Sometimes it seems safer to have just enough God to get to heaven, but not so much that God radically alters our lives.
02031 – God is Present with Creation
Look at the animals roaming the forest: God’s spirit dwells within them. Look at the birds flying across the sky: God’s spirit dwells within them. Look at the tiny insects crawling in the grass: God’s spirit dwells within them. . . . Look too at the great trees of the...
02030 – Good Theology Maintains Two Freedoms
Until I went to seminary, no one had taught me how to clean the lens of my awareness and perception. Studying the philosophy of Franciscan John Duns Scotus (1266–1308) for four years had a profound effect on me. Duns Scotus taught (admittedly in rarefied Latin) that...
02029 – Authentic Conversion
Before conversion, we tend to think that God is out there. After transformation, God is not out there and we don’t look at reality. We look from reality. We’re in the middle of it now; we’re a part of it. This whole thing is...
02021 – Complicity and Forgiveness
The longer you gaze, the more you will see your own complicity in and profitability from the sin of others, even if it is the satisfaction of feeling you are on higher moral ground. Forgiveness is probably the only human action that demands three new "seeings" at the...
02018 – Love Came Down at Christmas
Love came down at Christmas,love all lovely, love divine;love was born at Christmas--star and angels gave the sign. Worship we the Godhead,love incarnate, love divine;worship we our Jesus--but wherewith for sacred sign? Love shall be our token,love be yours and love...
02017 – How Do We Find Spirituality?
Spirituality is not to be learned by flight from the world, or by running away from things, or by turning solitary and going apart from the world. Rather, we must learn an inner solitude wherever or with whomsoever we may be. We must learn to penetrate things and find...
02016 – One Hundred Pianos; One Hundred Worshipers
Has it ever occurred to you that one hundred pianos all tuned to the same fork are automatically tuned to each other? They are of one accord by being tuned, not to each other, but to another standard to which each one must individually bow. So one hundred worshipers...
02014 – By the Grace of God
I am not the man I ought to be,I am not the man I wish to beand I am not the man I hope to be,but by the grace of God, I am not the man I used to be.---------------------Gender-inclusive version: I am not the person I ought to be,I am not the person I wish to beand I...
02012 – Complex World has Staggering Problems
The world is complex and facing staggering problems. It needs Christians who are up to the task of making a constructive contribution, intellectually ready for the challenges that humanity faces, deeply motivated to love God and neighbor with all our minds. from After...