Go High

Core Value, God, Jesus 0

If our postmodern world seems highly subject to cynicism, skepticism, and what it does not believe in, if we now live in a post-truth America, then we “believers” must take at least partial responsibility for aiming our culture in this sad direction. The best criticism of the bad is still the practice of the better. Oppositional energy only creates more of the same. All problem solving must first be guided by a positive and overarching vision.

We must reclaim the Christian project, building from the true starting point of Original Goodness. We must reclaim Jesus as an inclusive Savior instead of an exclusionary Judge, as a Christ who holds history together as the cosmic Alpha and Omega. Then, both history and the individual can live inside of a collective safety and an assured success. Some would call this the very shape of salvation.

–Richard Rohr, The Universal Christ, p. 67-68

Photo: South Riding, Virginia, February 12, 2025

My Own Small Role

Blessing, Connection, Core Value 0

We too easily minimize the good that can be done by seemingly insignificant people in inconsequential places. Ours is a world where influence is measured by the number of likes or followers on social media. For every fantastic story that goes viral, there are countless others that are never told – stories about faithful people aware of their smallness in obscure or forgotten places who bless the world. History reminds us that those “small” stories matter, more than we may ever know.

I have my own small role to play, and so do you.

–Tracy Balzer, A Journey of Sea and Stone, p. 50-51

Photo: South Riding, Virginia, January 17, 2025

Unshakable

Core Value, God, Love 0

People settle for saying that every human being is “worthy” or “valuable.” But these ideas are still stuck in the “measurable.” “He is a valuable member of our team.” “He is unworthy to be president.” But goodness is unshakable. Solid. The truth. There is not a thing one can do to make this not so. God does not hope that we become something other than what we are. The Pharisees kept trying to be somebody, but they didn’t know they already were. You teach children that they are valuable by valuing them. Not by insisting that they prove their value to you. There are lots of things and toxins and blindness that keep us from acknowledging this and seeing it as true, but nonetheless, it is immutably certain. Before we can love goodness, we need to find it, and see it. It’s there. It’s there.

— Gregory Boyle, The Whole Language, p. 37

Photo: Bull Run Regional Park, Virginia, March 29, 2024

Empathy

Community, Core Value, Friends 0

All I can do is try to draw closer to your uniqueness, to feel linked by the small overlaps between us. This is how empathy works. It’s how differentness starts to weave itself into togetherness. Empathy fills the gaps between us, but never closes them entirely. We get pulled into the lives of others by virtue of what they feel safe and able to show us, and the generosity with which we are able to meet them. Piece by piece, person by person, we begin to apprehend the world in more fullness.

— Michelle Obama, The Light We Carry, p. 241-242

Photo: South Riding, Virginia, December 8, 2023

Already Yours

Core Value, God, Love 0

It can be difficult for those of us living in a culture that prizes earning power above nearly everything else to understand that in the economy of grace, the currency of deserved and undeserved is irrelevant. It is absolutely true that you can’t earn God’s love. But it’s not because you are a helpless wretch whose sin makes it impossible for God to even look at you or because you have done something so grievously wrong that your soul has been permanently stained, as if by spiritual Sharpie. The truth is, you can’t earn God’s love because you already have it. You can’t be any more loved than you are because God’s love has already been freely and abundantly given. You can’t do anything to achieve a greater portion of God’s love because God’s love for you is already unconditional and it is already infinite.

— Rachel Held Evans, Wholehearted Faith, p. 180

Photo: South Riding, Virginia, March 6, 2015

Love With Skin On

Core Value, Hope, Love 0

We are being shepherded beyond our fears and needs to becoming our actual selves. This sucks and hurts some days, and I frequently do not want it or agree to it. But it persists, like water wearing through a boulder in the river. Hope springs from realizing we are loved, can love, and are love with skin on. Then we are unstoppable.

— Anne Lamott, Dusk Night Dawn, p. 190-191

Photo: South Riding, Virginia, March 30, 2021

Image-Bearers

Community, Core Value, God, Love 1

When we are living in a spiritual community where radical hospitality, total authenticity, true diversity, and agenda-free relationships are the spiritual operating system, every question is not only manageable but welcome, because our default condition becomes hope and not fear. We don’t come burdened with shame, we don’t come fearful of expulsion, and we don’t spend our time waiting for the judgmental shoe to drop. When people come to the bigger table, they don’t need to earn acceptance — this is a given. When we gather at the table Jesus sets, none of us are misfits. By our very presence we fit, because we are full image bearers of God and beloved as we are, without alteration. The traditional Church tends to favor a clearly defined, very narrow inside and outside, and this is where many people part ways because they find their messy, gritty reality doesn’t feel compatible with such clear delineation. But when everyone is openly bringing everything, there’s real connection — when each person realizes they are not outsiders around the table.

— John Pavlovitz, A Bigger Table, p. 163-164

Photo: Alsenborn, Germany, December 2001