Any love is ultimately love of God. No love can be in competition with love of God; it is merely a different expression of it . . . the deeper, the more passionate any love, the more truly it is the love of God.
The religions start from mysticism...But, I compare this to a volcano that gushes forth ...and then ...the magma flows down the sides of the mountain and cools off. And when it reaches the bottom, it's just rocks. You'd never guess that there was fire in it. So after...
Now I come to something which may at first sight seem specifically Christian – or biblical, I should rather say. But when you listen very carefully, you will see that we speak about a reality which is quite universal: faith. Faith and the path are inseparable from one...
Joy: the kind of happiness that doesn't depend on what happens.
True mindfulness gets that gift aspect of the world into view. When our intellect learns to recognize the gift aspect of the world, when our will learns to acknowledge it, our feelings to appreciate it, ever wider circles of mindfulness make our world come alive. I...
My favorite lines about Christ's "Second Coming" are in the story "A Christmas Memory," by Truman Capote. In this autobiographical piece of great delicacy, the author describes his last Christmas with the woman who brought him up. The author is seven at the time; she...
I now read Christ's being "lifted up" as image language echoing a passage in the letter to the Ephesians that speaks of God putting all things "under his feet" (Ephesians 1:22). As a beautiful paraphrase puts it: God has put everything without exception into Christ's...
In the world order we know, there is no place for peace and justice, for equal distribution of material and cultural goods, and for the dignity of every human being. Jesus took a stance for those values and was cynically disposed of as a rabble-rouser. The worst part...
The root of joy is gratefulness. It is not joy that makes us grateful; it is gratitude that makes us joyful.
Faith is far more than the sum total of beliefs. Beliefs are merely pointers; faith is profound trust in the actuality to which beliefs point. The Creed mentions beliefs, but it is a statement of faith, not of beliefs. There are many beliefs, but there is ultimately...