Whenever I allow anything but tenderness and compassion to dictate my response to life--be it self-righteous anger, moralizing, defensiveness, the pressing need to change others...I am alienated from my true self. My identity as a child of God becomes ambiguous,...
We miss Jesus' point entirely when we use his words as weapons against others.
In a futile attempt to erase our past, we deprive our community of our healing gift. If we conceal our wounds out of fear and shame, our inner darkness can neither be illuminated nor become a light for others.
My deepest awareness of myself is that I am deeply loved by Jesus Christ and I have done nothing to earn it or deserve it.
For me the most radical demand of Christian faith lies in summoning the courage to say yes to the present risenness of Jesus Christ.
God loves you unconditionally, as you are and not as you should be, because nobody is as they should be.
The story goes that a public sinner was excommunicated and forbidden entry to the church. He took his woes to God. "They won't let me in, Lord, because I am a sinner." "What are you complaining about?" said God. "They won't let me in either."
In every encounter we either give life or we drain it; there is NO neutral exchange.
The spirituality of wonder knows the world is charged with grace, that while sin and war, disease and death are terribly real, God’s loving presence and power in our midst are even more real.
"To live without risk is to risk not living," my paternal grandmother used to say. The way of trust is risky business, no doubt about it. To change careers suddenly because one feels fulfilled, to assume the energy-depleting care of elderly parents, to retreat for...