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.
Our job is to love others without stopping to inquire whether or not they are worthy. That is not our business and, in fact, it is nobody’s business. What we are asked to do is to love, and this love itself will render both ourselves and our neighbors worthy if...
Now testimony is…”who we are and who we are becoming.” Our stories no longer tell tales of spiritual acquiescence and conformity. Rather, they tell of finding meaning, finding unique selves, and finding God in a confusing and chaotic world. Contemporary thinkers have...
Because our gifts carry us out into the world and make us participants in life, the uncovering of them is one of the most important tasks confronting any one of us. When we talk about being true to ourselves—being the persons we are intended to be—we are talking about...
Prayer is sitting in the silence until it silences us, choosing gratitude until we are grateful, and praising God until we ourselves are an act of praise.
Religion is at its best when it makes us ask hard questions of ourselves. It is at its worst when it deludes us into thinking we have all the answers for everybody else.
This is what Jesus is exposing and defeating on the cross. He did not come to change God’s mind about us. It did not need changing. Jesus came to change our minds about God—and about ourselves—and about where goodness and evil really lie.
The community of Christ is called and equipped in baptism. In baptism we are taught to find our strength in God and God’s people rather than ourselves. We are prepared for the shock of moral transformation by a cleansing, cold bath. We are born, drowned, adopted,...
We are never at home with ourselves until we have come to be what we know ourselves to be inside. And what we are inside, we are born with and meant to unleash. But all too often—for social approval or fear of risk or neurotic self-doubt or quick gain—we have learned...