A story from the Buddhist tradition, probably timeless but in its most recent versions set during the Chinese Communist invasion of Tibet, makes this point very clear. A soldier bursts into a monastery cell and thrusts his rifle into the belly of a meditating monk....
People view hospitality as quaint and tame partly because they do not understand the power of recognition. When a person who is not valued by society is received by a socially respected person or group as a human being with dignity and worth, small transformations...
Each of us must discover the directions in which we will find fulfillment. This is—or ought to be—the goal of a lifelong education: not merely to make a living but to find out what living is for. With that understanding, it becomes more obvious that holiness, the full...
Each of us has lived through some devastation, some loneliness, some weather superstorm or spiritual superstorm. When we look at each other we must say, “I understand. I understand how you feel because I have been there myself.” We must support each other because each...
We desperately need to explore how much of our understanding of the Gospel is American and how much is biblical.
One doesn’t have to operate with great malice to do great harm. The absence of empathy & understanding are sufficient.
Sometimes when I have not understood why God has not answered my prayer my way, it has been made clear to me later. Sometimes when it has seemed that my way has been done, I have learned later that it was not the best way. I am gradually learning to turn everything...
It seems difficult for us to distinguish between our “personal” relationship with God and the rampant individualism we practice in our politics. Do we dare keep voting according to our pocketbooks and private morality? Yes, we are God’s beloved, but so is everyone...
Faith is deliberate confidence in the character of God whose ways you may not understand at the time.
I need a God who is bigger and more nimble and mysterious than what I could understand and contrive. Otherwise it can feel like I am worshiping nothing more than my own ability to understand the divine.