An All-Embracing Love

Friday, March 6, 2026

Love [people] even in [their] sin, for that is the semblance of Divine Love and is the highest love on earth. Love all God’s creation, the whole and every grain of sand in it. Love every leaf, every ray of God’s light. Love the animals, love the plants, love everything. If you love everything, you will perceive the divine mystery in things. Once you have perceived it, you will begin to comprehend it better every day. And you will come at last to love the whole world with an all-embracing love.
—Fyodor Dostoyevsky, The Brothers Karamazov

Father Richard honors that we must be very clear about right and wrong, naming when injustice takes place, while maintaining our commitment to grace and love:

The full and final biblical message is restorative justice, but most of history has only been able to understand retributive justice. I know you’re probably thinking of many passages in the Old Testament that sure sound like serious retribution. And I can’t deny there are numerous black and white, vengeful scriptures, which is precisely why we must recognize that all scriptures are not equally inspired or from the same level of consciousness. Literal interpretation of Scripture is the Achilles’ heel of fundamentalist Christians.

We have to begin with dualistic thinking, just as we must first develop a healthy ego and frame before we can move beyond it. Jesus often made strong binary statements, for example, “You cannot serve God and money” (Matthew 6:24); “The Son of Man will separate the sheep from the goats” (Matthew 25:32–33). We must first be capable of some basic distinctions between good and evil before we can hold paradox. Without basic honesty and clarity, nondual thinking becomes very naive. We must first succeed at good dualistic thinking before we also discover its final inadequacy in terms of wisdom and compassion. Not surprisingly, Jesus exemplifies and teaches both dualistic clarity and then non-dual wisdom and compassion: “My Father’s sun shines on both the good and the bad; his rain falls on both the just and the unjust” (Matthew 5:45).

The ego prefers a dualistic worldview where bad people are eternally punished, and good people (like ourselves) are totally rewarded. But the soul does not need to see others punished to be happy! Why would anyone like the notion of somebody being tortured for all eternity? What kind of psyche or soul can condemn others to hellfire? Certainly not Divine Love. [1]

Could God’s love really be that great and universal? Could it be anything less? Love is the lesson, and God’s love is so great that God will finally teach it to all of us. Who would be able to resist it once they see it? We’ll finally surrender, and God—Love—will finally win. God never loses. That is what it means to be God. That will be God’s “justice,” which will swallow up our lesser versions of retributive justice. [2]

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1.

“The Word is living, being, spirit, all verdant greening, all creativity. This Word manifests itself in every creature.”

– Hildegard of Bingen, Medieval German Mystic and Nun

One of the mistakes kind-hearted people make is to conflate the Written Word of God with the Incarnate Word of God.

They are, in fact, two different things.

John 5:39-40 tells us that you can be so close to the Written Word of God that you fail to realize it points beyond itself to the Incarnate Word of God as the final authority.

So here, with Hildegard, she is not talking about the Written Word of God being present in everything.  Rather, she is talking about the Incarnate Word of God, the Divine Logos, Jesus the Christ, as somehow being deeply present within everything.

My guess is that Hildegard was reflecting on Colossians 1:15-20 while writing the above…

2.

“A sophiological Christianity focuses on the path.”

– Cynthia Bourgeault, Episcopal Priest

“Sophia” is the Greek word for “wisdom.”  This means that “Sophiological” is the study of wisdom, or words about wisdom.

Cynthia is the first person to introduce me to the term “Sophiological Christianity.”  For the majority of my life, I understood Christianity through a “Soteriological” lens that focused on salvation or being saved.  However, complementing that understanding with a “Sophiological” one was incredibly helpful.

In all honesty, it made whole books of the Bible make more sense.  When your only framework for reading the Scriptures is figuring out how to be “saved,” you are left with an odd interpretive mode and must shoehorn every passage into being about salvation.

However, I now believe that a good amount of both the Hebrew Scriptures and the Greek New Testament is full of “sophiological content/wisdom.”  And, one does not even have to believe in order to appreciate the wisdom of the Scriptures.  In fact, in my work with college students, emphasizing the wisdom of the Scriptures catches almost all of their attention.

I think we are at a point in Christian history when it is time to reclaim Christianity through a Sophiological lens.

3.

“If you do not learn to deny yourself, you can make no progress in perfection.”

– St. John of the Cross, Spanish Carmelite Reformer

Impulse control is absolutely one of the first skill sets to develop if anyone wants to be a spiritually mature person, let alone a mature person at all.

It is when we are utterly impulsive toward the vices that we dip into the lower/earlier/less mature versions of ourselves.

I think this is part of the sadness of addiction.  Those of us with addictive personalities are dominated by the tyranny of the impulse, and it takes careful diligence and concerted effort to stay sober and well.

St. John of the Cross, without even realizing it, often did valuable psychological work in his writings!

4.

“Where men live huddled together without true communication, there seems to be greater sharing, and a more genuine communion. But this is not communion, only immersion in the general meaninglessness of countless slogans and clichés repeated over and over again so that in the end one listens without hearing and responds without thinking. The constant din of empty words and machine noises, the endless booming of loudspeakers end by making true communication and true communion almost impossible. Each individual in the mass is insulated by thick layers of insensibility. He doesn’t care, he doesn’t hear, he doesn’t think. He does not act, he is pushed. He does not talk, he produces conventional sounds when stimulated by the appropriate noises. He does not think, he secretes clichés.”

– Thomas Merton in New Seeds of Contemplation

Yes, this is a long quote.

This past Tuesday was the monthly gathering of the Philly Chapter of the International Thomas Merton Society.  We are few in number but mighty in conversation.  (You can join for free here.)

We are going through New Seeds of Contemplation just one chapter at a time, and this most recent chapter (ch. 8) hit rather hard on the topics of crowds, community, and Christ’s odd holiness.

The quote above, which is taking “crowds” to task, reminded me much of Soren Kierkegaard.  Both figures seemed to have an entirely negative understanding of the crowd, of groupthink, of swaths of people in which no one is known personally, and no one is held personally accountable.

I invite you to reread this quote slowly; it packs quite a punch.

5.

“The day will come when, after harnessing the winds, the tides and graviation, we shall harness for God the energies of love.  And on that day, for the second time in the history of the world, man will have discovered fire.“

– Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, French Jesuit Priest

Pierre sure was poetic, wasn’t he?

As a theologian and a scientist, he believed Love is an actual force sustaining the cosmos.  He believed that Love was as elemental a force as the winds, the tides, and gravity.

Wrestling to Forgive

Thursday, March 5, 2026

Marietta Jaeger Lane’s daughter Susie was kidnapped and murdered. She recounts wrestling with the concept of forgiveness to restorative justice educator Elaine Enns:

I grew up in a house where we were never allowed to be angry. I was told that to be angry was a sin…. It took two weeks of sitting at the campground picnic table waiting for any news of Susie for my rage to roil up through the many inhibitions I had placed on it. When I finally allowed myself to get in touch with my anger … I knew that I could kill the kidnapper with my bare hands and a smile on my face. Even before I knew what he had done to Susie, I could have killed him for the terror he put her through, for taking her away from us and the effect it had on my entire family. 

However, after a major midnight wrestling match with God in which I tried to justify my “right” to rage and revenge, I “surrendered.” Because I believe in a God who never violates our freedom or free will, I gave God permission to change my heart. I promised to cooperate with God in whatever God could do to move my heart from fury to forgiveness. 

There was a time in the beginning where I felt that if I forgave the kidnapper, I would be unfaithful to Susie. I also struggled with a belief common to victims of violence—that if I could stay angry and get revenge, I was in control. 

I was catapulted into a very intense, spiritual journey, and spent many hours in prayer and reading scripture. God spoke to me frequently. It was a long, gradual process but, during that year, I came to realize three things: 

• In staying full of rage I was in fact handing my power over to the kidnapper, allowing his actions to change my value system and lead me away from the direction I wanted my life to go in. 
• In God’s eyes the kidnapper was just as precious as my little girl. 
• And if I wanted to live my Catholic faith with integrity, I was called to forgive and pray for my enemies.

Lane later became a human rights advocate:

As the months went by with no word of Susie, I also prayed to know what God’s idea of justice was. I came to understand that if Jesus is the word of God made flesh, then Jesus is the justice of God made flesh. As I looked at the life of Jesus in scripture I did not see someone who came to hurt, punish, or put us to death. Jesus came to heal and help us, to rehabilitate and reconcile us, to restore to us the life that was lost by “original sin.” God’s idea of justice is restoration, not punishment. 

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Sarah Young Jesus Calling

Jesus Calling – March 5th, 2026

Jesus Calling: March 5

    Make friends with the problems in your life. Though many things feel random and wrong, remember that I am sovereign over everything. I can fit everything into a pattern for good, but only to the extent that you trust Me. Every problem can teach you something, transforming you little by little into the masterpiece I created you to be. The very same problem can become a stumbling block over which you fall, if you react with distrust and defiance. The choice is up to you, and you will have to choose many times each day whether to trust Me or defy Me.
    The best way to befriend your problems is to thank Me for them. This simple act opens your mind to the possibility of benefits flowing from your difficulties. You can even give persistent problems nicknames, helping you to approach them with familiarity rather than with dread. The next step is to introduce them to Me, enabling Me to embrace them in My loving Presence. I will not necessarily remove your problems, but My wisdom is sufficient to bring good out of every one of them.

RELATED SCRIPTURE:

Romans 8:28 (NLT)
28 And we know that God causes everything to work together for the good of those who love God and are called according to his purpose for them.

Additional insight regarding Romans 8:28: God works in “everything” – not just isolated incidents – for our good. This does not mean that all that happens to us is good. Evil is prevalent in our fallen world, but God is able to turn every circumstance around for our long-range good. Note that God is not working to make us happy but to fulfill his purpose. Note also that this promise is not for everybody. It can be claimed only by those who love God and are called by him, that is, those whom the Holy Spirit convinces to receive Christ. Such people have a new perspective, a new mindset. They trust in God, not in worldly treasures; their security is in heaven, not on earth. Their faith in God does not waver in pain and persecution because they know God is with them.

1st Corinthians 1:23-24 (NLT)
23 So when we preach that Christ was crucified, the Jews are offended and the Gentiles say it’s all nonsense.
24 But to those called by God to salvation, both Jews and Gentiles, Christ is the power of God and the wisdom of God.

Choosing Grace Not Violence

Wednesday, March 4, 2026

READ ON CAC.ORG

Activist Shane Claiborne lays out the distinct choice we can make to draw on grace or vengeance when seeking justice:

Violence is contagious. Violence begets violence. A rude look is exchanged for a cold shoulder. A middle finger for a honked horn. Hatred begets hatred. Pick up the sword and die by the sword. You kill us and we’ll kill you. There is a contagion of violence in the world; it’s spreading like a disease.

But grace is also contagious. An act of kindness inspires another act of kindness. A random smile is exchanged for an opened door. Helping someone carry their laundry or groceries makes them nicer. Randomly paying someone’s toll in the car behind you invites them to pay it forward. A single act of forgiveness can feel like it heals the world. Grace begets grace. Love rubs off on those who are loved….

There’s nowhere you can see the battle of grace and disgrace waged more vehemently than in the criminal justice system. When it comes to words like “justice,” people can say the same thing and mean something completely different.

Capital punishment offers us one version of justice. There is a sensibility to it: evil should not go without consequence. And there is a theology behind it: “An eye for an eye … a tooth for a tooth” [Exodus 21:23–24].

Yet grace offers us another version of justice. Grace makes room for redemption. Grace offers us a vision for justice that is restorative and dedicated to healing the wounds of injustice. But the grace thing is hard work. It takes faith—because it dares us to believe that not only can victims be healed, but so can the victimizers. It is not always easy to believe that love is more powerful than hatred, life more powerful than death, and that people can be better than the worst thing they’ve done.

These two versions of justice compete for our allegiance. One leads to death. The other can lead to life, and to healing and redemption and other beautiful things.

Mercy is a natural outflowing of grace:

It’s been said, “Mercy is not getting what you do deserve, and grace is getting what you don’t deserve.” Both are beautiful, but both can also seem like a betrayal of justice. That’s why justice can’t just come out of our heads, but it also has to flow from our hearts. Grace and mercy are things, just like forgiveness, that exist in the context of evil, and in contrast to it. When all is well, grace and mercy are hard to notice. But when things are rough, they are hard to ignore. They shine brightly. Just as light shines in the darkness, grace is radiant next to evil.

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From Kurt Thompson

Dear friend, When we travel, whether for business or leisure, we often carry a quiet assumption: our “real life” is back home. Back where the rhythms are familiar. Back where the people who know us best are waiting. Back where we imagine we are most fully seen and known. The days on the road can feel temporary, almost detached. As if we are living in parentheses until we return to the place where we belong. Recently, after a full day of speaking, I was finishing dinner alone in a hotel bar. It was late. I was tired. I was already orienting myself toward the quiet of my room upstairs. And then a man approached my table. He had attended the talk and wondered if I would be interested in joining him, his wife, and another couple for conversation.   He offered his invitation with the explicit stated awareness that I might rather not, that I would rather be alone after my day of work, and that he and his friends would completely understand should I choose to demur. He and his friends had noticed me being alone and wanted to offer me the chance not to be if I so desired. There it was—that small interior crossroads. The part of me that longed for solitude. And the deeper invitation to remain open. I joined them. The following evening, nearly the same time, nearly the same setting; this time, a woman approached. Once more, a similar story line: she and her husband, along with another couple had heard the lecture earlier that day and come for dinner afterward. Would I sit with the four of them for a meal? Again, the choice. Two nights. Two invitations. Two moments that could easily have been dismissed as interruptions to the life I imagined was waiting somewhere else.

But here is what those evenings quickly reminded me of: my “real” life is wherever I happen to be.   And here is what “where I happened to be” became. On both occasions I soon was awash in joy and delight—and energized—in hearing the stories of each of the people who had so kindly and generously come to find me. It turns out that none of these eight people over the course of the two evenings wanted something from me so much as they wanted to care for me by offering me hospitality at their tables. Moreover, they put their money where their mouths were. On both evenings they picked up the tab for my dinner. What I could have imagined as an intrusion into my “down time” was instead a gift from the Spirit. A gift of community. A gift of others caring for me as we shared with each other where we each were finding ourselves in those present moments. I cannot say it too often, not least to myself—our real lives are wherever we allow ourselves to be seen by and to see others. On both occasions, what struck me was not the content of our conversations so much as the courage of their vulnerability. The willingness of couples to speak honestly. To risk being known. To say, in one way or another, this is who we are; this is our story. And in the simple act of telling the truth, community—between people who in my case an hour ago didn’t know each other at all—began to emerge. We are not meant to live in isolation, even when we are away from home. The longing to be known does not pause when we cross time zones. Nor does our call to bear witness to one another’s lives. Community is not confined to geography; it is created whenever two or three people choose presence over distraction. So often we imagine that meaning resides somewhere else—later, back home, once we return to our “real” relationships. But the kingdom of God meets us precisely where we are. It asks us to notice who is in front of us. To resist the temptation to live as if this moment doesn’t count. Because it does. Your “real” life is wherever you happen to be. And in that place—whether at your kitchen table or in a hotel bar—you are invited to see and be seen, to know and be known. This is how community forms. This is how love takes flesh. The question is not whether your real life is happening. The question is whether you are willing to enter it. Warmly, Curt

Tuesday, March 3, 2026

READ ON CAC.ORG

Grace is the foundation of God’s restorative justice. Father Richard writes:

The Hebrew prophet Ezekiel affirms the unique and rarely understood notion of grace. Midway through the book, God speaks: “I am going to renew my covenant with you; and you will learn that I am Yahweh, and so remember and be covered with shame, and in your confusion be reduced to silence, when I have pardoned you for all that you have done” (Ezekiel 16:62–63).

Here, the Jewish people had not even asked for or recognized that they might need forgiveness. When I first read this verse as a young friar, I was overcome by shock. Why has no one even pointed out this break in our reward-punishment logic to me? Ezekiel and Jeremiah were coming to the same conclusion around the same time, in the middle of the Babylonian exile. Just when we think the prophets would have been looking for reasons for such punishment, they broke out of its logic altogether. That’s the refining power of suffering, I should think. “I will treat you as respect for my own name requires, and not as your own conduct deserves” (Ezekiel 20:44). God’s only measure is Godself. We can never forget that.

In Ezekiel, Yahweh always acts and never reacts, as we humans tend to do. This is divine revelation at its fullest and freest! Restorative justice—the divine freedom to do good at all costs—is quite simply God being consistently true to Godself. It’s a total end run around retributive justice, which Ezekiel portrays as being beneath God’s dignity.

This theme of themes—God filling in all the gaps created by our ignorance, low self-esteem, and fear—reaches an apotheosis, in my judgment, in chapter 36. Here Ezekiel, at great length, completely disqualifies Israel as a partner by listing all their many adulteries. But immediately after stating Israel’s total unworthiness, their constant and selfish prostitution of the ways of covenant, Ezekiel says that Yahweh completely requalifies the same relationship from Yahweh’s side:

I will take you from the nations, and gather you from all the countries, and bring you into your own land. I will sprinkle clean water upon you, and you shall be clear from all your uncleanness, and from all your idols I will cleanse you. A new heart I will give you, and a new spirit I will put within you…. Then you shall live in the land that I gave to your ancestors; and you shall be my people, and I will be your God (see Ezekiel 36:22–38).

No reciprocity is any longer expected or demanded. God can’t waste God’s time anymore. It is all God’s work and gift from beginning to end, if we are honest with ourselves. This is the promise of how God will work within history, and exactly why many of us firmly believe in “the universal restoration that God announced long ago through his holy prophets” (Acts 3:21).

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A guest post by Brian McLaren

I grew up in an Evangelical background, I memorized many Bible verses as a child. Probably the first, and the most frequently recited, was from this passage, John 3:16. You may have memorized it to, or noticed it on T-shirts or signs at NFL games. “For God so loved the world,” the verse says, “that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.”

The words “the world” and “everyone” have a universal reach. But when I learned the verse and heard it preached by Billy Graham and others, its universal reach was quickly and severely narrowed by the words “who believes in him.” God may love everyone, but only those who believe in him will escape punishment for their sins, which in our tradition, meant hell.

Believing in him (theological nerd alert) came to mean (for millions of us) believing in a doctrine called “penal substitutionary atonement theory.”* 

That doctrine, I suspect, is what the organizers of the Revised Common Lectionary had in mind when they paired the steak of John 3 with the red wine of Romans 4 and the side salad of Genesis 12.

I still love John 3:16 and Romans 4, but penal substitutionary atonement theory stopped making sense to me decades ago. And part of my way out of the theory was the Genesis 12 passage in today’s readings, especially these words:

I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you, and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you,
and the one who curses you I will curse; and in you all the families of the
earth shall be blessed.

The brilliant British missiologist Lesslie Newbegin said these words addressed the greatest heresy (or dangerous idea) in the history of monotheism. Many people understand being blessed by God as an exclusive matter, Newbegin said, as if God blesses some to the exclusion of others. 

But no, Newbegin says. From the very beginning in the creation story in Genesis 1, when God blesses all creation – both day and night, both land and sea, both plant and animal, both animal and human – God’s blessings have been universal, because that is who God is and how God lives, an overflowing
fountain of blessing. When God calls Abraham (then known as Abram), God doesn’t bless Abram and his descendants to the exclusion of others, but for the
benefit of others.

God’s blessings are not exclusive, but rather instrumental.

I often recall an experience I had way way back in elementary school in the early 1960’s. Every day, we young students were assisted by older students in 5th or 6th grade. They were safety patrols, and they stood at intersections and held us back until they checked that there were no cars coming. Then they motioned for us to cross the road. I didn’t realize that what they did required hard work and sacrifice. They had to leave home earlier and come home later than the rest of us. They had to stand at their post in rain and snow and sleet and hail and hot sun and cold wind.

When at the end of fourth grade, our teacher asked for volunteers to be safety patrols next year, I wasn’t thinking of any of their hard work, sacrifice of comfort and time, or big responsibility. I wasn’t thinking of the special safety patrol training meetings I would have to attend.

I was thinking of four things. First, I was thinking I would get to wear a special white belt with an actual silver badge. Wow! Second, I was thinking about how I could boss other kids around! Double wow! Third, I was thinking of the fact that they could arrive at school late and leave early. Triple Wow! And fourth, I was thinking of the fact that safety patrols all went to an amusement park on a school day at the end of the year as a reward for their service, and they didn’t have to make up the schoolwork they missed. That was a home run of wows!

So I raised my hand high and sat up straight to volunteer, adding an “Oooo, oooo, pick me!” for emphasis. And to my great joy, a few days later I found my name on the list of next year’s safety patrols. Hallelujah!

Simply put, immature Brian was interested in being a patrol so I could gain status, even superiority over my fellow students, and for the reward of a day at the park at the end of the year.

That is the way many people taught John 3:16. All you have to do is raise your hand, say yes to the privileges promised to those who are chosen, and you will be pronounced as a “born again Christian,” which meant you would have a free ticket to safety, security, and enjoyment in heaven for yourself and yourself alone, forever.

But that is not what Genesis 12 or John 3:16 are actually about, contrary to a very popular belief. God chooses Abram, not for elite and exclusive privilege for his descendants alone, but for deep responsibility and service for all the nations of world. God chooses Abram not to the exclusion of others, but to the benefit and blessing of others. As Lesslie Newbegin said, you can’t claim God’s blessings for yourself, your race, your culture, or your religion, and leave out and “in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.”

Similarly, the profound image of being born again is not about getting a free “get out of hell” card and a free trip to the eternal amusement park above, to ride its roller coasters forever.

In John 3, Nicodemus, like many people today, is focused on the superiority of his in-group. “Teacher, we know,” he begins. Now as a lifelong teacher, I can tell you that whenever a student begins a conversation with “Teacher, we know,” things are not likely to go well. Students who want every answer to fit in with what they already know are operating within what psychologists and rhetoricians call confirmation bias: they only want to hear what conforms to and confirms their current thinking.

So Jesus goes to the heart of the issue: “I’m here to teach people about the kingdom of God, and the only way to see it is to be born from above.” To be born from above means to start life over again with a new identity, not as someone who is trying to be a carrier of elite privilege, but to be someone (like Abram, and like Jesus) who wanted to be blessed for the sake of others … who wanted to live, we might say, for the common good, or who wanted to join God in loving and healing the world.

Nicodemus is operating on what we might call a conventional and literalistic level, unaware of his biases and the limitations of his current perspective, so he asks questions that demonstrate his cluelessness. Jesus keeps challenging him to break out of his fourth-grade thinking, and join him as a safety patrol, so to speak, who isn’t working for himself alone, or even for his own little group or clique, but who is concerned for everyone’s welfare, everywhere, no exceptions. God’s desire, Jesus says, is not to condemn everyone or anyone, but to save everyone.

God’s desire, Jesus says, is not to condemn everyone or anyone, 
but to save everyone.

One final thought: If Lesslie Newbegin was right when he said that the widespread religious idea of exclusive blessing was a heresy, then we might say that many if not most Christians today, like Nicodemus, need to rethink their understanding of the words save, perish, eternal life, and kingdom of God.

Most people think “save” means “get to heaven.”

Most people think “perish” means “go to hell.”

And most people think “eternal life” means “life in heaven.”

And they think “kingdom of God” means heaven, the perfect place where souls go after death.

If we take John’s gospel seriously enough to challenge our own conventional and literalistic thinking, I believe we will come to see differently, that: 

“Save” means liberate or set free from the current, corrupt “kingdoms of this world.”

“Perish” means “die or be exterminated through war and oppression.”

“Eternal life” means “life of the ages,” in contrast to “life in this present age or regime.” In other words, it means life “from above,” life on a higher level than life in the current economic, political, and social systems of our current human civilization. We will see it as a synonym for what Jesus later calls “abundant life.”

And “kingdom of God” means “what the world would be like if God were sitting on the throne instead of Caesar and Herod” and [insert names of other powerful, corrupt, misguided leaders here].

For many Cottage readers, everything I’ve said here sounds pretty familiar and unsurprising. But many of us might feel like Nicodemus when he was walking home from his nighttime conversation with Jesus.

Based on what we learn about Nicodemus later in the Fourth Gospel (John 7:50- 51, and John 19:39-42), he probably left with his mind racing with thoughts like these: “Maybe I don’t actually already have everything figured out. Maybe I need to rethink a lot of what I think I know.”

That is not a bad place to be, not a bad place at all. In fact, it sounds like being born from above … discovering a new identity … seeing the world in radically new ways.

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Individual reflection question:

Where have you received grace that you didn’t earn, ask for, or even recognize you needed — and what did that do to you?

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Group discussion question:

Rohr says God requalifies the relationship entirely from God’s side; McLaren says blessing is instrumental, not exclusive. What would it look like, concretely, for you to live as someone “blessed for others” this week — and where does that feel costly?

God’s Restorative Justice

Just Love

Sunday, March 1, 2026

Father Richard Rohr emphasizes how God’s justice in the Bible is fundamentally loving and restorative rather than punitive.

As we read the Bible, God does not change as much as our knowledge of God evolves. I certainly recognize there are many biblical passages that present God as punitive and retributive, but we must stay with the text—and observe how we gradually let God grow up. Focusing on divine retribution leads to an ego-satisfying and eventually unworkable image of God, which situates us inside of a very unsafe and dangerous universe. Both Jesus and Paul observed the human tendency toward retribution and spoke strongly about the limitations of the law.

The biblical notion of justice, beginning in the Hebrew Scriptures with the Jewish prophets—especially Moses, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and Hosea—is quite different. If we read carefully and honestly, we will see that God’s justice is restorative. In each case, after the prophet chastises the Israelites for their transgressions against Yahweh, the prophet continues by saying, in effect, “And here’s what Yahweh will do for you: God will now love you more than ever! God will love you into wholeness. God will pour upon you a gratuitous, unbelievable, unaccountable, irrefutable love that you will finally be unable to resist.”

God “punishes” us by loving us more! How else could divine love be supreme and victorious? Check out this theme for yourself: Read passages such as Isaiah 29:13–24, Hosea 6:1–6, Ezekiel 16 (especially verses 59–63), and so many of the Psalms. God’s justice is fully successful when God can legitimate and validate human beings in their original and total identity! God wins by making sure we win—just as any loving human parent does. 

Love is the only thing that transforms the human heart. In the Gospels, we see Jesus fully revealing this divine wisdom. Love takes the shape and symbolism of healing and radical forgiveness—which is just about all that Jesus does. Jesus, who represents God, usually transforms people at the moments when they most hate themselves, when they most feel shame or guilt, or want to punish themselves. Look at Jesus’s interaction with the tax collector Zacchaeus (Luke 19:1–10). He doesn’t belittle or punish Zacchaeus; instead, Jesus goes to his home, shares a meal with him, and treats him like a friend. Zacchaeus’s heart is opened and transformed. Only then does Zacchaeus commit to making reparations for the harm he has done. 

As Isaiah says of God, “My thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways my ways” (Isaiah 55:8). Yet I am afraid we largely pulled God down into “our thoughts.” We think fear, anger, divine intimidation, threat, and punishment are going to lead people to love. We cannot lead people to the highest level of motivation by teaching them the lowest. God always and forever models the highest, and our task is merely to “imitate God” (Ephesians 5:1).

A Prophet’s Call for Justice

Monday, March 2, 2026

Richard Rohr considers how God used the prophets to upend notions of retributive justice, which prevail in most cultures to this day:

Justice, most of us believe, is when we send bad guys to jail. We imagine that we can point out the few who get caught and that then we can think of ourselves as a fair society. But we don’t dare convict the whole system of massive injustice and deceit. Maybe we are refusing to carry both guilt and responsibility? Taking responsibility for the common good is the more important moral mandate. And that is exactly where the prophets began. When the common good is the focus, preaching is not about imposing guilt and shame on individuals, but about giving vision and encouragement to society.

What history has needed is a positive and inspiring universal vision for the earth and the people of God. Harping about individual sin and convicting wrongdoers might shame a few individuals into halfhearted obedience, but in terms of societal change it has been a notorious Christian failure. Retributive justice has backfired because it is not founded in a positive love and appreciation of the good, the true, and the beautiful in the world or in creation. Negative energy feeds on itself, but positive energy evokes a positive vision.

So what is the Hebrew prophet Amos’s positive vision? When we read the way he ends his prophecy, it’s clear that the rewards and rejoicing are very much based in this earth and this world. According to Amos, God says:

I mean to restore the fortunes of my people Israel.
They will rebuild their ruined cities and live in them,
plant vineyards and drink their wine,
dig gardens and eat their produce (Amos 9:14).

Radical unity with God and neighbor is the only way any of us truly heals or improves. Perhaps that is why Alcoholics Anonymous continues to make such an enduring difference in people’s lives. AA insists on personal responsibility for woundedness, the inner experience of a Higher Power, and some kind of ongoing small-group practice: the whole package of healthy religion.

By his final verses, Amos sees God as more merciful and more compassionate, even as he continues to lament Israel’s foolishness and failures:

That day I will re-erect the tottering hut of David,
Make good the gaps in it,
Restore the ancient ruins,
And rebuild its ancient ruins (Amos 9:11).

Amos is inaugurating a revolution in our understanding of how divine love operates among us. This is no longer retribution or punishment, but a full reordering. It is such divine extravagance, a philosophy of love them into loving me back, that sets the pattern for all the prophets to follow. He represents a strong and clear movement away from retribution and punishment to what will become a new covenant of restorative justice that we see worked out in Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and, of course, in the life of Jesus. This changes everything, or at least it should.

How Do We Reach the Promised Land?

Friday, February 27, 2026

Father Richard invites us to take a journey of faith. It may be plagued by uncertainty, but we can trust in God’s presence along the way.

Sometimes it is only when we look back over the years, many of them spent in the wilderness, that we see the providence of God. When we were traveling through those years, none of them may have seemed very glorious. But when we look back, we can see how God was leading us, and we behold the beauty of God’s saving love.

Yet when we are in the middle of it, it may not seem very beautiful at all. It may seem quite ordinary. Usually we cannot tell for certain if God is acting in our life. In fact, we may be able to make a strong case against it. Just look at the prophets, Job, or Jesus! The way of faith is not a way of certitude.

I can imagine quite easily that Moses faltered on occasion. He must have hesitated and wondered whether God was really leading him, or whether he was just on some big ego trip. If Moses saw some visible apparition or heard some audible sounds which made him absolutely certain that he was right, Moses’s way would not have been a way of faith. It would have been a way of knowledge.

We are all called to a way of faith. At each step God asks us to trust, to say yes, to put our lives in God’s hands. It’s like walking around in a pitch-dark room, afraid that we’re going to bump into something or trip or fall. We put our hands out in front of us and walk very slowly. We want desperately to have our pathway illuminated. We want to know where we are going and how we are going to get there. Yet a voice comes to us out of the darkness, asking us to trust. We want certitude, but instead God asks us to have faith.

Our faith and our trust, then, are in God—not in our own cleverness, strategies, or planning, not in our status or money. In the desert, all our idols are taken away from us and our security is gone. The desert, the darkness, is the school of surrender, the place for learning total dependence on God.

Very often we experience faith in its purest form when we are in the midst of suffering. Perhaps we grew up picturing ourselves as some kind of glorious martyr (or perhaps that was just me), but when we are in the middle of it, it’s not glorious at all. It all seems so meaningless, so unjust and wrong, yet that’s the heart of the suffering. The essence of the desert experience is that we just want to get out it. If we could find a pattern in it, it would have some meaning. If we could find some purpose in it, it might give us a sense of direction. We truly suffer when we can find neither of those things, and yet even then, God is present.

__________________________________________________

John Chaffee 5 On Friday

1.

“Let nothing disturb you.
Let nothing frighten you.
All things pass away.
God never changes.
Patience obtains all things.
They who have God
lack nothing.
God alone is enough.”

– Teresa of Avila, Spanish Mystic

As a Head-oriented person on the Enneagram (I am an Enneagram 5), I am most prone to fall into fearful thinking.  Shame does not really get to me, and neither does anger (though I can get to both in certain circumstances).

So this prayer or piece of wisdom from Teresa of Avila has stuck with me for quite a while.  “Let nothing disturb you” gets to me right off the bat, but then it follows up with “Let nothing frighten you.”

Boom.

Boom.

But to close with “God alone is enough”?

Wow.

2.

“Above all, trust in the slow work of God.”

– Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, French Jesuit

This week, I recorded another Begin Again podcast  (The link is below.)

Although it was interrupted a few times by our puppy, Maggie, it helped to anchor me more throughout the day.

Teilhard was a French Jesuit priest who was also a paleontologist and archaeologist.  All this means is that Teilhard had a long view of time.  For him, he was not threatened by the idea that it might have taken the universe 13.8 billion years to get to you and me, and it might take another 13.8 billion years for the full Christ Project to come to fruition!

God clearly has a profound appreciation for the slow unfolding of time, and that is an uncomfortable truth for us, who live in time.

3.

“This is the message we have heard from him and declare to you: God is light; in him there is no darkness at all. If we claim to have fellowship with him and yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not live out the truth.“

– 1 John 1:5-6

The three letters of John in the New Testament are letters that I do not visit often.  Most people find good things in 1 John and then trail off when they come to 2 John or 3 John.

One thing that is fascinating is how the Johannine letters use the symbolic language of “light and darkness” and use absolute statements to make a point.  There isn’t a whole lot of paradox in 1 John!  It is rather straightforward and black-and-white in its thinking, which is what I think gives it such a punch when you read it.

“If we claim to have fellowship with him and yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not live out the truth.”

Dang.

That is convicting.

Of course, my judgmental mind goes toward people whom I believe are “walking in darkness,” but that is using the Bible inappropriately.

I should be focused on myself (in a healthy way).

I, of all people, need to check myself and evaluate every so often whether or not I am living “according to the light of God as revealed in the person of Jesus of Nazareth.”

Hopefully, if I am even asking the question of myself, that is an indication of something!

4.

“We must believe that, morally speaking, there is no limit to the concern one must feel for the suffering of human beings, that indifference to evil is worse than evil itself, that in a free society, some are guilty but all are responsible.”

– Abraham Joshua Heschel, Jewish Philosopher

Surely, none of you are surprised to see Abraham Joshua Heschel again.

As a Jewish philosopher and rabbi, he was friends with Martin Luther King Jr. and Thomas Merton, and was quite outspoken during the Civil Rights Movement.

5.

“Myths convey the essential truths, the primary reality of life itself.”

– JRR Tolkien, Author of The Lord of the Rings

Stories suck me in.

If it is a really good story, I will want to watch it again or read it again.

However, in the past week, we watched Marty Supreme, and I must say, I didn’t enjoy it.  On one level, it kept your attention because the main character isn’t exactly a hero and is rather doggone narcissistic about achieving his own dream.

If the movie was trying to depict reality, it didn’t align with my understanding of reality.

Yes, my understanding of the world allows space for chaos, paradox, and even evil, but ultimately those things will have to bow and exit before goodness, beauty, truth, and love are given their full expression.

The stories we tell… they matter.

And they not only matter because they potentially describe what is, but also because they can inspire us towards what might be.  I believe that there is an essential truth: there is always hope that things can turn for the better, that people can change and grow, and that we do not have to be stuck in our ways.

A Time for Growth

Thursday, February 26, 2026

During nepantla our world views and self-identities are shattered. Nepantla is painful, messy, confusing and chaotic; it signals unexpected, uncontrollable shifts, transitions, and changes. Nepantla hurts!!!! But nepantla is also a time of self-reflection, choice, and potential growth.
—AnaLouise Keating

The concept of “nepantla” comes from the indigenous Nahuatl people of central Mexico and nearby regions. It captures a sense of being transformed in and by the wilderness. Spiritual teacher Liza Rankow finds encouragement in the wisdom it offers:

Gloria Anzaldúa wrote about the richly nuanced Nahuatl concept of napantla. She referred to it as a state of in-between-ness, a liminal space where multiple realities simultaneously exist, and transformation can occur. Napantla relates to both our individual journeys and our collective ones….

In the Abrahamic scriptures, the wilderness is another place of in-between-ness. Take the Exodus story about the Israelites’ escape from bondage in Egypt: their journey through the wilderness lasted 40 years before they entered Canaan, or what was referred to as “the promised land.”… The physical terrain between Egypt and Canaan wasn’t so vast that it took 40 years to cross. But the spiritual evolution necessary to move from a consciousness of bondage to a consciousness of liberation takes time. The people who emerged from the wilderness were not the ones who entered it. The number 40, which signifies completion, is not intended here as a measure of chronological time, but as an indication of a period of trials in the transition from one way of being to another.

Nepantla encourages us to embrace the in-between for all we can learn and become in the process:

Wilderness times, like those of napantla, are painful and difficult, and most of us want to get out of them as quickly as we can. Yet to shortchange the process is to pry open a cocoon prematurely because we want the butterfly. All we’re going to find in there is goop, or a half-formed bug body with tiny useless wings. The question is not what we need in order to get out of this wilderness, but rather, what do we need to inhabit the wilderness—for as long as it takes to complete our transition, our metamorphosis. You see, the wilderness is a season not a location. And like the healing of wounds, or the becoming of a butterfly, the wilderness journey is a process, not an event.

In the culture of “life hacks” and instant gratification, the idea of tarrying in the arduous in-between of spiritual wrestling may seem entirely unappealing. It’s so tempting to want to bypass the wilderness and hurry on to the promised land. However, these experiences of formation and transformation are essential, lest we try to enter the new world with the same consciousness that created the old one.

Wildernesses are crucibles where we become the people who can live into new lands of promise and liberation.

__________________________________________________________

Sarah Young, Jesus Calling

Jesus Calling: February 26

    I am leading you, step by step, through your life. Hold My hand in trusting dependence, letting Me guide you through this day. Your future looks uncertain and flimsy–even precarious. That is how it should be. Secret things belong to the Lord, and future things are secret things. When you try to figure out the future, you are grasping at things that are Mine. This, like all forms of worry, is an act of rebellion: doubting My promises to care for you.
    Whenever you find yourself worrying about the future, repent and return to Me. I will show you the next step forward, and the one after that, and the one after that. Relax and enjoy the journey in My Presence, trusting Me to open up the way before you as you go. 

RELATED SCRIPTURE: 

Deuteronomy 29:29 NLT

29 “The Lord our God has secrets known to no one. We are not accountable for them, but we and our children are accountable forever for all that he has revealed to us, so that we may obey all the terms of these instructions.

Psalm 32:8 NLT

8 The Lord says, “I will guide you along the best pathway for your life.

    I will advise you and watch over you.

at January 23, 2022 8 comments: 

Wilderness Journey

Wednesday, February 25, 2026

Click the link to view and hear the song for today….

https://youtu.be/mM4LNKjhJZg?si=4tlZNdNnSdWJhOC_

Brian McLaren describes some of the modern addictions that keep us from choosing the difficult path to freedom:

Most of us spend a lot of our lives trying to get out of something old and confining and into something new and free. That’s why we so easily identify with Moses and the freed Hebrew slaves on their journey through the wild wasteland known as the wilderness.

The truth is that we’re all on a wilderness journey out of some form of slavery. On a personal level, we know what it is to be enslaved to fear, alcohol, food, rage, worry, lust, shame, inferiority, or control. On a social level, in today’s version of Pharoah’s economy, millions at the bottom of the pyramid work like slaves from before dawn to after dark and still never get ahead. And even those at the top of the pyramid don’t feel free. They wake up each day driven by … the lash of their own inner slave drivers: greed, debt, competition, expectation, and a desperate, addictive craving for more.…

We have much to learn from the stories of Moses and his companions. We, too, must remember that the road to freedom doesn’t follow a straight line from point A to point B. Instead, it zigzags and backtracks through a discomfort zone of lack, delay, distress, and strain. In those wild places, character is formed—the personal and social character needed for people to enjoy freedom and aliveness.

Author Cole Arthur Riley reminds us of the slow work of liberation:

Could you wander for forty years if it meant freedom? If you listen, you can still hear them groaning—they who were rescued, only to find that freedom is never so easily won. That liberation is a path marked by uncertainty and thirst and grief over all that was lost in the revolution. In Exodus, we are faced with a God of slow rescue…. Perhaps God knew that part of liberation is confronting anything you might hunger for more than it. [1]

McLaren continues:

The wilderness journey is always difficult and seems to last forever…. But the truth is, if we arrive before we’ve learned the lessons of the wilderness, we won’t be able to enjoy the freedom that awaits us in the promised land beyond it. There is wisdom we will need there that we can gain only right here. There is strength and skill we will need in the future that we can develop only here and now, on the wilderness road. There is moral muscle we will need then that we can exercise and strengthen only through our struggles on this road, here and now….

We will often be tempted to return to our old lives, but in that tension between a backward pull and a forward call, we will discover unexplainable sustenance (like manna) and unexpected refreshment (like springs in the desert). Against all odds, walking by faith, we will survive, and more: we will learn what it means to be alive.

________________________________________________________

Sarah Young Jesus Calling

Jesus Calling: February 25th, 2026

Jesus Calling: February 25

    Rest in My Presence, allowing Me to take charge of this day. Do not bolt into the day like a racehorse suddenly released. Instead, walk purposefully with Me, letting Me direct your course one step at a time. Thank Me for each blessing along the way; this brings Joy to both you and Me. A grateful heart protects you from negative thinking. Thankfulness enables you to see the abundance I shower upon you daily. Your prayers and petitions are winged into heaven’s throne room when they are permeated with thanksgiving. In everything give thanks, for this is My will for you. 

RELATED SCRIPTURE: 

Colossians 4:2 NLT

An Encouragement for Prayer

2 Devote yourselves to prayer with an alert mind and a thankful heart.

1st Thessalonians 5:18 NLT

18 Be thankful in all circumstances, for this is God’s will for you who belong to Christ Jesus.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F4dmG9DU_io

Tuesday, February 24, 2026

Estelle Frankel, a teacher of Jewish mysticism, describes how the story of Exodus reveals our human preference for what is known, even if something new may be better for us: 

All freedom journeys require an open mind—a mind that is not conditioned by past knowledge and experience, but open to possibility. Questioning opens the doors of our imagination, enabling us to consider alternatives to the status quo. Unless one is capable of imagining another possible reality, one cannot free oneself from bondage.…

We humans are creatures of habit. Our daily routines comfort us and make us feel secure for they allow us to know and predict what is going to happen. (OUTCOMES) Resistance to change is actually built into our evolutionary writing…. 

The compulsion to repeat the past is apparent in the biblical myth of the Exodus. When Moses led the Israelites to freedom, they often yearned to return to Egypt. Though they were miraculously provided for throughout their forty years of wandering in the desert, the Israelites were often nostalgic for the “good old (bad) days” in Egypt: “We remember the fish we ate free in Mitzrayim—also the cucumber, melons, leeks, onions and garlic” (Numbers 11:5)…. They missed the predictability and sense of control they felt in Egypt—where everything was known. Though in actuality they were oppressed and enslaved by the Egyptians, the Israelites looked back on their time in Egypt with nostalgia because they could not bear the uncertainty they faced as a free people.

Freedom is, ultimately, uncertain and unpredictable. One of the first lessons we all must learn in order to be free is how to “bear” uncertainty and trust in the unknown. In the biblical myth of the Exodus, the manna was a vehicle for learning this lesson. Each day for forty years, the Israelites would have to go out and gather their daily supply of manna—just enough for that day….

The manna provided the necessary preparation for becoming a free people, for freedom requires an ability to bear uncertainty, to not know what is going to happen next, and to trust in the unfolding journey.

The “manna” of our daily lives is an opportunity for us to practice this same beginner’s mind. 

The manna challenged the Israelites to develop beginner’s mind—to experience something new and fresh while eating the very same thing each day. Instead of seeking the answers that might put their questions to rest, the manna taught the Israelites to continually live the questions, to understand that the journey to freedom is about remaining awake and curious and not going into sleep mode…. 

Beginner’s mind is a way of life. Each day we are challenged to see the same familiar people and landscapes with new eyes. Just as the cosmos is created and sustained anew each moment, everything is alive and changing, ourselves included, if we are spiritually awake and paying attention…. When we see existence as alive with possibility, we come out of Egypt, our personal places of bondage and constriction. 

===========

Something better than what you’re asking for

A powerful story about an experience with my son…

TYSON BRADLEYFEB 23

I was gone the past three days at a conference where I got to listen to and interact with Paul Young, the author of The Shack. On the way to the airport on Friday, my wife was driving me, and my 3-year-old son Luca fell asleep in the car. I didn’t want to wake him up, so I just left. Didn’t say goodbye. Just slipped out.

My wife told me later that when he woke up, the first thing he said was, “Where’s Daddy?”

Now, you need to know something about Luca. I have three kids, and my older daughters never really preferred one parent over the other, but Luca… he likes me. He asks for me, wants to play games with me, wants to be around me. So knowing that he woke up asking for me and I wasn’t there… that was a little sad.

Fast forward three days. I get picked up from the airport, and Luca is asleep again. He kinda stirred when we got home, enough for me to carry him inside and put him to bed, but it wasn’t this full awareness that I was back. He didn’t really know I was there.

Then this morning, I woke up to crying.

I go into his room and hush his cries, which is usually all I need to do for him to be okay and get back to sleep. But after I left, the crying started again. This time he wanted water. So I got him some water, he took a drink, I left… and heard more crying shortly after.

I go back in and say, “What’s up, buddy?”

He mumbles something I can’t understand.

I ask again. “What did you say?”

More mumbling.

After a few more tries, I’m finally able to make out what he’s saying:

“I want to sleep in Daddy’s bed.”

And here’s the thing… I told him, “You can’t sleep in Daddy’s bed right now.” And he just cried even more. It felt like it broke his heart. Here I’ve been gone all this time, and all he wants is just to be close to me. Just to sleep in my bed.

It was already time for me to get up and do my morning call, so I knew I wasn’t going back to sleep. And I knew he needed more sleep, so having him come to my bed wasn’t going to work either. But I said, “I’m going to do something even better.”

I picked him up and just held him. Sat in the rocking chair in his room, and just held him.

I felt such love for him in that moment. And he calmed down. After about 10 minutes, I put him back in his bed, and he was fine. He was good.

So here’s where this gets bigger than a cute story about my kid.

I can come and go. And Luca can feel the reality of that, the weight of my absence. He woke up and I wasn’t there. He came home and didn’t fully know I was back. That separation was real for him.

But with God, we’re not separate. He doesn’t leave for three days. He doesn’t slip out while we’re sleeping. He’s not at a conference somewhere. He’s with us… always.

Now, I know that doesn’t always feel true. Sometimes it feels like God is gone. Sometimes it feels like you’re waking up in a dark room calling out, “Where’s Daddy?” And the silence can be heavy.

But here’s what I’ve found… even when we feel like we’re separate from God, even when we call out and it seems like nobody’s answering, the moment we say, “I just want to be close to You, Father. I just want to sleep in Your bed,” something happens.

And maybe God’s response is similar to mine with Luca. Maybe it’s, “It’s not time for that yet.” It’s not time to come and live with Him fully, to end this human life and go dwell with Him forever. That’s not what this moment is for.

But He wants to do something even better than what you’re asking for.

He wants to hold you. Right here. Right now. Not in some future heaven, not after you’ve earned it or figured it out, but in this moment, in the middle of your crying, in the middle of your dark room, in the middle of whatever you’re going through.

And in that holding, in that closeness, you can rest. Just like Luca resting in my arms in the rocking chair, you can rest in God’s presence and find that everything is okay.

And if you’re willing to allow that… if you’re willing to just let yourself be held instead of striving and reaching for something you think you need… you’ll find that there’s not just peace, but a freedom. A freedom from fear. A freedom from doubt. A freedom from shame. A freedom that allows you to act in the truth of who you are.

So I just want to invite you into something simple today. Whatever you’re carrying, whatever room you’re crying in, whatever absence you’re feeling… just tell God what Luca told me.

“I just want to be close to You.”

And then let Him pick you up.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tIZitK6_IMQ

Discussion Questions

Opening/Observation: What word, image, or moment from either reading stayed with you?

Moving inward: Frankel says the Israelites were nostalgic for Egypt — a place of oppression — because at least it was known. Where in your own life do you notice yourself reaching back for something familiar, even if it wasn’t actually good for you?

The Luca moment: Tyson’s son asked for one thing, and his father gave him something better. Is there something you’ve been asking God for that might be less about the specific request and more about just wanting to be close? What would it feel like to name it that way?

Pastoral sensitivity option (for those carrying grief or heaviness): Tyson acknowledges that sometimes the silence feels real and heavy. Where are you with that today — does this feel like good news, or does the idea of “just let Him hold you” feel complicated right now?

Silence prompt (2-3 min): Sit with this question: What do I need to stop reaching for in order to be held?

Exodus: A Journey for Freedom

Leaving for the Promised Land

Sunday, February 22, 2026

Father Richard Rohr describes how the Exodus story models a growing trust in God through times of unknowing:

The journey of Exodus, the journey that ancient Israel walked, is an image of the journey made by every person who sets out to seek the Divine Presence. In the Bible, Israel is humanity personified, and so what happens to Israel is what happens to everyone who sets out on a journey of faith. Christianity must recognize itself as an inclusive religion from the very beginning and honor its roots in Judaism.

In the book of Exodus, Egypt is the place of slavery, and the Promised Land is the place of freedom. The journey from Egypt to the Promised Land—through the Red Sea to Sinai and across the desert—is a saga which symbolizes our own struggle towards ever greater inner freedom, empowered by grace. The story of Israel symbolically describes the experience of our own liberation by God—and toward a universal love.

Until we look at Exodus as a symbolic story of spiritual truth, much of it seems distant and unreal. The events are either downright incredible, or we have to believe that things were different then: God worked wonders for the Israelites but doesn’t work that way anymore.

The fact is, however, that God has not changed; it’s people who have changed. The Israelites saw Yahweh acting in their lives. Their insight was really a product of hindsight: They reflected on their experience and interpreted it in a new way. We have that same opportunity. When hindsight becomes foresight—when it becomes a hope and expectation that God still cares and still acts on our behalf—we call that the vision of faith.

The stories of Exodus make inner sense to us only as we ourselves walk a journey of faith. If we listen to the Spirit, we can rather easily relate these stories to our own life.

We have to turn to God and allow ourselves to be led on this faith journey. We have to be willing to experience the Exodus in our own lives and enter into our own desert wanderings. We have to let God liberate us from captivity to freedom, from Egypt to Canaan, not fully knowing how to cross the desert between the two.

The prophet Moses takes the risk of faith. All that God gives him is a promise, and yet he acts on that promise. People of faith expect the promises of their deepest soul to be fulfilled; for them, life becomes a time between promise and fulfillment. It’s never a straight line, but always three steps forward and two backward—and the backward creates much of the knowledge and impetus for the forward.

Can we trust, like the Israelites, that the way to the Promised Land is through the desert? When we least expect it, there is an oasis. As the Scriptures promise, God will make the desert bloom (Isaiah 35:1). 

Learning to Choose Freedom

Monday, February 23, 2026

Father Richard describes how Moses gradually learned to trust in God’s love:

According to the book of Exodus, “The Lord used to speak to Moses face to face, as a person speaks to a friend” (33:11). And yet the Exodus text also demonstrates how coming to the point of full interface is a gradual process of veiling and unveiling. God takes the initiative in this respectful relationship with Moses, inviting him into a greater intimacy and ongoing conversation, which allows mutual self-disclosure, the pattern for all love affairs.

Moses describes this initial experience as “a blazing bush that does not burn up” (Exodus 3:2). He is caught between running forward to meet the blaze and coming no nearer, taking off his shoes (Exodus 3:4–5)—the classic response to mysterium tremendum. It is common for mystics, from Moses to Bonaventure, from Hildegard of Bingen to the Quaker Thomas Kelly, to describe the experience of God as fire, a furnace, or pure light. But during this early experience, “Moses covered his face, afraid to look back at God” (Exodus 3:6). He has to be slowly taught how to look at God. At first Moses continues to live like most of us, in his shame, insecurity, and doubt.  

God gradually convinces Moses of God’s respect, which Moses calls “favor,” but not without some serious objections from Moses’s side: 1) “Who am I?” 2) “Who are you?” 3) “What if they do not believe me?” 4) “I stutter.” 5) “Why not send someone else?” In each case, God stays in the dialogue, answering Moses respectfully and even intimately, offering a promise of personal Presence and an ever-sustaining glimpse into who God is—Being Itself, Existence Itself, a nameless God beyond all names, a formless God previous to all forms, a liberator God who is utterly liberated. God asserts God’s ultimate freedom from human attempts to capture God in concepts and words by saying, “I am who I am” or “I will be who I will be” (Exodus 3:14). Over the course of his story, we see that Moses slowly absorbs this same daring freedom.

But for Moses to learn foundational freedom in his true self, God has to assign Moses a specific task: create freedom for people who don’t want it very badly and freedom from an oppressor who thinks he is totally in control. It’s often in working for outer freedom, peace, and justice in the world that we discover an even deeper inner freedom. We must discover this freedom to survive in the presence of so much death. Otherwise, we can become cynical and angry and retreat from God and from other people over time.

In Moses, we see the inherent connection between action and contemplation, the dialogue between the outer journey and the inner journey. Contemplation is the link to the Source of Love that allows activists to stay engaged for the long haul without burning out. Moses shows us that this marriage of action and contemplation is essential and possible.

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For Individual Contemplation:

Moses brought five objections before he said yes. Which of his — “Who am I?”, “Who are you?”, “What if they don’t believe me?”, “I’m not eloquent”, “Send someone else” — sounds most like your own inner voice right now? Sit with that one.

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For Group Discussion:

Rohr says it’s often through working for outer freedom that we discover a deeper inner freedom — and that contemplation is what keeps activists from burning out. Where have you experienced that connection in your own life — action deepening inner freedom, or contemplative practice sustaining you through difficult outer work?