Repentance isn't about blame, or avoiding the cost of being blamed. It's about putting on a new mind, that is, seeing the familiar with fresh eyes, changing one's opinions and behaviors in order to come closer to God's desire. Repentance seeks change, not blame....
Change is needed, and violence will not really change anything: at most it will only transfer power from one set of bull-headed authorities to another.
Gentleness is not weakness. Just the opposite. Preserving a gentle spirit in a heartless world takes extraordinary courage, determination, and resilience. Do not underestimate the power of gentleness because gentleness is strength wrapped in peace, and therein lies...
We need some Christians who are as crazy as the Lord. Crazy enough to love like Jesus, to give like Jesus, to forgive like Jesus, to do justice, love mercy, walk humbly with God--like Jesus. Crazy enough to dare to change the world from the nightmare it often is into...
If change and growth are not programmed into your spirituality, if there are not serious warnings about the blinding nature of fear and fanaticism, your religion will always end up worshiping the status quo and protecting your present ego position and personal...
"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...
Whether on the stage of world history or in the individual human heart, the reign or rule of God is like seed growing of itself: pregnant, mysterious, fruitful. As a man scattering seed on the ground, we work at preaching and teaching, at supporting each other, at...
The experiment with faith is the work of a lifetime, a continual openness to change, a permanent quest. What I learned serving at the altar was not which Eucharistic theology was "right." What I learned, and must always be learning and relearning, is who Jesus is, and...
One other picture that will always be a part of my memory of that week is the way people all across the land crowded into their places of worship. ...My fear is that we are beginning to think and act like we are on our own again and we can do it alone. ...We need God...
To understand the story, we need to note how Jesus got into the desert in the first place--into this lonely and heart-breaking place where he was to face the hardest challenge he had yet known. Surely it was the devil who took him there. But the story says that Jesus...