Spiritual, Not Intellectual
God [isn’t] a Rubik’s Cube to solve, but a living reality to encounter.
— Richard Beck, Hunting Magic Eels, p. 148
Welcome Home
Jesus is never the one telling people they are lost. Jesus is always the one welcoming them home.
— Brian Recker, Hell Bent, p. 56
Photo: South Riding, Virginia, February 21, 2026.
Invitation of Lament
Lament begins by turning to God in prayer. We’ll discover the supply of grace that comes as we take the step of faith to reach out to God. Lament invites us to turn our gaze from the rubble of life to the Redeemer of every hurt. It calls us to turn toward promise while still in pain.
— Mark Vroegop, Dark Clouds, Deep Mercy, p. 29
Photo: South Riding, Virginia, February 14, 2026
Repentance as Self-Care
The work of repentance is, in many ways, the work of looking outside ourselves, looking with an empathetic eye at what we have done, letting it matter to us, and trying earnestly to figure out how we can both meaningfully address it and ensure that it never happens again. This is, in some ways, an act of tenderness, of extending ourselves to care for others, of giving ourselves the time and attention we deserve to grow, of investing in our own learning and capacity to heal.
Because repentance is, I believe, in part, a kind of self-care. When we do the work, we give attention to our own broken places, our own reactionary impulses, our own careless ignorance. And it’s a way of saying, “Hey, self, you need some attention. Let’s give you some help becoming the kind of person you want to be.”
— Danya Ruttenberg, On Repentance and Repair, p. 59
Photo: South Riding, Virginia, January 10, 2026
My Wild Mediocrity
God, give me satisfaction in the trying.
Give me joy in the never-quite-there.
Grant me peace in my unsettled heart
for my wild mediocrity.
Help me smile back
at the truth that no one,
not one, knows perfection but you.
And you already looked at this
messy creation
at the beginning of time
and pronounced it pretty darn good.
— Kate Bowler, Have a Beautiful, Terrible Day! p. 79
Photo: South Riding, Virginia, January 26, 2026
Mercy to All
From that point on, poor Jonah is simultaneously angry, lamenting, and praising Yahweh for four full chapters. His problem is that he cannot move beyond a dualistic reward-punishment worldview. Jonah thinks only Israel deserves mercy, whereas God extends total mercy to Jonah, to the pagan Ninevites who persecuted Jonah’s people, and to those “who cannot tell their right hand from their left.” To make the story complete, this mercy is even given to “all the animals” (Jonah 4:11)! The world of predictable good guys and always-bad guys collapses into God’s unfathomable grace.
— Richard Rohr, The Tears of Things, p. 86
Photo: South Riding, Virginia, January 26, 2026
Be Found
We have been and are and will be found in such a myriad of ways, but always, always, always love is seeking us.
Dare to be found.
— Emmy Kegler, One Coin Found, p. 188
Photo: Swirls on frozen lake, South Riding, Virginia, January 27, 2026
Missteps and Joys
One of the things we often deconstruct is the allure of a linear model of faith that says your life was always meant to be a strict progression from A to B, with requisite milestones, litmus tests, and boundary markers.
That was a nice fairy tale while it lasted, wasn’t it? By now you’ve learned the hard way that life is less about if-this-then-that certainties than it is a gorgeous and frustrating improvisation with missteps and joys as we grow up and into who we were meant to be all along. We all begin somewhere different, and your journey won’t be the same as mine (if you’re lucky).
Let your story be yours. Let your evolving faith be your own. Let God meet you in the particular goodness of you, not a printer copy of someone else’s best-case scenario for your life.
— Sarah Bessey, Field Notes for the Wilderness, p. 36-37
Photo: South Riding, Virginia, January 29, 2026
Our Gifts of Love
It’s love that propels us to create, not cynicism.
After many years of wrestling with my own frustrations, I have concluded that our gifts are just that, they are gifts. We might possess the power to postpone their use, try and hide from them, but I suspect we only manage to shade ourselves for a time from the intensity of our passions. This love of ours still shines brightly all around, and waits for us with the focused attention of a beloved dog. When we finally step out from under the protection of our denial, our loves will leap and bark and joyously circle us, too long neglected, racing forward and dashing back to us, hurrying us along on our illuminated path.
— Margaret Dulaney, To Hear the Forest Sing, p. 47
Photo: South Riding, Virginia, January 28, 2026
The Sacred Dance
When we believe the divine wills something absolutely, we stop wrestling with the complexity of the world. It’s how dualism still thrives in religious spaces today. I’ve felt it in many church settings – the pressure to see my own will as something to be set aside, to understand my desires as inherently in conflict with God’s. What I wanted, thought, or felt was always considered at odds with the divine. It wasn’t a both/and but an either/or. Either God was at work or I was. This set up a relentless internal tension, not just with God but with myself.
But the more I immersed myself in Scripture, the more I saw that God isn’t at war with humanity. The stories we find there aren’t about a battle of wills but about a sacred dance – about God and humans moving together in harmony, creating something holy. This reframing shifted something deep within me, reminding me that the religious life isn’t a struggle for control but a movement of grace and love.
— Kat Armas, Liturgies for Resisting Empire, p. 105-106
Photo: Icy lake, South Riding, Virginia, January 26, 2026