A Revelation of Divine Love
The one thing all mystics seem to have in common is a spiritual revelation that God is love.
— Brian Zahnd, The Wood Between the Worlds, p. 55
Photo: South Riding, Virginia, December 27, 2025.
Unshakably Good
I told the crowd that two unwavering principles held at Homeboy Industries were the following: 1) Everyone is unshakably good (no exceptions) and 2) We belong to each other (no exceptions). Then I posited: “Now, do I think all our vexing and complex social dilemmas would disappear if we embraced these two notions?” I paused, then continued, “Yes, I do.” And the entire audience exploded in laughter. I was startled. When the laughter subsided, I repeated quietly: “Yes, I do.”
These two ideas allow us to roll up our sleeves so that we can actually make progress. So that we can love without measure and without regret. So that we can cultivate a new way of seeing. We finally understand that the answer to every question is, indeed, compassion.
— Gregory Boyle, Cherished Belonging, p. 2.
Photo: South Riding, Virginia, December 27, 2025.
God Did Not Make Us to Hate Us.
God did not make us to hate us.
God did not dream up the color yellow and craft the scientific art of making butter from milk and whimsically birth cumulus clouds just to . . . disdain a little girl who misunderstood the cosmic structure.
God did not count the hairs on our heads or the stars that would hang in the sky over billions of years just to resentfully accept desperate people begging to be spared from brutal torment.
I know this because maybe heaven isn’t a pit stop between Raleigh and LA, but heaven is all around us. Breaking in and barreling down walls and peeping up like dandelions in the asphalt. God would not be so creative and wily and beautiful all at the same time if God’s desire was punishment.
— Lizzie McManus-Dail, God Didn’t Make Us to Hate Us, p. xi
Photo: South Riding, Virginia, December 14, 2025
Always about Love
The great patterns are always the same. It’s either fear or love. It’s either illusion or love. It’s either self-protection or love. Healthy religion is always about love. All we can do is get out of the way.
–Richard Rohr, Everything Belongs, p. 121
Opposite of Disgust
We aren’t so much afraid of one another as disgusted – a much harder truth to face. We don’t resist the foreigner, orphan, and widow out of fear for our lives and well-being so much as out of a fear that they will contaminate us – change us into something we do not want to become. It’s a very human and very normal reaction but not one that Jesus seemed to follow. The Way of Jesus runs in the opposite direction of the exclusion that disgust instigates: it welcomes instead of rejecting, integrates instead of segregating, and loves instead of fearing.
–Paul Hoard and Billie Hoard, Eucontamination, p. xiii
Photo: South Riding, Virginia, November 22, 2025
Look at the World
So clean your windows. Take a look again at the world and see it, this time, the way you were meant to see it. Recover your sacramental wonder and be shocked anew by the color green. Become like a child and enter the kingdom of heaven. Count your blessings and rejoice. Always rejoice. Look to the horizon in hope, even in the Valley of Dry Bones. And remember why you matter. You are a child of God.
–Richard Beck, Hunting Magic Eels, p. 116
Photo: Blackwater River Valley, West Virginia, October 8, 2025
What Unity Means
Unity is not a claim that we agree on all things, or even the hope of future agreement. Unity is a commitment to grapple with one another, rather than give one another up. Unity insists that we have something to learn from each other, and that our gifts can complement each other. Unity does not mean integrating smoothly or sweeping disagreements under the rug. Unity means curating spaces in which we can challenge one another in a spirit of love.
–Hanna Reichel, For Such a Time as This: An Emergency Devotional, p. 100
Photo: South Riding, Virginia, November 10, 2025
Beloved
The gospel – the good news – is that you are already fully loved and accepted. That’s the message of grace at the heart of Christianity. You don’t have to do anything to be loved. Not anything at all. The work is always to receive it, to believe it. You don’t need to “be saved” to be loved. Salvation is just a way of describing the moment we come to know and believe that we are already loved, that we have always been loved. And our belovedness is not inspite of who we are but simply because we are worthy of love.
— Brian Recker, Hell Bent, p. 45
Photo: South Riding, Virginia, November 4, 2025
Lament as a Path to Praise
You might think lament is the opposite of praise. It isn’t. Instead, lament is a path to praise as we are led through our brokenness and disappointment. The space between brokenness and God’s mercy is where this song is sung. Think of lament as the transition between pain and promise.
It is the path from heartbreak to hope.
— Mark Vroegop, Dark Clouds, Deep Mercy, p. 28
Photo: South Riding, Virginia, August 9, 2025
Our Father
When I pray this line of the prayer, I put a special emphasis on the word our as a way of reminding myself that God is not simply my Father, but he is the God and Father of us all. Whether others acknowledge him or not, he is still the Creator of all things, the Giver and Sustainer of all life. He is the Father of all humans. This seems particularly important in a world prone to polarization and divisions. God is not simply the God of Protestants but also of Catholics and Orthodox believers. God is not simply the God of conservatives, but also of liberals. God is not the Father of any one nation, or ethnic group, but the Father of all nations and peoples. He is not merely the Father of Christians, but the Father of Jews, Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, and even atheists and agnostics who don’t believe in him.
— Adam Hamilton, The Lord’s Prayer, p. 7
Photo: Burg Falkenstein, Germany, June 19, 2024