Laugh till you weep. Weep till there’s nothing left but to laugh at your weeping. In the end it’s all one.
00492 – In the End It’s All One
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00478 – Happiness vs. Joy
Happiness turns up more or less where you expect it to—a good marriage, a rewarding job, a pleasant vacation. Joy, on the other hand, is as notoriously unpredictable as the one who bequeaths it.
00468 – The Gift of Grace
The grace of God means something like: Here is your life. You might never have been, but you are because the party wouldn’t have been complete without you. Here is the world. Beautiful and terrible things will happen. Don’t be afraid. I am with you. Nothing can ever...
00458 – Forgiveness: Freedom to be at Peace
When somebody you’ve wronged forgives you, you’re spared the dull and self-diminishing throb of a guilty conscience. When you forgive somebody who has wronged you, you’re spared the dismal erosion of bitterness and wounded pride. For both parties, forgiveness means...
00436 – Faith: A Journey without Maps
Faith is better understood as a verb than as a noun, as a process than as a possession. It is on-again-off-again rather than once-and-for-all. Faith is not being sure where you’re going but going anyway. A journey without maps.
00384 – Church: Invisible, Visible, or Both?
The visible church is all the people who get together from time to time in God’s name. Anybody can find out who they are by going to look. The invisible church is all the people God uses for his hands and feet in this world. Nobody can find out who they are except...
00372 – Doing Justice
If you think of justice sitting blindfolded with a scale in her hand, you may have to stifle a yawn, but if you think of a black judge acquitting a white racist of a false murder charge it can give you gooseflesh.
00344 – The Young Can Hear Better
When you are young, I think, your hearing is in some ways better than it is ever going to be again. You hear better than most people the voices that call to you out of your own life to give yourself to this work or that work. When you are young, before you accumulate...
00253 – Imagination is Wishful Thinking
Christianity is mainly wishful thinking…Dreams are wishful thinking. Children playing at being grown-up is wishful thinking. Interplanetary travel is wishful thinking…Sometimes the truth is what sets us wishing for it.
00162 – The Meaning of Resurrection
Resurrection means that the worst thing is never the last thing.