This is what it means to keep your lamps burning: not living in terror of being caught unprepared, but living in love, being present, giving ourselves to one another while we can.
We are God’s blessed and beloved ones before we can do anything at all to earn our status as such.
“No ism, no phobia, no empire, no market, no machinery of contempt gets to define what God has already named beloved.”
So, chatbots or children, desert-wandering tribes or vineyard tenants, what we all want to know is how to be good… What is the cornerstone upon which we can build flourishing, compassionate, just, and merciful lives? I think we need rules and stories, but rules and stories that remind us of the foundational relationships that construct our lives.