A Baptist preacher told this story to his congregation one Sunday: When God walked into heaven and found everyone there, he decided it was too crowded. He owed it to justice, did he not, to reward those who were faithful? So, he had one of his angels read the ten...
Religion without the Spirit, without authentic spirituality, basically becomes a way to give divine sanction/endorsement/legitimization to our biases and prejudices and it becomes a way to maintain the status quo. It also becomes a means of exerting control over...
If one is honest about what Jesus says about loving others (including one's enemies) and about sharing one's possessions with others, one has to admit that Jesus wasn't very practical at all. Indeed, he was over-the-top radical. He was far more radical than I like or...
Harvard religion professor Diana Eck told about being asked once by an elderly friend in India: "Do you really believe that God came only once, so very long ago and only to one people?" She said, "The very idea that God could be so stingy as to show up only once, to...
If God forgives us instantly and completely, then who are we to sulk in despair over our failures? If God finds no pleasure in condemning, then we have no right to find some sort of sadistic pleasure in self-contempt. To allow the sins of yesterday, or even an hour...
Many of us are unable to “see” things “as they are,” because we see “as we are.” Until we change, until we learn how to love and forgive, to live with gratitude, generosity, and compassion, we will be blind to what is “really real,” to what is of ultimate worth and...
The invitation of Advent is the invitation—right now, this very moment—to open our ordinary lives, common experiences, and everyday relationships, as well as our deepest selves, to the Spirit of the living Christ. from Shimmers of Light
Mary made her womb available for a holy conception and birth. She surrendered to the mysterious, divine working of God, knowing that the holy child within her would change the world. May we, too, open our minds, hearts, and bodies to the mysterious working of God , so...