God With Us

Compassion, Jesus, Redemption 0

The enfleshment and suffering of Jesus is saying that God is not apart from the trials of humanity. God is not aloof. God is not a mere spectator. God is not merely tolerating or even healing all human suffering. Rather, God is participating with us, in all of it — the good and the bad! I wonder if people can avoid becoming sad and cynical about the tragedies of history if they do not know this.

— Richard Rohr, Yes . . . And: Daily Meditations, p. 332

Photo: South Riding, Virginia, October 18, 2026

Reflecting God’s Heart

Atonement, Forgiveness, God, Grace, Jesus 0

Jesus routinely announced God’s forgiveness without requiring punishment. Again and again, he tells people their sins are forgiven. And he teaches his followers to freely forgive. We don’t say to those who have wronged us, “I’ll forgive you, but justice requires that first I have to punish you.” Forgiveness freely given is called grace or mercy in Scripture.

Did God need Jesus to die in order to forgive us? Did Jesus die in order to placate God’s wrath? Asked another way, Did Jesus die for God? Did Jesus’ death change God’s heart, or did it, rather, reflect God’s heart?

I believe it is we who needed Jesus’ death, not God. It was to change our hearts, not to change God’s heart. God can forgive anyone God chooses and does not require God’s Son’s torturous death in order to appease his anger.

— Adam Hamilton, Why Did Jesus Have to Die?, p. 27-28

Photo: South Riding, Virginia, October 30, 2026

Toxic Positivity

Healing, Truth 0

We will not heal divorced from our emotions. A spirituality that depends on positivity will lead not only to emotional fallacies but also eventually to delusions of all kinds. Hundreds of thousands of people can march for miles declaring Black Lives Matter, and you will find it so disruptive to your delusion of positivity that you will not become curious or sensitive. Instead, you will find yourself defensive of the fallacy. You can listen to the story of someone’s depression, and your instinct will be to find silver linings so that you yourself feel some kind of resolve. People whose faiths are predicated on happiness make for dangerous friends and woefully disconnected fellow humans.

— Cole Arthur Riley, This Here Flesh, p. 102

Photo: South Riding, Virginia, October 23, 2026

Name the Pain.

Growth, Healing, Trials 0

Weighed against “real” suffering, like systemic racism, or abuse, or war, our everyday losses might seem too silly to mention or even feel. Our minds know suffering is not a contest, but our actions prove otherwise. So we hobble around, trying to ignore the swelling – the soft anguish of growing children who need us less, old regrets that cannot be undone, the ache of fading friendships, the too-quiet nest, the faltering faith, the strain of aging, the looming sense that our society is catastrophically unwell.

Grief is grief. Its intensity and duration might differ, but the DNA is the same. We can’t counterweight what we avoid or minimize. Our only way through is to feel its full weight without judgment. Naming the pain is our prescription for healing. Embodying it is even better.

— Shannan Martin, Counterweights, p. 33

Making Connections

Connection, Delight, God, Love 0

I heard a preacher in Lakeside Chautauqua speak of “the grace of the wooing God who welcomes and includes everybody and brings us all together in Christ.” God is infinitely in love with us and wants only to make that connection. A Trappist nun, before she died, prayed: “My God – help me accept how you see me – no matter how beautiful it is.” As my friend Chris Hoch says, “The homies are used to a ‘Department of Corrections’ God. We want to propose a ‘Department of Connections’ God.” We are being “wooed” to see this.

— Gregory Boyle, Cherished Belonging, p. 25-26

Photo: South Riding, Virginia, October 9, 2026

Untamed and True

God, Letting Go 0

Order is good. It is not that I think God lacks order. I just think God’s ordering is in the form of wind. And we neglect the wildness of wind at our own peril.

God is the wind over the deep. God is the mom who knows a toddler does not yet comprehend crayon and paper as separate substances, so She will lovingly guide the way, but not without some truly spectacular splatter art first. And so to encounter God, untamed and true and old and holy, is to lay down our need for control, our need for God to fit within the lines on our coloring pages. We have to let God wield the paintbrushes that have always been in Her hand.

— Lizzie McManus-Dail, God Didn’t Make Us to Hate Us, p. 4-5

Photo: Bay of Mont Saint-Michel, France, June 20, 2026

Be Willing to See.

Beauty, Creativity, Joy 0

And so, dear reader, this is my final encouragement: Love like the sunshine and the rain. Ask forgiveness of the birds. Be a drop more gracious, tender, and kind. Go gently in this mean world. Offer up prayers of Thanks, Help, and Wow. Recover your sacramental wonder. Count your blessings. Look to the horizon in the Valley of Dry Bones. Remember that you are a child of God. Rush to kiss the lepers. Listen to the voice in the night calling you to the cross. Turn your attention to the God dancing right in front of you. God is everywhere present, breathing on this world and turning it to fire. Where you stand is the gateway to heaven. The world is shining like transfiguration. Even the eels.

It only takes a little willingness to see.

— Richard Beck, Hunting Magic Eels, p. 234

Photo: South Riding, Virginia, October 6, 2026.

Cocreators

Calling, Community 0

Navigating this life requires that others hold our hands as we do the hard work of discovering and discerning and imagining who we could be.

What does it mean, then, that the Spirit of God is described as playing these exact same roles in our lives: supporter, encourager, and advocate? A God with a womb may not resonate with all of us as not all of us have birthed, but all of us were birthed once and all of us, in one way or another, are involved in a process of birthing. As image bearers of the divine, we are thus cocreators – midwives and doulas – for one another.

— Kat Armas, Sacred Belonging, p. 176

Photo: Monet’s Garden, Giverny, France, June 22, 2026