Friday, June 5, 2026

Embody me.
Flare up like flame
and make big shadows I can move in.
—Rainer Maria Rilke, Rilke’s Book of Hours

Father Richard invites us to know and honor ourselves and others in all our complexity: 

For you who have loved Jesus, do you recognize that any God worthy of the name includes and transcends creeds and denominations, time and place, nations and ethnicities, and all the vagaries of gender and sexual orientation, extending to the limits of all we can see, suffer, and enjoy? We are not only our gender, our nationality, our ethnicity, our skin color, or our social class. These are not the qualities of our true self in God!  Why, oh why, do we allow temporary costumes, or what Thomas Merton called the “false self,” to pass for the substantial self, the soul, which is always “hidden with Christ in God” (Colossians 3:3)?

You are a child of God, and always will be, even when you don’t believe it. And so is everyone else! God created us all. We are all God’s children. 

Now don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying that social identifiers don’t make a difference in our lives. We must be in relationship with and value the “other” in all their individuality and uniqueness, before we can see ourselves as “one.”

God loves and creates each one of us as a unique being with different gifts and challenges. If we stay small and “hide our light” under a bushel basket, there is almost no place for God to move in, through, and with us for the sake of the world!

Episcopal priest Elizabeth Edman recounts a story of challenging expectations as a child:

I was born in Fort Smith, Arkansas in 1962. The world I grew up in was defined by rigid binaries: white/black, capitalist/communist, north/south. Oh yeah, and male/female. That one didn’t work for this tomboy.

When I was five, I had to drag my mother into the boy’s section of the shoe store to look at sneakers. “Mama, c’mere! Let me show you the ones I want!”…

When I presented the shoes to the clerk, he said, “Those are boys’ shoes.”

My mother cut him off: “Yes, size four, please.”

My mother was a singer. Being who she was meant having the courage to witness God’s presence in the sacred music she loved. You could see her put her whole trust in God, entering into this space between heaven and earth where her best voice, her best self, emerged.

Christianity is all about being who you are. That’s what Jesus was trying to tell us: Orient your whole being to the sacred, he insisted. Not because I’m telling you to, not because it’s what Scripture demands; do it because it’s who you are. It’s who God created you to be. God made us to be complex creatures, every one of us, for a reason. So if you want to honor God, here’s the first step: Know who you are. Be who you are. Be the person God created you to be. Amen.

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John Chaffee’s Friday Five

1.

“If you are willing to serenely bear the trial of being displeased with yourself, you will be a pleasant shelter for Jesus.”

– Therese of Lisieux, French Carmelite Nun

Some of us are so displeased with ourselves that we are violent, angry, and condescending to ourselves.  And, according to Therese of Lisieux, this makes our hearts/minds/souls an uncomfortable place for Jesus to dwell.

If only we could learn to be more tender with ourselves, I am sure many of our issues would soften.

2.

“No sinner can escape future judgment without experiencing in this life either voluntary hardships or afflictions he has not chosen.”

– Maximus the Confessor, in Four Hundred Centuries on Love (2.66)

We reap what we sow.

We should not be fooled.

There is always a price to pay.

God is judicious (He knows what is good and bad for us) and at the same time God is not judgmental (He does not look down on us condescendingly for our mistakes).

God does not spare us from the consequences of our own decisions.

God gives us the freedom to make some terrible mistakes that hurt us and/or those around us.

Again, there is always a price to pay.

Do we want the hardship of living a life of as much virtue as possible…  Or do we want a life of hardship from living a self-destructive life that drags others down with us?

Some forms of Christianity falsely believe that consequences and punishment only happen to those who are unbelievers, and that if we are church-going people, we should be spared from the consequences of our own decisions.  However, I believe orthodox Christianity (of which Maximus the Confessor helped to shape) teaches us that “all will be held accountable, first the Jew and then the Gentile, for what he has done.”

We just have a hard time separating accountability from punishment.  I believe God will hold each of us accountable AND will perform the necessary, painful act of pruning us of our self-destructive and sinful patterns.

3.

“To follow Jesus is to be a wholemaker, essentially to love the world into new being and life.”

– Ilia Delio, Franciscan Theologian and Neuroscientist

There is a philosophical shift happening in some scientific circles.

There is one mindset that sees the world as composed of parts and that we need to break things down to understand each layer of smaller and smaller parts.

Meanwhile, another mindset sees the world as composed of whole things that come together to form larger wholes with greater and greater complexity.

Think about it.

Whole atoms make up whole molecules that make up whole cells that make up whole organs that make up whole persons who make up whole families who make up whole communities who make up whole states who make up whole nations who make up whole continents who make up the whole world… that make up solar systems that make up universes that make up the whole cosmos that makes up… something else?

Either way, it is a mystery all the way up or all the way down, but the difference is whether we see things as parts or as wholes.

Seeing the world as parts means we do not yet recognize or value the relationships between things.

However, seeing things as wholes implies a certain a priori appreciation of relationships.

Ilia Delio is the theologian who first made me realize that Jesus is a wholemaker, who values relationship, interdependence, and coming together to fix what is broken or to bring something new into existence.

4.

“Where our money is, there our theology will be also.”

– Joash P. Thomas, Episcopal Priest

Dang.  That’s an interesting one, right?

I just finished The Justice of Jesus: Reimagining Your Church’s Life Together to Pursue Liberation and Wholeness (How the Local Church Can Examine Its Preaching, Budget, and Theology for the Good of Its Neighbors).

It is Joash’s first book, and it takes some big swings.  And of all the big swings, this one actually landed the most for me.

I believe our theology and how we think about money are closely tied.  Not only that, but how many of us would be willing to change our theology to something that might eventually become a financial loss for us?  How often do we defend or endorse a theology simply because it financially benefits us?

Is money our actual metric for orthodoxy?  If it is… it shouldn’t be.

A few weeks ago, I was reading Basil of Caesarea’s book called Social Justice.  It takes to task the way that the early church interpreted the Gospel stories of the young man who turned away from Jesus, sad because he could not give up his material possessions.

Basil pulled no punches.  As a youth, Basil grew up in a very wealthy family, so it is fascinating how strongly he turned against the accumulation of wealth.  I am not yet done reading Basil’s work, so I probably shouldn’t comment further, but back to the main point: Joash is onto something here…  Our theologies are often too influenced by our money.

5.

“I drink beer whenever I can lay my hands on any. I love beer, and by that very fact, the world.”

– Thomas Merton, Trappist Monk

I am not a big drinker.  It can take me a few months to get through a six-pack of beer or more than a year to get through a bottle of whiskey.  I will say, though, that a cold beer on a hot summer day does hit the spot for me.

When I read this quote from Merton, I chuckle.

It feels very human and yet at the same time quite grand and connected to the whole of everything.

How we do the small things is how we do the big things, right?

Individual Reflection

What part of yourself have you been most reluctant to let God inhabit?

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Group Discussion — choose one:

1. Where in your life are you still wearing a costume Rohr would call the false self — and what would it cost to take it off?
2. Therese says serenely bearing disappointment with yourself makes you a shelter for Jesus. What would that kind of tenderness toward yourself actually look like today?
3. Merton drinks a beer and loves the world. Where does ordinary delight open you to something larger?

Thursday, June 4, 2026

READ ON CAC.ORG

The Rev. Dr. Jacqui Lewis reflects on the liberating impact of receiving unconditional love:

If you are a parent, you’re present at important moments of discovery and growth all along the way…. You get to be wise and also glean wisdom from that person forming right before your eyes. Watch, observe, see what is becoming; celebrate the mystery of what is unfolding. Guide as best you can, to keep your child safe, while creating a brave space where they can experiment and become…. Your love—your lavish, fierce love, will surround your child with permission and confidence to be their best self. He will bask in your love; it will morph into love for his own unique and wonderful self. Your love, taken in deeply, will enable your child to stand on his feet and say, “I am enough; I am loved.”

In any relationship, fierce love causes us to cross boundaries and borders to discover one another, to support one another, to heal one another. When we do this, when we go crazy with affection, and offer wild kindness to our neighbor across the street or across the globe, we make a new kind of space between us. We make space for discovery and curiosity, for learning and growing. We make space for sharing stories and being changed by what we share. This is the space of the border, of mestizaje, of both/and. It’s the kind of space where we can enhance our knowing with what the other knows; we can develop this kind of knowing, which W. E. B. Du Bois called “double consciousness.” We can learn to see the world not only through our own stories, through our own eyes, but also through the stories and worldview of the so-called other. This is the kind of space that changes us, that grows empathy, this is ubuntu…. We simply must open our eyes, look across the room, the street, the division, the border—and reach out to that neighbor, offering our hand, our compassion, and our heart.

Lewis acknowledges that it can be a struggle to love even those closest to us when they do not conform to our expectations:

You know what might be the riskiest, most uncomfortable, heart-expanding, border- crossing work of all? Loving those impossible people who are related to you might be what tests you most. Right there in your home, where your closest neighbors live, are folks who can get on your last nerve. Your teenaged child, who is conflicted every day about who she is, so much so that you want to throttle her. Your back-in-the-nest-again son, who can’t afford his own place…. Your spouse, who is showing you parts of their personality that make you want to pack your bags and leave…. These intimate neighbors also need to be loved. Even though you disagree with them, even though you can’t fix them, when you love them across the borders of difference, when you hold them with grace, you are loving them fiercely

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The Doctrine of the Trinity is a Mighty Angel

a post-script homily for Trinity Sunday

CHRIS EW GREEN JUN 4

In the Name of the Father, of the Son, and of the Spirit.

In her funny (and not-so-funny) book, An Unauthorized Guide to Choosing a Church, Carmen Renee Berry offers this (cringe) account of the much-misunderstood doctrine of the Trinity:

In the Old Testament God’s identity was clear—there was one and only one God—the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. With the appearance of Jesus, and later the Holy Spirit, the Christian concept of God got a little more complicated. Christians retained the “one God” idea from Judaism, but now had three variations of God to deal with.

Berry is convinced that no one “really understands the mystery of divinity in general, let alone fully grasps a three-in-one God.” Everyone struggles to hold “irreconcilable concepts in perfect balance.” Yet Christians have no choice, ultimately: “this unfathomable God is at the heart of Christianity—an unsolvable mystery who asks for our devotion.”

To cope with this, Christians default, Berry suggests, into identification with one member of the Trinity or another. That should not be surprising, because “it’s just human nature to have a favorite.” So, she argues, the surest way to find out which church suits you best is to see if their “Trinity affinity” matches your own. Some (Episcopalians, for example, and Methodists) will speak mostly to and about God, not Jesus or the Spirit. Others (Evangelicals, especially) will be Christ-centered. Still others—the Pentecostals, surprise, surprise—will focus their attention mainly on the Spirit.

This is all wrong, of course. And not only theologically. Sociologically, it distorts the lived truth of each tradition beyond all recognition. But it does gesture toward something we all sense, I think, although it too is wrong. We have been left to feel the doctrine of the Trinity is hopelessly complex—and entirely beside the point, anyway. Not just unnecessarily difficult but flat-out unnecessary. Extra. Something for scholars to worry over, while those in real ministry attend to truly important matters. But what if the doctrine is neither nonsense nor excessive, of concern only for intellectuals and heresy-hunting theobros? What if it’s the rule of faith, necessary and life-giving? 

Today’s Gospel reminds us that Jesus says we are to use this name to form the Church. And today’s Epistle is sealed with the same blessing: “the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Spirit be with you all.” I suspect such uses seem to us mere formalities, flourishes—something fancy added on to make whatever we’re doing seem important. But again: what if not?

The doctrine of the Trinity is not a mystery. It is a witness to, a servant of the mystery. It is an angel with a golden trumpet and a flaming sword, announcing the arrival of God, guarding the way so that we do not turn away from God to our own hurt.

Despite what Berry said, then, to talk about the Trinity is not to try and fail to hold together irreconcilable ideas; it is to direct our attention toward the one who holds all things together and reconciles them in himself for good. Remember: this doctrine is not something we devised for ourselves. It is the way the Spirit and the Church have given us of talking about God, so that we know what it means to have been befriended by Christ, claimed by his love.

God cannot be explained. But God can be experienced. Indeed, we are never not experiencing God. If for a moment God were to cease being there for us, we would cease to be at all—cease ever to have been. So, when we say God is mystery, ineffable and incomprehensible, we are not speaking nonsense about God; we are reminding ourselves that there is so much sense to God that we could never say it all. And in that way, we are reminding ourselves of our own essence. We are remembering that we are not God, that we do not and cannot create ourselves or make ourselves good. And we are remembering that we do not need to do any of that—life and all that is good about life is given to us freely, lavished on us in love, simply because God rejoices to share it with us. 

We are also saying that God’s goodness and delight are almighty—wholly unconditioned and therefore wholly unconditional. And by confessing that, we are reminding ourselves that nothing can keep God from being God for us. God is beyond being, beyond knowing, beyond every name that can be named, angelic or human, infinitely exceeding all that is and all that could be, real or imagined, an infinite number of times. Eriugena, wonderfully, says that even God does not know what God is, because God is not a “what,” not a something, not even the greatest of all somethings. God is, as Nicholas of Cusa says, Not-Other—not a being in contrast with other beings, but the beginning, middle, and end of all beings from beyond being—inconceivably good, indescribably generous, inexhaustibly merciful and compassionate, exceedingly, abundantly beyond all we could ever ask or think. All to say: we cannot get our minds around how it is that God is God. But we can touch and be touched by him. Indeed, in a moment, at the altar, he will kiss us. 

It is in this sense that the doctrine is an angel with a flaming sword. We are, as Nicholas Lash says, tempted to make idols of what we cannot understand, of what lies beyond the reach of our grasp or even of the darkness itself. And we are tempted to make idols of what we do understand, of the mastery and control our knowledge affords us—the light we consider our own. And we are tempted to worship the natural order, its beauty or its terror. But the rule of faith, standing sentinel, keeps us from idols. It will not let us settle for regarding God as sheerly “Father,” or “Majesty,” or “Other,” utterly unlike and beyond us; or as only “Son” or “Friend”—near to us, in our likeness; or only “Spirit,” the wild, ungovernable forces that energize and overwhelm us, carrying us away from ourselves, bringing life and death to bear on us suddenly. Instead, the doctrine of the trinity, that ministring spirit, 
prevents us from fixing our eyes on these shadow-figures, turning us away from the lure of false gods back onto the path God has taken ahead of us into the dark.

It does so by directing our attention to Jesus Christ. He is not one-third of God, doing part of what God wants done, leaving other things for the Father and the Spirit to do, each in their own way. He is the fullness of God, very God of very God, Light from Light, consubstantial with the Father. And he fulfills God’s will fully. He is the one to say both “Let there be” and “It is finished.” There is nothing in him, nothing, that is not identical with the Father in every way. Seeing him, the one who does only what he sees the Father doing, we see the Father. Can you see that that, finally, is what the doctrine of the Trinity is for? It teaches us that there is no God other than the God we meet in the life of this man from Galilee, shuddering his last breaths out on that Roman tree.

So, no, the coming of Jesus and the outpouring of the Spirit do not muddy the clear picture of the God of the Old Testament. They open up for us the life of the one and only true God; creator of all things, seen and unseen; the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob; the God who spoke by the prophets—so that we are included in his life, made to share in all he is and does. Drowned in the waters of his goodness. Swallowed up by the consuming fires of his love. 

In the words of Craig Keen, a Nazarene theologian, the doctrine of the Trinity serves us by training our awareness on the gape of agape love, the opening that is the room God is for us, the space that opens between the unspeakable exaltation of the Father and the unspeakable abasement of the Son. That space opens by the breathe, the wind, the storm, the sigh, the outcry, the rupturing outgoing of the Holy Spirit, the one who holds exaltation and abasement apart and together.

We never stand outside or apart from the mystery, not at any moment, not even for even a breath. We live in the space opened up in God by God’s going out from God to God—and that space lives in us. We live within the sacrament the Son is, caught up in the move of the Spirit that draws us magnetically to the Father and the Father to us, so we become his as surely as Jesus is. This doctrine, then, in all its glories, is a mighty angel—it tells us not only who our God is but also that we are always already en-Godded. That, nothing less, is the blessing spoken over us, and I speak it over you, now: May the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Spirit be with you all.

Amen.

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Individual Reflection

Where in your life right now is Love holding you in place — not letting you go — even as part of you strains against it?

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Group Discussion — choose one:

1. Lewis describes fierce love as what crosses borders and changes us — where have you experienced being genuinely changed by someone across a line of difference?
2. Green says we are “always already en-Godded” — we never stand outside the mystery. What would it mean to actually live from that, rather than toward it?
3. Both pieces suggest love is less about our reaching and more about being held. Where does that feel like relief, and where does it feel like a threat?

Wednesday, June 3, 2026

Everyone carries their own true self in their own way, in their own words, and in their own time.
—Cassidy Hall, Queering Contemplation

CAC team member Cassidy Hall reflects on our impulse to ask questions of those we see as fundamentally different than us:

“When did you know?” “How did you find out you were queer?” “When did you first realize you liked women?”…

We usually ask questions like this—and sometimes over-ask them—because we’re seeking our own comfort or self-understanding. Our questions might come from pondering the vastness of the Divine’s image upon, within, or all around us. But I’m all too familiar with the harm of certitude, assumptions, and internalized dispositions toward norms and expectations.

Even if we let go of the need to know or understand, our society still obsesses about naming, claiming, and defining. As I worked on my documentary film about Thomas Merton, I listened to audio clips of his stream-of-consciousness thoughts from his hermitage, and I especially resonated with this line: “I know in my heart that I do not need to be defined, I do not need to define myself, and yet I have this allergy of definition.”

Like most of us, I’ve spent a large chunk of my life figuring out, naming, and identifying the things around me…. But when we reach to trap anything in definition, we also trap ourselves. A desire to define or know does not give me permission to ask questions simply to satisfy my own curiosity. Rather, the desire to name, define, or identify is a different invitation altogether. It’s an invitation for me to examine and hold openhanded my own definition, my own name, and my own identity, over and over again….

We are ever evolving, ever becoming, and ever unfolding. Identity is an ever-moving target, and any conviction that the self is singular or fixed is limiting and often even harmful. Instead, we can hold what we think we know about ourselves with open hands. We can allow ourselves to become, which offers us room to breathe and blossom…. Contemplative life beckons us to the same: encouraging us to loosen our grip on ourselves, those around us, and the Divine.

Hall encourages us to seek a deeper understanding of ourselves: 

Knowing is elusive and closes down potentials outside of certitudes or declarations. What’s more true, more curious, and more exciting is the infinite deep dive into who we are as ever-changing human beings. For those of us who are allergic to definitions: Can we turn inward to unfold our own becoming and blossoming?

This stepping into the spaciousness of our own being will help us hold questions, and also invite questions in. Our curiosity can run wild in the spaciousness of possibility. The infinite expanse of who we are is a place to offer our own unfixed and unmixed attention, a place of prayer, a place where the contemplative life thrives.

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THE STORY. from Dianna Butler Bass

The parable itself is found only in Luke 10: 25-37:

Then a lawyer stood up to test Jesus. ‘Teacher,’ he said, ‘what must I do to inherit eternal life?’ He said to him, ‘What is written in the law? What do you read there?’ He answered, ‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind; and your neighbour as yourself.’ And he said to him, ‘You have given the right answer; do this, and you will live.’

But wanting to justify himself, he asked Jesus, ‘And who is my neighbour?’ 

Jesus replied, 

‘A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and fell into the hands of robbers, who stripped him, beat him, and went away, leaving him half dead. 

Now by chance a priest was going down that road; and when he saw him, he passed by on the other side. So likewise a Levite, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side. 

But a Samaritan while travelling came near him; and when he saw him, he was moved with pity. He went to him and bandaged his wounds, having poured oil and wine on them. Then he put him on his own animal, brought him to an inn, and took care of him. The next day he took out two denarii, gave them to the innkeeper, and said, “Take care of him; and when I come back, I will repay you whatever more you spend.” 

Which of these three, do you think, was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of the robbers?’ He said, ‘The one who showed him mercy.’ 

Jesus said to him, ‘Go and do likewise.’

WHAT IS THIS STORY ABOUT?

How would you explain this story to someone who had never heard it before? What’s the point? Is there more than one point?

Do you like the story? Do you not like it? Does it puzzle you? Anger you? Make you resentful? What emotions does it stir? Be honest!

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THE STORY AND YOUR STORY

Below is a download of the late John August Swanson’s triptych, “Good Samaritan.” 

The triptych is followed by close-ups of the three panels. Swanson first painted the Good Samaritan in 1970. This version was done 32 years later, repainting it as a mature work in a story that he felt called to revisit: “It is remarkable that one can discover many new ideas in an old and familiar story. Sometimes it is necessary to take a long journey to rediscover earlier creative ideas that are so personal and connected to one’s history.”

WHAT DOES THIS STORY MEAN TO YOU NOW?

A few questions to consider: Have you ever been a good Samaritan? One of the passers-by? Or, have you been the person in the ditch?

Do you resonate with John Swanson’s experience of revisiting an “old and familiar story”?

How has your understanding of this story changed over the years? What stands out for you differently today than at other times in your life? As you re-read it or listen to my reflections on it, what surprises you? Is there something you’ve never noticed before?

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THE STORY AND OUR STORY

Last Friday, John Dominic Crossan joined with the paid subscriber community in an online conversation about the parables. We focused on how the parables challenged empire, how they present an alternative to Christian nationalism, and how they widen our vision toward evolutionary — and revolutionary — possibilities for a sustainable, non-violent future for humankind. 

In his book, The Power of Parable, Crossan wrote:

My conclusion is that the Good Samaritan was not intended by Jesus as a simple example story, a straightforward moral lesson, a positive paradigm for compassionate behavior. The story presumes that compassionate help is the proper response…. Rather, it is better understood as a challenge parable, a story that challenges listeners to think long and hard about their social prejudices, their cultural presumptions, and, yes, even their most sacred religious traditions.

HOW DOES THIS PARABLE CHALLENGE YOU — AND US — AT THIS SPECIFIC MOMENT IN HISTORY? 

What do you think about Crossan’s view of the Good Samaritan? Does it resonate with my reflection? With your experience? 

Would you rather this be a “simple example story” or, as Crossan suggests, a challenge? What is most challenging for you? For our communities? What’s the challenge for NOW?

What does this parable say to the global rise of authoritarianism and Christian nationalism? 

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INSPIRATION

An example parable may be good, a challenge parable is a far more importantly subversive operation. Why? Because challenge parables humble our prejudicial absolutes, but without proposing counter-absolutes in their place. They are tiny pins dangerously close to big balloons. They push or pull us into pondering whatever is taken totally for granted in our world. 
— John Dominic Crossan

People say you should be a good Samaritan.
You can’t.
Samaritans were despised outsiders.
Good or not,
you have too much privilege to be a Samaritan.
That’s for the queers, the immigrants,
the trans, the blacks, the homeless.

You can be good, 
you can be generous to strangers,
even to your enemy.
But you are not the hero of this story. 
You can’t be.

You’re the one in the ditch. 
Your neighbor is the other one.
You call them rapists and they pick your fruit.
You call them shiftless and dangerous
and they build your economy.
You abhor them and they bless you.

Stop making it about you.
Confess your dependence.
Receive your neighbor’s grace.
Be humbly grateful.
Let yourselves be neighbors.
— Steve Garnaas-Holmes, “Good Samaritan”

On the parable of the Good Samaritan: I imagine that the first question the priest and Levite asked was: “If I stop to help this man, what will happen to me?” But by the very nature of his concern, the good Samaritan reversed the question: “If I do not stop to help this man, what will happen to him?”

That’s the question before you tonight. Not, “If I stop to help the sanitation workers, what will happen to my job. Not, “If I stop to help the sanitation workers what will happen to all of the hours that I usually spend in my office every day and every week as a pastor?” The question is not, “If I stop to help this man in need, what will happen to me?” The question is, “If I do not stop to help the sanitation workers, what will happen to them?” That’s the question. 

Let us rise up tonight with a greater readiness. Let us stand with a greater determination. And let us move on in these powerful days, these days of challenge to make America what it ought to be. We have an opportunity to make America a better nation. 
― Martin Luther King Jr., “I’ve Been to the Mountaintop” April 3, 1968

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Individual Reflection

Where in your life are you currently more like the priest or Levite — not out of malice, but because stopping would cost you something?

Group Discussion — choose one:

Who in your world right now is “the Samaritan” — the one you’re tempted to dismiss but who may be carrying something you need?

What would it mean today to hold your identity — your sense of who you are and what you stand for — with open hands rather than as a fixed possession?

Crossan says the parable doesn’t replace one absolute with another, just punctures the balloon — what balloon in you needs puncturing right now?

Tuesday, June 2, 2026

The Rt. Rev. Michael Curry considers how God is always leading us beyond what we think we know:

There will be a time when God’s GPS points you in a direction that makes people uncomfortable. It may make you uncomfortable. The evolution of long-held beliefs can be a spiritual earthquake; the ground beneath us shaking, the very fault lines of our identity shifting and seeking to resettle. But if we can make it through, we find the reward: not an easy journey but a share of what the Bible calls “peace that passes all understanding,” the peace of knowing we are living love’s way, without contradiction….

We humans are walking bundles of contradictions. I know that I am, and experience suggests that I’m not alone in that. As people often describe relationships … “It’s complicated.” It is and we are.

In 2000, Curry was elected bishop in the Episcopal Church as the church wrestled with questions about the full inclusion and equality of LGBTQ persons in the church:

Experience and friendships had long taught me that gays and lesbians were as Christian as anybody else. Still, when it came to the public blessing of unions (marriage wasn’t yet on the table), I was stuck in the unspoken disapproval of my upbringing. Homosexuality happened behind closed doors, not at the altar.

And yet, during that same upbringing, … “love your neighbor” was held up constantly, forcefully, as a core value and commitment. That conviction fueled the civil rights movement that had given me birth. I heard it all the time. But somehow it hadn’t occurred to me that that truth must be true for gay and lesbian friends in every respect.

As a bishop, I made a solemn vow to “guard the faith, unity, and discipline of the Church.” I had also vowed to “be merciful to all, show compassion to the poor and strangers, and defend those who have no helper.” I was beginning to see that obedience to the letter and the spirit of both of those vows was leading me to a real contradiction….

I was growing, and my own beliefs had evolved. But another way to say it is that I was becoming more and more open to letting the spirit of God breathe through me and make me new. Therein is the source of real personal change, evolution, and transformation, and it’s never ending….

The late [lay theologian] Verna Dozier … was a real mentor, teacher, and soul friend to me. In her book The Dream of God, she offered this wisdom: “We always see through a glass darkly, and that is what faith is about. I will live by the best I can discern today. Tomorrow I may find out I was wrong. Since I do not live by being right, I am not destroyed by being wrong.”

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Fill Up Where You Feel Empty

A simple practice that could change your life.

TYSON BRADLEY. JUN 1

Hey friends,

On a recent morning call, someone shared a picture she’d drawn. It was a pitcher pouring water into a cup, filling it until it overflowed, and then the cup became a pitcher pouring into someone else’s cup.

She’d been sitting with this idea that God pours His love into us until we’re so full we can’t hold it, and it just naturally spills over onto the people around us. And she said when she actually practices it, when she takes a few minutes to imagine that love pouring in and let herself feel it, something shifts. She stops being thirsty. She’s not grasping at people to get something from them anymore, because she’s already full. Loving others stops being a chore she has to push herself to do, and just becomes the overflow of what she already has.

So I asked her a question, and I want to ask you the same one.

What if you got specific about receiving until you are full?

Because here’s what I’ve found. When we talk about being filled with God’s love, it can stay kind of vague. But the love isn’t vague. It always meets us in the exact place we feel empty.

So say the thing you feel you lack the most is money. What would it be like to just fill up with the sense of being fully resourced? To sit with all the stories of Jesus and just always having enough… enough, enough, enough… until you’re overflowing with it? Or say the thing you ache for is to feel safe. What’s it like to fill up with safety until it spills over? Or to feel wanted. Or to feel like you’re not a disappointment.

I’ll be honest with you about mine. The thing I keep coming back to is a fear of not being right with God. So for me, it’s filling up with this sense of, “Tyson, you’re right on track. I see you in the truth of who you are. I’m not disappointed in you.” Filling up with that until there’s no more room for the fear.

And that’s the thing underneath all of it.

Every one of these, the money, the safety, the feeling wanted, the health, the fear of letting people down… they all trace back to the same root. They all come back to some version of fear. Fear that there won’t be enough. Fear that I’m on my own. Fear that I’m not okay.

And fear dissolves in love. There’s a line in Scripture that says it plainly: “There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear.” (1 John 4:18)Not “manage your fear.” Not “try harder to be brave.” The fear just doesn’t survive contact with love that’s complete. You don’t have to fight the fear. You fill up the room it was living in.

Now I want to be careful here, because our heads love to take something like this and turn it into a formula. “Great, I found the hack. Fill up with love, get the thing.” That’s not it. This isn’t a vending machine. It’s just a practice… a way of receiving what’s already true, and then seeing what comes of it. Some days you’ll forget entirely. You’ll get caught up in life. And then you’ll step into one of these moments and there it is again. His presence. His peace. The sense of having enough.

There’s even something to this that your body already knows. When you feel genuinely safe and full, your nervous system actually settles out of survival mode, and that’s the state where you can be generous, present, creative, connected. You literally cannot pour out when you’re clenched and protecting yourself. Scarcity makes us grasp. Fullness lets us give. God designed us so that receiving comes first, and the overflow takes care of itself.

So here’s what I want to invite you into.

Take a moment and get honest about where you feel empty right now. Not the surface thing… the real one. The thing you keep trying to secure on your own.

And then ask Him:

“Lord, what am I actually afraid of here? And what would it be like to receive what I really need from You instead of trying to get it on my own?”

Then just let Him fill that exact place. Don’t measure how full you are. Don’t grade it. Just receive, and notice what happens when there’s a little less room for the fear.

You were never meant to generate this on your own. You were meant to receive it… and then watch it overflow.

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Individual Reflection

Where is the place you most keep trying to fill yourself — and what would it feel like to just stop and receive there?

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Group Discussion — choose one:

• What has it cost you to stay “stuck in the unspoken disapproval” of something you were raised with?
• Where in your life right now is fear occupying space that love hasn’t fully reached yet?
• What does it look like for you when receiving comes before giving — and what makes that hard?

Moving Beyond Our Binary Minds

Sunday, May 31, 2026

Father Richard Rohr highlights the importance of developing an open, “beginner’s mind”: 

The dualistic mind is the one we’re all educated into. It’s the one that gets us through the day, helping us make important distinctions and necessary judgments, pointing us to the left or right. It’s essential for the advent of the scientific, industrial, and now technological revolutions, so we’re all grateful for it. It’s good and necessary as far as it goes, but let me be clear, it doesn’t go far enough! The dualistic mind cannot deal with the biggies: love, death, suffering, God, infinity, and the very notion of grace.

To balance what I see as our overreliance on dualistic thinking, we have to find ways to practice thinking in a different way, where we can receive the moment as an open field. I call it the nondual or contemplative mind. In that space, we don’t have to divide the field or reject anything we don’t yet understand as wrong. We don’t have to eliminate everything that’s mysterious, negative, painful, or problematic. With the contemplative mind, we can leave the field open.

This is a major exercise in letting go because we have to let go of our fear, defensiveness, and expectations. I think that’s why so many people don’t persevere in meditation practice, daily contemplation, or periods of silence. I do a twenty-minute sit in the morning and again later in the day, and to be honest, it usually feels like twenty minutes of dying, twenty minutes of boredom, twenty minutes of not getting my own way. All these compulsive, obsessive, and negative thoughts come into my mind and try to grab my attention.  

In the beginning contemplation is simply a practice of living with and looking out from our stable foundation in God, what we might call the Inner Witness. We have to be willing to see how attracted we are to negative, paranoid, oppositional, and even violent thinking. We start to wonder, Where did this come from? Why am I doing this?

We must be willing to question, “How could this little flimsy mind ever know God? How could it understand or even hold space for the great love or great suffering that enter every human life?” It will simply jump to the next thing because the dualistic mind is always moving toward resolution. It loves closure and rushes toward judgment. That’s why all great spiritual teachers said, “Do not judge.”  

To well-educated, dualistic thinkers, that just feels irresponsible. We have to make judgments, don’t we? Of course we do, especially when it comes to issues of justice and solidarity. But the first lens through which we receive a moment, a person, or a situation has to be nondual. I have to accept all parts of reality—that which I think I understand (and call good), and that which I don’t understand (and assume is bad). Sadly, most never go beyond that. Anything that they don’t yet understand is presumed to be wrong, dangerous, sinful, heretical, or even to be destroyed.

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Loving Beyond the Boxes

Monday, June 1, 2026

Father Richard affirms God’s desire for us to know and welcome all of ourselves and others:

God is clearly more comfortable with diversity than we are, and God’s final goal and objective are much simpler. God and the entire cosmos are about two things: differentiation (people and things becoming themselves) and communion (living in supportive coexistence). Physicists and biologists seem to know this better than theologians and clergy.

Religious people who use the scriptures to condemn or exclude others seem to have different goals and objectives from those of God or Jesus. Their arguments generally have to do with very secular concerns: power and control, fear of the other and the unknown, and idealization of a family unit that Jesus himself neither lived nor idealized. Check the Gospels if you don’t believe me.

Institutional religion tends to think of people as very simple; therefore, the law must be very complex to protect them in every situation. Jesus does the opposite: He treats people as very complex—different in religion, lifestyle, virtue, temperament, and success—and keeps the law very simple in order to bring them to God:

A legal expert put him to the test: “Teacher, which commandment in the Law is the greatest?” He replied to him, “‘You are to love the Lord your God with all your heart and all your soul and all your mind.’ This is the first and foremost, and the second is like it: ‘You are to love your neighbor as yourself.’ On these two commandments hangs everything in the Law and in the Prophets” (Matthew 22:35–40).

Jesus takes the risk of allowing people the freedom to be themselves and to love God according to the shape of their own heart, soul, body, and mind! Religion developed for the sake of social control, but Jesus doesn’t give us much grist for the social control mill. Jesus is asking a different set of questions, ones that take away our private agendas and remind us of the ways we have not yet begun to love. For Jesus, it is all about union—union with God, others, and what is, however it presents itself. We cannot let labels trip us up. We all belong, but how cleverly our moral pretenses prevent us from struggling with what is right in front of us! How ingeniously our ego protects itself from compassion and understanding. [1]

Author Jen Austin considers how God invites us to move beyond neat categories:

It is part of the human tendency to put everything into a neat little category…. However, categories also allow us to include and exclude people based on characteristics that are unfamiliar to us or that we don’t understand. Black or white, gay or straight, we spend a lot of time and waste a lot of energy creating and adhering to labels in our culture, quite often at the expense of basic human dignity and common sense…. God is bigger than all our little boxes. God’s love transcends the lines we draw on earth.

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Individual Reflection

Where in your life is your dualistic mind currently rushing toward a verdict — and what might it mean to simply leave that field open?

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Group Discussion — choose one:

1. What is one category or label you’ve used recently — about yourself or someone else — that may have protected you from having to actually love?
2. Rohr describes contemplation as “twenty minutes of dying.” What in you resists that kind of not-knowing, and what might it be protecting?
3. Where have you experienced the simplicity of “love God, love neighbor” getting complicated by something that felt like faithfulness but may have been control?

Let it Be – The Beatles

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dSSqHhAqxrk

Brian McLaren describes how the Holy Spirit empowers us to carry on Jesus’s work:

“It’s better that I go away so that the Spirit can come,” Jesus said. If he were physically present and visible, our focus would be on Christ over there, right here, out there … but because of his absence, we discover the Spirit of Christ right here, in here, within.  

Jesus describes the Spirit as another comforter, another teacher, another guide—just like him, but available to everyone, everywhere, always. The same Spirit who had descended like a dove upon him will descend upon us, he promises. The same Spirit who filled him will fill all who open their hearts….

The Bible describes the Spirit with beautiful and vivid imagery: Wind. Breath. Fire. Cloud. Water. Wine. A dove. These dynamic word pictures contrast starkly with the heavy, fixed imagery provided by, say, stone idols, imposing temples, or thick theological tomes. Through this vivid imagery, the biblical writers tell us that the Spirit invigorates, animates, purifies, holds mystery, moves and flows, foments joy, and spreads peace….

At the core of Jesus’ life and message, then, was this good news: the Spirit of God, the Spirit of aliveness, the Wind-breath-fire-cloud-water-wine-dove Spirit who filled Jesus is on the move in our world. And that gives us a choice: do we dig in our heels, clench our fists, and live for our own agenda, or do we let go, let be, and let come … and so be taken up into the Spirit’s movement?…

In the millennia since Christ walked with us on this Earth, we’ve often tried to box up the “wind” in manageable doctrines. We’ve exchanged the fire of the Spirit for the ice of religious pride. We’ve turned the wine back into water, and then let the water go stagnant and lukewarm. We’ve traded the gentle dove of peace for the predatory hawk or eagle of empire….

In a world full of big challenges, in a time like ours, … we need to experience the mighty rushing wind of Pentecost. We need our hearts to be made incandescent by the Spirit’s fire. We need the living water and new wine Jesus promised, so our hearts can become the home of dovelike peace….

When we open up space for the Spirit and let the Spirit fill that space within us, we begin to change, and we become agents of change…. So let us open our hearts. Let us dare believe that the Spirit that we read about in the Scriptures can move among us today, empowering us in our times so we can become agents in a global spiritual movement of justice, peace, and joy.

Reference:
Brian D. McLaren, We Make the Road by Walking: A Year-Long Quest for Spiritual Formation, Reorientation, and Activation (Jericho Books, 2014), 203, 204, 205–206.

What David Robinson heard May 31, 2016 Listening to the Coach:

…Without my empowering Spirit, you only have a new list of things to strive for. That’s religion. Pharisees did a lot of that. So come to me, stay connected and I will lead you in all these things and you won’t have to strive. If you want to strive, because it’s built into you…. Strive only to maintain connection with me, and then just live out of what I show you.

Matthew 11:28-30 (NLT) Then Jesus said, “Come to me, all of you who are weary and carry heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. 29 Take my yoke upon you. Let me teach you, because I am humble and gentle at heart, and you will find rest for your souls. 30 For my yoke is easy to bear, and the burden I give you is light.”

John Chaffee – Five on Friday

1.

“The fact that millions of people share the same vices does not make these vices virtues, the fact that they share so many errors does not make the errors to be truths, and the fact that millions of people share the same forms of mental pathology does not make these people sane.”

– Erich Fromm, German Sociologist

It is probably a spiritual exercise or discipline to stay sensitized to wrongdoing or evil.

With a 24-hour news cycle and the tendency to pay more attention to things we interpret as existential threats, it makes sense that we would become desensitized to the world’s chaos.

Perhaps that is why it is important to have consistent church attendance.  It helps remind us that we are not the only ones who want to see the world truthfully, acknowledge wrongdoing, and be collectively inspired to morally “aim up.”

We all know about vicious cycles, and how falling into a vice encourages us to fall into more vices.

Well, there is also the opposite: virtuous cycles.  To be around people who “aim up” can be inspiring as well.  One virtue builds upon another until a whole life constructed by virtues is an impressive monument to a life lived well.

I don’t know about you, but I sometimes find myself in disbelief.  I find it so hard to believe that some vices are just acceptable now, or we just lightly brush them off as if they don’t cause serious harm or pain.

I am likely rambling now.  So let me go back to the opening sentence here…

It is probably a spiritual exercise or discipline to stay sensitized to wrongdoing or evil.

2.

“For if medicine is really to accomplish its great task, it must intervene in political and social life. It must point out the hindrances that impede the normal social functioning of vital processes, and effect their removal.“

– Rudolf Virchow, German Physician

I do not think it is a far stretch for the average Christian to say that we should help one another to thrive.

The ideas of service, giving to the poor, hospitality, and the like are all wonderful ways of helping one another to do more than just survive.

What I think possibly challenges a fair amount of Christians is that as Christians we should also be thinking about the structures of a society, and asking if they need to be changed…

I firmly believe it is a Christian thing to protest systems that benefit from keeping people down, poor, homeless, illiterate, etc.

We are generally okay with how society is arranged as long as there aren’t “too many” people sacrificed.  I am not saying this is good or even right.  We are too accustomed to people being sacrificed for the well-being of those in the middle or even the top of a society.

The book of Exodus tells us that God does not approve of an arrangement that dehumanizes some (The Israelites) while keeping others as functional “gods” (Pharaoh).

If Yahweh does not approve of social structures that dehumanize and inhibit human thriving, why do we?

3.

“The false self is deeply entrenched. You can change your name and address, religion, country, and clothes. But as long as you don’t ask it to change, the false self simply adjusts to the new environment. For example, instead of drinking your friends under the table as a significant sign of self-worth and esteem, if you enter a monastery, as I did, fasting the other monks under the table could become your new path to glory. In that case, what would have changed? Nothing.”

– Father Thomas Keating, Trappist Monk

The topic of the True Self and the False Self is endlessly fascinating to me.

Perhaps that means I am at a point in my life where I am revisiting the topic of identity in a new way since being a teenager (according to Erik Erikson, that is when we begin to answer the question of “Who am I?”), or the topic of identity is simply a perennial one.

According to Thomas Keating, our False Self is constantly vying for more power and control, security and safety, and esteem and affection.  Our True Self does not play those games; instead, it rests in the fact of being the Beloved of God and trusts with childlike faith.

What I find so profound here is that Thomas Keating realized that whether he was at a bar or in a monastery, the problematic habit of striving and comparison was the same.  It is in this same way that we can hide from God in church.  It is entirely possible to sit in a church pew and yet never actually be a transformed person who walks with integrity, vulnerability, and virtue.  We are so good at it that we can even convince ourselves that we are “good.”

I think this touches on why I like the teaching of the True Self and the False Self.  It doesn’t exactly answer any question.  The teaching itself is like a holy question to be haunted by for the rest of our lives, a question that keeps us on our toes, a question that can convict us at any decade of our lives.

And that holy question is: “Am I being my True Self right now or am I being a lesser, False Self?”

4.

“If you label me, you negate me.”

– Soren Kierkegaard, Danish Philosopher

The human person is far too complex to be completely defined by terms such as conservative, liberal, Boomer, Millennial, Gen Z, American, young, old, musician, artist, lawyer, pastor, etc.

Every affirmation is equally a negation of something else.  We are all walking contradictions and paradoxes.

Gee, thanks, Kierkegaard, for making things complex again.

5.

“Ultimately, your greatest gift to the world is being who you are – both your gift and your fulfillment.”

– AH Almaas

One of my struggles is the false belief that I want to be loved for what I know.

So, for a while, I strove to be loved for what I learned.

But that is safe.

What I really want is to be loved for being who I am.

That is risky.

The only thing I really have to offer that is worth anything is not what I have learned or can teach.  The only thing I really have to offer is myself.  Perhaps then, in the offering of myself, I can actually get what I truly want, to be loved for who I am.

I am sure that you have felt some combination or different arrangement of the same desire.

So here is an encouragement: just be yourself.  Give yourself through whatever you do.  It doesn’t matter if you are a pastor, professor, plumber, politician, or a penguin; the only gift you have to give to the world is the gift of being your True Self.

The Birth of a New Community

Thursday, May 28, 2026

The Spirit cannot withhold itself from any heart that longs to know the presence of God.
—Richard Rohr, The Good News According to Luke

In 1971, Father Richard was placed in charge of the youth retreat program for the Archdiocese of Cincinnati, Ohio. For most of the very first retreat, Richard says that he thought all the boys—“a bunch of jocks”—were just tolerating him. But as Richard finished preaching on the story of the prodigal son (Luke 15:11–32), “a perfect story of how Jesus saw God,” the boys began to cry and embrace each other. Richard recounts being rather afraid of this unexpected appearance of the Holy Spirit:

I moved back; I didn’t know what to do with this. You’d think I’d be grateful that one of my sermons worked! And then they began singing in tongues. I’d never heard someone speaking in tongues before. My mouth fell open. What did this mean? I’d never heard anything so beautiful, and no one was orchestrating it!

I endured it for about ten or fifteen minutes. Although I was delighting in it, I was also scared. I didn’t know what to do; I didn’t know how to join in, so I just watched. Finally, I broke in and said, “Guys, I’ll put the pizzas in the oven next door. Come over in twenty-five minutes.” No one paid a bit of attention to me. I put those pizzas in the oven. Twenty-five minutes later, I took them out and there were no boys. I couldn’t understand why they were not on time!

I’ll never forget walking back across the parking lot into the chapel and opening the doors. Now they were all kneeling around the high altar of St. Anthony’s Church (where I had been a novice), still singing in tongues. They never left the church the whole night.

That was the birth of the New Jerusalem Community. The next Friday, many of these boys brought their girlfriends and it grew quickly by word of mouth. Soon the girls were singing in tongues, too. The next month they brought their parents and grandparents. [1]

Friends of Richard’s, Andreas Ebert and Patricia C. Brockman, summarized how the Spirit was at work during this period of Richard’s ministry:

The young people he taught and led on retreats were overwhelmed with the gospel message. They gathered around this enthusiastic young priest, hungry for Scripture, increasingly eager for the shared life described there. Their weekly prayer gatherings began with fervent charismatic prayer and expanded from a group of teenagers to, at times, more than a thousand persons of many ages and diverse backgrounds. All the signs and wonders of the early church flourished among the prayers. It eventually became clear that enthusiasm was not enough, and among those followers some desired to live in a closer bond and within the discipleship of Christian community. Thus, New Jerusalem came into being, a laboratory-church where many came to commit themselves to the dream of a church that follows and trusts Jesus. [2]

References:
[1] Richard Rohr, Essential Teachings on Love, selected by Joelle Chase and Judy Traeger (Orbis Books, 2018), 92–93.

[2] Richard Rohr: Illuminations of His Life and Work, eds. Andreas Ebert and Patricia C. Brockman, (Crossroad Publishing, 1993), xiii.

Jesus Calling – Sarah Young

Trust and Thankfulness will get you safely through the day. Trust protects you from worrying and obsessing. Thankfulness keeps you from criticizing and complaining: those “sister sins” that so easily entangle you.
    Keeping your eyes on Me is the same thing as trusting Me. It is a free choice that you must make thousands of times daily. The more you choose to trust Me, the easier it becomes. Thought patterns of trust become etched into your brain. Relegate troubles in the periphery of your mind, so that I can be central in your thoughts. Thus you focus on Me, entrusting your concerns into My care. 

Christianity

RELATED SCRIPTURE: 

Colossians 2:6-7 NLT

Freedom from Rules and New Life in Christ

6 And now, just as you accepted Christ Jesus as your Lord, you must continue to follow him. 7 Let your roots grow down into him, and let your lives be built on him. Then your faith will grow strong in the truth you were taught, and you will overflow with thankfulness. 

Additional insight regarding Colossians 2:6-7: New life in Christ starts and continues when we acknowledge him as leader over all we are and do. Then we must accept his leadership daily by being rooted, built up, and strengthened in the faith. Christ wants to guide us and help us with all our decisions and challenges.  You can live for Christ by 1) committing your life and submitting your will to him (Romans 12:1-2); 2) seeking to learn from him and more about him, his life, and his teachings (Colossians 3:16); and 3) recognizing and utilizing the Holy Spirit’s power within your (Acts 1:8; Galatians 5:22).

Additional insight regarding Colossians 2:7: Paul uses the illustration of being rooted in Christ. Just as plants draw nourishment from the soil through their roots, we draw our life-giving strength from Christ. The more we draw our strength from him, the less we will be fooled or entangled by those who falsely claim to have life’s answers apart from Christ.

Books & Literature

Psalm 141:8 NLT

8 I look to you for help, O Sovereign Lord.

    You are my refuge; don’t let them kill me.

1st Peter 5:7

7 Give all your worries and cares to God, for he cares about you.

Additional insight regarding 1st Peter 5:7: Carrying your worries, stresses, and daily struggles by yourself shows that you have not trusted God fully with your life. It takes humility, however, to recognize that God cares, to admit your need, and to let others in God’s family help you. Sometimes we think that struggles caused by our own sin and foolishness are not God’s concern. But when we turn to God in repentance, he will bear the weight even of those struggles. Letting God have your anxieties calls for action, not passivity. Don’t submit to circumstances but to the Lord, who controls circumstances.

The Spirit Is Always with Us

Wednesday, May 27, 2026

Father Richard envisions the Holy Spirit as the loving immensity of God’s presence within us:

On one level, soul, consciousness, love, and the Holy Spirit can all be thought of as one and the same. Each of these points to something that is eternal, larger than the self, and shared with God. That’s what Jesus means when he speaks of “giving” us the Spirit or sharing his consciousness with us. One whose soul is thus awakened actually has “the mind of Christ” (see 1 Corinthians 2:10–16). That does not mean the person is psychologically or morally perfect, but such a transformed person does see things in a much more expansive and compassionate way. St. Paul calls it “a spiritual revolution of the mind” (Ephesians 4:23)—and it is!

Jesus calls this implanted Spirit the “Advocate,” who is “with you and in you,” makes you live with the same life that he lives, and unites you to everything else (John 14:16–20). He goes on to say that this “Spirit of truth” will “teach you everything” and “remind you of all things” (John 14:26) as if we already knew this somehow. Talk about being well-equipped from a secret Inner Source! It really is too good to believe—so we didn’t believe it. [1]

Consciousness, the soul, love, the Holy Spirit, on both the individual and shared levels, have sadly become largely unconscious! No wonder some call the Holy Spirit the “missing person” of the Blessed Trinity. No wonder we try to fill this radical disconnectedness through various addictions.

There is an Inner Reminder, an Inner Rememberer, (see John 14:26, 16:4) who holds together all the disparate and fragmented parts of our lives, fills in all the gaps, owns all the mistakes, forgives all the failures, and loves us into an ever-deeper life. This is the job description of the Holy Spirit, who is the spring that wells up within us (John 7:38–39)—and unto eternal time. This is the breath that warms and renews everything (John 20:22). These are the eyes that see beyond the momentary shadow and disguise of things (John 9); these are the tears that wash and cleanse the past (Matthew 5:4). And better yet, they are not only our tears but are actually the very presence and consolation of God within us (2 Corinthians 1:3–5).

You must contact this Immensity! You must look back at your life from the place of this Immensity. You must know that this Immensity is already within you. The only thing separating you from such Immensity is the ego’s unwillingness to trust such an utterly free grace, such a completely unmerited gift.

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Interview with our friend, Brad Jersak

Q&A: On Surrender / Letting Go

I was recently interviewed for a forthcoming book for which some of my responses may be selected and distilled into a larger collection. But for now, I’d like to share my raw responses word-for-word.

Q1. How would you define surrender? Who or what is one surrendering to, in your opinion? God, Universe, Self, Soul, present moment…?

Surrender has been a key word in my spiritual vocabulary for decades and as a result, has become layered. My definition is drawn from my experiences in prayer, from the influence of Simone Weil in my life, my interactions in spiritual direction, and from the twelve-step recovery movement.

I typically define surrender as “letting go,” which applies to how I try to let go of control (self-will), of agendas, of “my will be done.” In recovery language, I make a decision to surrender my life and will to the care (not the control) of a loving God. In Weil’s terms, I consent to the divine will as Christ did in Gethsemane. In prayer, I actually picture standing or kneeling before Christ and offering him whatever he asks for—releasing attitudes, emotions, intentions, worries, resentments, regrets, etc., over to him. Most of all, I surrender people. Those I’ve harmed, those who’ve harmed me, those I love most, worry about most, obsess over most. I picture delivering them into the hands or arms of God. I picture him taking responsibility for their care or correction or healing because it’s too much for me. I am no one’s saviour. 

This is how I process my anxieties when I lay awake thinking about my children or grandchildren. It’s how I process forgiveness for those who my resentments chain me to. It’s how I deal with my own self-pity, self-loathing, and self-centeredness.

But I also think about surrender in terms of acceptance. Dr. Walter Thiessen calls this “compassionate consent to reality.” Surrender here is connected to the distinction in the Serenity Prayer between accepting what I cannot change versus the courage to change what I can (including my reorientation back toward love and life). 

An elderly sage once said to me, “Your biggest struggle is that you struggle,”or in the kind rebuke of one massage therapist, “Stop fighting me!” My wife tells me that in her contractions through labour, she learned how even in pushing, she could surf the pain rather than fighting against it. All these analogies are a kind of surrender, so we might also say “rolling with” along with “letting go.” That is, we learn to take life on life’s terms. 

Q2. Is there a practice to surrender that does not cause more suffering?

I’ve already suggested one method in terms of a visual exercise of handing over. Along those lines, I also use other pictures when I need to be most gentle with myself. Sometimes, I simply enter a state where I lay my head on Jesus’ lap and gaze into a small campfire in front of us. Silent surrender. At other times, when there’s a lot of grief, I kneel beside him in Gethsemane. This helps me because I sync up with Jesus’ own experience and notice that he doesn’t get stuck. His surrender leads mine from grief to comfort to hope.

But when I’m on the verge of a panic attack, I resort to pre-established prayers that begin on their own in my heart… the Jesus Prayer (“Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on me”) or the Serenity Prayer—either of which I use in conjunction with deep breathing, where the surrender is expressed as an exhale or a sigh.

I also do surrender work in the presence of non-judgmental listening with a spiritual director, a sponsor, or my godfather. I confess all that causes me anxiety (not just my sins) in a kind of surrender where I unpack and offload my most authentic feelings with a safe person who is not inclined to fix or rescue, but can sit with me as a peace-centered companion.

Q3. What happens when you surrender?

Any range of outcomes can happen when I surrender, but I’ve learned not to attach myself to outcomes—which is itself another important layer of surrender. Let’s not overlook that!

When I surrender, I may feel a great burden lift from my shoulders, or the easing of my queasy stomach, or a blessed stillness settles in. These can be quite visceral since body and soul are so connected. I may feel the well-being of realizing it will be okay or I will be okay, no matter what. I can then resist the demands of the ego to take over (control) or take back (what I let go)—to cling or to grasp.

I think about these practices and their results a lot precisely because I need to. Today, I need to let go again. Another disappointment, another burden… I’m a chronic worrier and I’ve even had to surrender the delusion that I’ll overcome that. I regress. I relapse. But I see a path, and for this moment, open my hands once again.

Q4. What is the ego or mind? What’s holding on?

“Ego” is a tricky term because it gets defined in a variety of ways. It’s literally just the Greek word for “I.” At one time, I spoke in terms of “the death of the ego.” But I was corrected by those who reminded me that ego is essential for a sense of self (or even is our sense of self). As tiny children, we gradually begin to differentiate from others and form our own sense of “me” as object, then “I” as subject.

Further, therapists tell me that many of their clients need their ego to be strengthened, especially in order to escape the demoralizing imprisonment of domestic abuse. So we should never tell a battered partner to crucify their ego!

However, when we use the word ego negatively, what we typically mean is egoism—the enthronement of the ego in self-will, self-centredness, self-importance. When ego is king, I don’t surrender. I don’t follow the wisdom of my higher power. I don’t live in the Jesus Way of self-giving, others-centered love. “I” becomes Lord. It may even develop an insidious, bullying voice increasingly devoid of conscience.

In a previous post, I mentioned pesky voices that, for me, include self-pity, self-loathing, and self-centeredness. In some models, these self-voices are all variations of the ego that, when disordered, share an incorrigible resistance to surrender—to letting go.

But when Jesus said, “Blessed are the poor in spirit,” we might paraphrase that, “Blessed are those who’ve learned to say no to the demands of the ego”or “Blessed are those who’ve bankrupted the ego” [Ron S. Dart]. In that sense, ego can be shorthand for willfulness and surrender is willingness. But again, beware of how you process this with those who’ve been belittled. If they have internalized the voice of an oppressor, the “surrender” message may be a form of gaslighting. Someone more qualified than me can help distinguish whether the ego-voice is reinforcing the bully’s control or helping us resist it.

Q5. Is there a practice/methodology you follow that would create surrender? 

For me, it’s more of a recognition that self-will has not worked. “I admitted that I was powerless [in my own strength] over my addiction/circumstances/crazy thoughts/self-destructive and others-harming behaviors, and that my life had become unmanageable.”

“Bottoming out” does not mean you go as low as you can go. It describes any point at which (1) you admit that self-will is not working , (2) you come to believe only Someone greater than yourself is able to restore your sanity, and (3) you decide to surrender to the care of that Someone. “Bottoming out” is a grace—a spiritual awakening that leads to a daily reprieve.

But I didn’t wake myself up. I needed God to wake me up. I didn’t create surrender… I suppose life did that, or grace, or both.

There are also times when advising someone to “let go” can be harmful. A friend of mine had a stillbirth child seven months through her pregnancy. To feel the child stop moving but carry it through to delivery was traumatic. Worse, she discovered that the medical staff had discarded the tiny body rather than allowing a burial. My friend retreated for recovery outside the city and connected with some caring Buddhist women for comfort. But when they began saying, “It’s okay. Just let go. The baby’s soul has left and will find its way to a new reincarnation,” she tells me that she erupted in rage. “Let go” was not the message she needed. Better to sit in silent pain with her until she discovered for herself what she needed… Instead of “letting go” of the pain, she says she needed to face it head on, enter it, and she there she discovered she could create something beautiful with it. 

The idea was not to get rid of the grief—she couldn’t—but she was able to use everything at her disposal to weave something beautiful. Even there, I would caution against co-opting her words as new platitudes but instead, learn how to companion people through affliction until they emerge on the beautiful side of grief.

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Individual Reflection

Where in your life right now are you still running the show — and what would it feel like to actually step back?

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Group Discussion — choose one

1. Jersak describes surrender as an exhale, an open hand, a laying of the head — what’s your body’s experience of it?
2. Rohr says the Immensity is already within you; what makes that so hard to believe?
3. Jersak says “I regress, I relapse, but I see a path” — what keeps you returning to the path?

Tuesday, May 26, 2026

Feminist theologian Rebecca Button Pritchard describes how the Spirit accompanies our embodiment: 

After hours of painful labor, of breathing deeply and quickly, a body comes from a body. Pain and hope, relief and anxiety spin together wildly as the tiny body, bloody, waxen, draws air into lungs and bellows. Tears of pain and joy flow together. The cord is cut; the child becomes a living, breathing soul. The grown-ups, who’ve been breathing on their own for many years now, are exhausted, delighted, relieved.

Inspiration, respiration, inhalation, exhalation, these are the evidence that a new life has begun. New birth is confirmed with a cry, the sound of air moving across vocal chords. Just so, embodied existence has begun for one of us, for all of us. The breath of life, the animating spirit, moves through the systems of bodies created in the image and likeness of God. New life breathes by the grace of God and depends on the grace of parents for sustenance and love.

Lungs, larynx, and lips give us the power to speak, to cry, to sing, to name, to praise, to pray…. “Let everything that breathes, praise the Lord,” sang the psalmist (150:6). The rush of God’s Spirit, mighty and creative, blows also across windpipes, forming words, language, speech. Finding a voice, speaking up, being heard into speech, these give our lives meaning and value, enabling us to make sense of things, including our lives as creatures related to God, to creation, to others, to self. Just so, the sound of God’s Spirit, the mighty wind of Pentecost, is the sound of human language, of being heard and understood. [1]

Recognizing how the Spirit lives, moves, and breathes in our bodies allows us to live a wholehearted, courageous faith: 

True spirituality, embodied spirituality, may be described as wholeheartedness, as the integration of body and spirit, of nephesh and basar, of heart and soul. It is with this wholeheartedness that we hear and follow God’s voice; it is wholeheartedly that we find the words to cry out to God, to sing praise, to speak a prophetic word, a comforting word, to tell our stories, and to make sense of all our relationships.

Wholehearted spirituality in the freedom of the Spirit gives us courage, courage to bear witness to God’s grace against all odds, courage to speak despite efforts to silence us, courage to act authentically and in ways that encourage and empower the weak and the vulnerable. The Spirit gives us the wisdom to discern truthful moments, to bring both suspicion and trust to the interpretation of both past and present.

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Solidarity in our Suffering

How the Cross (and Trauma Research) Offer Better News Than Unhelpful Christian Clichés

CHUCK DEGROAT. MAY 25

“This is the good news. God writes your story—including your story of suffering—in a way that grows you into his likeness and reveals his glory,” he said at a conference years ago, the audience nodding in affirmation. 

I don’t recall the speaker’s name, but I do recall my dismay, even disgust. 

I’ve sat with families navigating cancer diagnoses for their children and with spouses hearing early dementia diagnoses and with women and men sharing stories of unspeakable abuse. And I’d never, ever consider it good news that God somehow orchestrated these things. 

I’ve long believed the Christian good news (aka “Gospel”) is not that God stands at a distance arranging our suffering for some secret purpose, but that God meets us in solidarity with our suffering in Jesus Christ, entering in to what feels cruel and pointless in order to heal, redeem, and ultimately undo all that fractures humanity and creation itself.

Even still, I have dozens of phrases from sermons and talks stretching back into my childhood that make their way from the recesses of my psyche every now-and-then…phrases like:

• “God won’t give you more than you can handle.”
• “Everything happens for a reason.”
• “God is using this to teach you something.”
• “This is part of God’s plan.”
• “God must be preparing you for something greater.”
• “God is more concerned with your holiness than your happiness.”
• “Maybe God allowed this to draw you closer to him.”
• “Trials are blessings in disguise.”
• “If God brought you to it, he’ll bring you through it.”

I think back to my seminary days where it seems we spent more time trying to discern the mind of God than we did learning what it means to sit in suffering-solidarity with others in the name of Jesus. And nearly 30 years of pastoral care and clinical therapy have convinced me that we’ve too often lost the real goodness of the good news.

Can suffering mature us? Can our painful stories manifest in transformation? Of course.

I’ve written about this, and most of us—religious or not—know this intuitively. 

Those I’ve cared for over the years have taught me this. A woman who I accompanied through years of processing the trauma of her father’s abuse later told me, “Because of what I’ve experienced, I can sit with others with fewer answers and more compassion.” She is now someone who cares for others navigating abuse. 

Suffering can deepen compassion, humility, courage, surrender, and love. But suffering does not automatically mature us. Sometimes, it fragments us. Unaccompanied, it may overwhelm the nervous system, leaving us vigilant, shut down, or despairing. Trauma research has helped us see what many therapists, pastors, and wise elders have long known: suffering that is witnessed, held, and accompanied is far more likely to become transformative than suffering borne alone. 

I thought about how this happens recently while talking with my friend Jim Herrington on his podcast. We were discussing the tension between safety and suffering, and how easy it is to drift toward one of two extremes. On one side, we can valorize suffering in ways that make God seem cruel, calculating, even sadistic. On the other, we can valorize safety in ways that leave us unwilling to risk discomfort, grief, change, conflict, or vulnerability.

We don’t need to pit safety and suffering against each other. In fact, when safety and suffering walk hand-in-hand, maturity follows. I was reflecting on this again recently as my youngest got married last weekend, rendering Sara and I true empty-nesters. I was thinking about our shared story as a family, with two difficult cross-country moves—something not uncommon to those in ministry, but also profoundly painful. 

When our girls were young, we prioritized safety, connection, and attachment. But that did not mean protecting them from every hard thing. We made those difficult decisions to move, and we suffered, leaving family and friends, even homes and geographies we loved. There was grief in it, and Sara and I struggled to make those decisions knowing the cost to us, to our girls. But we were together in it. The suffering was accompanied—Emma and Maggie were safe with us, held in their pain. And that makes the difference. 

Maybe this is one of the reasons the Gospels spend so little time trying to explain suffering philosophically. Yes, there is a place for that—I don’t deny that. But, the Gospel writers were far more concerned with presence, solidarity, renewed communion—Jesus, God-in-the-flesh, announcing an end to exile and the kingdom come. 

Friends, we don’t need to exhaust ourselves trying to decipher the hidden intentions of God behind every painful event. We don’t need to live in a story of a God who stands at a distance scripting tragedy for our growth. 

God became flesh and joined us in the struggle. 

That God knows the hell you’ve been through. He’s been there. 

And while there are no easy answers, there is companionship in the pain. 

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Individual Reflection

Where in your body do you notice the difference between suffering that is witnessed and suffering that is borne alone?

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Group Discussion — choose one

What does it cost you, emotionally or theologically, to let go of the idea that God is orchestrating your pain for a purpose?

What would it mean for you to find your voice — to cry out, name, or speak — in a place where you’ve been silent?

Where have you experienced God’s presence as accompaniment rather than arrangement?

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Contemplating the Song Selection

The theological center of both pieces is accompaniment — Pritchard on Spirit breathing through embodied creatures giving them voice, DeGroat on God entering suffering rather than scripting it from a distance. Both push against a disembodied, managing God toward an incarnate, with-us God.

Sunday, May 24, 2026

Pentecost

When the day of Pentecost had come, they were all together in one place. And suddenly from heaven there came a sound like the rush of a violent wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting. Divided tongues, as of fire, appeared among them, and a tongue rested on each of them. All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other languages, as the Spirit gave them ability.
—Acts 2:1–4  

In this Pentecost homily, Father Richard Rohr encourages Christians to recognize the presence of the Holy Spirit as a gift that God has already given. 

It’s a shame that the Holy Spirit tends to be an afterthought for many Christians. We don’t really draw upon the Spirit within us. We tend, I’m afraid, to simply go through the motions. We formally believe, but there isn’t much fire or conviction behind it, so there isn’t much service either.

In the Gospels there are two clearly distinguished baptisms. There’s the baptism with water that most of us are used to, and then there’s the baptism “with the Holy Spirit and fire” (Matthew 3:11); that’s the one that really matters.  

The water baptism that many of us received as children demands little conviction or understanding. Some parents simply do it to make their parents or grandparents happy. Until this baptism by water becomes real, until we know and rely on Jesus, and until we call upon, share, and love Jesus, we’re just going along for the ride. 

We can recognize people who have had a second baptism in the Holy Spirit. They tend to be loving and lively. They want to serve others and not just be served themselves. They forgive life itself for not being everything they once hoped for. They forgive their neighbors, and they forgive themselves for not being as perfect as they would like to be.  

Even though we pray, “Come, Holy Spirit,” I hope you know that the gift of the Spirit is already given. The Holy Spirit has already come. We all are temples of the Holy Spirit—equally, objectively, and forever! The only difference is the degree to which we know it, draw upon it, and consciously believe it. All the scriptural images of the Spirit are dynamic—flowing water, descending dove or fire, and rushing wind. If there’s rarely any movement, energy, excitement, deep love, service, forgiveness, or surrender, we can be pretty sure we aren’t living out of the Spirit. If we’re just going through the motions, we aren’t experiencing our connection to the Spirit. We would do well to fan into flame the gift we already have.  

God doesn’t give the Spirit to those of us who are worthy, because none of us are worthy. God gives the Spirit in this awakened way to those who want it. On this Feast of Pentecost, quite simply, want it! Rely upon it. Know that it has already been given and live out of that trust.

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Speaking the Church into Existence

Monday, May 25, 2026

How is that each of us hears them in our own native language?
—Acts 2:8

Theologian Willie Jennings recounts how the Holy Spirit created a new community through common language: 

The miracle of Pentecost is less in the hearing and much more in the speaking. Disciples speak in the mother tongues of others, not by their own design but by the Spirit’s desire. The new wine has been poured out on those unaware of just how deeply they thirsted…. This is the beginning of the miracle of Pentecost, the revolution of the intimate. This is the beginning of a community broken open by the sheer act of God, and we are yet to comprehend the extent to which God acts and is acting to break us open….

This is God touching, taking hold of tongue and voice, mind, heart, and body. This is a joining, unprecedented, unanticipated, unwanted, yet complete joining. Those gathered in prayer asked for power. They may have asked for the Holy Spirit to come, but they did not ask for this. This is real grace, untamed grace. It is the grace that replaces our fantasies of power over people with God’s fantasy for desire for people.

Through the Spirit, an intimacy with one another and with God is born:

God has come to them, on them, with them. This moment echoes Mary’s intimate moment. The Holy Spirit again overshadows. However, this similar holy action creates something different, something startling. The Spirit creates joining. The followers of Jesus are now being connected in a way that joins them to people in the most intimate space—of voice, memory, sound, body, land, and place. It is language that runs through all these matters. It is the sinew of existence of a people. My people, our language: to speak a language is to speak a people. Speaking announces familiarity, connection, and relationality.…

This is not generic speech, formal pronouncements, but the language of intimate spaces where peoples inside talk to one another. The hearers query a past that does not exist for these followers of Jesus. “How do they know my language and know my people? When did they gain that knowledge?” But their miraculous tongues are not about the past but about the future, a future shaped by divine desire. This is why we must see more than a miracle of hearing. Such limited seeing … exposes our modern failure to grasp the revolutionary intimacy that will give birth to a belonging that we will call church. This is a revolution of the Spirit always poised to unleash itself at the slightest moment of faithful waiting and yielding

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Individual Reflection

Where in your life are you aware of the Spirit already at work — and where are you still waiting for an invitation that’s already been given?

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Group Discussion — choose one:

• Where have you experienced the Spirit creating an intimacy or belonging you never asked for?
• What does it mean to you that God gives the Spirit to those who want it rather than those who deserve it?
• What would it look like to “fan into flame” something that’s already in you rather than reaching for something outside yourself?