81"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}