Uniting

Community, Connection, God 0

Abba Daniel, wise old monk, knows that the purpose of the spiritual life is not to separate us from others. On the contrary, it is meant to unite us, but all too often it is used to divide us. Only the really spiritual, the real religious in every tradition, know that the One God wants us all to be one. We are meant to identify with the hopes and fears, and the needs and struggles, of the whole world — because the world is God’s, and we are God’s agents on earth. No, the world cannot separate us from God. Only we can do that.

— Joan Chittister, In God’s Holy Light, p. 39

Photo: View from Burg Falkenstein, Germany, June 19, 2024

A Shelter from the Storm

Beauty, Community, Inspiration, Jesus 0

A shelter from the storm is a beautiful metaphor of the church. It’s not an angry church on a crusade for political causes or a detached church disseminating dogma to a disinterested culture. Instead, try imagining a place where it’s always safe and warm – this is the church as a shelter from the storm. It’s immensely appealing. And it’s the very metaphor Jesus leaves lingering in our imagination as he concludes his Sermon on the Mount. In his summation Jesus tells us that if we will live his teaching, we will build a house on the rock-solid foundation that will stand when the rains fall, the winds blow, and the floods rise. To say it plainly, a church that lives the Sermon on the Mount will be a shelter from the storm.

–Brian Zahnd, Beauty Will Save the World, p. 182-183

Photo: Cloudy sky over lake, South Riding, Virginia, December 30, 2023

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

Out-Loving Us

Acceptance, Community, Grace, Jesus, Love 0

That’s the funny thing about who Jesus has to be if he’s who we hope he is: He has to be able to out-love us. That means the scandalous dinner invite isn’t just for us, it’s for the people we despise, for those we disagree with, for everyone who pushes our buttons and boils our blood and twists our insides — and we have to be on board with that. Not only do we need to accept the fact that the table is wide open, but we have to be at the ready with a chair and an extra setting for those we find it most challenging to welcome. If you’re at all like me, you’ve spent a good deal of time and effort crafting what you believe is a compelling, air-tight case against breaking bread with certain people because of the message that would send to them. We don’t want people whose religion or politics or behavior are adversarial to ours to “get away with it” by giving them proximity or showing them generosity, and that self-righteousness feels good until we realize that someone somewhere is asking Jesus why he sits with us.

— John Pavlovitz, Rise, p. 18-19
Photo: Bull Run Regional Park, Virginia, April 7, 2023

Avoiding Exclusion

Community, Compassion, Grace, Jesus 2

The church was meant to be that group that constantly went to the edges, to the least of the brothers and sisters, and even to the enemy. Jesus was not just a theological genius; he was also a psychological and sociological genius. Therefore, when any church defines itself by exclusion of anybody, it is always wrong. It is avoiding its only vocation, which is to be the Christ. The only groups that Jesus seriously critiques are those who include themselves and exclude others from the always-given grace of God.

Only as the People of God receive the stranger, the sinner, and the immigrant, those who don’t play our game our way, do we discover not only the hidden, feared, and hated parts of our own souls, but also the fullness of Jesus himself.

— Richard Rohr, Yes, And…, p. 186.

Photo: Urquhart Castle, Loch Ness, Ireland, July 2001

Futile Disputation

Community, God 0

It is futile to enter into disputation with any worshipper of the letter, seeing that for the purposes of argument the letter is so much more manageable than the spirit, which while it lies in the letter unperceived, has no force. The letter-worshipper is incapable of seeing that no utterance of God could possibly mean what he makes out of it.

— George MacDonald, Wisdom to Live By, p. 101, quoting from Donal Grant

Photo: South Riding, Virginia, November 1, 2021

Spread the Care

Community, Growth, Healing 0

Fight the urge to withdraw, to fold in on yourself, as if your pain is contagious and might infect someone else. We are here to take care of one another; the care is what’s catching, spreading person to person to person. So take — and give — care.

KEEP MOVING.

— Maggie Smith, Keep Moving, p. 71

Photo: Bluebell Trail, Bull Run Regional Park, Virginia, April 8, 2021