When someone has nothing to prove to us and doesn’t need our approval to validate them, our souls rest a little easier, and we really can see the world a little more clearly for what it is.
Repentance is what happens when we dare to ask, what if the world is more generous than I thought. What if power works differently than I assumed? What if love is not scarce? Repentance is a reorientation towards capital T Truth, and this is why repentance changes everything once you know how to see it.
“At least I’m not like that sinner,” was the prayer Jesus put on the lips of a self-righteous character in a parable, whom I wish I did not resemble. But I do. Every single day I do. The good news is that there really is abundant life and liberation in the way of Jesus.
It turns out that God believes a gentle, soft body is a perfect and sufficient way to be in the world, even in a world more accustomed to the bravado and brittle show of force. And for all that a body may endure, our bodies are also the places where we feel the warmth of a hand reaching over
As I get older, and lose more of the people I love, I hang much less hope on my rational comprehension of whatever awaits us on the far side of death. Scripture itself isn’t very clear about the details and I haven’t yet been visited by an angel with inside information. But my trust in the truth and the
“Let it be unto me according to your will,” was not an act of blind obedience or resignation to a fate. It was an opening of a space in Mary to receive the gift of God. And in doing so, Mary wasn’t setting herself apart from us. She was showing us the way.
But if we wake up resolved to choose a relationship with God, we can be fairly certain that we’ll be asked to do things that might make the neighbors talk, that might push us toward people we’d otherwise avoid, that we’ll be asked to stand up for truths that aren’t popular or even sensible.
Jesus’s healings weren’t part of a public health initiative. They were signs. Signs that God was present in the last place anyone would ever think to look—among sad, sick, messed-up lives like ours are at their worst, not their best.
And here’s a link to Down There By The Train by Tom Waits
“ Mutual grace seems to be part of Paul’s plan to unite the early Christian Church, and every generation of believers has had to grapple with this question of what is foundational to our faith. This ongoing work requires both the intervention of the Holy Spirit and I think a measure of sacred imagination to envision what has not yet
The only moment we really ever have to become the self that Jesus is calling and loving and inviting us to be is the moment we’re in right now.