Sunday, June 21, 2026

Hope arises when we embrace a sacred reality.
—Steven Charleston, Ladder to the Light

Father Richard Rohr finds encouragement in his belief that we are created in the image of God, who is love: 

The Jesuit priest and scientist Pierre Teilhard de Chardin wrote, “Love is the physical structure of the universe.” [1] Our theological or scriptural way of saying the same thing is “Let us create in our image” (Genesis 1:26). The universe—and each of us—are made in the image of the triune God, who is love, a dynamic cycling of infinite outpouring and infinite receiving.

If God is both incarnate and implanted, both Christ and Holy Spirit, then an unfolding inner dynamism in all creation is not only certain but also moving in a positive direction. If we are to have foundational hope, it almost demands a foundational belief in a world that is still and always unfolding toward something better. This is the virtue of hope. Personally, I have found that it is almost impossible for individuals or communities to heal over the long haul if they do not trust that the whole cosmic arc is also on a trajectory toward the good.

Admittedly, sometimes the suffering and injustices of our time make it hard to believe in that arc of love. I think that is part of the church’s major failure: to provide Western civilization with a positive, hopeful, and cosmic understanding of our own “good news.” [2]

Choctaw elder and Episcopal bishop Steven Charleston describes how this love and foundational hope surround us at all times: 

The tipping point of faith is the threshold of spiritual energy, where what we believe becomes what we do. When that power is released, there is no stopping it, for love is a force that cannot be contained….

Hope lets us literally see the presence and action of the holy in our everyday lives. This is not an imaginary desire viewed through rose-colored glasses. It is the solid evidence of the power of love made visible in abundance….

Sometimes, in this troubled world of ours, we forget that love is all around us. We imagine the worst of other people and withdraw into our own shells. But try this simple test: Stand still in any crowded place and watch the people around you. Within a very short time, you will begin to see love, and you will see it over and over and over. A young mother talking to her child, a couple laughing together as they walk by, an older man holding the door for a stranger—small signs of love are everywhere. The more you look, the more you will see. Love is literally everywhere. We are surrounded by love…. Hope makes room for love in the world.

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Mercy and Mystical Hope

Monday, June 22, 2026

CAC faculty emerita Cynthia Bourgeault describes hope as a quality of God’s mercy, fully available to us:

Hope’s home is at the innermost point in us, and in all things. It is a quality of aliveness. It does not come at the end, as the feeling that results from a happy outcome. Rather, it lies at the beginning, as a pulse of truth that sends us forth. When our innermost being is attuned to this pulse it will send us forth in hope, regardless of the physical circumstances of our lives. Hope fills us with the strength to stay present, to abide in the flow of the Mercy no matter what outer storms assail us. It is entered always and only through surrender; that is, through the willingness to let go of everything we are presently clinging to. And yet when we enter it, it enters us and fills us with its own life—a quiet strength beyond anything we have ever known.

And since that strength is, in fact, a piece of God’s purposiveness coursing like sap through our own being, it will lead us in the right way. It sweeps us along in the greater flow of divine life as God moves … toward the fulfillment of divine purpose which is the deeper, more intense, more subtle, more intimate revelation of the heart of God. [1]

Through contemplative practice and surrender, Bourgeault believes we can experience God’s mystical hope and become a healing presence in the world:

In the contemplative journey, as we swim down into those deeper waters toward the wellsprings of hope, we begin to experience and trust what it means to lay down self, to let go of ordinary awareness and surrender ourselves to the mercy of God. And as hope, the hidden spring of mercy deep within us, is released in that touch and flows out from the center, filling us with the fullness of God’s own purpose living itself into action, then we discover within ourselves the mysterious plentitude to live into action what our ordinary hearts and minds could not possibly sustain. In plumbing deeply the hidden rootedness of the whole, where all things are held together in the Mercy, we are released from the grip of personal fear and set free to minister with skillful means and true compassion to a world desperately in need of reconnection.

Hope is not imaginary or illusory. It is that sonar by which the body of Christ holds together and finds its way. If we, as living members of the body of Christ, can surrender our hearts … and listen for that sonar with all we are worth, it will again guide us, both individually and corporately, to the future for which we are intended. And the body of Christ will live, and thrive, and hold us tenderly in belonging.

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Individual Reflection

Where have you been generating hope rather than receiving it — and what would it feel like to stop?

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Group Discussion — choose one:

1. Bourgeault says hope is “entered always and only through surrender.” What are you currently clinging to that might be blocking it?
2. Charleston invites us to stand still and watch for love. When did you last see it somewhere you weren’t expecting it?
3. If hope is the sonar that holds the body of Christ together, what would it mean to listen for it rather than produce it?

Re-Enlivening Ministries

Friday, June 19, 2026

Juneteenth

Father Richard turns to the apostle Paul’s advice to the first churches to envision church renewal today:

Prior to the imperial edicts in the fourth-century that pushed Christians to the top and the center of the Roman Empire, the church was still countercultural and non-imperial—a social movement for the reign of God. In a two-hundred-year period, Christians went from being complete outsiders to directing the inside! Christianity increasingly accepted, and even defended, the dominant social order, especially concerning war, money, and authority. [1]

While Christian churches today do much good, they are still largely aligned, especially in the West, with cultural and political power. To recover the early church’s emphasis on faith as a loving and communal way of life, we clearly need to support good and compassionate pastoral and healing practices. We must begin to validate Paul’s original teaching on “many gifts and many ministries” (1 Corinthians 12:4–11) that together “make a unity in the work of service” (Ephesians 4:12–13). We need Christian people who are trained in, validated for, and encouraged to make home and hospital visits; do hospice work and jail ministry; support immigrants and refugees; help with soup kitchens; counsel couples before, during, and after marriage; teach classes in parenting; offer ministries of emotional, sexual, and relational healing; help with financial counseling; build low-cost housing; take care of the elderly; run thrift centers—all of which put Christian people in immediate touch with other people. Remember, healing was most of the work Jesus appeared to do. It is almost too obvious. Either we see Christ in everyone, or we hardly see Christ in anyone. Either we are Christ to everyone, or we cannot be Christ to anyone.

My vision of any future church needs to be much flatter and much more inclusive. It is much less “churchy,” surely less patriarchal, and more concerned with fulfilling its mission statement than with endlessly reciting its heavenly vision and philosophy statement—the Nicene Creed—every Sunday. Simply put, any notion of a future church must be a fully practical church that is concerned about getting the job of love done—and done better and better. Centuries of emphasis on art and architecture, songs, liturgy, and prescribed roles have their place, but their overemphasis has made us a very top-heavy, decorative church that is largely, and constantly, concerned with its own in-house salvation.

Most people today, in fact, understand church to mean a building, rather than “where two or three gather in my name,” where the Divine Presence is promised just as certainly as it is promised in the bread, in the Bible, in the Sacraments, or in any anointed leadership: “There I am in your midst” (Matthew 18:20).

Authentic leadership, I think, implies people who can spot, affirm, train, support, finance, and validate gifts and leadership wherever they see them in actual practice (think multipliers instead of monarchs). Then we are not all striving toward the top but striving toward supporting the supreme work of love flowing into the world. [2]

References:
[1] Adapted from Richard Rohr, Dancing Standing Still: Healing the World from a Place of Prayer (Paulist Press, 2014), 48–50.

[2] Adapted from Richard Rohr, “Powering Down: The Future of Institutions,” ONEING 7, no. 2, The Future of Christianity (2019): 46–47. Available in print or PDF download.

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John Chaffee – Five On Friday

1.

“Trauma blocks loving connection;

Loving connection heals trauma.”

– Unknown

I’m just gonna leave this one here without further commentary, it’s that good.

2.

“Humanity needs not the death of God but the birth of a new understanding of divine reality.”

– Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, French Jesuit Priest

Or, as Thomas Keating says, “We need a theology that matches our current cosmology.”

We know that the universe is still expanding, growing, and birthing new stars and universes.  We know the Earth is not the center of the universe, but that we circle around a star that is also not the center of the universe.  We also have to reckon with the fact that we do not live in a 3-tiered universe, with “hell” literally below us and “heaven” literally above us.  (Rather, the Kingdom of Heaven is already near and among us.)

We also know that God is not some Divine Tyrant like a Pharaoh or Genghis Khan.  Jesus reveals that Yahweh is nothing like Zeus.  Infinite Love looks nothing like a cosmic Santa Claus keeping a list and checking it twice.

It is possible that in 6,000 years, people will look back at Christianity now and think that we were still in “kindergarten Christianity.”  We still believe in the Sword more than the Cross, and we often still believe that God utilizes fear more than love…  How pagan to believe such things!

But I believe something is changing.

We are now in a Post-Secular society, one in which the fullness of secular life was attempted and found to also be lacking… which means a return to faith and religion.

As I say that, though, I do not mean a return to how faith and religion were done in the past, but hopefully a more robust, integrative, mature, healthy, and holy one.  We now have more access to the whole of the Christian tradition than ever before, thanks to the internet, so hopefully the chaff will be separated from the wheat, the cream will rise to the top, and we will see a resurgence of people rediscovering the best of the Christian tradition.

3.

“Those who would know much, and love little, will ever remain at but the beginning of a godly life.”

– Mechtild of Magdeburg, 13th-Century German Nun

As a recovering Enneagram 5, this one is directed at me, who, for years, made the mistake of caring more about knowledge and information than about learning to love and be loved.  Or, I guess you could say I wanted to be loved for what I knew rather than for who I am (because that felt terrifying).

Granted, I have been through some things that led me to put up some serious walls, but fortunately, the older I get, the more those walls continue to crumble like Jericho’s.

Notice, though, that Mechtild does not say such a person is not godly.  She only says that such a person will “ever remain but at the beginning.”

4.

“People use drugs, legal and illegal, because their lives are intolerably painful or dull. They hate their work and find no rest in their leisure. They are estranged from their families and their neighbors. It should tell us something that in healthy societies drug use is celebrative, convivial, and occasional, whereas among us it is lonely, shameful, and addictive. We need drugs, apparently, because we have lost each other.”

– Wendell Berry, Eco-Poet

I grew up in beach culture, in which there was a culture of recreational drug use.

Although I never fell into it, I knew of its presence.

And even then, I knew that some people were not really using it “recreationally” but as an escape or attempt to numb some deeper pain.  Obviously, this numbing can work for a short while, but the deeper pain will always be there until it is exhumed.

It was much later on in life that I heard a very important term: Adverse Childhood Experiences (or, ACEs).

The ACE study, done between 1995 and 1997, helped put into the collective consciousness that childhood trauma can lead to many issues later on in life.  The study named 10 “Adverse Childhood Experiences.”

1. Physical Abuse
2. Sexual Abuse
3. Emotional Abuse
4. Physical Neglect
5. Emotional Neglect
6. Household Substance Abuse
7. Household Mental Illness
8. Parental Separation or Divorce
9. Domestic Violence
10. Incarcerated Family Member

It’s quite a sad list, isn’t it?

And get this… While driving to work, I was listening to a podcast about Homeboy Industries in Los Angeles, which does fantastic work rehabilitating gang members, and it said that some homies have 9/10 or even 10/10 of those experiences!  Lord, have mercy.

Back to the Wendell Berry quote… We have lost each other.  We need each other in order to heal.

Huh.  I guess that goes back to the first quote above, which I did not intend.

Love is the solution, isn’t it?  It is always the solution.

5.

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

– St. John of the Cross, 16th-Century Spanish Mystic

Before I say anything, allow me to note that for St. John of the Cross, “perfection” is nearly synonymous with “union with God.”

We will never make any progress on the journey of being united with God if we do not learn to deny ourselves.

By this, I do not mean that it is a matter of denying cake, cocaine, materialism, etc.  (Although denying those things would be healthy for us in probably both the short and the long run.)

To deny ourselves is to choose someone else’s good over our own.  It is a matter of denying all the ways our ego gets in the way of healthy and holy relationships.  This applies not only to our relationship with God but also to the people around us.  The ego wants to get ITS way, which means there is little room for others.

To deny ourselves might mean creating space for others in our lives, which brings me back to “perfection as union.”  To deny ourselves does not mean abandoning ourselves.  To deny ourselves might mean refusing to allow ourselves to find all our fulfillment within ourselves and reaching out for loving union.

After all, love is the perfection of the law.

A Movement that Continues

Thursday, June 18, 2026

What kind of spiritual movement could challenge willing sectors of Christian faith to migrate from their systems of belief to a shared way of life centered on love?
—Brian McLaren, The Great Spiritual Migration

CAC faculty member Brian McLaren shows how Jesus and his followers embodied a communal, public way of life representing a social movement:

On page after page [of the Gospels], Jesus and his disciples practiced movement dynamics in Galilee, Judea, and Samaria. Jesus seized the opportunity for change created by unrest in Galilee … by the injustices of the Roman occupation, and by corruption among the religious elite. He framed his message through a powerful central image (kingdom of God), a unique art form (parables), and through powerful slogans (“Repent for the kingdom of God is at hand,”… “Love your enemies,” “Deny yourself, take up your cross, and follow me,” for example). He developed a protest and messaging strategy that included public teach-ins (the Sermon on the Mount), demonstrations (healings, exorcisms, feeding of the five thousand), guerrilla theater (his triumphal entry into Jerusalem), and advanced action-reflection leadership training (deployments and retreats with disciples).

His mobilizing structures included the three, the twelve, the seventy, and special two-by-two initiatives. In addition, he taught his disciples to build allies among “people of peace,” and to be willing to let people walk away if they were not ready for the demands of movement involvement. He developed rituals of initiation (baptism) and renewal (Eucharist), calling people to initial commitment and strengthening them for the long haul. His movement culture was unique and distinctive, characterized by feasts, parties, joyful processions, and outdoor festivals at which usually stigmatized and outcast people were warmly welcomed. He gave women an unprecedented level of responsibility in his movement, and among his inner circle he included people of diverse gifts and temperaments, from a poet like John to an activist like Simon the Zealot to a steady pillar like Peter (at his best). His movement culture also emphasized the value of contemplative solitude and withdrawal to nourish the inner life and sustain the struggle over the long haul…. Their lives in the movement were characterized by great joy, great sorrow, and great love.

I could see these same dynamics at work in Paul and his colleagues around the Mediterranean, as the “kingdom of God” movement expanded to the far corners of the earth. And I could see similar patterns reemerging throughout Christian history—in the desert fathers and mothers, in Saint Patrick and the Celts, in Saint Francis and Saint Clare, in the Wesleys and the early Pentecostals, in Dr. King and Desmond Tutu, in Dorothy Day and Oscar Romero. Since its earliest and most dynamic centuries, Christianity has been most vital when it has been energized by movements of self-organizing—or perhaps we should say “Spirit-organizing”—cells. These cells have taken root and grown like seeds in communities and institutions. There they have grown, multiplied, and borne fruit—fruit in just and vibrant institutions, fruit in thriving, peaceful, joyful communities.

Reference:
Brian D. McLaren, The Great Spiritual Migration: How the World’s Largest Religion Is Seeking a Better Way to Be Christian (Convergent Books, 2016), 141–143.

Living Fearless by Jamie Winship

Abiding

As I rookie police officer back in 1983, I spent fifty weeks of four-day, ten-hour shifts with the first real disciple of my life. The Troll, as he was unaffectionately known by all police rookies, was one of the most feared training officers in the police department. Although the Troll was not a Christ-follower, he understood the art of discipleship better than anyone I had met previously. The first question the Troll would ask me at the beginning of a shift was, “Are you sure you want to stay with me?” 

I always felt as if this was the question Jesus Himself would have asked me if He were my field training officer. “Are you going to stay, remain, dwell, continue, abide in and with me today?” Jesus didn’t preach formulaic, chapter-and-verse sermons to His followers. He didn’t lead others through a linear outline of propositional truth points. He spent time with His disciples, asking a lot of questions and telling a lot of stories—stories that we are still trying to understand today. 

After every single shift, when I had left the presence of the Troll, my wife asked, “How was your shift?” My answer was often, “I don’t think I’m going to make it. The Troll is making my life miserable. Why keep trying?” 

Why didn’t the Twelve leave Jesus? It wasn’t as if Jesus was guaranteeing them a happy, quiet, prosperity-filled life of leisure and comfort. He was leading them straight into their deepest, darkest fears. So, what made them stay? 

Peter’s response to Jesus’s challenge is stunning: “Lord, to whom shall we go? You [alone] have the words of eternal life. We have believed and confidently trusted, and we have come to know You are the Holy One of God, the Christ, the Son of the living God” (John 6:68–69). 

Peter explains his relationship with Jesus as divinely initiated, a covenantal relationship, the benefits of which are quite one-sided. Jesus alone has the words of eternal life, and Jesus is the only hope because Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the living God. Peter’s part was to receive. 

This abiding, life union with Jesus is available to us today and includes all the fullness of the Godhead; spiritual fruitfulness; the fullness of the words, love, and joy of the Father; answered prayer; and the glory and honor of God. I ask again, who would want to leave that relationship? 

Where do your fears invite you to turn? Do you fear turning to God?

Scripture

Psalms 73:28

John 6:67-69

John 15:4-5

Wednesday, June 17, 2026

Church historian Diana Butler Bass recounts how some early Christians lived their faith in the way of Jesus:

Throughout the first five centuries people understood Christianity primarily as a way of life in the present, not as a doctrinal system, esoteric belief, or promise of eternal salvation. By followers enacting Jesus’s teachings, Christianity changed and improved the lives of its adherents and served as a practical spiritual pathway. This way—and earliest Christians were called “the People of the Way”—bettered existence for countless ancient believers….

Christian defenders, such as Justin Martyr (ca. 100–ca. 165), used the example of Christian practice to make the case that Jesus’s way “mended lives”:

We who formerly … valued above all things the acquisition of wealth and possessions, now bring what we have into a common stock, and communicate to everyone in need; we who hated and destroyed one another, and on account of their different manners would not live with [people] of a different tribe, now, since the coming of Christ, live familiarly with them, and pray for our enemies. [1]

To Justin, the old ways had passed; a new way opened in Jesus. Far from being divisive, Christianity was an inclusive faith that might bring diverse peoples together. However one interpreted the effects of the new faith, both enemies and defenders of Christianity understood that the new religion transformed people, giving even women, peasants, and slaves a meaningful ability to reorder their lives.

In the first centuries of the church, Jesus’s command to love God with our whole selves and to love our neighbor as ourselves was central to Christian identity and practice. 

More than anything else, Christianity is a love song. People shy away from saying that out loud, though…. Perhaps Christians fear that they themselves barely understand the radical implications of a way of life based on the love of God…. Certainly, in the eyes of many contemporary critics, Christianity does not seem very loving….

Yet love is what Jesus preached—and what he embodied. In the early church, devout Christians tried to embody God’s love and to experience God in such a way that love reshaped their lives. “Love for God is ecstatic, making us go out from ourselves,” wrote Dionysios the Areopagite around 500; “it does not allow the lover to belong anymore to himself [or herself], but he [or she] belongs only to the Beloved.” Not all Christians achieved this; they too struggled with loving God. But Romans frequently criticized the Christian emphasis on love as somehow a little deluded and perhaps prurient, suggesting that followers of the Jesus Way made it known that theirs was a path of love. Early Christians insisted that love—not rationality or politics or even virtue—was the primary bond between God and human beings. Love was God’s symphony, the perfect beauty that human beings experienced through practices of faith—by imitating Christ and following his way.

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When Spiritual Practices Fall Flat

How I Learned to Listen More Deeply

CHUCK DEGROATJUN 16

Are you listening to your body?

I didn’t realize, when I was hospitalized in Mexico in April 2012, that my body was screaming at me to stop.

Intuitively, I knew something was wrong. That’s when I really began to listen, at least as best I could. And I chose to pivot, personally and vocationally.

With a major shift in lifestyle and geography, I settled into a slower routine and began engaging new practices with regularity. I was proud of myself for slowing down, even for making a courageous vocational move, one I characterized using Nouwen’s language of “downward mobility.” I sometimes wonder if I was more interested in the performance of downward mobility than the experience of it.

Nevertheless, with this massive pivot, I created more space to intentionally enter into new practices. Contemplative prayer. Yoga. Regular exercise. More intentional time with my kids. But within a year, I still felt restless. It still felt like the old me was driving the fast-moving bus.

What I didn’t realize then, but can see now, was that I was merely adding practices on top of a neglected and dysregulated nervous system.

My body had been living in a chronic, small-t trauma state for years. And I was the classic minimizer, the helper who regularly dismissed his own needs.

My nightstand included works by Rothschild, Siegel, and Badenoch, but I was reading for other people’s bodies and nervous systems, not mine. Even with a significant move from San Francisco to Michigan, even with an earnest effort to simplify and slow down, I was still living chronically outside my window of tolerance. What I couldn’t see then was that I was using silence and solitude to foster a bit of calm and connection to God without addressing the deeper, dysregulated undercurrents below.

Don’t get me wrong. The practices did create some calm, some joy, even some connection to God. My kids loved that I was around more. Life’s slower pace offered some gifts. But it was a little like cleaning and decluttering the house while ignoring the electrical wiring sparking behind the walls.

Here’s the thing.

We may sincerely desire deeper communion with God while our body remains braced, scanning constantly for danger.

We may acknowledge the shadow side of our Enneagram type without attending to the lingering survival energy that animates our reactions.

We may leave an abusive community or relationship and become champions of justice or reform without realizing how much oppositional energy still lives in us.

We may practice contemplation or meditation or yoga or self-help vagal exercises without honoring the surging flight energy within, the very energy that can turn healing into another form of spiritual perfectionism.

We may be told by a therapist to grieve our mother’s past absence while never attending to our present inner disconnection.

And it’s frustrating, isn’t it?

I would find myself perpetually restless and dissatisfied, always scanning for the next thing that might finally help. Another book. Another practice. Another retreat. Another insight. All of it driven by an unseen survival energy within.

And I’ve learned, through my own work and thousands of hours with others, that many of us live here without knowing it. You may be sincere, eager, wanting to grow. You may be doing the practices, reading the books, naming your patterns, pursuing justice, engaging therapy, seeking God.

But beneath it all, your body may still be braced.

And a braced body will turn almost anything into a strategy for survival, even the most beautiful spiritual practices. This does not mean the practices are bad. It means they need to meet us where we actually are.

Because addressing our deeper dysregulation is different from engaging vagal exercises that foster calm.

Because identifying how and why we live in perpetual vigilance is different from naming our Enneagram type.

Because acknowledging the chronic functional freeze that leaves us numb and going through the motions is different from committing to a morning quiet time.

For me, the invitation was not to abandon silence and solitude, but to stop using them to bypass the truth my body was telling. I had to learn to listen beneath my thoughts, beneath a typology, beneath my helper identity, beneath my well-practiced spiritual language, beneath the breathing exercises, beneath the yoga, even beneath my more faithful presence to my family. These were all good, but they did not help me see and name the hidden, dysregulating cycle.

I had been trying to calm my body before I had learned to listen to it.

Reflect

• Where have I been using good and beautiful practices to create calm, or even connection with God, without attending to the deeper survival energy still moving within me?
• What might my body be trying to tell me beneath my thoughts, my spiritual language, my personality type, my productivity, or my role?
• What would it look like to stop managing my body and begin listening to it as a place where truth, ache, longing, and God’s invitation may be revealed?

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Tuesday, June 16, 2026

Religious scholar Huston Smith describes how the first Christians spread the gospel message through their happiness, beyond any particular words they shared:

The compassion the disciples had encountered in Jesus was powerful—victorious over everything. This conviction had transformed a dozen or so disconsolate followers of a slain and discredited leader into one of the most dynamic forces in human history, and the tongues of fire that descended upon them at Pentecost set the Mediterranean world aflame. People who were not speakers waxed eloquent. They exploded across the Greco-Roman world, preaching what has come to be called “the gospel”; in the original Greek the phrase is “the Good News.” They spread their message with such fervor that in Jesus’s very generation it took root in every major city of the region….

The people who heard Jesus’s disciples proclaiming the Good News were as impressed by what they saw as by what they heard. They saw lives that had been transformed—men and women who were ordinary in every way except for the fact that they seemed to have found the secret of living. They evinced a tranquility, simplicity, and cheerfulness that their hearers had nowhere else encountered. Here were people who seemed to be making a success of the enterprise everyone would like to succeed at—life itself.

Smith highlights two remarkable qualities witnessed in the first Christians:

One of the earliest observations by an outsider about Christians that we have is, “See how these Christians love one another.” Integral to this mutual regard was a total absence of social barriers; it was a discipleship of equals. Here were men and women who not only said that everyone was equal in the sight of God but who lived as though they meant it. The conventional barriers of race, gender, and status meant nothing to them, for in Christ there was neither Jew nor Gentile, male nor female, slave nor free. As a consequence, in spite of differences in function or social position, their fellowship was marked by a sense of genuine equality.

Their second distinctive quality was happiness. When Jesus was in danger, his disciples were alarmed; but otherwise it was impossible to be sad in Jesus’s company. And when he told his disciples that he wanted his joy to be in them, “that your joy may be complete,” to a remarkable degree that objective was realized.

Outsiders found this baffling. These scattered Christians were not numerous. They were not wealthy or powerful, and they were in constant danger of being killed. Yet they had laid hold of an inner peace that found expression in a joy that was uncontainable. Perhaps “radiant” would be a better word. “Radiance” is hardly the word used to characterize the average religious life, but no other word fits as well the life of these early Christians.

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The Slow Yes

Why a process feels like care instead of bureaucracy.

BEAU STRINGERJUN 16

Hey friends, 

I spent a good chunk of last weekend at a UMC Candidacy Summit. This is a weekend long virtual gathering where the conference staff helps pastoral candidates explore and discern their call to pastoral ministry. Now, I have been a pastor for a long time. I have preached hundreds of sermons, and officiated dozens of funerals and weddings. And there I was sitting on a zoom call sharing my call to ministry story (which began 19 years ago).

The pathway to pastoral ministry in the UMC is a long road. You must be a member of a UMC for at least a year and then then once you start the process (depending on which route you take) it could be another year until they make it official. If I am being honest, there is a version of me from a few years back who would have found the whole thing a little insulting. “I already know how to do this”, or “Now you want me to jump through hoops for a piece of paper that says I am allowed to do the thing I have already given my life to?” But the me who showed up last weekend felt something I did not expect, and it caught me off guard. I felt grateful. Truly grateful. I felt like I was being handed a gift.

The Zoom Call

I visited with people from all over the Midwest, some of them young and bright-eyed and a little terrified, others coming in from other careers, a few of us further down the road or transferring in from other denominations. We went around and told pieces of our stories. Many of us had gotten lost, gotten hurt, talked ourselves out of it and back into it, and somehow found our way to a tradition that had a door propped open for us. It really was beautiful.

I have written a lot about leaving. This newsletter mostly exists because of the two years I spent in the wilderness after a decade of evangelical ministry. Lately I have been sitting with the other half of that story, the arriving. The quiet, undramatic, paperwork-heavy work of actually planting yourself somewhere new and saying out loud that you want to belong to it.

The Process Is the Point

Here is the thing I sat with after I got off the Zoom call on Saturday. The candidacy process is slow on purpose. There are mentors and interviews and forms and committees, and it takes as long as it takes. 

I used to read all of that as bureaucracy. Now I see it as care. 

A tradition that makes you take your time before it hands you over to a congregation is a tradition that takes both you and the people seriously. Nobody is going to rush me into pastoral ministry on the strength of charisma and a good story. And that’s a good thing. That was pretty much the whole game in the world I came from, and I watched it wreck more than a few good people.

So, I sat in those sessions as a candidate, fully aware of how strange it looked, and I let it be good. I let myself be a beginner again. There is a real freedom in handing yourself over to a process you trust. I have spent so much of my life being the one with the answers, the one expected to have it all figured out. Sitting on a call with people who were carrying their own questions, none of us pretending to have it nailed down, felt like the way of Jesus. It felt like home.

I am a candidate. After all these years, I am just beginning. And I cannot tell you how at home that makes me feel.

I look forward to sharing more of that journey with you.

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This week I want to put the Wesley Covenant Prayer in your hands. It is the prayer Methodists have prayed for generations when they want to hand their whole lives over to God. Try praying it first thing, before your feet hit the floor and the day starts making its demands. 

I made a little card with it you can print and keep by your bed or tuck into whatever you carry around. You can download the .pdf below.

	Wesley Covenant Prayer Card17.7KB ∙ PDF file
Download

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Richard Rohr has a talk on what he calls the Jesus Hermeneutic, and I am not exaggerating when I say it lines up with where I have landed on scripture better than anything I have come across in a long time. If you handed me a microphone and asked me to explain how I read the Bible now, I would just play you this. 

The short version is that Rohr studies how Jesus himself read his own scriptures, and he notices that Jesus did not treat every verse as carrying the same weight. Jesus kept reaching for the texts that point where the whole story is heading, toward mercy and inclusion and justice, and he read everything else in that light. 

If you have ever felt worn out trying to defend parts of the Bible that seem to cut against the heart of Jesus, this is going to feel like fresh air in your lungs. 

Watch it, then save it and watch it again. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JjUlQDwEIH0

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Individual Reflection

Where are you currently rushing a process that wants to take its time with you?

Group Discussion — choose one

1. Smith says the early Christians were marked by joy that was “uncontainable” — what’s blocking that kind of joy in you right now?
2. Stringer says he used to read the slow process as bureaucracy and now sees it as care — what’s one slow thing in your life you’re starting to see differently?
3. What would it look like for your “yes” to God to be unhurried rather than performed?

A New Way of Living

Sunday, June 14, 2026

Father Richard Rohr reflects on the origin of the Christian church as “the Way”: 

Christianity first emerged not as a new religion, but as a reform and sect of Judaism within Judea and the Mediterranean. Wherever Paul, Peter, and other early missionaries traveled, they formed small communities of believers in “the Way,” a movement that emphasized Jesus’s teachings, death, and resurrection as the path to transformation. Gradually the movement grew and took on a life of its own, welcoming non-Jews as well as Jews, becoming more inclusive and grace-oriented, until it eventually called itself “catholic” or universal. By 80 CE, there were Christians as far away as India and France.

The early church period (the five hundred or so years following Jesus’s resurrection) was a time of dramatic change in culture, politics, and economy. All these changes affected the development of the fledgling religion, shaping liturgy, rituals, and theology. Historian Diana Butler Bass writes, “For all the complexity of primitive Christianity, a startling idea runs through early records of faith: Christianity seems to have succeeded because it transformed the lives of people in a chaotic world.” [1] During this time, Christianity was not so much about doctrines or eternal salvation, but about how to live a better life here and now, within the “reign of God.”

From the perspective of occupying Roman powers, the Christian sect was radical because it encouraged alternative behaviors that were both attractive to those at the bottom and threatening to the worldview of empire. Rather than acquiring wealth, this new sect shared possessions equally. Followers of the Way lived together with people of different ethnicities and social classes rather than following classist and cultural norms. [2]

Much of what Jesus taught seems to have been followed closely during the first several hundred years after his death and resurrection. As long as Jesus’s followers were on the bottom and the edge of empire, as long as they shared the rejected and betrayed status of Jesus, they could grasp his teaching more readily. Values like nonparticipation in war, simple living, inclusivity, and love of enemies could be more easily understood when Christians were gathering secretly in the catacombs.

Several writings illustrate this early commitment to Jesus’s teachings on simplicity and generosity. For example, the Didache, compiled around 90 CE, says: “Share all things with your brother, and do not say that they are your own. For if you are sharers in what is imperishable, how much more in things which perish!” [3] At the time, Christianity was still pure, simple, and loving, relatively untouched by empire, rationalization, and compromise.

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Being the Body of Christ

Monday, June 15, 2026

Father Richard describes the influence of the apostle Paul on the formation of the first Christian churches: 

The apostle Paul knew that the gospel message must have concrete embodiment, so he set about founding what he called “churches.” Jesus’s first vision of church is so simple we could miss it: “For where two or three are gathered in my name, I am there among them” (Matthew 18:20). This is surely why Jesus insists that the message be communicated not by a lone evangelist but by sending the disciples out “two by two” (Mark 6:7). The individual alone is not a fitting communicator of the core message.

During Paul’s lifetime, the Christian church was not yet an institution or a centrally organized set of common practices and beliefs. It was a living organism that communicated the gospel primarily through relationships. Paul’s brilliant metaphor for this living, organic, concrete embodiment is “the body of Christ”: “Just as a human body, though it is made up of many parts, is a single unit, because all those parts make up a single body, so it is with Christ” (1 Corinthians 12:12). At the heart of this body, providing the energy that enlivens the whole community, although each in different ways, is “the love of God that has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit” (Romans 5:5).

This Spirit is itself the foundational energy of the universe, the Ground of All Being, described in the first lines of the Bible (Genesis 1:2). Union is not just pious rambling, but the very concrete work of God. It’s how God makes love to what God created. Paul writes that it is precisely “in your togetherness that you are Christ’s Body” (1 Corinthians 12:27). By remaining—against all trials and resistance—inside this luminous web of relationship, this vibrational state of love, we experience a very honest and healthy notion of communal salvation.

The churches or communities Paul founded are his audiovisual aids that he can point to inside of a debauched empire (where human dignity was never upheld as inherent) to give credibility to his message. To people who asked, “Why should we believe there’s a new or different life possible?” Paul could say, “Look at these people. They’re different. This is a different social order.” In Christ, “there are no more distinctions between Jew and Greek, slave and free, male and female, but all of you are one in Christ Jesus” (Galatians 3:28). This is not just a religious idea, but a socioeconomic message that began to change the world—and still can.

For Jesus, teachings such as forgiveness, healing, and justice work are the real evidence of a new and shared life. If we do not see this happening in churches and spiritual communities, religion is “all in the head” and largely an illusion. Peacemaking, forgiveness, and reconciliation are not some kind of ticket to heaven later. They are the price of peoplehood—the signature of heaven—now.

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Individual Reflection

Where in your life right now are you most aware of being held inside a web of relationship larger than yourself?

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Group Discussion — choose one:

1. What does it cost you to remain inside community “against all trials and resistance”?
2. Where have you experienced togetherness itself as the saving thing — not belief, not doctrine, but the web?
3. What would it mean to treat your belonging to this body as the spiritual practice, not a support for some other practice?

Remain in Me as I Remain in You

Friday, June 12, 2026

Jesus said, “Remain in me, as I remain in you. Just as a branch cannot bear fruit on its own unless it remains on the vine, so neither can you unless you remain in me. I am the vine, you are the branches. Whoever remains in me and I in him will bear much fruit, because without me you can do nothing…. As the Father loves me, so I also love you. Remain in my love.” —John 15:4–5, 9

In this homily, Father Richard speaks of Jesus’s desire for us to remain connected:

I want you to be honest: Would you rather have a friend who is always right or one who is in right relationship with you? I think I know the answer: We’d rather have someone who’s in right relationship with us. In fact, someone who’s right all the time can be pretty obnoxious. Would we rather have a friend who’s always correct or a friend to whom we’re always connected? Of course, we’d rather have the second.

So why did we in the West seemingly change the rules for God? Many of us grew up thinking God wanted us to be right, to be correct, even to be perfect. This passage in John’s Gospel is saying that God wants people who are in right relationship, which means that we are open, and that we can listen to others with understanding and compassion. It means that we can admit when we’re wrong, which is almost every day for most of us. It certainly is for me. 

Yet we keep condemning ourselves and others for not being perfect, for not being right, or for not being correct. This parable, one of the most beautiful in all the Gospels, tells us what God desires—simply that we remain connected, a branch on the vine, which is the love of God.

Everybody seems to be trying to prove that they are right. We have almost a collective incapacity to admit failure, to ever admit that we are wrong, which makes us liars most of the time. Jesus is calling forth a very different kind of human being.

Jesus says people who live a vulnerable life of connection and relationship will bear much fruit. These are the people we trust, like, and admire, so why are so many of us afraid to be the very thing that we admire the most? How foolish human beings are! But again, Jesus has told us the way: He is the vine; we are the branches. None of us can be or need to be correct, but we can always be connected. 

Reference:
Adapted from Richard Rohr, “Being Connected over Being Correct,” homily, April 28, 2018.

John Chaffee’s Five On Friday

1. “Dear God, I am so afraid to open my clenched fists! Who will I be when I have nothing left to hold on to? Who will I be when I stand before you with empty hands? Please help me to gradually open my hands and to discover that I am not what I own, but what you want to give me.” – Henri Nouwen, Dutch Catholic Priest   This is best if you read it slowly.   It is a simple prayer, but I deeply resonate with it.   Probably just as many of you, I have a difficult time letting go of controlling outcomes, and figuring out what it means to give to the world who I am, rather than what I think I have to offer.   I think that is why Henri Nouwen resonates with many of us.  Apparently, he was an Enneagram 2, also known as a “Helper.”  He had incredibly rich and deep emotions from which he wrote his most impressive books.  He was able to put into words what many of us experience, but for some reason or another are unable to voice! 2. “A genius is the one most like himself.” – Thelonius Monk, American Jazz Pianist   Jazz is a form of pure expression.   Not only that, but you must be a master of your instrument to such a degree that improvisation is normalized.   It might be that the more we settle into our true selves, like a musician who has mastered his craft, the better we are able to navigate the ebbs and flows of life.  Is it possible that the more we set aside our masks and learn to let go of our false self, we can then act more and more directly and straight from the essence of who God made us to be?   Is it not possible that life and jazz actually have very much in common? 3. “Have enough courage to trust love one more time and always one more time.” – Maya Angelou, American Poet   It takes an enormous amount of courage to love, doesn’t it?   We each have various scars and bruises from either failed attempts to love others or from their failed attempts to love us.   This reminds me of the opening lines of 1 Corinthians 13:1-3…   “If I speak in the tongues of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. 2 If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. 3 If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing.”   We must choose to have the courage to love and love again and again, because without it, there is nothing else that matters. 4. “Seek first the Kingdom of God: that is, the first order of business is to transform one’s own inner life, not the accumulation of external trappings of speculative knowledge.” – Jack Caputo, Philosopher and Theologian   It is very likely that we mistake the “Kingdom of God” as being something external.   However, unless the Kingdom of God exists within us first, then any external Kingdom of God would be utterly subverted or invalidated by our own internal chaos, ruining it for others.   One thing that is interesting in the Sermon on the Mount (found in Matthew 5-7) is that Jesus seems to highlight not external actions but internal motivations.  This is because he is concerned with matters of the heart, from which we act out our vices or virtues and either tear down or build up the world around us.   Systematic theology, for all its good, can easily be a trap.  It can be an academic discipline through which we spend so much time, energy, and thought attempting to understand God logically, and yet never get around to the vulnerable work of allowing the Spirit of God to conform our inner landscapes into the redemptive shalom that God wishes it to become.   If I had to guess, Jack Caputo is not exactly putting down theology as an academic discipline anywhere near as much as he is encouraging us to hold it in its proper place. 5. “Find the real world, give it endlessly away, grow rich flinging good to all who ask. Live at the empty heart of paradox. I’ll dance there with you – cheek to cheek.” – Rumi, Sufi Poet   This is just delightful.   “Grow rich flinging good to all who ask.”  That’s a great line.   Then, after commenting on the paradox, it takes an intimate turn, talking about dancing cheek to cheek.   These three sentences do more for me than three whole books on generosity, paradox, and intimate joy.   The older I get, the more I appreciate poetry.

EMBRACING THE DIVINE EXCHANGE

The Laborers in the Vineyard

Thursday, June 11, 2026

In The Divine Exchange course, Cynthia Bourgeault explores the parable of the laborers in the vineyard:

The parable of the laborers in the vineyard (Matthew 20:1–16) is a beautiful and much misunderstood story. There was a vineyard owner who wanted people working in his vineyard to get his crops harvested. He went out and contracted with laborers at sunrise for the usual daily wage. He went out again at nine and at noon. At three in the afternoon, he saw a bunch of guys hanging around and asked, “Why aren’t you working, for God’s sake?” and they responded, “Because nobody asked us.” He says, “Well, you go into the vineyard as well.” Finally, when it came time to settle accounts, he gave everybody the same amount of money.

This just drives the egoic consciousness nuts! It’s not fair, everybody screeches, and it won’t be, as long as we’re using the egoic mind that operates out of separation and scarcity. It’s going to tell us that the ones that got there first got a bum deal. This parable only “works” when we understand that it’s not about the vineyard owner getting his crops harvested. The vineyard, as it tends to be throughout Jesus’s teaching, is a symbol of the relational field, the dynamic interactiveness of the kingdom of God.

Whatever reason we may project onto the vineyard owner for bringing people in, what he actually states is that he’s bringing people in because he can’t stand to see them isolated and just sitting around on their own: “You too go into the vineyard.” The real fruit of this day is not a bunch of grapes getting harvested. It is human beings working together, doing something that’s dignified. You can imagine the songs, the work, and all the things that happen when you’re participating and engaged jointly in an activity. The idea of paying them the same simply invites people to put their attention on what the real proportions are. When “more and less” are introduced into the equation at the end of the parable, we’re just scattering our attention.

The bottom line is that everybody has enough. The ones that came in early thought the usual daily wage was fair. That’s taken care of. The real fruit being generated, just like grapes turn into wine, was the work together. In these circumstances, it’s fermented and transformed into some fragrance of human interactivity and abundance that doesn’t exist otherwise.

Reading this parable against the backdrop of a relational field rather than individual competition, entirely different elements jump out. Without that relational field, you simply can’t see where Jesus is going. Trying to understand it with your mind, you’ll never get it because your mind will keep coming back to “more and less” and “it’s not fair.” It’s not until you begin from the fullness of love, and the order and coherence that arise from it, that you can recognize what’s being said and how radical it is.

We get the invitation to go into the vineyard, but it’s only in stepping up, saying yes, and trusting the relational field that we’re going to actually be participants in the kingdom of God.

Reference:
Adapted from Cynthia Bourgeault, “Exchange in the Teachings of Jesus” in The Divine Exchange: Living in Sacred Rhythm (Center for Action and Contemplation, 2026). Enroll now to explore Christian wisdom traditions in this self-paced online course.

Ray’s Thoughts:

Luke 23: 39-43

³⁹ One of the criminals who hung there hurled insults at him: “Aren’t you the Messiah? Save yourself and us!”

⁴⁰ But the other criminal rebuked him. “Don’t you fear God,” he said, “since you are under the same sentence? ⁴¹ We are punished justly, for we are getting what our deeds deserve. But this man has done nothing wrong.”

⁴² Then he said, “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.^[b]”

⁴³ Jesus answered him, “Truly I tell you, today you will be with me in paradise.”

What’s fair about this? This criminal has likely done whatever he wants his entire life without regard for his immortal soul, or any semblance of focus on being “good”? He likely has left a swath of relational carnage in his wake while pursuing his path of pathological narcissistic hedonism. He clearly did not play by the “rules” and is on the cross as a consequence. So why does he get a get out of hell free card?

Could it be that he is invited by Jesus because for the first time in his miserable earthly existence he has been touched by the message to his heart, not to his head or “gut” or groin?

The “coherence of the fullness of Jesus’ love”, as Cynthia shares in the writing above, adjusts our lense to help us understand the heart relationship is the thing and it is never too late to awaken…

Giving Is Receiving

Wednesday, June 10, 2026

In CAC’s online course The Divine Exchange, Cynthia Bourgeault considers one of Jesus’s parables through the lens of interconnection and abundance. 

For Jesus, oneness is not a matter of a static return to a source. It’s a dance of continual “giving is receiving.” We become one because we’re all changing places within a greater whole. We can’t pull a single straw out without the whole thing toppling. Everything is wedged in this great relational field that’s living, giving, receiving, breathing. The depth and breadth and force of the exchange between the parts is the measure of its health. Anything that increases the field of relationality, interactivity, and flow is going in the right direction. Anything that works in the direction of isolation, cooping things up into disconnected, separate particles is decreasing the abundance of divine mercy flowing through the system.

That’s what Jesus is pointing to in his wonderful teaching in Luke 12. The parable goes like this: “The land of a rich man produced abundantly. And he thought to himself, ‘What should I do for I have no place to store my crops?’ Then he said, ‘I will pull down my barns and build larger ones and there I will store all my grain and my goods, and I will say to my soul, “Soul, you have ample goods laid up for many years. Relax, drink, and be merry.”’ But God said to him, ‘You fool, this very night, your life is being demanded of you. And the things you have prepared, whose will they be?’”

Jesus continues to heap on metaphor after metaphor: Behold the lilies of the field, behold the sparrow, behold the hairs of your head. He creates a picture of a kingdom where every single piece, no matter how humble, is known and supported. He ends the whole thing with a favorite line from Scripture: “Do not be afraid, little flock. It is my Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom” (Luke 12:32). 

If there’s one thing Jesus is opposed to, it’s hoarding—and it’s not just about physical possessions. The ego is the ultimate hoarder. It hangs on to everything. We hoard our entitlements: I am rich, I am educated, I am a person of authority. We hoard our principles and ideologies; we hoard our self-justifications and our resentments. We use all these things to line the nest of our fragile sense of selfhood.

But Jesus sets himself against any kind of hoarding. He teaches a path of radical non-clinging. He says in effect, “Don’t clench your fist. Open your hands.” The world is abundant and provident beyond belief, and what flows through it is a coherence, a beauty, a life force that is a direct expression of the heart of God.

For Jesus, the world is suffused with the glory of divine tenderness and providence. That’s reason he was so implacably opposed to hoarding. Whenever we go into any kind of braced position—clinging, defending, self-justifying, insisting—it immediately makes us spiritually blind. They cut us off from the whole and we can no longer see the abundance that’s flowing right there.

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from Dianna Butler Bass…. Summer Series.

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THE STORY

The parable itself is found only in Luke 15:22-32:

Then Jesus said, ‘There was a man who had two sons. The younger of them said to his father, “Father, give me the share of the property that will belong to me.” So he divided his property between them. A few days later the younger son gathered all he had and travelled to a distant country, and there he squandered his property in dissolute living. 

When he had spent everything, a severe famine took place throughout that country, and he began to be in need. So he went and hired himself out to one of the citizens of that country, who sent him to his fields to feed the pigs. He would gladly have filled himself with the pods that the pigs were eating; and no one gave him anything. But when he came to himself he said, “How many of my father’s hired hands have bread enough and to spare, but here I am dying of hunger! I will get up and go to my father, and I will say to him, ‘Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you; I am no longer worthy to be called your son; treat me like one of your hired hands.’” 

So he set off and went to his father. But while he was still far off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion; he ran and put his arms around him and kissed him. Then the son said to him, “Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you; I am no longer worthy to be called your son.”

But the father said to his slaves, “Quickly, bring out a robe—the best one—and put it on him; put a ring on his finger and sandals on his feet. And get the fatted calf and kill it, and let us eat and celebrate; for this son of mine was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found!” And they began to celebrate.

‘Now his elder son was in the field; and when he came and approached the house, he heard music and dancing. He called one of the slaves and asked what was going on. He replied, “Your brother has come, and your father has killed the fatted calf, because he has got him back safe and sound.” 

Then he became angry and refused to go in. His father came out and began to plead with him. But he answered his father, “Listen! For all these years I have been working like a slave for you, and I have never disobeyed your command; yet you have never given me even a young goat so that I might celebrate with my friends. But when this son of yours came back, who has devoured your property with prostitutes, you killed the fatted calf for him!” 

Then the father said to him, “Son, you are always with me, and all that is mine is yours. But we had to celebrate and rejoice, because this brother of yours was dead and has come to life; he was lost and has been found.” ’

WHAT IS THIS STORY ABOUT?

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

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

Do you think it is better described as a moral parable, an example parable, or a challenge parable? It is tempting to say “all three,” but which of these styles is most prominent? 

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THE STORY AND YOUR STORY

WHAT DOES THIS STORY MEAN TO YOU NOW?

When did you first hear this story? How many times do you think you’ve heard it? Have you heard it in other forms (film, novel, poetry, art, music) in addition to the biblical story? 

Have you ever had an experience of being lost then found? Of returning home or being welcomed? 

To which character do you most relate? Who garners your sympathy? Who is the hero of this story? The villain? Who do you like the most?

Where’s the mother? What do you think she was thinking?

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

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THE STORY AND OUR STORY

During the first week of this series, John Dominic Crossan joined with the paid subscriber community in an online conversation about the parables. 

We focused on how the parables challenged empire, how they present an alternative to Christian nationalism, and how they widen our vision toward evolutionary — and revolutionary — possibilities for a sustainable, peaceable future for humankind.

In his book, The Power of Parable, Crossan pointed out that the Prodigal Son is one of three parables in Luke 15 about things that are lost and found. He also suggested that this story is an “example parable” of an episode found in Luke 5:

Levi gave a great banquet for Jesus in his house, and there was a large crowd of tax collectors and others sitting at the table with them. The Pharisees and their scribes were complaining to his disciples, saying, “Why do you eat and drink with tax collectors and sinners?” Jesus answered, “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick: I have come to call not the righteous but sinners to repentance.” (Luke 5:29-32)

If you read Sunday Musings, you surely will recognize this context as being very similar to last weekend’s reading from Matthew! Indeed, “Levi” is another name for “Matthew.” 

Like Sunday’s Matthew text about an offensive dinner and two women being healed, the Prodigal Son makes a similar point — that which has been lost will receive mercy and invited to the feast. 

The parable isn’t only about one person — or personal repentance. The one stands for many. In my essay, I wrote,

“Perhaps this story is less about personal forgiveness and more about the feast. A precursor of the supper that lies ahead? A foreshadowing of the revolutionary meal Jesus instituted at his last supper? A meal structured on mutuality and equality, based in humble service to one another and unconditional forgiveness? … The Jesus supper overcomes social divides, heals brokenness with reconciliation, and treats everyone at the table with dignity. The Prodigal Son rehearses this theological possibility in story.…”

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

What do you think about Crossan’s suggestion that the Prodigal Son is an “example parable” of the dinner with “tax collectors and sinners”? Does its example of “lost and found” resonate with my reflection? With your experience?

I hadn’t read Crossan’s interpretation of the Prodigal Son when I wrote my essay about all the food in the parable. Do you see the similarities between his framing and mine? I primarily saw the Prodigal Son feast as prefiguring the Last Supper, but Dom drew on a different dinner example. How are these feasts all related?

The parable is more of an “example parable” than was the Good Samaritan. Yet it held a challenge for the older brother! And it does challenge us as well. What is most challenging for you? For our communities? What’s the challenge for NOW?

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

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

— John Dominic Crossan

Tuesday, June 9, 2026

CAC faculty emerita Cynthia Bourgeault highlights that the primary quality of the kingdom of God is an experience of interabiding—one with God and with one another.

The hallmark of this [kingdom] awareness is that it sees no separation—not between God and humans, not between humans and other humans. And these are indeed Jesus’s two core teachings, underlying everything he says and does.

No separation between God and humans. When Jesus talks about this Oneness, he is not speaking in an Eastern sense about an equivalency of being, such that I am in and of myself divine. What he more has in mind is a complete, mutual indwelling: I am in God, God is in you, you are in God, we are in each other. His most beautiful symbol for this is … where he says, “I am the vine; you are the branches. Abide in me as I in you” [see John 15:4–5]. A few verses later he says, “As the Father has loved me, so I have loved you. Abide in my love” [John 15:9]. While he does indeed claim that “the Father and I are one” (John 10:30) … he does not see this as an exclusive privilege but as something shared by all human beings. There is no separation between humans and God because of this mutual interabiding that expresses the indivisible reality of divine love. We flow into God—and God into us—because it is the nature of love to flow. And as we give ourselves into one another in this fashion, the vine gives life and coherence to the branch while the branch makes visible what the vine is…. The whole and the part live together in mutual, loving reciprocity, each belonging to the other and dependent on the other to show forth the fullness of love. That’s Jesus’s vision of no separation between human and Divine.

No separation between human and human is an equally powerful notion—and equally challenging. One of the most familiar of Jesus’s teachings is “Love your neighbor as yourself” [Mark 12:31; Matthew 22:39]. But we almost always hear that wrong. We hear “Love your neighbor as much as yourself.”… If you listen closely to Jesus’s teaching however, there is no “as much as” in there. It’s just “Love your neighbor as yourself”—as a continuation of your very own being. It’s a complete seeing that your neighbor is you. There are not two individuals out there, one seeking to better herself at the price of the other, or to extend charity to the other; there are simply two cells of the one great Life. Each of them is equally precious and necessary. And as these two cells flow into one another, experiencing that one Life from the inside, they discover that “laying down one’s life for another” [John 15:13] is not a loss of one’s self but a vast expansion of it—because the indivisible reality of love is the only True Self.

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Dear friend, In May I was honored to be invited to give the commencement address at my undergraduate alma mater, Malone University. That alone was humbling enough. But in addition—and quite to my utter astonishment—the University also conferred upon me an honorary Doctorate of Letters, a decision and ritual I would soon come to discover was the result of no small amount of work on the part of those responsible for it. I must also freely admit: writing the previous sentence makes me a bit uncomfortable. Uncomfortable because, like many people I know, I am uneasy naming anything that potentially raises even the slightest hint of self-aggrandizement. Even talking about how worried I am that I might sound self-aggrandizing can sound, to me, well, self-aggrandizing in my potentially drawing attention to how virtuous I am in not wanting to draw attention to myself. Imagine living in my mind.   All of that notwithstanding, receiving the honorary doctorate in particular has revealed some things to me about gratitude, belonging and becoming. It is commonly known that practicing gratitude has multiple health benefits. This does not necessarily make becoming a person of gratitude any easier. Perhaps this is why we refer to gratitude as something we practice. But on this occasion especially, I discovered that not only was I grateful, but that gratitude alone was not a word that adequately contained all that I was feeling.When Dr. Gregory Miller, President of Malone, informed me of his intention to initiate the process that was required to award me the doctorate, I was immediately overwhelmed. I am aware of others who have received this type of honor but have never paid much attention to it. But this had my attention. And not, as it turns out, just because it had to do with me. Rather, that it had to do with community.One of the first thoughts that came to my mind upon hearing from Dr. Miller was, “Why me and not someone else?” I know of many other Malone graduates who are just as, if not more, deserving given what they have done to make the world a better place. But this thought of comparison was immediately followed with the awareness that I was, in so thinking it, simply protecting myself and my shy temperament from this attention. And not just attention from one person (Dr. Miller), but from an entire institution. Which revealed something more.   I often say that, despite growing up in an imperfect family, it is still the case that anything good in my life that I have had something to do with has my parents’ fingerprints all over it. And contemplating being with all of those gathered for the commencement, I could see that it is equally true that the same could be said about Malone. However, it also struck me that in conferring the honorary doctorate, the Malone community was not just saying, “Thank you.” or, “Well done.”, although they very much did say those things. Rather, what I mostly heard them saying was, “You belong to us.” And in that moment the awareness arose in me quite viscerally that this ritual was so much more about who I belong to as much as it has to do with anything I have done.   And this belonging is no mere abstraction, but an embodied encounter that comes, yes, in the form of a ceremony, but behind which are the voices and warmth of friendships and mentors who have continued to form me long after I have graduated. I couldn’t begin to name all of those whose lives are shaping me even as I write this. It is to them—and the present Malone community—to whom I belong.  It is in belonging that I have become whoever it is that I am.Furthermore, it was in belonging at Malone University (although I would not have known it at the time) that set the course for what it means for me to belong to the communities to which I am now a part and are forming me. People who love me and with whom we are all doing the hard work of being known.To whom do you belong who are forming you into who you are becoming?You don’t have to receive an honorary doctorate to know that these are important questions. But the moment you begin to practice gratitude, you will soon be drawn to and hopefully discover their answers. Godspeed, my friend, as your heart of gratitude expands, and you find yourself belonging—through no small amount of work—to those by whom you are deeply known and in whose presence you will become who God is preparing us for readiness to live in his heaven on earth when it arrives in its fullness.  Warmly, Curt