Friday, November 8, 2024

On The Cosmic We podcast, Richard Rohr explores on how opening ourselves to the flow of God’s unconditional love allows us to pass it on:  

We’ve failed to communicate the unique nature of divine love. Divine love is infinite, but the notion of infinity cannot be conceived by the human mind. We can’t help but turn back to adding, subtracting, multiplying, and dividing. Saint Thérèse of Lisieux, one of my favorite Catholic mystics, shares, “There is a science about which [God] knows nothing—addition!” [1] What she was trying to say was that once we dive into infinity, which is God, any notion of adding, subtracting, meriting, losing, being worthy, is all a waste of time. God’s love is infinite, a concept the human mind cannot form. The divine notion of perfection isn’t the exclusion of imperfection, but the inclusion of imperfection. That’s divine love.  

Human love thinks we have to exclude imperfection to love a person. But I’m old enough to know there’s no perfect people around. They don’t exist. We’ve all learned to keep hidden our little secret or shadow self. But divine love includes imperfection, which is what makes it divine love. Without the grace of God, we cannot do that. We pay attention to the imperfection: “I saw him do that. I heard her say that.” Then we have identified our reason not to love and we can feel superior and even “damn” the other person. That’s what I mean when I say Jesus became a scapegoat because he knew that the human pattern of scapegoating always makes someone else the problem instead of ourselves. Christianity is not about changing other people—it isn’t! It’s nice if people do change, but that’s God’s work. It’s about changing ourselves, and that never stops. I’m 80 years old and I’m still trying to change myself. 

In one of his letters, Paul says, “The yes is always found in Christ,” the yes to reality (see 2 Corinthians 1:20). We are living in love if we can maintain a daily yes. That doesn’t mean we don’t recognize injustice and stand against it, but we don’t let our hearts become hardened and our minds become rigid in its judgments. Love is always a yes. Even though we might see little or big problems, we don’t let it stop the yes. I find in my old age that I’ve eventually had to forgive everything. Everything! Myself, my parents, the Catholic Church, the United States of America.  

Once we stop expecting, needing, or demanding that something or someone be perfect, we’re much happier. We’re doing ourselves and the world a favor. It’s not easy to do apart from the life and grace of God flowing through us. That’s why, for me, the notion of God as Trinity, the flow of relationship between Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, is so important. Without that daily flow, we get trapped in the negatives. We all do. We all will, unless we tap into the love of God flowing through us.  

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Five For Friday John Chaffee

1.

“Where your fear is, there your task is.“

– Carl Jung, Swiss Psychologist

As an Enneagram 5, I am a head-oriented person in my decision-making.  That means I am prone to overthinking issues ad nauseum.  Unfortunately, along with that type comes the propensity to allow fear to dictate my actions more than inform.  Fear is a state of being that all of us can fall back into, but coupled with a scarcity mindset, I confess that fear often gets the better of me.

So, this insight from Jung is helpful.  It reminds me that my fears are my to-do list.  They are the unique work that I alone have to do in the world.  We all love stories, shows, and movies of people confronting their fears, yet we shrink from confronting our fears for ourselves.  Indeed, this is an evolutionary advantage, as it helps us avoid facing our fears because they might kill us.

But that does not mean that our fears now will kill us, even if we believe they might.

2.

“What is hateful to you, do not do to your neighbor.  That is the whole Torah.  Everything else is commentary.“

– Hillel the Elder, Rabbi from 10 BCE

Hillel and Shammai were famous rabbis in their day, often falling on opposite sides of debates.  As I understand it, they were masters of Halakah and Haggadah, straightforward, legal, and playful bantering.

Here, Hillel essentially tells the Golden Rule.  It is fascinating how it then says every other line of interpretation adds to what is already said in the Golden Rule.  Somewhat playfully, he affirms the Torah while holding most of it “as commentary.”

3.

“The name of God is the name of the chance for something absolutely new, for a new birth, for the expectation, the hope, the hope against hope (Rom. 4:18) in a transforming future.“

– Jack Caputo, American Theologian and Philosopher

What I appreciate about Jack Caputo is that he tuned me in on what we mean when we say “God.”  Many people’s model for God is a parent-like figure, some cosmic ghost, or a phantom aggregate of our hopes and dreams.  I don’t want to get into the weeds about that right now, though.  Jack is saying here that latent within the word “God” is also the theme of “possibility.”

In the beginning of the Bible, there is a New Creation.  Toward the end of the Bible, there is also a New Creation.

Spirit is not interested in the same old but in New Creation.

Even right now, when I feel I am cornered with several serious questions, it feels like my back is against the wall…  I need to remember to have faith in “Possibility.”

4.

“There can be no Christian speech about God which does not represent the interest of the victims in our society.“

– James Cone, American Theologian

How often do we forget that the Greek word Σοτερ (Soter) does not only mean “Savior” but also “Liberator.”

Any definition of Christian spirituality that does not emphasize liberation is not worth its salt.  How different would our world look if we preached, “Jesus, the Liberator of the World”?

5.

“Normality is a paved road: It’s comfortable to walk, but no flowers grow.“

– Vincent van Gogh, Dutch Painter

Break out.  Defy the norms.  Rise above them.  Improve them where they need improvement.  Do not settle your personhood for the sake of fitting in.

This past week, a mentor told me something that has stuck with me.  He said (paraphrased), “Wow.  So you are like the son of a system, and you rose up within it, learned to play by its rules, and even worked toward a role serving and protecting that system…  Until you couldn’t anymore.  And from there, you have been charting your own path beyond that system but with the tools that the system gave you.  That is inspiring.”

It is true.  I worked in the church world, went to three schools for it, got three degrees in the field (I majored in Biblical Studies, got a Master of Divinity, and a Master of Theology), and tried to be ordained in two different denominations.  However, I didn’t check all the right boxes and pushed back in places when I “shouldn’t have.”  I never wanted to fall into unhealthy dynamics.  I refused to enter the role of a pastor in a way that I felt was unsustainable or inauthentic to my own understanding of the faith.  For years, I felt as though I was expected to be a pastor in a way that was more telling people what to do and what they needed to know rather than allowing them each to have their own path and offer up wisdom from the Christian tradition as it felt appropriate.

For these reasons, I have enjoyed being a spiritual director for the past season or two.  It allows me to do faith-shepherding in a way that feels far more organic, less structured, and more wild.  It feels much closer to my understanding of a particular itinerant rabbi who wandered around telling parables and being a healing presence wherever he found himself.

My path is unorthodox/unconventional, but it feels right according to my own temperament and wiring.

https://youtu.be/o1jWPkGT-FM?si=I8sOimiHj7VkGoV-

Thursday, November 7, 2024

Rev. Michael Curry reflects on the description of God’s expansive love found in the Bible. 

Love is a firm commitment to act for the well-being of someone other than yourself. It can be personal or political, individual or communal, intimate or public. Love will not be segregated to the private, personal precincts of life. Love, as I read it in the Bible, is ubiquitous. It affects all aspects of life.…  

An oft-quoted passage in the New Testament says, “God so loved the world that he gave his only son” [John 3:16]. The Greek word used by the New Testament writer for the word love is agape. And the Greek word used for world is kosmos, but what it really means is “everything”—“everything that is.” Kosmos is what the spiritual is talking about when it says of God, “He’s got the whole world in his hands.”  

God so loved the world that he “gave.” God gave. God did not take. God gave. That’s agape. That’s love. And love such as that is the way to the heart of God, the heart of each other. It is the way to a new world that looks something more like God’s dream for us and all creation. 

Curry upholds such love as a path of selfless action:  

Love as an action is the only thing that has ever changed the world for the better. Love is Martin Luther King, Mahatma Gandhi…. Love is a little girl in Pakistan named Malala Yousafzai standing up to armed men who said that girls shouldn’t be educated….  

Love is a firefighter running into a burning building, risking his or her life for people he or she doesn’t even know. Love is that first responder hurtling toward an emergency, a catastrophe, a disaster. Love is someone protesting anything that hurts or harms the children of God. Jesus said it this way, hours before his crucifixion: “No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s own life for one’s friends” [John 15:13].  

Love is a commitment to seek the good and to work for the good and welfare of others. It doesn’t stop at our front door or our neighborhood, our religion or race, or our state’s or your country’s border. This is one great fellowship of love throughout the whole wide earth, as the hymn goes…. 

Where selfishness excludes, love makes room and includes. Where selfishness puts down, love lifts up. Where selfishness hurts and harms, love helps and heals. Where selfishness enslaves, love sets free and liberates.  

The way of love will show us the right thing to do, every single time. It is moral and spiritual grounding—and a place of rest—amid the chaos that is often part of life. It’s how we stay decent in indecent times. Loving is not always easy, but like with muscles, we get stronger both with repetition and as the burden gets heavier. And it works. 

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Sarah Young Jesus Calling

Worship Me in the beauty of holiness. All true beauty reflects some of who I AM. I am working My ways in you: the divine Artist creating loveliness within your being. My main work is to clear out debris and clutter, making room for My Spirit to take full possession. Collaborate with Me in this effort by being willing to let go of anything I choose to take away. I know what you need, and I have promised to provide all of that — abundantly!
     Your sense of security must not rest in your possessions or in things going your way. I am training you to depend on Me alone, finding fulfillment in My Presence. This entails being satisfied with much or with little, accepting either as My will for the moment. Instead of grasping and controlling, you are learning to release and receive. Cultivate this receptive stance by trusting Me in every situation.

RELATED SCRIPTURE:
Psalm 29:2 (NIV)
2 Ascribe to the Lord the glory due his name;
    worship the Lord in the splendor of his holiness.
Psalm 27:4 (NLT)
4 The one thing I ask of the Lord—
    the thing I seek most—
is to live in the house of the Lord all the days of my life,
    delighting in the Lord’s perfections
    and meditating in his Temple.

Additional insight regarding Psalm 27:4: By the “House of the Lord” and “his Temple,” David could be referring to the Tabernacle in Gibeon, to the sanctuary he has built to house the Ark of the Covenant, or to the Temple that his son Solomon was to build. David probably had the Temple in mind because he had made plans for it in 1st Chronicles 22. David may also have used the word Temple to refer to the presence of the Lord. David’s greatest desire was to live in God’s presence each day of his life. Sadly, this is not the greatest desire of many who claim to be believers. What do you desire the most? Do you look forward to being in the presence of the Lord?

To pray is to practice that posture of radical trust in God’s grace—and to participate in perhaps the most radical movement of all, which is the movement of God’s Love. 
—Richard Rohr  

Father Richard’s faithful trust in God’s love leads him to both prayer and action. 

I’ve often said that we founded the Center for Action and Contemplation in 1987 to be a place of integration between action and contemplation. I envisioned a place where we could teach activists in social movements to pray—and encourage people who pray to live lives of solidarity and justice. As we explained in our Center’s Radical Grace publication in 1999: 

Action and contemplation were once thought of as mutually exclusive, but we believed that they must be brought together or neither one would make sense. We felt that we were trying to be radical in both senses of the word, simultaneously rooted in tradition and boldly experimental…. We believed … that the power to be truly radical comes from trusting entirely in God’s grace and that such trust is the most radical action possible. [1] 

Contemplative prayer allows us to build our own house. To pray is to discover that Someone else is within our house and to recognize that it is not our house at all. To keep praying is to have no house to protect because there is only One House. And that One House is everybody’s Home. In other words, those who pray from the heart actually live in a very different world. I like to say it’s a Christ-soaked world, a world where matter is inspirited and spirit is embodied. In this world, everything is sacred, and the word “Real” takes on a new meaning. The world is wary of such house builders, for our loyalties will lie in very different directions. We will be very different kinds of citizens, and the state will not so easily depend on our salute. That is the politics of prayer. And that is probably why truly spiritual people are always a threat to politicians of any sort. They want our allegiance, and we can no longer give it. Our house is too big. 

If religion and religious people are to have any moral credibility in the face of the massive death-dealing and denial of this era, we need to move with great haste toward lives of political holiness. This is my theology and my politics: 

It appears that God loves life: The creating never stops. 
We will love and create and maintain life. 
It appears that God is love—an enduring, patient kind. 
We will seek and trust love in all its humanizing (and therefore divinizing)forms. 
It appears that God loves the variety of multiple features, faces, and forms. 
We will not be afraid of the other, the not-me, the stranger at the gate. 
It appears that God loves—is—beauty: Look at this world! 
Those who pray already know this. Their passion will be for beauty. 

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We Are Broken Mirrors

Click Here for Audio The creation account in Genesis contains a revolutionary notion about human dignity. Unlike pagan creation myths which devalue humans as the disposable servants of the gods, Genesis elevates human value by calling us representatives of God. The man and woman were created in God’s image and commissioned to reflect that image throughout the earth.In the creation account, although every creature draws its life and breath from God, only humans are made in his image. In this way, we have a vital and unique role in the cosmos. As images, we are designed to reflect or reveal something other than ourselves. In other words, our purpose is unique and different from that of other creatures in the way a mirror differs from other objects. Whereas a painting or a vase is displayed to draw attention to itself, a mirror is not. Instead, its purpose is to draw attention to the object it reflects. Humans are like mirrors—we reflect the image of what we behold. This means purpose and meaning are not to be found within ourselves, despite what our culture might proclaim. Instead, purpose and meaning are defined by whatever external object captivates our hearts which are then reflected by our lives.The Lord created us to find our purpose and meaning in him. He is what we are to behold and reflect, but if we reject this calling and abandon our Maker it does not stop our inherent reflectivity. When we permit something else to captivate our hearts—when an idol becomes the object of our affections—we will reflect that false god instead. The idol will come to define our meaning and purpose. The call of Christ is a call back to our original vocation—to once again reflect our Creator. We sometimes refer to the act of turning away from our idols to behold God as “conversion” or “repentance.” Of course, even after turning back toward God, we do not reflect his image perfectly. We are, after all, broken mirrors cracked by sin, evil, and rebellion, and the image of God we display will be warped. Over time, and with God’s grace, the cracks are mended, the bends smoothed, and the mirror polished. Until the day when we again become the glorious image-bearers of God we were created to be. DAILY SCRIPTURE 1 CORINTHIANS 13:8–12 2 CORINTHIANS 3:12–18 WEEKLY PRAYER Irenaeus (c. 130 – 200) I appeal to you, Lord, God of Abraham, God of Isaac, God of Jacob and Israel, you the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. Infinitely merciful as you are, it is your will that we should learn to know you. You made heaven and earth, you rule supreme over all that is. You are the true, the only God; there is no other god above you . . . O Lamb of God, you take away the sin of the world, look upon us and have mercy on us; you who are yourself both victim and priest, yourself both reward and redeemer. Keep safe from all evils those whom you have redeemed, O Savior of the world. Amen.

Jesus woke up, rebuked the wind, and said to the sea, “Peace! Be still!” Then the wind ceased and there was a dead calm. He said to the disciples, “Why are you afraid? Have you still no faith?”
—Mark 4:39–40 

Episcopal bishop Rev. Barbara Harris (1930–2020) invites us to rely on Christ’s peace:   

In the midst of uncertainty and swift transition, in the midst of personal and institutional upheaval, and amid the “fightings within and fears without” that separate peoples, races, and nations, we desperately need to hear a little good news. And this passage from the fourth chapter of Mark’s Gospel, which relates how Jesus calmed the storm on the Sea of Galilee, is exactly that: good news.  

Who among us … having lived through a tornado, hurricane, or even a violent thunderstorm, can fail to be moved by this account of the terror-stricken disciples, convinced that at any moment their boat would capsize and they would be swept away into the sea. And who could fail to be moved by the image of Jesus standing up in that frail vessel and speaking to the storm: “‘Peace! Be still.’”… 

What they did not understand, and what many today do not understand is that although we may panic in times of stress and distress, God does not share our panic.  

That sense of panic that gripped the disciples out there on the Sea of Galilee is pervasive in our church and in our society today. When people panic, they tend to act desperately and unreasonably. Nations panic and go to war. Then they try to get God to sanction their actions as “holy.” In panic, people choose up sides in controversies and take irrational stands…. Few, if any, say, “Come, let us reason together.”  

Harris relies on Christ’s presence and wisdom:  

If Christ is at the center of our lives, we don’t have to rush into irrational action that often leads to impractical solutions. “Peace! Be still!” These can be our watchwords as we wait for the guidance and direction of the Holy Spirit.  

Often as we sail over the tempestuous sea of life, our world is in storm on a personal, national, and global level. But not only is Christ on the ship, Christ is in command—even when he seems to be asleep. “He who keeps watch over Israel will neither slumber nor sleep” (Psalm 121:3, Book of Common Prayer). And what a comfort lies in the simple thought: “His eye is on the sparrow and I know he watches me” [see Matthew 10:29]. 

Jesus hears us when we call, but he refuses to jump when we push the panic button. We are afraid to rely on that presence and the saving power. In our haste and our anxiety, we tend to rely on what we can see, count, touch, and feel. We forget that such things will pass away. We need, in the words of the old hymn, to “build our hopes on things eternal and hold to God’s unchanging hand.” 

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Note: Following is the ending of “The Last Battle” which is the final book of CS Lewis’s Chronicles of Narnia. The evil Calormenes have just been finally defeated by the righteous army of Aslan, the Christ figure in the fantasy novel. The Calormene general acknowledges defeat and expects execution for following the deceiving Tash, the Satan figure, for his whole life. He is in for a surprise……..

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“Then I fell at his feet and thought, Surely this is the hour of death, for the Lion (who is worthy of all honour) will know that I have served Tash all my days and not him. Nevertheless, it is better to see the Lion and die than to be Tisroc of the world and live and not to have seen him. But the Glorious One bent down his golden head and touched my forehead with his tongue and said, Son, thou art welcome. But I said, Alas Lord, I am no son of thine but the servant of Tash. He answered, Child, all the service thou hast done to Tash, I account as service done to me. Then by reasons of my great desire for wisdom and understanding, I overcame my fear and questioned the Glorious One and said, Lord, is it then true, as the Ape said, that thou and Tash are one? The Lion growled so that the earth shook (but his wrath was not against me) and said, It is false. Not because he and I are one, but because we are opposites, I take to me the services which thou hast done to him. For I and he are of such different kinds that no service which is vile can be done to me, and none which is not vile can be done to him. Therefore if any man swear by Tash and keep his oath for the oath’s sake, it is by me that he has truly sworn, though he know it not, and it is I who reward him. And if any man do a cruelty in my name, then, though he says the name Aslan, it is Tash whom he serves and by Tash his deed is accepted. Dost thou understand, Child? I said, Lord, though knowest how much I understand. But I said also (for the truth constrained me), Yet I have been seeking Tash all my days. Beloved, said the Glorious One, unless thy desire had been for me thou wouldst not have sought so long and so truly. For all find what they truly seek.”

Faith in God is not just faith to believe in spiritual ideas. It’s to have confidence in Love itself. It’s to have confidence in reality itself. At its core, reality is okay. God is in it. God is revealed in all things, even through the tragic and sad, as the revolutionary doctrine of the cross reveals!  
—Richard Rohr, Essential Teachings on Love 

Father Richard Rohr reminds us that we are never separate from the love of God:  

We cannot attain the presence of God because we’re already in the presence of God. What’s absent is awareness. Little do we realize that God’s love is maintaining us in existence with every breath we take. As we take another breath, it means that God is choosing us now and now and now and now. We have nothing to attain or even learn. We do, however, need to unlearn some things.  

To become aware of God’s loving presence in our lives, we must accept that human culture is in a mass hypnotic trance. We’re sleepwalkers. All great religious teachers have recognized that we human beings do not naturally “see”; we have to be taught how. Jesus says further, “If your eye is healthy, your whole body is full of light” (Luke 11:34). Religion is meant to teach us how to witness and be present to reality. That’s why the Buddha and Jesus say with one voice, “Be awake.” Jesus talks about “staying watchful” (Matthew 25:13; Luke 12:37; Mark 13:33–37), and “Buddha” means “I am awake” in Sanskrit.  

All spiritual disciplines have one purpose: to get rid of illusions so we can be more fully present to what is. These disciplines exist so that we can see what is, see who we are, and see what is happening. What is is love, so much so that even the tragic will be used for purposes of transformation into love. It is God, who is love, giving away God every moment as the reality of our life. Who we are is love, because we are created in God’s image. What is happening is God living in us, with us, and through us as our unique manifestation of love. And each one of us is a bit different because the forms of love are infinite. [1]  

May we pray together:  

God, lover of life, lover of these lives,  
God, lover of our souls, lover of our bodies, lover of all that exists: 
It is your love that keeps it all alive…. 
May we live in this love.  
May we never doubt this love.  
May we know that we are love,  
That we were created for love,  
That we are a reflection of you,  
That you love yourself in us and therefore we are perfectly lovable.  
May we never doubt this deep and abiding and perfect goodness.  
We are because you are. [2]  

Love Beyond

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. considers the power of love that Jesus revealed at his death:  

Few words in the New Testament more clearly and solemnly express the magnanimity of Jesus’ spirit than that sublime utterance from the cross, “Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do” [Luke 23:34]. This is love at its best.… 

The oceans of history are made turbulent by the ever-rising tides of revenge. [Humanity] has never risen above the injunction of the lex talionis: “Life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot.” In spite of the fact that the law of revenge solves no social problems, [people] continue to follow its disastrous leading. History is cluttered with the wreckage of nations and individuals that pursued this self-defeating path.  

Jesus eloquently affirmed from the cross a higher law. He knew that the old eye-for-an-eye philosophy would leave everyone blind. He did not seek to overcome evil with evil. He overcame evil with good. Although crucified by hate, he responded with [forceful] love.  

What a magnificent lesson! Generations will rise and fall; [people] will continue to worship the god of revenge and bow before the altar of retaliation; but ever and again this noble lesson of Calvary will be a nagging reminder that only goodness can drive out evil and only love can conquer hate. [1] 

Brian McLaren invites us to practice revolutionary love:  

Revolutionary love means loving as God would love: infinitely, graciously, extravagantly. To put it in more mystical terms, it means loving with God, letting divine love fill me and flow through me, without discrimination or limit, as an expression of the heart of the lover, not the merit of the beloved, including the correctness of the beloved’s beliefs.… 

In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus doesn’t teach a list of beliefs to be memorized and recited. Instead, he teaches a way of life that culminates in a call to revolutionary love. This revolutionary love goes far beyond conventional love, the love that distinguishes between us and them, brother and other, or friend and enemy (Matthew 5:43). Instead, we need to love as God loves, with non-discriminatory love that includes even the enemy.…  

We’re used to thinking of the real differences in the world as among religions: you are Buddhist, I am Christian, she is Jewish, he is atheist. But I wonder if that way of thinking is becoming irrelevant and perhaps even counter-productive. What if the deeper question is not whether you are a Christian, Buddhist, or atheist, but rather, what kind of Christian, Buddhist, or atheist are you? Are you a believer who puts your distinct beliefs first, or are you a person of faith who puts love first? Are you a believer whose beliefs put you in competition and conflict with people of differing beliefs, or are you a person of faith whose faith moves you toward the other with love? 

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Learning from the Mystics: Julian of Norwich

Quote of the Week: “Our beloved God wants us to gently accuse ourselves, clearly perceiving and genuinely recognizing our faults and the harm that comes from them, setting our intention to repair the damage and not repeat it, while at the same time acknowledging the everlasting love he has for us and taking refuge in his boundless mercy.  This is all he asks of us, and he himself helps us to do it.” – Chapter 52, p145 Reflection: Humility, which comes from the Latin root humus for earth, means to be grounded.  Humility, humor, and humanity are all related to each other etymologically.  To be a faith-oriented person demands that one be grounded in their humanity by integrating humility and humor toward oneself. Julian advises us here that we should, in fact, “gently accuse ourselves” long before anyone might harshly accuse us.  To watch one’s life and choices is a main concern for each of us.  We all have the ability to deny, repress, justify, judge, joke, and use any number of other defense mechanisms to avoid confronting our own issues.  To sin is not as serious of a problem as to sin and not “repent well.”  The mark of a faithful person is not that they live rightly at every moment, but that they respond rightly to when they do wrong.  Again, Julian’s advice is that we “gently accuse ourselves.” However, Julian is like most prophets in the Hebrew Scriptures.  Judgment is understood as “assessment” and that “assessment” exists to turn one’s life around and restore it.  The prophets do not end on a note of damnation, they end on a note of hope.  To “gently accuse oneself” is not to berate oneself, as if the quality of faith is correlated to how poorly one thinks of oneself.  To have such a mindset is counter to the understanding of humility that Julian receives in her visions of Jesus. Julian would advise each of us to: Gently accuse ourselves,look honestly at our lives,recognize our faults,recognize the harm caused,choose to repair the harm we have caused,choose to not repeat those same faults,and remember that we are endlessly loved.  Prayer Lord, grant us the courage and the wisdom to look honestly at our own lives.  Help us to learn from our mistakes more than repeat them.  Help us to recognize and repair the harm we have each caused to others, and help each of us to “gently accuse ourselves” only to fall back into the hands of Divine Love each time.  In the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.  Amen.

Life Overview:  Who Were They: Julian, also known as Juliana Where: Norwich, England When: 1343-1416AD (During the Bubonic Plague) Why She is Important: She is the first published female in the English language and is known for her incredibly hopeful, intimate, and tender theology of God. What Was Their Main Contribution: The Showings (or Revelations) of Divine Love

Friday, November 1, 2024

All Saint’s Day 

Nothing that is worth doing can be achieved in our lifetime; therefore we must be saved by hope. Nothing which is true or beautiful or good makes complete sense in any immediate context of history; therefore we must be saved by faith. Nothing we do, however virtuous, can be accomplished alone; therefore we are saved by love. No virtuous act is quite as virtuous from the standpoint of our friend or foe as it is from our standpoint. Therefore we must be saved by the final form of love which is forgiveness.  
—Reinhold Niebuhr, The Irony of American History  

Esteemed CAC teacher and colleague Dr. Barbara Holmes (1943–2024) draws wisdom from theologian Reinhold Niebuhr: 

Reinhold Niebuhr’s words ring true. Although we wish it was otherwise, the struggle for justice is never completed in one lifetime or one rebellion. The shifting of systems, the turning of hearts, the forgiveness of oppressions and the dissipation of anger (righteous or not) takes time. It is not easy to confront injustice. It requires solidarity and the inevitable loss of life. It requires that each generation aver, “we are ready to be free by any peaceful means necessary.” [1] …  

No matter how desperate our personal or communal situations seem, we are oscillating at both high and low frequencies between the good and the grotesque. We cannot always see the path toward the common good; often it seems that evil has won the day, and sometimes the leap of faith required to bridge chasms of disagreement seems to be a [desperate] choice.  

And yet, even during our worst times, there are opportunities to facilitate human flourishing through the creative exchanges of ideas, authenticity, culture, and religious expression. The contemplative turn is necessary because the illusion of reality that frames our everyday life limits the in-breaking of Spirit and dims discernment. [2]  

Holmes connects spiritual practice with the common good: 

For me a spiritual practice that matters includes social renewal. Instead of blaming others about the state of our union, instead of blaming one political party or another, we can reflect on our own complicity and support of systems that abandoned the poor, warehoused our children in failing schools, and failed to provide adequate health care. As a spiritual practice, we can wake up to the possibility of building a new order. We can improvise those possibilities; try them out in the creative microcosm of a shared public life, realizing that our way of life could be improved so that all members of society thrive…. 

I quote from an article I wrote titled “Still on the Journey”: I believe that as a spiritual practice we can imagine and create “a political system responsive to the people and respectful of global neighbors, a health system that is comprehensive in scope and not profit driven, an educational system shaped by innovation, improvisation, technology, and practicality.” [3] Can we be honest now about what is not working? Can we re-envision new options? I believe that we can, if we want to. [4] 

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Jesus Calling: November 1st, 2024

Jesus Calling: November 1st

Do not be discouraged by the difficulty of keeping your focus on Me. I know that your heart’s desire is to be aware of My Presence continually. This is a lofty goal; you aim toward it but never fully achieve it in this life. Don’t let feelings of failure weigh you down. Instead, try to see yourself as I see you. First of all, I am delighted by your deep desire to walk closely with Me through your life. I am pleased each time you initiate communication with Me. In addition, I notice the progress you have made since you first resolved to live in My Presence.
     When you realize that your mind has wandered away from Me, don’t be alarmed or surprised. You live in a world that has been rigged to distract you. Each time you plow your way through the massive distractions to communicate with Me, you achieve a victory. Rejoice in these tiny triumphs, and they will increasingly light up your days.

RELATED SCRIPTURE:

Romans 8:33-34 (NIV)
33 Who will bring any charge against those whom God has chosen? It is God who justifies. 34 Who then is the one who condemns? No one. Christ Jesus who died—more than that, who was raised to life—is at the right hand of God and is also interceding for us.

Hebrews 4:14-16 (NIV)
Jesus the Great High Priest
14 Therefore, since we have a great high priest who has ascended into heaven, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold firmly to the faith we profess. 15 For we do not have a high priest who is unable to empathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are—yet he did not sin. 16 Let us then approach God’s throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.

Thursday, October 31, 2024

In his book Do I Stay Christian?, Brian McLaren highlights solidarity as a universal value supporting of our common life: 

There may be a way to draw the best resources we can from all our traditions, not to cure us of being human, but to help us become humane, because in the end, we humans are all connected, woven, as Dr. King said, in an inescapable web of mutuality. [1] …. If we are to avoid self- destruction, it will require solidarity across all our traditions.…  

If you choose solidarity, instead of pulling away from those you once suspected, avoided, vilified, or rejected, you see them as neighbors. You smile. You talk. You try to collaborate for the common good in whatever ways you can. When you disagree, as you must, you do so boldly but also graciously, not burning bridges, not breaking solidarity. They may be your opponents for the moment, but you don’t write them off as enemies.  

When you embrace solidarity, you embrace humanity, including Muslim, Jewish, Buddhist, Hindu, Sikh, humanist, and atheist humanity, and including the humanity of those Christians whose behavior consistently prompts you to ask if you can stand staying Christian for even one more second. 

McLaren describes the new friendships that are possible when we embrace the inclusive message of Jesus:  

If you choose solidarity … in the way modeled by Jesus, then you don’t have to stop being Christian. In fact, you may have just become a better Christian than you’ve ever been…. You may have some old friends reject you, and you may struggle to keep accepting them anyway. You may have to find new teachers and mentors who can walk with you toward Christianity’s deeper, wider heart…. If you dare to follow that summons deeper into the darkness of unknowing, eventually you will come into a new place, a good place, a place not of elite religiosity but of shared humanity.  

You will look around and feel that all are welcome here. They have come from different places, but by the same path, the path of love. Muslims have come in their caravan of love. Jews have pursued the Torah of solidarity. Buddhists have followed the noble truth of compassion. Sikhs have learned to see no stranger, and Hindus have descended into essential oneness. Atheists and agnostics have discovered in humanism a path into our common humanity….  

When you find that this option of solidarity is open to you, this option of going to the deepest and most genuine core of your Christian tradition and there finding a love that connects you to everyone and everything, everywhere … you don’t need to go anywhere else. Of course, you can if you want to. But here is a way of staying Christian that connects you to others in a quest for solidarity rather than separating you from them in a quest for innocence, dominance, or supremacy. This feels to me like the way of Christ. This feels like the way of life.  

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Sarah Young

Jesus Calling: October 31st

Learn to listen to Me even while you are listening to other people. As they open their souls to your scrutiny, you are on holy ground. You need the help of My Spirit to respond appropriately. Ask Him to think through you, live through you, love through you. My own Being is alive within you in the Person of the Holy Spirit. If you respond to others’ needs through your unaided thought processes, you offer them dry crumbs. When the Spirit empowers your listening and speaking. My stream of living water flow through you to other people. Be a channel of My Love, Joy, and Peace by listening to Me as you listen to others.

RELATED SCRIPTURE: 

Exodus 3:5 (NIV)
5 “Do not come any closer,” God said. “Take off your sandals, for the place where you are standing is holy ground.”

1st Corinthians 6:19 (NIV)
19 Do you not know that your bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own;

John 7:38-39 (NIV)
38 Whoever believes in me, as Scripture has said, rivers of living water will flow from within them.” 39 By this he meant the Spirit, whom those who believed in him were later to receive. Up to that time the Spirit had not been given, since Jesus had not yet been glorified.

Additional insight regarding John 7:38: Jesus’ words, “come and drink” alluded to the theme of many Bible passages that talk about Messiah’s life-giving blessings (Isaiah 12:2-3; 44:3-4; 58:11). In promising to give the Holy Spirit to all who believed, Jesus was claiming to be the Messiah, for that was something only the Messiah could do.

You have heard that it was said, “Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.” But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be children of your Father in heaven.… If you love those who love you, what reward will you get? Are not even the tax collectors doing that? And if you greet only your own people, what are you doing more than others?
—Matthew 5:43–48 

In a 2017 homily based on this Scripture passage, Father Richard reminds us of the foundational requirements of Christian living:  

As Christians, we proclaim that this scripture has authority over our lives, but I am hearing from more and more pastors from all denominations that they are afraid to preach the gospel in this country because they know half the church will walk out. You know what I’m talking about. We are in a state of such deceit, dishonesty, and lack of love for anybody but ourselves that is almost impossible to preach the gospel. The ancient Israelites were told “to love your neighbor,” but Jesus takes it to the nth degree. He says, “No—love your enemy.” 

Is there anything happening in America today that would make you think we believe we should “love our enemies”? If Christians do not decide to finally be like Jesus, then let’s just give up on this whole Christian thing. It doesn’t mean anything! If it’s just going to church on Sunday, then we have to stop pretending we’re following Jesus, because we’re just like everybody else—we are into power and money and deceit and war. If we do not preach the gospel, if we do not begin to live the gospel now, then let’s stop pretending that we care about Jesus or about following Jesus. 

We are in a very scary position in the United States, and the whole world sees it. We are called to engage in a great mobilization, recognition, conversion, and transformation, because now the issues are too big, too real, and too right in front of us every day.  

We cannot be silent any longer. Do not expect me to be silent, and I won’t expect you to be silent, either. It’s going to take courage. It’s going take each of us making little decisions in our little worlds to love, not just our neighbors, but even to pray for our enemies, to pray for our president, to pray for our country. If we can’t do these little things, what does it all mean?  

Every one of us in this room has power. To pretend we don’t, so we can just be silent is to say what’s happening is OK and it isn’t! I just read the gospel aloud and held the book above you. You stood up and you said, “Thanks be God,” so now let’s say thanks be to God with our lives. Thank you for allowing me to preach the gospel. 

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Confusing Creature and Creator

Click Here for Audio If the first of the Ten Commandments is about keeping God first, the second commandment is about keeping God separate. The Lord said, “You shall not make for yourself a carved image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath . . .” This command is not a prohibition against artistic works, which is how some have understood it. Traditional Islamic art, for example, usually features plants, words, or geometric patterns, but no animals or people out of an abundance of caution. Islam, which is adamantly opposed to all idolatry, doesn’t want anyone to interpret God as a person or animal even accidentally. But within the context of the Old Testament, it becomes clear this is not what the second commandment intended. Remember, the tabernacle that God himself commanded his people to build as the centerpiece of their worship included many images of animals and angels. Rather than a prohibition against certain forms of art, the second commandment establishes an absolute barrier between the uncreated God and the rest of creation. It accomplishes this by forbidding the representation of the Creator as a mere creature. This is the basic error of all idolatry—it confuses the Creator with the creature, the eternal with the temporal, the non-contingent with the contingent. It was a radical idea at the time. Other ancient cultures depicted their gods as animals, human kings, or celestial objects. When we equate God with some element of his creation, however, we diminish his glory and limit his grandeur. Thomas à Kempis in his classic work, The Imitation of Christ, spoke of the utter uniqueness of God. He wrote, “The difference is great—yes, very great, indeed—between delight in the Creator and in the creature, in eternity and in time, in Light uncreated and in the light that is reflected.” This cosmos, its creatures, and the works of human hands are marvelous, but their glory is at best a reflected one. To be against idolatry doesn’t mean diminishing the value of God’s good creation. It doesn’t mean eliminating the beauty of art or the delight of beautiful things from our lives. Instead, it means recognizing the glory we see in creation is not from itself. It is the indirect radiance of the Creator. Therefore, when we marvel at any created thing we ought to offer our praise and gratitude to God, rather than to the thing itself. The second commandment invites us to delight in the One who cannot be contained by space or time, nor by the human mind, and certainly not by any craft of mere human hands. DAILY SCRIPTURE HABAKKUK 2:18–20 ROMANS 11:33–36 WEEKLY PRAYER Leonine Sacramentary (the fifth century) Almighty God, who did wonderfully create humanity in your own image, and did yet more wonderfully restore them, we ask you, that as your Son our Lord Jesus Christ was made in human likeness, so we may be made partakers of the divine nature; through your Son, who with you and the Holy Spirit live and reign, one God, world without end. Amen.

In an interview for the Daily Meditations, Sikh activist and author Valarie Kaur places love at the center of our ability to bring about wholeness in a divided world:  

What does it mean to return to a kind of wholeness where the way that we love informs what we do in the world and what we do in the world deepens our love?….

What I want to remind us all is that as much as we must fight for our convictions and stand for what is just, remember that all those people who vote against you are not disappearing after Election Day or Inauguration Day. We have to find a way to live together still. The only way we will birth a multiracial democracy is if we hold up a vision of a future that leaves no one behind, not even our worst opponents. So you might be in the position to have that conversation with the neighbor down the street or the uncle at the family table or the teenager who doesn’t want to vote because she’s too cynical. What might happen if you leave them alone? [Philosopher] Hannah Arendt says isolation breeds radicalization. [1] You might be the person to puncture the [social media] algorithm, to sit in spaces of deep listening—and deep listening is an act of surrender. You risk being changed by what you hear. 

We don’t see those spaces modeled in the world around us. We have to create them in the spaces between us. Oftentimes it means listening over time, being in relationship. Human beings mirror each other, so if you come with daggers out, they’ll come out daggers out. If you come out and you really wonder “Why?,” beneath the slogans and the soundbites, you’ll hear the person’s story and you’ll see their wound. You’ll see their grief. You’ll see their rage. You might not agree with it, but I’ve come to understand that there are no such things as monsters in this world, only human beings who are wounded, who act out of their fear or insecurity or rage. That does not make them any less dangerous, but once we see their wound, they lose their power over us. And we get to ask ourselves: How do we want to take that information into what we do next?  

I invite people to take their wounds [and] their opponents’ wounds into spaces of re-imagination—of imagining an outcome, a policy, a relationship that leaves no one outside of our circle of care, not even “them.” This kind of labor, this kind of revolutionary love, it’s not the sacrifice of an individual, it’s a practice of a community.  

When we invite people to practice revolutionary love, we always ask, “What is your role in this season of your life?”…. Whatever you choose, it can be a vital practice of love, of revolutionary love. And if all of us are playing our role—not more, not less—then together we’re creating the culture shift that we so desperately need. 

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We Are All Idolaters

Click Here for Audio The first commandment says, “You shall have no other gods before me.” Some of us read that and think, “No problem. I’m a committed monotheist and have never been tempted to worship another god. Let’s move on to the more difficult commandments.”Not so fast.Our reading of this commandment depends entirely on our understanding of the word “gods.” We may understand a god to be an object, a function, or both. For example, a chair is both an object and a function. A chair is made for sitting, but a chair is a chair whether I sit on it or not. Its chair-ness is inherent. A box, by contrast, is not a chair. Yet, if I sit on the box it may function as a chair. The box’s chair-ness is defined by how it is used, not by what it is. The same goes for gods. Some gods, like a chair, are clearly recognized for their god-ness. The word “god” brings to mind deities like Ra in Egypt, Zeus in Greece, and Ganesh in India. But there are many other things that are not gods but may nonetheless function as gods just as a box may function as a chair. Strictly speaking, power, wealth, fame, and pleasure are not gods. Neither is the United States, the Chicago Cubs, nor Nike shoes. And yet, any of these may functionas a god in a person’s life. Therefore, if we read the first commandment as a prohibition against worshiping other deities, it seems like a pretty easy law to obey. If, however, we read it as a warning against allowing anything other than the Creator to function as a god in our life—well, suddenly the commandment becomes more difficult.The theologian Paul Tillich declared that faith is “the state of being ultimately concerned.” He argued that because each person has something of ultimate concern that defines their life and identity, all people are religious—even the atheists. Every person has something in their life that functions as their god. For some, this god-function is occupied by a recognizable deity attached to some religious tradition. But this is increasingly not the case. Instead, the god-function is filled by something else like ambition, self-actualization, a dream, a goal, a social movement, or perhaps a political or cultural tribe. Few of us, in obedience to the first commandment, actually put our Creator in this all-important place in our lives. The truth is we are all idolaters. We all find ourselves bowing to and giving our lives to false gods with stubborn regularity.Ask yourself, what is my ultimate concern today? What occupies my imagination? What do I daydream about, and what motivates my actions? The first commandment is a warning to not give this precious, life-defining position to anything or anyone unworthy of it. It belongs to your Creator alone. DAILY SCRIPTURE EXODUS 20:1–3 MARK 12:28–31 WEEKLY PRAYER Leonine Sacramentary (the fifth century) Almighty God, who did wonderfully create humanity in your own image, and did yet more wonderfully restore them, we ask you, that as your Son our Lord Jesus Christ was made in human likeness, so may we be made partakers of the divine nature; through your Son, who with you and the Holy Spirit live and reign, one God, world without end. Amen.

Father Richard Rohr recognizes how a focus on religion as a matter of personal belief has discouraged some Christians from engaging in political action.  

For many people, politics and religion are so personal that neither topic is deemed appropriate to discuss publicly. While separation of church and state is an important protection for all religions, it doesn’t mean we as people of faith shouldn’t engage in our civic duties and the political process. The idea of “staying out of politics” doesn’t come from God. My sense is that it arises from our egoic, dualistic thinking that has a hard time hearing a different perspective or learning something new. [1] 

Christianity in its first two thousand years has kept its morality mostly private, personal, interior, fervent, and heaven bound, with very few direct implications for our collective economic, social, or political life. Politics and religion remained largely in two distinct realms, unless religion was uniting with empires. Yes, we looked to Rome and Constantinople for imperial protection, little realizing the price we would eventually pay for such a compromise with foundational gospel values.  

This convenient split took the form of either the inner or the outer world. We religious folks were supposed to be the inner people while the outer world was left to politicians, scientists, and workers of every stripe. Now this is all catching up with us, as even the inner world has largely been overtaken by psychology, literature, and the huge world of self-help. Fewer and fewer people now expect religion to have anything to say about either the inner or outer worlds! But if we do not go deep and in, we cannot go far and wide.  

In my opinion, the reason we lost our Christian authority is because we did not talk about the inner world very well. We were much more focused on believing doctrines, practicing rituals, and following requirements, which are not, in and of themselves, inner or deep. Frankly, Buddhism spoke to inner transformation far better than the three monotheistic religions. We Christians did not connect the inner with the outer—which is a consequence of not going in deeply enough. Christianity now has become increasingly irrelevant, often to the very people who want to go both deep and far. We so disconnected from the political—the welfare of God’s aggregated people and the public forum—that soon we had nothing much to say.  

I am not talking about partisan politics here, but simply the connecting of the inner world with the outer world. We have allowed the word partisan to be the first and sometimes only meaning of the word political and so people don’t even allow us to preach a purely gospel message from the pulpit—as it might sound “political”!  

Here is my major point: There is no such thing as being nonpolitical. Everything we say or do either affirms or critiques the status quo. Even to say nothing is to say something: The status quo—even if it is massively unjust and deceitful—is apparently okay. This “nonpolitical” stance is an illusion we must overcome.

A Politics Rooted in God’s Love

When deciding how we want to act in the public sphere, Rev. Wes Granberg-Michaelson reminds Christians to begin with the personal experience of God’s overflowing love for the world: 

Our temptation is to begin with politics and then try to figure out how religion can fit in. We start with the accepted parameters of political debate and, whether we find ourselves on the left or the right, we use religion to justify and bolster our existing commitments…. 

But what if we make the inward journey our starting point? What if we recognize that our engagement in politics should be rooted in our participation in the Trinitarian flow of God’s love? Then everything changes. We are no longer guided or constrained by what we think is politically possible, but are compelled by what we know is most real. At the heart of all creation, the mutual love within the Trinity overflows to embrace all of life. We are invited to participate in the transforming power of this love. There we discover the ground of our being, centering all our life and action. 

This was revealed most fully in Jesus, as God’s Son. His love for enemies, his non-violent response to evil, his embrace of the marginalized, his condemnation of self-serving religious hypocrites, his compassion for the poor, his disregard for boundaries of social exclusion, his advocacy for the economically oppressed, and his certainty that God’s reign was breaking into the world all flowed from his complete, mutual participation in his Father’s love. Jesus didn’t merely show the way; he lived completely in the presence and power of God’s redeeming, transforming life. 

Granberg-Michaelson envisions a future based on God’s desire for the world: 

Transformative change in politics depends so much on having a clear view of the desired end. Where does that vision come from? Possibilities may be offered by various ideologies, or party platforms, or political candidates. But, for the person of faith, that vision finds its roots in God’s intended and preferred future for the world. It comes not as a dogmatic blueprint but as an experiential encounter with God’s love, flowing like a river from God’s throne, nourishing trees with leaves for the healing of the nations (see Revelation 22:1–2).… 

Such a vision strikes the political pragmatist as idyllic, unrealistic, and irrelevant. But the person of faith, whose inward journey opens [their] life to the explosive love of God, knows that this vision is the most real of all. It is a glimpse of creation’s purpose and a glimmering of the Spirit’s movement amid the world’s present pain, brokenness, and despair. This vision also recognizes the inevitable journey of inward and outward transformation—the simultaneous, continuing transformation of the inward hearts of people liberated by God’s astonishing grace and the outward transformation of social and economic structures liberated by God’s standards of justice. 

Note to CO Few: This is from Mark Longhurst. He assists Richard Rohr with writing, compiling and editing. This is his comment about a book he has written. DJR

A Holy, Ordinary Invitation

What if mysticism is for everybody?

I’m not being falsely humble when I say I wrote The Holy Ordinary as an aspiration rather than a lived reality. I feel drawn to a life of spiritual depth, but I’m not a monk, nun, or even a professional pastor serving a church anymore. I’m just an ordinary dude, working a job I am privileged to love, raising boys who play soccer, going to the movies, reading, and spending time with my wife. I also, frankly, am not very good at slowing down and appreciating the holiness of the ordinary. I have an anxious and task-oriented psyche that leads me into obsessive thought patterns more than it does a trusting posture of enjoying the moment.

But as I write in the book, I’m convinced that “underneath the rhythmic contours of each day are deepening roots that sip from mystical streams.” I sit in silent meditation or chant morning psalms—which is something monks and nuns have been doing for centuries—and I’m reminded at some level that my true life is not found in the things that I’m doing and that my belonging lies in a deeper, divine love in which I am invited to participate.

Here’s the thing: once you know that there’s a deeper love pulsing behind and through all things, you can’t unknow it. It doesn’t mean I’m special; I’ve just glimpsed something beautiful that I believe is true, and I know I’m not the only one. I meet so many people (many on Substack!) who are living regular lives on the surface, who are perfectly ordinary in our wounds and failures, many of whom do not go to church or find belonging in traditional religious structures but who have glimpsed something deeply loving about reality—and can’t unsee it.

This is the call that the “mystic” has traditionally responded to. For about 1,500 years, the “mystical” meant monastic—but we’re living in a time where this is no longer true. In our ecumenical era, the divisions that once caused wars between Protestants and Catholics are no longer ultimate. Lots of people are leaving Christianity altogether, and often with good reason—but lots of people also realize that there are treasures hidden in Christianity and that they don’t need to belong to one denominational group or the other to enjoy them. So, in today’s religious landscape, you could run into evangelical Christians praying Psalms like monks, liberal Protestants singing songs from the French monastery Taizé, or thousands of people who don’t belong to any tradition hiking a former medieval pilgrimage path—the Camino de Santiago. Christians practice silent meditation and yoga now, practices traditionally reserved for Christian monks, Buddhists, and Hindu renunciates, and the Trappist monastery a few hours away from me in Spencer, MA, makes jam and beer.

I’m asking through this book: What if mysticism is for everybody? What if it’s not for those special people but for me—for us? And what if following a path of deep spirituality in this way helps us discover the radical “holiness” of ordinary life?  

So, what is the holy ordinary—and what is mysticism? Well, how do you begin talking about the ineffable? I don’t have a specific answer, but I can tell you what I’ve learned from others. One medieval scholar, Jean Gerson, described it as “the experiential knowledge that comes from God through the embrace of unitive love.” So, it’s experiential and not something we learn from reading books. That’s extremely difficult for someone like me who loves reading theology and spirituality books. I often can trick myself into believing that because I’ve read or thought something, I’ve experienced it fully—but that’s decidedly not the case. Mysticism comes from God, or ultimate reality, whatever word you want to use, through an embrace of love. Mysticism has everything to do with knowing, feeling, and trusting that an embrace of love is at the heart of it all. But it’s also “unitive,” meaning it unites us and connects us to God, each other, and the earth. It’s a love that heals and brings together and does not separate. I’m convinced that that’s what we most need today.

This loving, uniting embrace is available to me in all our ordinary moments, from standing waiting at the bus stop to doing the dishes to working on a deadline for our jobs. It’s available when cooking, walking in nature, or playing with our kids. This loving, uniting embrace is also available as a resource to me and each of us in the hard moments. It holds us in the grief of our heartbreaks, diagnoses, and deaths, ever prompting us to solidarity with those who are most suffering and are marginalized. Discovering the “holy” ordinary means living a life that trusts this loving embrace.