I see more clearly, now that I am aging. Not with my eyesight, but with my soul. I see the fine detail of what I missed in younger years. I see the place of faith and forgiveness in my story. I see the possibilities of life in ways I never imagined. I was not blind in...
Before doubt, I thought that faith was a matter of correct beliefs. My religious teachers taught me so: that if I didn’t hold the right beliefs, or at least say that I held them, I would be excommunicated from my community, and perhaps, after death, from God’s...
The true purpose of all spiritual disciplines is to clear away whatever may block our awareness of that which is God in us... It will be in order to suggest certain simple aids to this end. One of these is the practice of silence, or quiet. As a child I was accustomed...
In a mission-driven community, harmony emerges when diverse people synchronize voice, vision, and energy around a common goal. Trivial differences diminish and the common mission replaces personal agenda.
Slow me down, Lord.Ease the pounding of my heart by the quieting of my mind.Steady my hurried pace with a vision of the eternal reach of time.Give me, amid the confusion of the day, the calmness of the everlasting hills.Break the tensions of my nerves and muscles with...
Brothers and sisters, if we don’t believe that every crucifixion—war, poverty, torture, hunger—can somehow be redeemed, who of us would not be angry, cynical, hopeless? No wonder Western culture seems so skeptical today. It all doesn’t mean anything, it’s not going...
While an adventurous spirituality does not claim to provide scientific data that proves God's ever-transforming power throughout the universe, the vision of God's holy adventure boldly asserts that God is continually working in our personal, planetary, and cosmic...
Once having the vision [of a God-intoxicated life], the second step to holy obedience is this: Begin where you are. Obey now. Use what little obedience you are capable of, even if it be like a grain of mustard seed. Live this present moment...as you now sit in your...
So, by faith let us put on both lenses [worshiping in Spirit and in Truth]. We should look at each passage of scripture and examine each service or song or ceremony with both lenses on. To get a true stereo image, an in-depth, full-dimensioned image, of how we...
Vocation, the way I was seeking it, becomes an act of will, a grim determination that one’s life will go this way or that whether it wants to or not. If the self is sin-ridden and will bow to truth and goodness only under duress, that approach to vocation makes sense....