Benedict of Nursia (480–587) is a central figure in the founding of Western monasticism. In the spring issue of ONEING, CAC affiliate faculty Carmen Acevedo Butcher describes how Benedict’s prayerful life in the desert became a chosen and holy exile from a world in crisis: 

A stirring in Benedict moved him to choose the uncertainty of self-exile and contemplation in a world of collective exile and traumatization…. Benedict’s monasteries were “the bomb shelters, time capsules, laboratories, and protected cultivators of the contemplative tradition in a world falling apart.” [1] They preserved the wisdom of the desert ammas and abbas and were communities of healing in a time of chaos.… We can learn much from Benedict. During societal disorder and crushing need, how did he sustain both his own and communal peace and compassionate activity?…

Richard Rohr’s allegorical adaptation of Archimedes’ law of the lever, in A Lever and a Place to Stand, can be applied to and can deepen our appreciation of Benedict, who repeatedly chose to live in and from the “fixed point” of a contemplative stance. In this calm place of daily ora [prayer]—Psalm-chanting and Scripture-steeping lectio divina—Benedict stood “steady, centered, poised, and rooted,” gaining “a slight distance from the world” even as his heart or fulcrum of engagement was “quite close to the world, … loving it, feeling its pains and its joys” as his own. In prayer, Benedict experienced a “detachment from the … useless distractions, and the daily delusions of the false self” that gave his fulcrum, set in the suffering of wrecked empire, the capacity to “move the world” through various “levers” of compassionate action, or labora [work]. [2] 

A communal rhythm of prayer focused on the Psalms permeated the lives of Benedict and his monastic brothers: 

Focused daily on doing the ordinary, Benedict’s life was a series of risings in the dark. Most Italians, even bakers, were sound asleep when lights fired up in his monasteries before 2 a.m. in winter, as Benedict’s community woke and walked to chapel for Vigils. They sang Psalm 51:17: “Domine, labia mea aperies, et os meum annuntiabit laudem tuam” / “Lord, open my lips, and my mouth will declare your praise.”… 

Benedict prioritized this chanting through the 150 Psalms each week as a community, as his communities and descendants, Cistercians and Trappist monks, do today. The Desert Elder Athanasius (c. 300–373) described the daily hours spent singing Psalms as beneficial in teaching biblical history and prophecy, nurturing and maturing the emotions, and transforming how the chanter understands the Bible’s words and even God:  

The person who hears the Psalms as they sing them is deeply moved and changed by their words. They become a mirror where you see your soul. Whatever causes us grief is healed when we sing Psalms, and whatever causes us stumbling will be discovered. It’s like the Psalms were written by you yourself. They become your own songs. [3]  

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MAY 6, 2025 Universal Callings vs. Particular Callings

There is a cliche among more fundamentalist Christians that is often employed to end discussion and shut down dissent: “The Bible says it. I believe it. That settles it.” I’ve had this quip, or some version of it, tossed at me by a critic many times on social media. More than just a way to virtue signal their submission to the authority of Scripture, it’s simultaneously used to accuse the person they disagree with of irredeemable heresy and to close the door on any further discussion. To be clear, the person who says, “The Bible says it. I believe it. That settles it,” is really saying: “I believe the Bible says it. That settles it.” In other words, rather than a humble statement of their submission to the Bible, it’s actually a prideful statement that elevates their own interpretation of the Bible. And their interpretation, like mine, is far from infallible. Of course, a fragile faith—not to mention a fragile ego—will never admit such fallibility to themselves, let alone anyone else.The more mature believer, however, accepts the difference between the authority of the Bible and the authority of their interpretation of the Bible. Why this distinction is so difficult for some Christians to grasp is a mystery to me. It’s no more controversial than admitting that God is perfect, but I am not. Perhaps we struggle because it requires us to acknowledge that the process of reading, interpreting, and applying the Scriptures is always a human endeavor and therefore open to error and ambiguity. It diminishes some of the certainty that provides both a sense of safety and self-righteousness, which are immensely attractive to religious believers and the institutions seeking to attract them. The fallibility of our biblical interpretation becomes evident when we explore which words of Jesus we hold to be universally applicable, and which ones we dismiss as particular. For example, I have heard many sermons where Jesus’ command to Simon, “Come, follow me, and I will make you a fisher of men” (Matthew 4:19), is broadly applied to all Christians. On the other hand, I’ve yet to hear a single sermon where Jesus’ command to the Rich Young Ruler to “go and sell your possessions and give to the poor…and come, follow me” (Matthew 19:21) is universally applied. Why do preachers apply Peter’s missionary calling to everyone, but not the Rich Young Ruler’s calling to poverty? Why is one calling seen as universal and the other seen as particular? Could it be that Peter’s calling looks a lot like the preacher’s own, and universalizing Peter’s calling also validates the preacher’s? Could it be that many pastors desire more of their people to participate in the mission of the church, and universalizing Peter’s calling creates more urgency for this work? Could it be that Peter’s decision to leave his fishing business for ministry reinforces the superiority of sacred vocations over secular ones, which is an assumption carried by many churches and church leaders? Could it be that our culture idolizes wealth and individual ownership, so we particularize Jesus’ words to apply only to the Rich Young Ruler and not to us? Could it be that we create both biblical laws and loopholes based on our cultural and personal biases more than we’d like to admit?  Here’s my point—interpreting the Bible always requires us to make choices, and sometimes our choices align with the biblical author’s intent and God’s. Sometimes they don’t. Sometimes we are aware of the choices we’re making as we read the Bible; very often we are not. Instead, for many Christians, interpretive decisions are completely subconscious. We always read the Bible through the lenses of our culture, experience, biases, and personality, but few of us are actually aware of the glasses on our faces. Our interpretive decision-making happens automatically, invisibly. It functions like unseen software running in the background. We can’t turn these background programs off, but we can slow down and be more aware of their presence and influence. We can pause from time to time and remove our glasses and try to read the Bible through another set of lenses. For example, the story of Jesus’ calling Peter and the miraculous catch of fish, is often used to motivate more Christians to participate in evangelism and the mission of the church. For some, their evangelical cultural biases cause them to universalize Peter’s vocation and assume that we are all called to be fishers of men. But if we are aware of this evangelical lens, we might be more careful and discover other ways of reading the story. Rather than universalizing Peter’s response to Jesus’ call, we might universalize Peter’s response to Jesus’ miracle. After the miraculous catch of fish, Peter humbled himself before Jesus, called him Lord, and confessed his own sinfulness. This posture of submission is what prepared Peter to hear and obey Jesus’ call. What if the best application of the story isn’t that we’re all called to be fishers of men, but that we’re all called to humbly submit ourselves to Jesus and obey whatever particular calling he gives us? Maybe the story isn’t primarily about becoming missionaries, but about becoming people who are more surrendered to Jesus’ authority and much less certain about our own.  DAILY SCRIPTURE LUKE 5:1-11 MATTHEW 19:16-24 WEEKLY PRAYER. from Brother Roger of Taizé (1915 – 2005) O Christ, tirelessly you seek out those who are looking for you and who think that you are far away; teach us, at every moment, to place our spirits in your hands. While we are still looking for you, already you have found us. However poor our prayer, you hear us far more than we can imagine or believe. Amen.

In the fall of 2020, Father Richard Rohr began writing occasional letters that he called “Letters from Outside the Camp,” referring to the many usages of “outside the camp” in the Hebrew Bible. Richard suggests that such a position can support those who want to move beyond the contemporary political and religious “encampments” of our day. 

We know full well that we must now avoid the temptation to become our own defended camp. We want to inhabit that ever-prophetic position “on the edge of the inside,” described by the early Israelites as “the tent of meeting outside the camp” (Exodus 33:7). Even though this tent is portable, it’s still a meeting place for “the holy,” which is always on the move and out in front of us. 

In our ugly and injurious present political climate, it’s become all too easy to justify fear-filled and hateful thoughts, words, and actions, often in defense against the “other” side. We project our anxiety elsewhere and misdiagnose the real problem (the real evil), exchanging it for smaller and seemingly more manageable problems. The over-defended ego always sees, hates, and attacks in other people its own faults—the parts of ourselves that we struggle to acknowledge. Of course, we don’t want to give way on important moral issues, but this often means we also don’t want to give way on our need to be right, superior, and in control. Our deep attachment to this defended and smaller self leads us into our greatest illusions. Most of us do not see things as they are; we see things as we are. 

Richard considers the wisdom that the Buddhist Heart Sutra can teach us: 

The Heart Sutra (sometimes called The Heart of the Perfection of Wisdom) is considered by many to be the most succinct and profound summary of Buddhist teaching—surely it must have something to say to all of us. It ends with a mantra that is a daring proclamation of the final truth that takes our whole life to uncover and experience. It is enlightenment itself and hope itself in verbal form. It’s the ultimate liberation into Reality. 

Here is the transliteration and pronunciation of the Sanskrit refrain: 

Gate, gate, pāragate, pārasaṃgate, bodhi svāhā! 

Ga-tay, ga-tay, para ga-tay, parasam ga-tay boh-dee svah-ha! 

It means: 

Gone, gone, gone all the way over, the entire community of beings has gone to the other shore, enlightenment—praise! So be it! [1] 

This isn’t meant to be a morbid or tragic statement, but a joyous proclamation, in its own way similar to Christians saying “Alleluia!” at Easter. It is liberation from our grief, our losses, our sadness, and our attachments—our manufactured self. It accepts the transitory and passing nature of all things without exception, not as a sadness, but as a movement to “the other shore.” We don’t know exactly what the other shore is like, but we know it is another shore from where we now stand and not a scary abyss. 

A Litany of Liberation

In yesterday’s meditation, we shared Father Richard’s reflection on the liberating wisdom of the Heart Sutra in Buddhism. [1] Rather than a morbid message, Richard encourages us to receive the refrain as a message of hope and enlightenment. We share a litany that Richard wrote inspired by that refrain: 

All the centuries before me: 
           Gone, gone, entirely gone! 

All the nations of the earth: 
           Gone, gone, entirely gone! 

All kings, generals, and governors: 
           Gone, gone, entirely gone! 

All the wars, plagues, and tragedies: 
           Gone, gone, entirely gone! 

All human achievements by individuals and groups: 
           Gone, gone, entirely gone! 

All sickness, sin, and error: 
           Gone, gone, entirely gone! 

All our identities, roles, and titles: 
           Gone, gone, entirely gone! 

All hurts, grudges, and memories of offense: 
           Gone, gone, entirely gone! 

All enslavement, abuse, and torture: 
           Gone, gone, entirely gone! 

All diseases, afflictions, and lifetime wounds: 
           Gone, gone, entirely gone! 

All rejections, abandonments, and betrayals: 
           Gone, gone, entirely gone! 

All human glory, fame, money, and reputation: 
           Gone, gone, entirely gone! 

Our logical minds may say, “Oh, but these things continue in human memory, consciousness, and the standing stones of institutions and culture,” which is true. That is not the point this sutra is intended to communicate, however; this is ritual and religious theater, not rational philosophy. In terms of all those who preceded us, these things are indeed “Gone!” (Buddhism also uses the word “Empty!”) It takes just such a shock to encourage the ego to let go of the passing self, the false self, the relative self, the self created by circumstance, memory, and choice. 

All comforts, luxuries, and pleasures: 
           Gone, gone, entirely gone! 

All ideas, information, and ideology: 
           Gone, gone, entirely gone! 

All image, appearance, and privacy: 
           Gone, gone, entirely gone! 

All our superiority, self-assuredness, and expertise: 
           Gone, gone, entirely gone! 

All human rights, ambitions, and fairness: 
           Gone, gone, entirely gone! 

All personal power, self-will, and self-control: 
           Gone, gone, entirely gone! 

This is the spiritual art of detachment, which is not aloofness or denial, but the purifying of attachment. In our world, detachment itself can become a kind of EXODUS, an abandoning—whether forced or chosen—of the very things that give us status, make us feel secure or moral, and oftentimes that pay the bills. 

We live in a time of great hostility, and we must resist the temptation to pull back from others, deny our shadow, and retreat into our own defended camps or isolated positions. This temptation is not true detachment, but rather a succumbing to the illusion of separation. True spiritual action (as opposed to reaction) demands our own ongoing transformation and a voluntary “exile,” choosing to be where the pain is, as Jesus exemplified in his great self-emptying. Rather than accusing others of sin, Jesus instead “became sin” (2 Corinthians 5:21). He stood in solidarity with the problem itself, and his compassion and solidarity were themselves the healing. 

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Christ the Harvester

MARK LONGHURSTMAY 4

The adolescent me was terrified of God. I pictured God as an unstable, but surely perfect and unquestionable, being who functioned similarly to Sauron’s eye. I’ve written about this before. I imagined God casting his piercing gaze across the world, into my heart, and there, as if glimpsing Frodo from across the wasteland of Mordor, God zeroed in on the evils within. God saw my pride, lust, and envy, and was mad. And when God was mad, punishment followed. It didn’t all make sense to my young psyche, but I knew there was hellfire and eternity at stake. With fiery, lasting torment on the line, I knew I had better shape up and confess all the misdeeds and mistakes that I knew about, as well as the ones I may have done, and the ones that I had not done yet.

This territory runs near the theological thicket of atonement theology and the ways it filtered to my emerging self: I was a sinner. God was angry at sin and all sinners deserved eternal death. Jesus died for my sins, absorbed God’s anger and punishment, and saved me from it. There are more complex ways of articulating it, but the felt sense of an angry God for me was to be afraid of God and afraid of myself. God’s love flowed somewhere in the equation, but I didn’t feel it. It was subsumed in anger.

I’ve avoided the more troubling biblical texts of divine wrath and punishment for a long while. It brought up too much, and my associations with God as Sauron’s eye prevailed. Studying the book of Revelation, though, has me facing my avoidance of the most difficult biblical texts and, oddly enough, praying with them. I can’t fully explain it, even, except that I realized several years back that I wasn’t afraid of God anymore, and that I didn’t want to be afraid of the Bible, either. If I can watch The Last of Us and its fungi-induced apocalypse and resulting zombies, I can surely read the book of Revelation.

So, here we are, readers. We squarely sit in the wrath-filled, violent part of the book. John’s apocalyptic visions cycle in sevens. We have seen seven letters sent to churches in modern-day Turkey (Revelation 2-3), and seven trumpets that symbolized God’s battle cry against the Empire and injustice (Revelation 8-10). Chapter 15 will prepare us for the seven angels pouring seven bowls of wrath, resulting in the corresponding seven plagues.

Before the bowls of wrath are poured, though, John sees several angels and gives us a vision of harvesting. First, John pictures one like the “Son of Man” (stand-in image for Christ) with a sharp sickle in his hand used to collect crops from over the earth (Revelation 14:1, 16). The “Son of Man” reaps the harvest. I don’t know about you, but that’s always been another scary image for me, akin to the Grim Reaper wielding his blade. Christ, the Grim Reaper, or maybe a Harry Potter Death Eater. But harvest is a time of profound joy and celebration in agricultural societies. At the farms I’ve known even peripherally, the harvest is an all-volunteers-welcomed time of hard work, long days, abundance (on good years), and feasting. An occasion to drink tasty beer, try out an apple or pumpkin pie recipe, and swap stories with friends and neighbors. Christ the harvester is not at heart a scary image; it’s a joyful one of bringing all friendship, mercy, kindness, peace, and justice to fruition—finally!

It’s understandable that we would be afraid, though, because the next thing John sees is a different being with another sickle, an angel who is harvesting grapes—and throwing the grapes “into the great winepress of the wrath of God” (14:20). Picturing God in a winepress is, on the one hand, a lovely, even joyful, image. A barefoot God stomps on grapes to make wine—a method of releasing grape juice before mechanical methods were available. But why does the potentially exuberant image of trampling in a winepress take such a terrifying turn, and why is it equated with God’s wrath?

Like many of its verses, this verse in Revelation reflects other metaphors from other books in the Hebrew Bible. In particular, John has in heart here a short prophetic book called Joel. In that brief, angry book, amid God rousing opposing armies’ soldiers and threatening holy war against enemies, Joel’s God says: “Put in the sickle, for the harvest is ripe. Go in, tread, for the wine press is full. The vats overflow, for their wickedness is great” (Joel 3:13). In the wine press, the Divine Warrior tramples foes in battle and stomps out injustice and evil (see, too Zechariah 10:5). But note here that, as in many places in the Hebrew Bible, God is doing the fighting—not the people. So, to place this troubling text in a hymn of a nation, say, as in the “Battle Hymn of the Republic,” is a Christian nationalist total misuse: “Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord, He is trampling out the vintage where the grapes of wrath are stored.”

The following verse raises the violence further: “And the wine press was trodden outside the city, and blood flowed from the wine press, as high as a horse’s bridle.” That sounds like the third act of Ryan Coogler’s new movie “Sinners,” when the blood flows high and it’s all wooden stakes and silver bullets on deck for the battle against blood-sucking vampires! But on close examination, John is doing something fascinating with this verse, which he often does throughout Revelation: he’s undermining the violence of the Empire with the nonviolence of the Lamb/Jesus.

Here’s the logic, from an insightful, short commentary on Revelation by N.T. Wright: outside the city is a reference to “outside the city gate” in Hebrews 13:13, where Jesus is thought to have been crucified (“Let us go with him outside the camp/city gate, bearing the disgrace he bore.”) The grape trampling occurs “outside the city,” just as Jesus is crucified “outside the city.” A little later in Revelation, the Christ figure appears again, in a robe dipped in blood (19:13-16)—but it’s Christ’s blood, the Lamb’s blood. What are we to make of this? 

God is angry, and blood is flowing, but it’s the blood of those killed by the Empire, not God. It’s the blood of the martyrs (Revelation 6:9-11), victims of Empire, the tortured and disappeared, the separated immigrant families, the Palestinian people suffering catastrophic violence and hunger—and it’s the blood of the Lamb-Christ himself. It’s the cup of wine that all Christians who dare follow the nonviolent Jesus are invited, no, called, to drink, “the cup of the new covenant” (Luke 22:20).

God’s wrath is still there for us to reckon with. It’s wrath against the Empire, against injustice and violence, against the abuse of power, deportations, cruelty, violence, and lies that took place in John’s time, and that are taking place in our time. And still, the psychological impact of an angry God lingers for me and many. So, is there something more complex going on in the Bible’s treatment of God’s anger than Sauron’s eye glaring at my soul? To be continued…

A Franciscan Perspective

Friday, May 2, 2025

In an episode of the podcast Learning How to See, Brian McLaren considers Francis of Assisi’s celebrated affinity for nature: 

Saint Francis is probably best known for the “Canticle of the Sun,” the song of praise he wrote in 1225. It begins,  

Most High, all-powerful, good Lord … praised be You, my Lord, with all Your creatures, especially Sir Brother Sun, who is the day and through whom You give us light. And he is beautiful and radiant with great splendor; and bears a likeness of You, Most High One. Praised be You, my Lord, through Sister Moon and the stars…. Praised be You, my Lord, through Brother Wind, and through the air, cloudy and serene, and every kind of weather…. Praised be You, my Lord, through Sister Water…. [1]  

What strikes me in this poem is that Francis doesn’t say be praised for these things but be praised with them and through them. Francis is saying, I’m praising you, God, because I’m praising the sun. It seems to me that Francis was trying to return to a more primal identity—as part of nature, a child of soil, wind, and rain, a member of this earth community, all of which inhabits the loving presence of God. 

Sister Joan Brown, former executive director of New Mexico Interfaith Power and Light, responds to McLaren’s question: “What does it mean for a person to be a Franciscan and to feel themselves part of a Franciscan movement?”  

I think it’s being Franciscan-hearted.… It’s knowing and feeling oneself as part of everything—from the smallest molecule, to the tree, to the sun that was out this morning. This vast soul connection then interweaves us all together in a community…. We’re living in this time when it’s not the heroes that are influencing us; it’s the communal, it’s all of us, … and we recognize love as core to that. Love is what inspires and moves us towards justice, and towards engagement in the suffering world, to transform, I believe, to be a part of the evolution of beauty in the world, which is what we’re being pulled toward and into. That’s really what this Franciscan-heartedness is about: seeing of beauty within everything. 

Michele Dunne, executive director of the Franciscan Action Network, shares what being a Franciscan means to her:  

One of the things that appealed to me about the Franciscan life is that it’s a life of prayer and action, action and prayer, back and forth, one feeding the other…. I started down the path of becoming a Secular Franciscan [2], and I thought, I’m going to do this prayer and then I’m going to take action. Then I realized there was … something far more basic, which was my simply being in the present moment and seeing the humanity of every person in front of me and seeing the living earth. I realized I’d gone my whole life sort of objectifying and categorizing, hardly seeing living things. I was seeing them as things. I was seeing people in categories. I had to develop a whole new awareness, an ability to respond and live in the present moment, so that I could be open to what is mine to do.   

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John Chaffee 5 On Friday

1.

“If you label me, you negate me.”

– Soren Kierkegaard, Danish Philosopher

The human person is far too complex to summarize under any title.  To be labeled anything is a broad stroke that eliminates the nuances, feelings, stances, and paradoxes of what it means to be human.

Let’s take a moment and think about all the standard titles we use today…

Republican

Democrat

Libertarian

Believer

Atheist

Agnostic

Scientist

Professor

Park Ranger

Father

Mother

Child

Homeless

Rich

Poor

The list can go on and on.

At best, our labels only name one dimension of what it means to be who we are.

It is for this reason that names are better than labels.

2.

“Christ was never in a hurry.”

– Mary Slessor, Missionary to Nigeria

This one is quite a punch.

I admit to often thinking about the next thing while in the present. I am also prone to focusing on the next week or month at the expense of the now.

Modernity tells us that efficiency is one of the highest goals: to get things done as quickly as possible at a quality that is either “good enough” or “perfect.”

All of this contributes to a culture that hyperfocuses on hurry.

But Christ was never in a hurry.

According to our records, Jesus walked almost everywhere.

So, at best, God was content to go 2.5 miles per hour.

Also, if the universe is 13.8 billion years old, that means God took God’s time to get to us.

Yep.

This God is not in a hurry.

3.

“Love is our true destiny. We do not find the meaning of life by ourselves alone—we find it with [one] another. We do not discover the secret of our lives merely by study and calculation in our own safe and isolated meditations. The meaning of life has to be revealed to us in love, by the one we love.“

– Thomas Merton, Trappist Monk

As a head-oriented person, love has been too much of a theory.

That is not to say that I was not loved, but that over time, my head got the better of my heart. Frankly, my life experiences encouraged me to distrust love while at the same time wanting it on my terms.

Love is dangerous.  It requires a vulnerability that exposes our weaknesses and insecurities.

Theories are never dangerous.  They require nothing of us than to play with them in our imaginations.

So when I came across this quote from Merton in No Man is an Island, I had to accept that I was too independent and isolated.  No one is made whole or human by standing at a safe distance from love.  Myself included.

Love is our true destiny, our true identity, and it makes us whole again.

4.

“Justice is what love looks like in public.”

– Dr. Cornel West, American Theologian

I reject the notion that faith should not be political.  I do, however, reject the idea that it should be bipartisan.

If God cared that humanity created a healthy household and economy (oikonomia), we likely should pay more attention to making certain justice happens in the public arena as well.

5.

“Good souls many will one day be horrified at the things they now believe of God.”

– George MacDonald, Scottish Preacher

This past week, I met with a couple in spiritual direction.

It was a lovely time, and I consider doing those sessions a privilege.

One of the things we said is that we are relatively okay with people converting to Christianity. However, we are not OK with people having “micro-conversions” within Christianity. We don’t always validate it when people “fine-tune” their understanding of faith or change a stance within the faith.

The Apostles Creed is an important document or statement of faith, not only because it is one of the earliest formulations of the faith, but also because of its brevity.  There is a lot left out.

This leads me to think that there are a whole number of stances, positions, or opinions that are up for debate.

And so, thank goodness, we can constantly improve our understanding of this mystery we call “God” throughout our lives.

Appreciating the Land

Thursday, May 1, 2025

Author bell hooks (1952–2021) describes how many Black farmers in the South cultivated a spiritual relationship with the earth:    

When we love the earth, we are able to love ourselves more fully. I believe this. The ancestors taught me it was so. As a child I loved playing in dirt, in that rich Kentucky soil, that was a source of life. Before I understood anything about the pain and exploitation of the southern system of sharecropping, I understood that grown-up black folks loved the land….  

From the moment of their first meeting, Native American and African people shared with one another a respect for the life-giving forces of nature, of the earth. African settlers in Florida taught the Creek Nation run-aways, the “Seminoles,” methods for rice cultivation. Native peoples taught recently arrived black folks all about the many uses of corn…. Sharing the reverence for the earth, black and red people helped one another remember that, despite the white man’s ways, the land belonged to everyone. Listen to these words attributed to Chief Seattle in 1854:  

How can you buy or sell the sky, the warmth of the land?… If we do not own the freshness of the air and the sparkle of the water, how can you buy them?  

Every part of this earth is sacred to my people. Every shining pine needle, every sandy shore, every mist in the dark woods, every clearing, and humming insect is holy in the memory and experience of my people.… We are part of the earth and it is part of us. The perfumed flowers are our sisters; the deer, the horse, the great eagle, these are our brothers. The rocky crests, the juices in the meadows, the body heat of the pony, and man—all belong to the same family. [1]  

Franciscan Sister Thea Bowman (1937–1990) reflects on where she learned about our sacred responsibility for creation:  

From the spiritual tradition of the black community, I learned that we are all God’s creatures.… I grew up with people who taught us how to respect and appreciate nature, to study nature’s secrets, to reverence the very soil beneath our feet. My people in the South were farmers and they learned patience. You can’t rush the seasons; you can’t call forth the rain.  

They also learned not to waste! And that’s something we all need to pay more attention to today! It’s important not to take more than we need. Take your share and leave the rest for the others. If we live cooperatively the earth produces sufficiently to feed and shelter us all….  

My people have been teaching us about Creation Spirituality for as long as I can remember. We just didn’t have a name for it. Respect and love for all of creation; stewardship of the earth and its resources; collaboration and cooperation; appreciation, gratitude, faith, hope and love for all of humankind—basic life-giving, life-sharing values and virtues. [2]  

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Sarah Young

 As you look into the day that stretches out before you, you see many choice-points along the way. The myriad possibilities these choices present can confuse you. Draw your mind back to the threshold of this day, where I stand beside you, lovingly preparing you for what is ahead.
     You must make your choices one at a time, since each is contingent upon the decision that precedes it. Instead of trying to create a mental map of your path through this day, focus on My loving Presence with you. I will equip you as you go, so that you can handle whatever comes your way. Trust Me to supply what you need when you need it.

RECOMMENDED BIBLE VERSES:

Lamentations 3:22-26 NLT
22 The faithful love of the LORD never ends! His mercies never cease.
23 Great is his faithfulness; his mercies begin afresh each morning.
24 I say to myself, “The LORD is my inheritance; therefore, I will hope in him!”
25 The LORD is good to those who depend on him, to those who search for him.
26 So it is good to wait quietly for salvation from the LORD.

Additional insight regarding Lamentations 3:21-23: Jeremiad saw one ray of hope in all the sin and sorrow surrounding him: “The faithful love of the Lord never ends……Great is his faithfulness; his mercies begin fresh every morning.” God willingly responds with help when we ask. Perhaps there is some sin in your life that you thought God would not forgive. God’s steadfast love and mercy are greater than any sin, and he promises forgiveness.

Additional insight regarding Lamentations 3:23: Jeremiah knew from personal experience about God’s faithfulness. God had promised that punishment would follow disobedience, and it did. But God also had promised future restoration and blessing, and Jeremiah knew that God would keep that promise also. Trusting in God’s faithfulness day by day makes us confident in his great promises for the future.

Psalm 34:8 NLT
8 Taste and see that the LORD is good. Oh, the joys of those who take refuge in him!

Additional insight regarding Psalm 34:8: “Taste and see” does not mean, “Check out God’s credentials.” Instead, it is a warm invitation: “Try this; I know you’ll like it.” When we take that first step of obedience in following God, we will discover that he is good and kind. When we begin the Christian life, our knowledge of God is partial and incomplete. As we trust him daily, we experience how good he is!

Father Richard Rohr describes how nature reflects and reveals the wisdom and presence of the Divine:  

In the backyard of our Center for Action and Contemplation in Albuquerque, a massive 150-year-old Rio Grande cottonwood tree spreads its gnarled limbs over the lawn. An arborist once told us that the tree might have a mutation that causes the huge trunks to make such circuitous turns and twists. One wonders how it stands so firmly, yet the cottonwood is easily the finest work of art that we have at the Center, and its asymmetrical beauty makes it a perfect specimen for one of our organization’s core messages: Divine perfection is precisely the ability to include what seems like imperfection. Before we come inside to pray, work, or teach any theology, its giant presence has already spoken a silent sermon over us.  

Have you ever had an encounter like this in nature? Perhaps for you, it occurred at a lake or by the seashore, hiking in the mountains, in a garden listening to a mourning dove, even at a busy street corner. I am convinced that when received, such innate theology grows us, expands us, and enlightens us almost effortlessly. All other God talk seems artificial and heady in comparison.  

Indigenous religions largely understand this, as do the Scriptures (see Psalms 98, 104, 148, or Daniel 3:57–82 [1]). In Job 12:7–10, and most of Job 38–39, YHWH praises strange animals and elements for their inherently available wisdom—the “pent up sea,” the “wild ass,” the “ostrich’s wing”—reminding humans that we’re part of a much greater ecosystem, which offers lessons in all directions.   

God is not bound by the human presumption that we are the center of everything, and creation did not actually demand or need Jesus (or us, for that matter) to confer additional sacredness upon it. From the first moment of the Big Bang, nature was revealing the glory and goodness of the Divine Presence. Jesus came to live in its midst, and enjoy life in all its natural variations, and thus be our model and exemplar. Jesus is the gift that honored the gift, we might say.  

Strangely, many Christians today limit God’s provident care to humans, and very few of them at that. How different we are from Jesus, who extended the divine generosity to sparrows, lilies, ravens, donkeys, the grasses of the fields (Luke 12:24, 27–28). No stingy God here! But what stinginess on our side made us limit God’s concern—even eternal concern—to just ourselves? If God chooses and doles out care, we are always insecure and unsure whether we’re among the lucky recipients. Yet once we become  aware of the generous, creative Presence that exists in all things by their very nature, we can honor the Indwelling Spirit as the inner Source of all dignity and worthiness. Dignity is not doled out to the supposedly worthy; it grounds the inherent worthiness of things in their very nature and existence.  

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God is Closer Than You Think 

how to notice the Spirit’s movements

CHRIS EW GREEN APR 29

Someone sent me this question the other day: 

“When someone is searching for connection with God but doesn’t know that God is already walking with them, trying to connect in powerful ways they’re not open to—how do you guide them into opening themselves to God?”

Here’s the first thing to understand: we can’t make ourselves—or anyone else—open to God, not by any direct effort of will. All we can do is allow, invite, welcome, permit. In truth, God’s presence often appears most clearly when we’ve stopped striving, when we’ve given up trying to make anything happen. It’s like remembering a word that’s stuck on the tip of your tongue—the harder you chase it, the more it eludes you. Only when you let go does it surface. Remember this: “I am found by those who do not seek me” is as true as “seek and you shall find,” so we do not need to fret. God will make himself known. All in good time. 

That said, here’s how I’d try to help if someone came to me wanting to be open to God, but simply unsure how to be: Think back to those moments when goodness caught you by surprise. You know the moments I mean—something happened that you couldn’t have planned or made happen for yourself but suddenly you were made aware of how deeply known and loved you are. Remember moments when you found yourself thrilled to be alive, glad that this is your life. These are the clearest signposts of God’s presence, moments when the fabric of ordinary life become thin enough for us to catch a glimpse of what’s always there, holding everything together. 

You may struggle to identify these moments in your own life. If so, don’t worry. Sometimes it’s easier to spot God moving in someone else’s life—or to spot what seems to be a lack of movement from God. Maybe you’ve encountered something so gorgeous it left you aching and speechless, or a kindness so pure it felt like light itself. Maybe you’ve witnessed someone coming fully alive, seen them truly beside themselves with joy? Or perhaps you’ve been stopped in your tracks by suffering—a moment when your heart broke open and you knew, without doubt, that this pain mattered infinitely and you found yourself grieved at the absence of God. All of these stirrings in you are created by the passing of God, the way a curtain stirs when the wind comes through an open window. 

When it comes down to it, there are two particular stirrings of the heart that I think best signal God’s work—compassion that draws us out of our self-focus toward others’ suffering, and gratitude that opens our eyes to the countless gifts we’ve received. These aren’t just feelings, mind you. They’re more like practices, in fact, ways of engaging with the world that, though rooted in emotion, reshape how we live. Like John the Baptist crying in the wilderness, they prepare the way for meeting Jesus, bringing down mountains of pretension and raising up valleys of despair so that our path to God runs level and straight.

Compassion breaks open the heart, sensitizing us to reality in and around us. And thanksgiving clears the air, driving back the darkness and the powers of evil that try cloud our minds and to break our spirit. When we name what we’re grateful for, even if we do not couch it in explicitly theological terms, we possess our souls in patience, refusing to bow to doubt, fear, intimidation, despair. And that does not fail to work good in us. Like turning on the lights in a dark house, room by room, every spoken gratitude pushes back shadow, helps us breathe easier, lets us see more clearly, frees us to move. 

God works through other emotions too, of course, though they’re trickier to navigate. Take guilt, for instance—not the crushing shame that makes us want to hide, but the gentle conviction that makes us aware of how what we’ve done or left undone has harmed others, even slightly, making it harder for them to sleep well at night, to enjoy the good things in life, to dwell in the joy of the Lord, and to do right for those in their life who need them most. The same goes for anger—especially anger on behalf of the most vulnerable, those who have been wronged by people who are actually responsible for protecting the vulnerable and weak. Sorting out the difference between righteous anger and unrighteous anger, between good guilt and bad guilt is itself a work of the Spirit, and the work of doing sorting makes us more truthful. And the more truthful we are, the purer our hearts are and the readier we are for God to “show up” in our lives.

Learning to read these signals takes time and practice. It’s like learning a new language—and crucially, it’s not one we can learn alone. Some works of God we simply cannot spot in ourselves; we need others to witness it for us, to midwife our recognition. This is part of why we need to belong to a community of faith. Sometimes, we can only see God through our neighbor’s eyes. As we practice this discipline of recognition together, helping each other notice and name God’s movements, we begin to realize that God is already there in every center and circumference of our lives—and has always been there, even when we were not ready to make contact, speaking life.

Which brings me back to that original question about guiding someone into being open to God. As I said at the start, we can’t force this opening—in ourselves or anyone else. And here’s the beautiful thing: we never need to. If they want to be guided, even slightly, that desire itself is proof that God is already at work in them, already leading them. Our task is simply to help them notice what’s already happening, to name the ways God is already moving in their lives. And the very fact that we are there, desiring this good for them, is a sign to them as well as to us that God has been at work in secret for a very long time before anyone noticed. 

Richard Rohr with CAC’s Daily Meditation Team, Mark Longhurst (left) and Ali Kirkpatrick (right).

SUPPORT THIS WORK

Dear CO Few,

As I sit here in my 83^rd year, I’m delightfully surprised I am still writing to you! God has given me more time and energy than I could ever have hoped for. Lately, I’ve been reflecting—sometimes even dreaming at night—about my time in college, my years intensely studying theology, and how earnest yet ego-driven I was to get ordained and become a priest. But I am immensely grateful for how God has used it all. The more I reflect, the more I think, “God, you were so gracious and patient with me! I didn’t always get it right, but you still used me.” And that is how it is for you and everyone else as well. God uses us in ways that we cannot possibly imagine, and often in spite of ourselves.  

Throughout all these years I’ve tried to pass my words through three gates: “Is it true? Is it loving? Is it necessary?” Because we must be sustained by a sense of what we are for, and not just what we are against. The contemplative path isn’t primarily about learning—it’s about living. Through contemplation, we begin to see differently, to love more deeply, and to act with courage. Spreading this message seems to be needed now more than ever, and with your support, that is exactly what we will do. 

Twice per year, we pause and ask for your financial support. If you have been impacted by the CAC’s programs, including our Daily Meditations, please consider donating. We appreciate every gift, regardless of the amount.

One of my greatest joys is to continue seeing the ripples of loving action that this CAC community and our Daily Meditations make around the world. Please read the letter below from CAC’s Executive Director Michael Poffenberger who we recently celebrated for his tenth anniversary with CAC. Tomorrow, the Daily Meditations will continue exploring the theme of “Seeing Nature Through New Eyes.”  

Peace and Every Good, 

Richard Rohr, OFM

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Learning from the Mystics: Maximus the Confessor

Quote of the Week:  “We are his members and his body, and the fullness of Christ of God who fills all things in every way according to the plan hidden in God the Father before the ages.  And we are being recapitulated in him through his Son our Lord Jesus the Christ of God.” – Ambiguum 7. Reflection  Maximus the Confessor was a fascinating person from history.  He was nearly martyred for his faith but has come to be known as one of the more profound and enigmatic writers of the church. As a Greek-speaking and writing theologian, this meant that he had a particular perspective that he was coming from.  He was not learning from the Bible through a secondary language, he was learning from the New Testament as a primary source, directly!  Believe it or not, the famous Augustine of Hippo only read the Bible and wrote about it in Latin.  This may not seem as though it is a major issue, but in reality, it means that Maximus might have thought closer to the New Testament writers than Augustine!  In Philippians 2:5-11, we have the famous hymn which Paul wrote in his letter. “In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus:Who, being in the very nature God,did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage;rather, he made himself nothingby taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness.And being found in appearance as a man,he humbled himselfby becoming obedient to death – even death on a cross!Therefore God exalted him to the highest placeand gave him the name that is above every name,that in the name of Jesus, every knee should bow,in heaven and on earth and under the earth,and every tongue openly and joyfully profess that Jesus Christ is Lord,to the Glory of God the Father.”  When we say that Jesus “emptied” Himself, it is using a famous Greek word, “kenosis.”  It describes the process of pouring out.  This means that the English translation here is quite good! However, if God is pouring Himself out, what is God pouring Himself out into? Well, the letter to the Ephesians highlights this mystery as does several other letters from the apostle Paul. In other writings from Paul, he writes about God “filling” things up.  The Greek word here is “plerosis.”  It means to “fill” something.  For Maximus the Confessor, this is a primary mystery of the cosmos, God “filling all things in every way.”  You, me, the trees, the skies, the rivers, our neighbors, the movie theater, Easter candy, sunrises, and sunsets.  All things… And, for Maximus the Confessor, all things means all things! This means that the only thing missing is our perception, appreciation, and wonder at this mystery of God “filling all things in every way.”   The fact that we cannot see it or have difficulty believing it does not make it untrue.  In reality, if only we had the spiritual eyes to see this reality, it would change the way we do practically everything! May we have the eyes to see and the faith to apprehend God “filling all things in every way!” Prayer  Heavenly Father, who has chosen to self-reveal in the person and work of Jesus of Nazareth, by Your Spirit help us to apprehend this mystery… That you have chosen to pour Yourself out, that You then fill all things!  This is a mystery beyond our comprehension but grant us the eyes to see this truth in the reality around us!  Amen and amen!

Life Overview:  Who is He:  Maximus of Constatinople (also known as Maximus the Confessor)  When:  Born in Haspin, Israel and died on August 13th, 662AD.  Why He is Important:  Maximus was a theologian that still worked within the Greek of the New Testament.  At the time, there was a growing divide between the Greek speaking theologians and the Latin speaking theologians.  Maximus is considered an underrated Greek speaking theologian.  Most Known For:  Although he was not a martyr, he died shortly after refusing to recant his Christian beliefs and therefore had his hand cut off (so he could not write anymore) and his tongue cut out (so he could not teach anymore).  Hence, the moniker, ‘the Confessor.”  During his life he was tried as a heretic, but later cleared and venerated as a saint for holding so devoutly to the Chalcedonian Creed.. Notable Works to Check Out: On the Cosmic Mystery of Jesus ChristOn the Ecclesiological MystagogyTwo Hundred Chapters on Theology  Books About Maximus the Confessor:The Whole Mystery of Christ by Jordan Daniel WoodCosmic Liturgy: The Universe According to Maximus the Confessor by Hans Urs von Balthasar

In season seven of the podcast Learning How to See, Brian McLaren and guests explore how different ways of relating to nature can inspire new approaches to reality. McLaren begins:   

We see the natural world from different vantage points. For example, a real estate developer might look at a beautiful landscape and think, “Wow, we could make a road, build some housing, and dam this creek. We could create an incredible housing development with a lake. It would be worth a fortune.” A paper manufacturer sees a forested mountainside and thinks about how much lumber and paper he could make from those trees and how much return on investment he could get for leasing that mountainside. Meanwhile, an angler would see in that view a trout stream coming down the mountainside that he’d like to protect. An ecologist might see an endangered species of fish that needs to be preserved. A theologian, depending on his or her background, might see theological justifications for selling that land to the real estate developer or manufacturer, or for preserving it with the angler and ecologist.  

Every tree, every meadow, every stream, every wave rolling in on the beach … each of us sees them with different vision. We bring our own different backgrounds, perspectives, needs, interests, desires, and problems to whatever we see. [1] 

McLaren uses the language of friendship and respect to describe his own relationship with nature:  

Every night we have a little herd of iguanas on our roof, including about a five-foot-long iguana that we’ve nicknamed T-Rex—he’s big, male, and a bright orange color. He’s gotten used to me and I’ve gotten used to him. Of course, if I were to get too close, he would whack me with his tail. But we have a respectful relationship, similarly with a gopher tortoise that has dug its burrow outside my front sidewalk, and some burrowing owls that live in the neighborhood. 

I have to respect their space. To me, this kind of respecting of space is a part of friendship. We have a term for people who don’t respect boundaries: We call them narcissists. They’re always impeding and crossing boundaries to take advantage of us. We humans tend to have a narcissistic relationship with our fellow creatures, but there’s an option for generous friendship that creates a kind of reverence, respect, and enjoyment.  

I think this is one of our real struggles with the natural world, of which we are a part. We’re so used to being in control of things that when the natural world demands legitimate respect from us, we think it’s being hostile. This is part of our current life curriculum as human beings—to learn appropriate respect after centuries and centuries of domination. It’s parallel to what people with privilege need to learn—whether it’s white privilege, male privilege, or the privilege of the rich. Privileged people are so used to acting in domineering ways that when you ask them to show proper respect, they feel they’re being deprived or persecuted. But this respect is something we need and it’s a matter of survival right now for us to learn it.

=======================

Flourishing Is Mutual

If the Sun is the source of flow in the economy of nature, what is the “Sun” of a human gift economy, the source that constantly replenishes the flow of gifts? Maybe it is love.
—Robin Wall Kimmerer, The Serviceberry 

Reflecting on the abundant Juneberries she has been gifted from a nearby tree, Potawatomi botanist Robin Wall Kimmerer considers the gift economy of natural processes:  

This pail of Juneberries represents hundreds of gift exchanges that led up to my blue-stained fingers: the Maples who gave their leaves to the soil, the countless invertebrates and microbes who exchanged nutrients and energy to build the humus in which a Serviceberry seed could take root, the Cedar Waxwing who dropped the seed, the sun, the rain, the early spring flies who pollinated the flowers, the farmer who wielded the shovel to tenderly settle the seedlings. They are all parts of the gift exchange by which everyone gets what they need.  

Many Indigenous Peoples, including my Anishinaabe relatives and my Haudenosaunee neighbors, inherit what is known as “a culture of gratitude,” where lifeways are organized around recognition and responsibility for earthly gifts, both ceremonial and pragmatic. Our oldest teaching stories remind us that failure to show gratitude dishonors the gift and brings serious consequences. 

Receiving gifts naturally leads to gratitude and ongoing generosity: 

Enumerating the gifts you’ve received creates a sense of abundance, the knowing that you already have what you need. Recognizing “enoughness” is a radical act in an economy that is always urging us to consume more…. Ecopsychologists have shown that the practice of gratitude puts brakes on hyper-consumption. The relationships nurtured by gift thinking diminish our sense of scarcity and want. In that climate of sufficiency, our hunger for more abates and we take only what we need, in respect for the generosity of the giver…

If our first response to the receipt of gifts is gratitude, then our second is reciprocity: to give a gift in return. What could I give these plants in return for their generosity? I could return the gift with a direct response, like weeding or bringing water or offering a song of thanks that sends appreciation out on the wind. I could make habitat for the solitary bees that fertilized those fruits. Or maybe I could take indirect action, like donating to my local land trust so that more habitat for the gift givers will be saved, speaking at a public hearing on land use, or making art that invites others into the web of reciprocity. I could reduce my carbon footprint, vote on the side of healthy land, advocate for farmland preservation, change my diet, hang my laundry in the sunshine. We live in a time when every choice matters.  

Gratitude and reciprocity are the currency of a gift economy, and they have the remarkable property of multiplying with every exchange, their energy concentrating as they pass from hand to hand, a truly renewable resource. Can we imagine a human economy with a currency which emulates the flow from Mother Earth? A currency of gifts?  

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John 20:19-31

When it was evening on that day, the first day of the week, and the doors of the house where the disciples had met were locked for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you.” After he said this, he showed them his hands and his side. Then the disciples rejoiced when they saw the Lord. Jesus said to them again, “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you.” When he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.”

But Thomas (who was called the Twin), one of the twelve, was not with them when Jesus came. So the other disciples told him, “We have seen the Lord.” But he said to them, “Unless I see the mark of the nails in his hands, and put my finger in the mark of the nails and my hand in his side, I will not believe.”

A week later his disciples were again in the house, and Thomas was with them. Although the doors were shut, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you.” Then he said to Thomas, “Put your finger here and see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it in my side. Do not doubt but believe.” Thomas answered him, “My Lord and my God!” Jesus said to him, “Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe.”

Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not written in this book. But these are written so that you may come to believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that through believing you may have life in his name.

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After the Worst Has Happened
by Stephanie Duncan Smith
from Even After Everything

Holy Week holds the highest of highs and lowest of lows on the spectrum of human emotion. It holds shouts of hosanna, the hope of the people, the conspiring of political powers, breaking bread among friends, blood money, midnight prayers, the final exhale of God as it gives way to earthquakes, and the — and then, two of the most beautiful words I know — it holds stones rolled back, death denied, the undoing of entropy. 

After so much has happened, we need a way to shake off all that adrenaline and signal to our bodies that we are safe now. I have come to see the Paschal cycle as its own stress cycle, and we need a way to complete it.

Completing our stress cycle is a sacred act. This is the very invitation I see pulsing at the heart of the most beautiful benediction I know, when the resurrected Christ appeared to his friends and said, “Peace be with you.” 

After everything, these are the four words that hold the world. Peace is the only power capable of breaking the brutal hold of fight, flight, freeze. Peace is the bear hug, the belly laugh, the huge, sweeping exhale capable of ushering our bodies from shock into divine shelter. 

Only one who has experienced death can speak this peace honestly, and as such, the peace of Christ is a peace that will never overpromise, a peace we can trust with the full weight of our being. This peace is a person whose voice has cracked, whose memory holds complex trauma, and whose body bears scars, and his promise is not safety, but presence: Love is with us through the Paschal cycle, the stress cycle, the circle of time and all it might hold. 

Peace be with you implies a parallel benediction: Vigilance be released from you. In receiving Christ’s peace, we are freed to release our high-alert adrenaline and our cortisol-pumping crisis response. In the light of the resurrection, our nervous system can close its stress loop. We can let all that pent-up tension give way to the exhale of relief, and even laughter. 

Listen closely: Can you hear the laughter of the holy? Eastertide is vibrating with the sonic joy of the Trinity, and you are invited to join the full-throated laughter of God. Yes, the scars are real, but so are the endorphins rushing through your vital systems now as you share in the divine joke. 

Maybe Holy Week can be for us a space to name our lions: all that we have endured, all the shock it has brought to our vital systems. This is witnessed and validated by a God who suffers with us, in the solidarity of radical empathy. 

And maybe Eastertide can be for us the practice of exhale: releasing all that has held us in high alert, so the body and soul might indeed receive the peace of Christ. 

Seeing Nature Differently

In season seven of the podcast Learning How to See, Brian McLaren and guests explore how different ways of relating to nature can inspire new approaches to reality. McLaren begins:   

We see the natural world from different vantage points. For example, a real estate developer might look at a beautiful landscape and think, “Wow, we could make a road, build some housing, and dam this creek. We could create an incredible housing development with a lake. It would be worth a fortune.” A paper manufacturer sees a forested mountainside and thinks about how much lumber and paper he could make from those trees and how much return on investment he could get for leasing that mountainside. Meanwhile, an angler would see in that view a trout stream coming down the mountainside that he’d like to protect. An ecologist might see an endangered species of fish that needs to be preserved. A theologian, depending on his or her background, might see theological justifications for selling that land to the real estate developer or manufacturer, or for preserving it with the angler and ecologist.  

Every tree, every meadow, every stream, every wave rolling in on the beach … each of us sees them with different vision. We bring our own different backgrounds, perspectives, needs, interests, desires, and problems to whatever we see. [1] 

McLaren uses the language of friendship and respect to describe his own relationship with nature:  

Every night we have a little herd of iguanas on our roof, including about a five-foot-long iguana that we’ve nicknamed T-Rex—he’s big, male, and a bright orange color. He’s gotten used to me and I’ve gotten used to him. Of course, if I were to get too close, he would whack me with his tail. But we have a respectful relationship, similarly with a gopher tortoise that has dug its burrow outside my front sidewalk, and some burrowing owls that live in the neighborhood. 

I have to respect their space. To me, this kind of respecting of space is a part of friendship. We have a term for people who don’t respect boundaries: We call them narcissists. They’re always impeding and crossing boundaries to take advantage of us. We humans tend to have a narcissistic relationship with our fellow creatures, but there’s an option for generous friendship that creates a kind of reverence, respect, and enjoyment.  

I think this is one of our real struggles with the natural world, of which we are a part. We’re so used to being in control of things that when the natural world demands legitimate respect from us, we think it’s being hostile. This is part of our current life curriculum as human beings—to learn appropriate respect after centuries and centuries of domination. It’s parallel to what people with privilege need to learn—whether it’s white privilege, male privilege, or the privilege of the rich. Privileged people are so used to acting in domineering ways that when you ask them to show proper respect, they feel they’re being deprived or persecuted. But this respect is something we need and it’s a matter of survival right now for us to learn it.

---

John 20:19-31

When it was evening on that day, the first day of the week, and the doors of the house where the disciples had met were locked for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you.” After he said this, he showed them his hands and his side. Then the disciples rejoiced when they saw the Lord. Jesus said to them again, “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you.” When he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.”

But Thomas (who was called the Twin), one of the twelve, was not with them when Jesus came. So the other disciples told him, “We have seen the Lord.” But he said to them, “Unless I see the mark of the nails in his hands, and put my finger in the mark of the nails and my hand in his side, I will not believe.”

A week later his disciples were again in the house, and Thomas was with them. Although the doors were shut, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you.” Then he said to Thomas, “Put your finger here and see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it in my side. Do not doubt but believe.” Thomas answered him, “My Lord and my God!” Jesus said to him, “Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe.”

Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not written in this book. But these are written so that you may come to believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that through believing you may have life in his name.

---

Flourishing Is Mutual

If the Sun is the source of flow in the economy of nature, what is the “Sun” of a human gift economy, the source that constantly replenishes the flow of gifts? Maybe it is love.
—Robin Wall Kimmerer, The Serviceberry 

Reflecting on the abundant Juneberries she has been gifted from a nearby tree, Potawatomi botanist Robin Wall Kimmerer considers the gift economy of natural processes:  

This pail of Juneberries represents hundreds of gift exchanges that led up to my blue-stained fingers: the Maples who gave their leaves to the soil, the countless invertebrates and microbes who exchanged nutrients and energy to build the humus in which a Serviceberry seed could take root, the Cedar Waxwing who dropped the seed, the sun, the rain, the early spring flies who pollinated the flowers, the farmer who wielded the shovel to tenderly settle the seedlings. They are all parts of the gift exchange by which everyone gets what they need.  

Many Indigenous Peoples, including my Anishinaabe relatives and my Haudenosaunee neighbors, inherit what is known as “a culture of gratitude,” where lifeways are organized around recognition and responsibility for earthly gifts, both ceremonial and pragmatic. Our oldest teaching stories remind us that failure to show gratitude dishonors the gift and brings serious consequences. 

Receiving gifts naturally leads to gratitude and ongoing generosity: 

Enumerating the gifts you’ve received creates a sense of abundance, the knowing that you already have what you need. Recognizing “enoughness” is a radical act in an economy that is always urging us to consume more…. Ecopsychologists have shown that the practice of gratitude puts brakes on hyper-consumption. The relationships nurtured by gift thinking diminish our sense of scarcity and want. In that climate of sufficiency, our hunger for more abates and we take only what we need, in respect for the generosity of the giver…

If our first response to the receipt of gifts is gratitude, then our second is reciprocity: to give a gift in return. What could I give these plants in return for their generosity? I could return the gift with a direct response, like weeding or bringing water or offering a song of thanks that sends appreciation out on the wind. I could make habitat for the solitary bees that fertilized those fruits. Or maybe I could take indirect action, like donating to my local land trust so that more habitat for the gift givers will be saved, speaking at a public hearing on land use, or making art that invites others into the web of reciprocity. I could reduce my carbon footprint, vote on the side of healthy land, advocate for farmland preservation, change my diet, hang my laundry in the sunshine. We live in a time when every choice matters.  

Gratitude and reciprocity are the currency of a gift economy, and they have the remarkable property of multiplying with every exchange, their energy concentrating as they pass from hand to hand, a truly renewable resource. Can we imagine a human economy with a currency which emulates the flow from Mother Earth? A currency of gifts?  

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After the Worst Has Happened
by Stephanie Duncan Smith
from Even After Everything

Holy Week holds the highest of highs and lowest of lows on the spectrum of human emotion. It holds shouts of hosanna, the hope of the people, the conspiring of political powers, breaking bread among friends, blood money, midnight prayers, the final exhale of God as it gives way to earthquakes, and the — and then, two of the most beautiful words I know — it holds stones rolled back, death denied, the undoing of entropy. 

After so much has happened, we need a way to shake off all that adrenaline and signal to our bodies that we are safe now. I have come to see the Paschal cycle as its own stress cycle, and we need a way to complete it.

Completing our stress cycle is a sacred act. This is the very invitation I see pulsing at the heart of the most beautiful benediction I know, when the resurrected Christ appeared to his friends and said, “Peace be with you.” 

After everything, these are the four words that hold the world. Peace is the only power capable of breaking the brutal hold of fight, flight, freeze. Peace is the bear hug, the belly laugh, the huge, sweeping exhale capable of ushering our bodies from shock into divine shelter. 

Only one who has experienced death can speak this peace honestly, and as such, the peace of Christ is a peace that will never overpromise, a peace we can trust with the full weight of our being. This peace is a person whose voice has cracked, whose memory holds complex trauma, and whose body bears scars, and his promise is not safety, but presence: Love is with us through the Paschal cycle, the stress cycle, the circle of time and all it might hold. 

Peace be with you implies a parallel benediction: Vigilance be released from you. In receiving Christ’s peace, we are freed to release our high-alert adrenaline and our cortisol-pumping crisis response. In the light of the resurrection, our nervous system can close its stress loop. We can let all that pent-up tension give way to the exhale of relief, and even laughter. 

Listen closely: Can you hear the laughter of the holy? Eastertide is vibrating with the sonic joy of the Trinity, and you are invited to join the full-throated laughter of God. Yes, the scars are real, but so are the endorphins rushing through your vital systems now as you share in the divine joke. 

Maybe Holy Week can be for us a space to name our lions: all that we have endured, all the shock it has brought to our vital systems. This is witnessed and validated by a God who suffers with us, in the solidarity of radical empathy. 

And maybe Eastertide can be for us the practice of exhale: releasing all that has held us in high alert, so the body and soul might indeed receive the peace of Christ. 

An Ongoing Celebration

Friday, April 25, 2025

CAC Dean of Faculty Brian McLaren encourages us to make Easter an expansive celebration of resurrection.  

What might happen if every Easter we celebrated the resurrection not merely as the resuscitation of a single corpse nearly two millennia ago, but more—as the ongoing resurrection of all humanity through Christ? Easter could be the annual affirmation of our ongoing resurrection from violence to peace, from fear to faith, from hostility to love, from a culture of consumption to a culture of stewardship and generosity … and in all these ways and more, from death to life.

What if our celebration of Easter was so radical in its meaning that it tempted tyrants and dictators everywhere to make it illegal, because it represents the ultimate scandal: an annual call for creative and peaceful insurrection against all status quos based on fear, hostility, exclusion, and violence? What if we never stopped making Easter claims about Jesus in AD 33, but always continued by making Easter claims on us today declaring that now is the time to be raised from the deadness of fear, hostility, exclusion, and violence to walk in what Paul called “newness of life”?

What if Easter was about our ongoing resurrection “in Christ”—in a new humanity marked by a strong-benevolent identity as Christ-embodying peacemakers, enemy lovers, offense forgivers, boundary crossers, and movement builders? What kind of character would this kind of liturgical year form in us? How might the world be changed because of it? [1] 

Retired Episcopal bishop and Choctaw citizen Steven Charleston offers this celebratory song for the coming of new light and new hope:  

Rise up, faithful friends. Wake up, sleepers in the shadows. Wake up to see bright banners on your horizon. Wake up to see your redemption coming to you, the answer to so many of your prayers, the fulfillment of your dream from long ago. Rise up, faithful friends, to shout the good news to the morning sun: justice has arrived at last, mercy has returned, love has won the day. Rise up, good people of many lands, for this is the moment of change, the time when hope starts to be real and truth begins to speak to every courageous heart. Wake up, rise up, and rejoice! [2] 

McLaren imagines the impact of the ongoing recognition that we meet the risen Christ in all we encounter:  

I can imagine Easter opening a fifty-day period during which we constantly celebrate newness, freedom, change, and growth. As we would retell each year the story of the risen Christ appearing in the stranger on the Emmaus Road, so part of every Easter season for us would mean meeting and inviting to our tables strangers, aliens, refugees, people of other religions or no religion at all, to welcome them as we would Christ, and to expect to meet Christ in them. [3]  

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John Chaffee 5 On Friday

Grace and Peace, All! First off, let me begin by stating the obvious: I am not formally a Catholic.  I was, however, raised Lutheran, and that means that I have many Catholic tendencies.  Liturgy has a high value for me, as does the Church calendar, and the place of a pastor or priest as an archetypal stand-in and representative of Christ.   Over the years, I have studied many aspects of Catholicism and have been deeply enriched by learning from that tradition. That said, this past Monday morning, I read the news headlines that Pope Francis had passed away.  I was surprised by how sad I was for the rest of the morning as I reflected on his character and leadership aspects that I appreciated.  As a figure who has taken a vow of poverty, Pope Francis did not do the usual pomp and circumstance expected of a Pope.   He often snuck out of the Vatican to give money to the poor while dressed in regular clothes.  He only slept in the guest house rather than the normal Papal residence. Although he was a Jesuit, I think he stayed close to the life of his namesake, Francis of Assisi. This week’s five quotes are all from Pope Francis, the first Spanish-speaking Pope in hundreds of years and the first from the Southern Hemisphere. I hope you find his words challenging and inspiring. As always, thank you for reading!

(In 2013, Pope Francis embraced and blessed a man suffering from neurofibromatosis in front of the man’s mother, an act echoing St. Francis of Assisi stopping to bless the lepers.)1.”It’s hypocrisy to call yourself a Christian and chase away a refugee or someone seeking help, someone who is hungry or thirsty, toss out someone who is in need of my help… If I say I am Christian, but do these things, I’m a hypocrite.”- Pope Francis The Parable of the Good Samaritan was scandalous when Jesus first taught it, and it continues to be a scandalous now. At a time in human history when we are being pulled back into tribal affiliations while being invited into a larger narrative of solidarity, the Parable of the Good Samaritan points us in a particular direction. Jesus paints the Samaritan, a religious and racial outsider to the first-century Pharisees, as the story’s hero. He encounters a victim of circumstance and devotes his time, energy, and money to caring for the person. The striking thing is that the religious leaders of the day passed the poor man on the other side of the road because they failed to recognize that compassion and love are the higher laws. Since then, the Samaritan has become a symbol or archetype for the person with compassion for the outsider. This same person is also willing to throw religious categories to the wind to help others, thereby actually fulfilling the Spirit of the Law at the expense of the Letter of the Law. Many people took issue with Pope Francis’ insistence on caring for the poor and marginalized.  I cannot understand why, though.  We must acknowledge that caring for the other, the outsider, the ones we scorn, is less likely a reflex and more of a conscious decision to show compassion and love to them. And not only that, but to insist on having the title of being a Christian, while overlooking the poor and downtrodden, lacks integrity and is rightfully called hypocritical. 2.”A Christian who doesn’t safeguard creation, who doesn’t make it flourish, is a Christian who isn’t concerned with God’s work, that work born of God’s love for us.”- Pope Francis Most people didn’t know it, but Pope Francis had a master’s degree in chemistry.  This means he was very well-studied on the processes of nature, atomic structures, and more.  Although he was not a Franciscan, he was very much in tune with the natural world. For Pope Francis, it was vitally important to care for the earth.  Yes, there is one Earth, and it will outlive all of us, but we have a spiritual responsibility to give the next generation a world that is very much healthy. The Christian ought to be concerned with the wholesale flourishing of the earth.  This value can be traced back to the early chapters of Genesis, in which humanity is responsible for stewarding the world, not pillaging it for resources. 3.”The worship of the golden calf of old has found a new and heartless image in the cult of money and the dictatorship of an economy which is faceless and lacking any truly human goal.”- Pope Francis What I find fascinating here is that the issue of the “cult of money and the dictatorship of an economy which is faceless and lacking any truly human goal” is considered a form of idolatry. Many of us are willing to sacrifice time, energy, money, family, the environment, and more, hoping Mammon (the false god of money) will shine favorably on us.  As I have said at other times and in different places, sin distorts us and makes us less and less human.  We should not be surprised that we can become inhumane if we commit devaluing sins against ourselves and others. The word economy has roots that trace back to the language of the New Testament.  Did you know that? Oikos is the word for “household,” and Nomos is “rule or law.”  Taken together, the Oikonomia is the “rule or law of the household. “One way to evaluate our fidelity to God is to ask, “What kind of economy/household rule have we created?” Does our economy affirm, protect, and uplift human dignity?  Or does it do the opposite?  Does our economy benefit a select few at the Top at the expense of those at the Bottom? I believe Pope Francis was right to challenge us about our “golden calf,” and all the ways in which we are willing to sacrifice others at the altar of money. 4.”Too often we participate in the globalization of indifference. May we strive instead to live global solidarity.”- Pope Francis Tribalism vs Solidarity. It is the tale as old as time. Perhaps we are all born into Tribalism and find our identity and sense of belonging by being a part of a group.  Then, at some point in our lives, we either begin enacting violence on people of a different tribe or tongue, or we transcend our own tribe and learn to identify with others who are different than us.For some people, religion reinforces the ideology of Tribalism, and for others, religion invites them into global human solidarity.It all depends on how you interpret your faith and whether or not you have the maturity to hear the invitation into global human solidarity. 5.”We must restore hope to young people, help the old, be open to the future, spread love. Be poor among the poor. We need to include the excluded and preach peace.”- Pope Francis It’s all about hope vs despair. Hope points toward the world we want to see more of, while despair points toward the world we fear might already exist. Hope, though, is not inactive.  It does not mean sitting back on the couch and hoping for the world to improve.  No.  Hope demands work.  Or rather, it reminds us that change is possible, but only if we are willing to put some damn skin in the game. Despair, on the other hand, is futile.  Why bother trying if nothing is going to change substantially? That is the damning question that permits our laziness. Young people are encouraged to despair, the old are often left lonely, we have a tilt toward the old and familiar, and we show love with conditions.  Many of us hope to be rich in comparison to the poor.  We tend to exclude others due to fear, and that same mindset can lead us into war.  This cannot continue if the human race is going to fully flourish and become what it is intended to be: unique incarnations of the love of God. The Gospel is not merely the announcement of a message of restoration; it is an invitation to BE that message of restoration.

Easter People in a Good Friday World

Thursday, April 24, 2025

We are an Easter people, moving through a Good Friday world.
—Barbara Harris, Hallelujah, Anyhow! 

Episcopal Bishop Barbara Harris (1930–2020) explores how we can celebrate Easter, even in the midst of difficult “Good Friday” circumstances:  

The world is full of the misery and pain of Good Friday. We only have to open our daily newspapers, turn on the television to the nightly news … for fresh reminders of the violence, cruelty, want, and need that permeates our world. We have only to examine and reflect on our own lives, our own trials and tribulations, our own cares and woes. We have only to consider how we relate to each other and to our world neighbors. But we are Easter people, and we are supposed to be different.  

There are some distinctive characteristics about Easter people that keep us in close touch with this Jesus who says to a grieving Martha: “I am the resurrection and the life. Those who believe in me, even though they die, will live, and everyone who lives and believes in me will never die” [John 11:25–26]. 

Easter people are believers. We believe not only in the possible, we believe also in the impossible. We believe that the lame were made to walk, and the mute made to speak, that lepers were cleansed and the blind received their sight…. We can believe also that with the helpful presence of God’s Holy Spirit, we are strengthened and sustained on our earthly pilgrimage. Further, we can believe that we can fashion new lives committed to love, to peace, to justice, and to liberation for all of God’s people.   

Easter people grieve and need to be comforted. And, yes, Easter people get angry … but we must seek to channel that anger in constructive ways. Be angry enough to say and to seriously mean, I will commit my life to living out the Baptismal Covenant: seeking and serving Christ in all persons, loving my neighbor as myself, striving for justice and peace among all people, respecting the dignity of every human being.   

Easter people hang in until the end. Like the women who stood by the cross, Easter people live by the words of the old spiritual: “I will go, I shall go to see what the end will be.” [1] 

Benedictine nun and poet Mary Lou Kownacki (1941–2023) embraces this resurrection wisdom:  

Easter grabs us by the throat and shouts, “Live.” The radiant Jesus who leaves the tomb challenges our complacency with the forces of death, be they hopelessness, fear, discouragement, or lack of will. Don’t let death have the last word in your story, Jesus urges. None of us has the right to sleep in death. Even if there is no angel to help you, grab the door of the tomb that holds you back and rip its seal. There’s too much goodness in you that still needs to rise, and there’s too much work in the world that still needs to be done. [2]  

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Sarah Young

This is the day that I have made. Rejoice and be glad in it. Begin the day with open hands of faith, ready to receive all that I am pouring into this brief portion of your life. Be careful not to complain about anything, even the weather, since I am the Author of your circumstances. The way to handle unwanted situations is to thank Me for them. This act of faith frees you from resentment and frees Me to work My ways into the situation, so that good emerges from it.
     To find Joy in this day, you must live within its boundaries. I knew what I was doing when I divided time into twenty-four-hour segments. I understand human frailty, and I know that you can bear the weight of only one day at a time. Do not worry about tomorrow or get stuck in the past. There is abundant Life in My Presence today.

RECOMMENDED BIBLE VERSES:
Psalm 118:24 NLT
24 This is the day the LORD has made. We will rejoice and be glad in it.

Philippians 3:13-14 NLT
  13 No, dear brothers and sisters, I have not achieved it, but I focus on this one thing: Forgetting the past and looking forward to what lies ahead,
  14 I press on to reach the end of the race and receive the heavenly prize for which God, through Christ Jesus, is calling us.

Today’s Prayer:

Dear Heavenly Father,

On this day that You have lovingly crafted, I come before You with an open heart and hands of faith and belief. Help me to receive Your blessings with gratitude, trusting in Your vision for my life.

Grant me the grace to refrain from complaining by recognizing Your sovereignty in every circumstance. May my gratitude pave the way for Your transformative power to work many wonders in my life.

Guide me to embrace the present moment by understanding my human limitations. Let me not be consumed by the past or anxious about the future. Instead, let me find abundant life in Your presence here and now.

As I journey through this day, may I rejoice in Your creation and remain steadfast in pursuing Your purpose for me. In Jesus’ name, amen.