Places of Enchantment
Libraries are a bit like forests; they are enchanted places to get lost in.
— Oliver Jeffers and Sam Winston, The Dictionary Story
Photo: Forest in snow, South Riding, Virginia, January 7, 2025
Go High
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
Uniting
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
God’s Unrelenting Love
What Paul is claiming by saying that God put forth Jesus as a hilasterion is that this is proof of God’s righteousness and forbearance (Rom 3:25-26). The cross is not the pre-condition for God’s forgiveness. Rather, it is what proves how unrelenting God’s love is, even for God’s enemies (5:10-11; 8:31-39). And, humanity is being saved, not from God, but from Sin and Death (e.g., 5:12-7:25; cf. 1 Cor 15:55-56). Paul thinks the cross is what God endures in Jesus as God forgives (Rom 4:7), overlooks (3:25-26), and does not account people’s sins (4:8; cf. 2 Cor 5:18-19). The death of Jesus is what God undergoes as he loves his enemies so as to be reconciled to them (5:6-11), which requires God to enter “enemy territory” so to speak.
Paul is essentially saying:
Look at Jesus! God is not your enemy! You are the ones at enmity with God. God is justifying you even though you are ungodly. God has put forth Jesus as a conciliatory votive gift of peace and reconciliation to demonstrate this. Be reconciled to God! God loves you! If God did not spare God’s own Son, then nothing can separate you from the love of God revealed and manifested in Jesus Christ. Jesus eternally stands in the presence of God (like votive gifts stand in temples) interceding for us all.
–Andrew Remington Rillera, Lamb of the Free, p. 268-269
Photo: Snow and frozen lake, South Riding, Virginia, January 6, 2025
Learning from Mistakes
Many times, when people are told that they have caused harm, a defensive, self-protective impulse kicks in. We often deny either our actions or their impact, particularly if we have caused great harm — or if we believe that doing a harmful thing is the same thing as being a bad person. If someone interprets the statement “You said something racist” to mean “You are an irredeemably racist person,” they might well resist the critique, seeing it as a condemnation of their whole self. But walking the path of antiracism is riddled with mistakes and new learning; acknowledging the mistake of saying something racist does not mean we are irrevocably racist, doomed to this fate. It’s rather the opposite, no? Doubling down and getting defensive makes it much more likely that you’ll just keep doing the thing. If you can’t face and work to repair your mistakes, you certainly won’t learn from them.
— Danya Ruttenberg, On Repentance and Repair, p. 51-2
Photo: Bare branches and sunrise, South Riding, Virginia, February 18, 2025
Getting Away With It
“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
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
Love and Acceptance of Christ
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
Love Is Stronger.
[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
Finding the Lost
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