When Richard Steele was about to be jailed for refusing to serve in the South African Defense Force, he had to consider the possibility that he might be killed in prison. “Was I prepared to die for what I believed?” he asked himself. I realized finally that I was, and...
For me, one of the saddest lines in all of Holy Scripture comes from the little fellow with the one talent: “I was afraid and I went and hid your talent in the ground.” Fear loses. Passion wins.
Why is it so hard to believe Christ and trust him completely? Christ wants to give us his life and spirit, and if we look to him for only a moment, our hearts tell us: Here is one we can trust. Yet each of us knows feelings of fear and anxiety. Something in us seeks...
Most of us fear community because we think it will call us away from ourselves… What a curious conception of self we have! We have forgotten that self is a moving intersection of many other selves. We are formed by the lives which intersect ours.
When she was about seven, her best friend got lost one day. The little girl ran up and down the streets of the big town where they lived, but she couldn’t find a single landmark. She was very frightened. Finally a policeman stopped to help her. He put her in the...
There is also a legend that Mary was not the first young woman to whom the angel came. But she was the first one to say yes. And how unsurprising it would be for a fourteen-year-old girl to refuse the angel. To be disbelieving. Or to say: “Are you sure you mean—but...
The darkest time in the year, The poorest place in the town, Cold, and a taste of fear, Man and Woman alone, What can we hope for here? More lights than we can learn, More wealth than we can treasure, More love than we can earn, More peace than we can measure, Because...
Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us.We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, handsome, talented and fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be?You are a child of God.Your playing...
It dawned on me that even my best theological and spiritual formation had not been able to completely free me from a Father God who remained somewhat threatening and somewhat fearsome. All I had learned about the Father’s love had not fully enabled me to let go of an...
If the church is to flourish, we cannot build our religious lives around a gospel of fear, or a gospel of reward for our meanness. The Christian faith is not about being afraid of God. Fear may get us to submit but fear always leads to anger and resentment and...