“Everyone only follows the law when it’s convenient,” said Adela. “And that applies to no one more than a man who can get away with it.”
–Sacha Lamb, The Forbidden Book, p. 202
Photo: Bald eagle in tree, South Riding, Virginia, March 12, 2024
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
This is part of what we learn from Jesus in this story: Most people don’t become Christ-followers because of our superior theological arguments. They come to church, and then faith, because someone befriended them and demonstrated the love and acceptance of Christ.
There’s a lot of hand-wringing going on today in Christian circles because church membership and worship attendance is dropping in the US. But there is no shortage of people who need to feel they are cared about as human beings, who need to be accepted, befriended, and loved.
— Adam Hamilton, Luke: Jesus and the Outsiders, Outcasts, and Outlaws, p. 92
Photo: Great blue heron, February 14, 2025
[A prayer for when “the pain is too much”]
I am busy telling you
I will never survive this
and you tell me the truth.
You never poison me with the lie that
“God gives you what you can handle.”
You say, instead,
that you promise,
you swear,
an oath made in your blood,
that this suffering will never outlast
this love.
Tell me again, God,
about how love goes on forever.
No, truly, tell me again
about love stronger than even this.
— Kate Bowler, Have a Beautiful, Terrible Day!, p. 67
Photo: Snow on branches, South Riding, Virginia, February 12, 2025
We have been unwanted, rejected, sent away with anger or with sadness at our rebellious streak. We have seen both glory and starvation, both beauty and pig pens, and we are coming home footsore and heartbroken. And before the words are out of our mouth, before our perfect speech is performed, God is cloaking our dirty shoulders in the best robe, slipping a ruby ring on our work-worn fingers, cleaning off the pig slobber to slip sandals on our feet, and declaring: I am so sorry you had to go, and I am eternally glad to have you back again.
— Emmy Kegler, One Coin Found, p. 8-9
Photo: Snow and lake, South Riding, Virginia, February 12, 2025
You are deeply loved and God is not worried about you. You can rest and abide in that Love even as you throw a few things into the fire.
— Sarah Bessey, Field Notes for the Wilderness, p. 18
Photo: Sunrise, South Riding, Virginia, January 3, 2025
It may now be safe to say that our God does not need to be calmed down, nor is ever irate nor filled with wrath. All the mystics have come to see this. Julian of Norwich knows that she’s been told constantly of this angry Divine One but just can’t “find this God” in her experience. We still can’t shake the narrative of the God who seeks our measuring up and demands some high level of performance. We don’t measure up to this God; we just show up. We allow this Tender One to fill us extravagantly, then we go into the world and speak the whole language of it, unrestricted, openhearted, and loyally dedicated to its entirety. Tender glance meets tender glance. Behold the One beholding you and smiling.
For the Tender One, it’s simply never about worthiness. But, I’m afraid for us, it’s ONLY about worthiness. The centurion wants Jesus to cure his servant and humbly tells him: “Say but the word . . .” “I am not worthy that you should enter under my roof . . .” The centurion feels unworthy. But Jesus just wants to notice and connect to him. He pays attention to him. We stare at the cure and the faith of the guy, but Jesus wants us to look at how false our sense of unworthiness is. In the face of this tender glance, we find a God quite speechless — too in love with us to chitchat.
— Gregory Boyle, The Whole Language, p. 11
Photo: Sunrise over lake, South Riding, Virginia, January 18, 2024
You don’t have to be in love to have love in your life. Take stock of everything — and everyone — that fills your heart.
KEEP MOVING.
— Maggie Smith, Keep Moving, p. 158
Photo: Siblings, in-laws, and baby nephew, July 2024
Jesus’s ministry is not to gather the so-called good into a private country club and punish the outsiders, but to reach out to those on the edge and on the bottom, those who are last, to tell them they might just be first! That is almost the very job description of the Holy Spirit and, therefore, of Jesus. Some call it God’s unique kind of justice or “restorative justice.” God justifies things by restoring them to their true and full identity in himself, as opposed to retributive justice, which seeks only reward and punishment. To receive unearned love is their only punishment.
— Richard Rohr, Yes, And…, p. 220
Photo: Frozen lake, South Riding, Virginia, February 1, 2025
Art, music, hospitality, gardening, cooking, writing, storytelling, mathematics, programming . . . creating of any kind imitates God! You fill the earth by doing anything that adds beauty and life and fullness to the world around you, whether you prepare a simple meal, start a business, or create a work of art. The job of an image bearer is to use your gifts to mimic the passionate, creative work of God.
— Elizabeth Garn, Freedom to Flourish, p. 58
Photo: “FIND JOY!!!” Shadow Scarf