{"id":8912,"date":"2021-02-19T21:52:32","date_gmt":"2021-02-20T01:52:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/sonderquotes\/?p=8912"},"modified":"2021-02-19T22:03:49","modified_gmt":"2021-02-20T02:03:49","slug":"image-bearers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/sonderquotes\/?p=8912","title":{"rendered":"Image-Bearers"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/sonderquotes\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/02\/Pavlovitz-24.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/sonderquotes\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/02\/Pavlovitz-24.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"400\" height=\"267\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-8913\" srcset=\"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/sonderquotes\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/02\/Pavlovitz-24.jpg 800w, https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/sonderquotes\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/02\/Pavlovitz-24-300x200.jpg 300w, https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/sonderquotes\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/02\/Pavlovitz-24-768x512.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 400px) 100vw, 400px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>When we are living in a spiritual community where radical hospitality, total authenticity, true diversity, and agenda-free relationships are the spiritual operating system, every question is not only manageable but welcome, because our default condition becomes hope and not fear.  We don&#8217;t come burdened with shame, we don&#8217;t come fearful of expulsion, and we don&#8217;t spend our time waiting for the judgmental shoe to drop.  When people come to the bigger table, they don&#8217;t need to earn acceptance &#8212; this is a given.  When we gather at the table Jesus sets, none of us are misfits.  By our very presence we fit, because we are full image bearers of God and beloved as we are, without alteration.  The traditional Church tends to favor a clearly defined, very narrow <em>inside<\/em> and <em>outside<\/em>, and this is where many people part ways because they find their messy, gritty reality doesn&#8217;t feel compatible with such clear delineation.  But when everyone is openly bringing everything, there&#8217;s real connection &#8212; when each person realizes they are not outsiders around the table.<\/p>\n<p>&#8212; John Pavlovitz, <em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.sonderbooks.com\/Nonfiction\/bigger_table.html\">A Bigger Table<\/a><\/em>, p. 163-164<\/p>\n<p>Photo: Alsenborn, Germany, December 2001<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>When we are living in a spiritual community where radical hospitality, total authenticity, true diversity, and agenda-free relationships are the spiritual operating system, every question is not only manageable but welcome, because our default condition becomes hope and not fear. We don&#8217;t come burdened with shame, we don&#8217;t come fearful of expulsion, and we don&#8217;t [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36,25,13,15],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8912","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-community","category-core-value","category-god","category-love"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/sonderquotes\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8912","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/sonderquotes\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/sonderquotes\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/sonderquotes\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/sonderquotes\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8912"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/sonderquotes\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8912\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8915,"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/sonderquotes\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8912\/revisions\/8915"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/sonderquotes\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8912"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/sonderquotes\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8912"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/sonderquotes\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8912"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}