Howard Thurman: A Worldview of Oneness

Wednesday, July 22, 2026

Don’t ask what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive and go do that, because what the world needs is more people who have come alive.
—Howard Thurman

Dr. Lerita Coleman Brown (1953–2025) reflects on the legacy of Rev. Dr. Howard Thurman (1899–1981) and the wisdom he continues to offer us today: 

To read a Thurman book, or listen to his deep baritone voice, is to understand why people refer to his writings, sermons, and lectures as living wisdom. More than forty years after his death, Thurman’s words continue to feed … any hearts or souls willing to listen….

Howard Thurman is known as the spiritual adviser to Martin Luther King Jr. and other leaders of the civil rights movement. But … this label doesn’t begin to represent the full breadth of his contributions. His quest for a profound experience of the presence of God, of connection to all living things, serves as a model for any spiritual seeker venturing into uncharted territory. Thurman’s witness, through his life, writings, lectures, and sermons, serves as sustenance for the journey. [1]

The interfaith minister and author Liza J. Rankow describes Thurman’s work and witness in this way: 

Thurman’s was a prophetic mysticism that engaged the world rather than withdrawing from it. His mysticism sought to bring the vision glimpsed in what he sometimes called the “creative encounter” into manifestation in human relationships, social institutions, policies, and the practical “for instances” of our lives. He writes, “… [Mystics] must embrace the social whole and seek to achieve empirically the good which has possessed [them] in [their] moments of profoundest insight….” [2]

There is a stereotype of mystics seeking to escape the world, concerned only with the ecstasy of their own experience of union with the Divine; yet in that union is a doorway that opens out into everything and everyone. The experience of oneness brings us back into relationship with the allness. The oneness and the allness inter-be…. Thus we feel deeply the wounds of a battered world, and the suffering and the needs of the people—including, as Thurman puts it in Jesus and the Disinherited, those “with their backs against the wall”—the disenfranchised, the marginalized and the oppressed. Inaction is not an option. The mystic worldview creates an ethical mandate, and it offers a new way to enter the world of social transformation—from the position of oneness rather than dualism. It shifts the paradigm…. Thurman often quoted social union leader Eugene Debs: “While there is a lower class, I am in it, while there is a criminal element, I am of it, and while there is a soul in prison, I am not free.” [3]

Thurman spoke of spiritual disciplines as those practices by which we remove the barriers to our “inner altar”—our place of communion with God. And through this definition, he included activism as a spiritual discipline…. He affirmed the necessity to identify with, and work for the liberation and reconciliation of all parties in order to restore beloved community. 

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

A Story In Search of An Ending

A few fleeting thoughts on my latest trip through the Old Testament

BRIAN ZAHND JUL 21

I’ll admit it—I’m a Bible reader. Morning by morning I read the Bible. It’s what I’ve done for half a century. The Bible with coffee is how I begin my day. Fifteen to twenty minutes in each Testament. This is not study; this is not sermon preparation. This is not even what you would call “devotional reading”—this is simply inhabiting the text. 

I regularly make the rounds from Genesis to Revelation to make sure I stay familiar with the terrain of Scripture. I walk through a world where a crafty and loquacious serpent causes a lot of trouble for a couple inhabiting a garden in primordial innocence. A world where a gopher wood floating zoo rides out a global deluge; where Hebrew slaves escape Pharaoh through a parting in the sea; where a shepherd boy slays a giant; where an irascible Tishbite prophet wins a contest by calling down fire from heaven. 

It’s also the world of the sacred myth that really happened. A virgin gives birth; another irascible prophet thunders in the desert; water is turned to wine in Cana of Galilee. Finally the horror of crucifixion on Good Friday is overthrown by the surprise of resurrection on Easter Sunday.

In the closing book of the the Bible I traipse through a strange and apocalyptic world of bloody rivers and bejeweled cities, of monsters from the deep and mighty angels on high, of a New Jerusalem that comes down from heaven with the final consolation of every tear wiped away as all things are made new. 

Of course the Bible is also a book of primitive laws, arcane genealogies, tedious descriptions of a tabernacle, and monotonous lists of who did what when building this or that. It’s a ponderous tome.

Today I finished my latest trip through the Old Testament—a journey that takes me about a year. And here I offer a few off the cuff and undeveloped thoughts about my most recent foray into the First Testament. 

Since I was reading the Old Testament in the order of the Tanakh I finished with Chronicles. This time it really stood out that Chronicles is a carefully sanitized version of Kings. The kings of Judah in particular come off much better in Chronicles than they do in the less-edited book of Kings. For example, David’s sordid actions with Bathsheba and his murderous conspiracy against Uriah are not mentioned at all. And neither are we told about Solomon’s harem or his late-in-life lapse into idolatry. We are simply given a glorious story of a righteous king and his wise son scrubbed of any scandal. I’ll not make any point regarding this, it’s just something I especially noticed.

I also found the unrelenting violence of Joshua, Judges, and Kings exceptionally tiresome—true to the time period, but tiresome nonetheless. After wading through the blood and gore of these books I was happy to move on to the prophets and their holy yearning for the Prince of Peace. 

Whether we end our reading of the Old Testament with the destruction of Jerusalem in Chronicles or the anticipation of the second coming of Elijah in Malachi, we do sense that this is truly a story in search of an ending. And when we turn the page from Malachi (or Chronicles) to Matthew, my, the newness cannot be over emphasized!

Despite all the prophesies and foreshadowing (foreshadowing that we only really see in retrospect), nothing fully prepares us for the arrival of Jesus. Malachi got it right when he described the sudden appearance of Messiah as a sunrise with healing rays. But even this prophecy does not fully prepare us for how utterly different Jesus is to all who have come before. Nothing adequately prepares us for the stunning arrival of the Christ. No one in the previous Testament is like him. Yes, I know he’s the Seed of Abraham, the prophet like unto Moses, the Son of David—but still, Abraham and Moses and David are like Jesus in the sense that the stars at night are like the sun at high noon. My latest reading of the Old Testament accentuated the newnessof the New Testament.

(Yes, I do refer to the first Testament as the “Old Testament” rather than the “Hebrew Scriptures.” The Hebrew Scriptures are the sacred text of the Jewish people, and the Jewish people have every right to read their own Scriptures in their own way. I fully respect that. But I read the Hebrew Scriptures as a Christian. I approach this first Testament as one already believing that Jesus is the Christ, the Messiah. As such I am going to read these texts in the same manner as the first Christians whose only Bible was what they simply called the Scriptures—and they looked for Jesus on every page. That too is how I read the first Testament. So I describe the Hebrew Scriptures as the canonical text of the Jewish people and the Old Testament as the Christian reading of the Hebrew Scriptures.)

And now another reading of the Old Testament is complete. It’s a long and winding journey covering millennia; there are ups and downs; thrilling moments and stretches of tedium; the brutality of bronze age warfare and the beauty of the Hebrew poets. But always there is the longing, the waiting, the yearning for the One who is to come.

Turn the page…

Matthew 1:1 – The book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham.

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

Individual Reflection:
Where in your life are you still in the “waiting” chapters, and where has the newness already broken in without you fully registering it?

Group Discussion — choose one:
Where do you feel most alive right now, and does that aliveness pull you toward the world or away from it?
What would it cost you to say, with Debs, “while there is a soul in prison, I am not free”?
What part of your own story still feels unfinished, still searching for its Matthew 1:1?

Tuesday, July 21, 2026

Father Richard recounts how he came to know the work of Thomas Merton (1915–1968): 

Thomas Merton has been a primary teacher and inspiration to me ever since I read his book The Sign of Jonas as a teenager. He was one of the most influential American Catholics of the twentieth century. It was Merton who reintroduced the Christian contemplative tradition to the Western church in the 1950s and 1960s. By living a contemplative life, Merton grew in love for God and all of God’s children and creation—so much so that he became committed to doing what he could for the common good. Amidst the societal disruptions of the 1960s, it was not enough for him to simply pray. He also devoted himself to action—writing, teaching, and collaborating with others—though he never lost his deep yearning for solitude and contemplation. [1]

As Merton began to seriously wrestle with the injustices plaguing the United States and the world, he published Seeds of Destruction, a book urging Christians to reflect on their moral responsibility to take a stand on issues such as racism, war, and poverty. His words speak to our moment as well. Merton writes: 

The contemplative life is not, and cannot be, a mere withdrawal, a pure negation, a turning of one’s back on the world with its sufferings, its crises, its confusions and its errors…. 

I hold that the contemplative life of the Christian is not a life of abstraction, of secession, in order to concentrate upon ideal essences…. The freedom of the Christian contemplative is … the freedom to go out and meet God in the inscrutable mystery of [God’s] will here and now, in this precise moment in which [God] asks [humanity’s] cooperation in shaping the course of history according to the demands of divine truth, mercy and fidelity.

The monastic flight from the world [or what Father Richard calls ‘the system’] into the desert is not a mere refusal to know anything about the world, but a total rejection of all standards of judgment which imply attachment to a history of delusion, egoism and sin … a definitive refusal to participate in those activities which have no other fruit than to prolong the reign of untruth, greed, cruelty and arrogance…. 

Therefore it seems to me to be a solemn obligation of conscience at this moment of history to take the positions which are … in vital relation with the obligations I assumed when I took my monastic vows. To have a vow of poverty seems to me illusory if I do not in some way identify myself with the cause of people who are denied their rights and forced, for the most part, to live in abject misery. To have a vow of obedience seems to me to be absurd if it does not imply a deep concern for the most fundamental of all expressions of God’s will: the love of [God’s] truth and of our neighbor. 

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

Welcome to Bradley Jersak’s Substack! In the parable of the prodigal son(s), I love the verse, “And while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion for him; he ran to his son, threw his arms around him and kissed him.” That’s my story. I hope that in the posts to follow, you’ll see it shine through. 

---

Hellsoap Preaching

And the Evolution of Divine Fire

BRADLEY JERSAK. JUL 19

Fr. David Harvey: “Don’t know if you’re preaching the lectionary this weekend, but notice that Nestle Aland thinks that “The furnace of fire” in Matthew 13 is a direct quote from LXX Daniel 3:6’s fiery furnace. This means that Jesus is alluding to a fire that quite literally didn’t burn up the only people we know that were thrown into it. (Accompanied by the Son of God — who sowed the seed).”

Me: Amazing find. Thinking that along with the restorative/purgative judgement of Malachi 3 – the refiners fire and launders soap. 

We don’t hear enough hellsoap preaching!

I wrote the following in 2017… I think it still works:

The Evolution of Divine Fire

I came across the citation from St Athanasius (via creativeorthodox.com) that beautifully compares the resurrection of Christ to a fire that completely consumes death as if it were dry straw. The comparison reminded me of the range and frequent use of fire as imagery associated with the person or acts of God. A brief survey serves as a healthy meditation, not only on the various comparisons, but also how these evolve with our illumination by the Spirit, who is also linked with fire at times.

Ancient peoples would have experienced fire as destruction before they ever learned to employ it for light or heat, and when the fire of destruction would fall from heaven as lightning or burst from the earth via volcanoes, our forefathers connected the dots between destructive fire and the person and wrath of God. They assumed the fire that devours was sent by God as punishment, as we see in biblical stories like the end of Sodom and Gomorrah. When that fire is used against one’s enemies, it could serve as a powerful vindication that God is on ‘our side’ — as in 1 Kings 18 in Elisha’s showdown with the prophets of Baal or 2 Kings 1 when he calls for fire to kill Ahaziah’s troops.

But fire was not only seen as destructive. We have other passages where fire is employed for its cleansing properties. Malachi regards the judgements of God as a gold refiner’s furnace, purging the gold or silver of ‘dross’ or impurities. Similarly, Paul in 1 Cor. 3 describes the fire of God consuming all that is combustible in us … poor motives, for example, as if they were wood, hay and stubble. But again, this is only so the gold, silver and precious stones of our true selves will shine brightly through the old tarnish. Hebrews 12 says that God himself IS this consuming fire. So in the end, the destructive fire is to be welcomed, even if seen as a ‘trial by fire.’

A third sense of fire is associated with the person and work of the Holy Spirit. We hear from John the Baptist that Christ will baptize with the Spirit and with fire, and while I suspect John was thinking of judgement, the New Testament sees that promise fulfilled with the outpouring of the Spirit in tongues of fire on Pentecost. This divine fire not only cleanses but empowers, and gives those who receive it the properties of fire (symbolically light and heat), which is to say, the Spirit inhabits us with glory, transfiguring us from glory to glory, so that we can stand in that glory which is the passionate love of Christ himself.

Some of the early church fathers imagined this using the picture of a sword being forged in the intense heat that makes for the highest quality steel. Placed in the flames, it’s not that the steel would become other than steel, but while in the flames it would bear the heat and glow with the light of the fire itself. So it is, they said, with those forged in the fire of God’s Spirit. Thus, the fire was not destructive, but rather instructive and constructive of ourparticipation in the divine nature.

There are many ‘what about this questions’ that attend divine fire analogies. What about those parables of Jesus where unfruitful branches are cut off and thrown into the fire? Or when the wheat and tares are separated by angels and the weeds thrown into the fire. Rather than skirting these force of these texts too quickly, we need to undergo their force — their fire. Such parables remind us of the same point Lewis makes by using lion imagery for Christ. God is ‘good’ but he’s hardly ‘safe,’ much less ‘tame,’ if by that we imagine we can domesticate him!

But in saying this, let us also assert the first point as most important. God is good. God is love. And thus, for all its other properties, the Divine Fire is the unquenchable Flame of Love (also pictured as the Sun) — the One who radiates the Light and Warmth of Love to those coming in from the cold, dark night of winter.

Thomas Merton: A Monk in Action

Tuesday, July 21, 2026

Father Richard recounts how he came to know the work of Thomas Merton (1915–1968): 

Thomas Merton has been a primary teacher and inspiration to me ever since I read his book The Sign of Jonas as a teenager. He was one of the most influential American Catholics of the twentieth century. It was Merton who reintroduced the Christian contemplative tradition to the Western church in the 1950s and 1960s. By living a contemplative life, Merton grew in love for God and all of God’s children and creation—so much so that he became committed to doing what he could for the common good. Amidst the societal disruptions of the 1960s, it was not enough for him to simply pray. He also devoted himself to action—writing, teaching, and collaborating with others—though he never lost his deep yearning for solitude and contemplation. [1]

As Merton began to seriously wrestle with the injustices plaguing the United States and the world, he published Seeds of Destruction, a book urging Christians to reflect on their moral responsibility to take a stand on issues such as racism, war, and poverty. His words speak to our moment as well. Merton writes: 

The contemplative life is not, and cannot be, a mere withdrawal, a pure negation, a turning of one’s back on the world with its sufferings, its crises, its confusions and its errors…. 

I hold that the contemplative life of the Christian is not a life of abstraction, of secession, in order to concentrate upon ideal essences…. The freedom of the Christian contemplative is … the freedom to go out and meet God in the inscrutable mystery of [God’s] will here and now, in this precise moment in which [God] asks [humanity’s] cooperation in shaping the course of history according to the demands of divine truth, mercy and fidelity.

The monastic flight from the world [or what Father Richard calls ‘the system’] into the desert is not a mere refusal to know anything about the world, but a total rejection of all standards of judgment which imply attachment to a history of delusion, egoism and sin … a definitive refusal to participate in those activities which have no other fruit than to prolong the reign of untruth, greed, cruelty and arrogance…. 

Therefore it seems to me to be a solemn obligation of conscience at this moment of history to take the positions which are … in vital relation with the obligations I assumed when I took my monastic vows. To have a vow of poverty seems to me illusory if I do not in some way identify myself with the cause of people who are denied their rights and forced, for the most part, to live in abject misery. To have a vow of obedience seems to me to be absurd if it does not imply a deep concern for the most fundamental of all expressions of God’s will: the love of [God’s] truth and of our neighbor. 

Sunday, July 19, 2026

Father Richard Rohr explains why both action and contemplation are part of a fully articulated life of faith: 

The most important word in our Center’s name is not Action, nor is it Contemplation; it’s the word and. We need both compassionate action and contemplative practice for the spiritual journey. Without action, our spirituality becomes lifeless and bears no authentic fruit. Without contemplation, all our doing comes from ego, even if it looks selfless, and it can cause more harm than good. External behavior must be connected to and supported by spiritual guidance. It doesn’t matter which comes first; action may lead you to contemplation, and contemplation may lead you to action. But finally, they need and feed each other as components of a healthy dynamic relationship with Reality.

I used to think most of us begin with contemplation and a unitive encounter with God and are then led through that experience to some sort of action that includes awareness of and solidarity with the suffering in the world. I think that’s true for many people, yet as I read the biblical prophets and observe Jesus’s life, I think the reverse also happens: first action, and then needed contemplation.  

No life is immune from suffering. When we’re in solidarity with people facing pain, injustice, war, oppression, colonization—the list goes on and on—we face immense pressure to despair, to become angry or dismissive. When reality is split dualistically between good and bad, right and wrong, we too are torn apart. Yet when we’re broken, we are most open to contemplation, or nondual thinking. We’re desperate to resolve our own terror, anger, and disillusionment, and so we allow ourselves to be led into the silence that holds everything together in wholeness.  

The contemplative, nondual mind is not saying, “Everything is beautiful,” even when it’s not. However, we may come to “Everything is still beautiful” by contemplatively facing the conflict between how reality is and how we wish it could be. We must face dualistic problems, name good and evil, and differentiate between right and wrong. We can’t be naive about evil, but if we stay focused on this duality, we’ll become unlovable, judgmental, dismissive people. I’ve witnessed this pattern in myself. We must eventually find a bigger field, a wider frame, which is nondual thinking.  

Beginning with necessary, dualistic action and moving toward contemplation seems to be the more common—and for some, perhaps the more trustworthy—path these days. We see this pattern in Dorothy Day, Thomas Merton, Martin Luther King, Jr., Saint (Mother) Teresa of Calcutta, and many others. Such people enter into the pain of society and have to go to God to find rest for their soul, because their souls are so torn by the broken, split nature of almost everything, including themselves.

Saint Teresa of Calcutta:
A Mother to Many

Monday, July 20, 2026

Father Richard shares his deep respect and admiration for the Missionaries of Charity, the community of sisters founded by Mother Teresa (1910–1987) in Calcutta, India:

In 1988, I spent three days immersed in the life, spirit, and ministries of Mother Teresa’s Missionaries of Charity community at the motherhouse in Calcutta—a year after her death. Our work together ended on October 1, the feast day of her patron, Saint Thérèse of Lisieux (1873–1897). All the four hundred plus local community members returned for this day of teaching, praying, and celebrating in the manner of the poor. It was probably the closest I will ever get to what those first idyllic days must have been like for the early Franciscans: utter joy in Jesus and his gospel, poverty that is almost embarrassing but beautiful, and unquestioned belief in what your life means and in what you are doing.

Through that experience, I finally met a “conservative” yet fully contemporary form of religious life that I could trust. The sisters were not rigid; rather, they were simply devoted women. They did not need security, answers, and order, as we see in most traditionalist movements in the West. In fact, they were willing to live without security, with very few answers to their questions of mind and heart, and amid almost total disorder. All in union—hour by hour—with God. They lived that amazing and rare combination of utter groundedness and constant risk-taking that always characterizes the true gospel.

The sisters don’t waste time fixing, controlling, or even needing to understand what was wrong with other people. Instead, they put all of their time and energy into letting God change them. From that transformed place, they serve and carry the pain of the world, which they are convinced is the pain of God. This is the synthesis on a communal level that I am always seeking. I have encountered it in many individuals, but hardly ever in public and social form.

I do not believe that the lifestyle of the Missionaries of Charity answers all questions or that they are holier than many other Christians I have met. Yet there is a radical and utterly clear gift of God that is revealed through them. I even dared to ask one of the leaders about one of the most common criticisms of Mother Teresa: “Why did Mother not speak out against social injustice? Why did she not point out the evil systems and evil people that are chewing up the poor?”

The answer was calm, immediate, and firsthand. Mother Teresa felt that if she took sides, or played the firebrand, that she could not be what Jesus had told her to be—love to and for all. She said that if she started correcting and pointing out “sinners” she could no longer be an instrument of love and reconciliation for them. Like her patron Thérèse of Lisieux, “her vocation in the church was to be love.” She knew that her primary message had to be her life itself.

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

Individual Reflection

What’s one small, unnoticed thing you could do today that would actually cost you something?

Group Discussion — choose one:

1. Mother Teresa refused to “take sides” so she could stay an instrument of love. Where has taking a side cost you your ability to love someone?
2. Rohr says action without contemplation “comes from ego, even if it looks selfless.” Where might that be true of you right now?
3. What would it look like for your own suffering, or solidarity with someone else’s, to lead you into silence instead of into a cause?

Friday, July 17, 2026

The Lutheran priest and author Nadia Bolz-Weber questions how we might follow the Beatitudes:

It can be easy to view the Beatitudes … as Jesus’s command for us to try real hard to be meeker, poorer, and mourn-ier in order that we might be blessed in the eyes of God…. But what if the Beatitudes aren’t about a list of conditions we should try to meet to be blessed? What if they are not virtues we should aspire to?… Maybe the Sermon on the Mount is all about Jesus’s lavish blessing of the people around him on that hillside … who that world—like ours—didn’t seem to have much time for: people in pain, people who work for peace instead of profit, people who exercise mercy instead of vengeance.

Maybe Jesus was simply blessing the ones around him that day who didn’t otherwise receive blessing, who had come to believe that, for them, blessings would never be in the cards…. Doesn’t that just sound like something Jesus would do?

Bolz-Weber offers her own version of beatitudes for people who may not feel blessed today:

Blessed are the poor in spirit. You are of heaven and Jesus blesses you.
Blessed are they for whom death is not an abstraction.
Blessed are they who have buried their loved ones, for whom tears could fill an ocean.
Blessed are they who have loved enough to know what loss feels like.
Blessed are the mothers of the miscarried.
Blessed are they who don’t have the luxury of taking things for granted anymore.
Blessed are they who can’t fall apart because they have to keep it together for everyone else.
Blessed are the motherless, the alone, the ones from whom so much has been taken….
Blessed are those who no one else notices. The kids who sit alone at middle-school lunch tables. The laundry guys at the hospital. The sex workers and the night-shift street sweepers.
Blessed are the losers and the babies and the parts of ourselves that are so small, the parts of ourselves that don’t want to make eye contact with a world that loves only the winners.
Blessed are the forgotten.
Blessed are the closeted.
Blessed are the unemployed, the unimpressive, the underrepresented….

I imagine Jesus standing there blessing us all because I believe that is our Lord’s nature. Because, after all, it was Jesus who had all the powers of the universe at his disposal but did not consider his equality with God something to be exploited. Instead, he came to us in the most vulnerable of ways, as a powerless, flesh-and-blood newborn. As if to say, “You may hate your bodies, but I am blessing all human flesh. You may admire strength and might, but I am blessing all human weakness. You may seek power, but I am blessing all human vulnerability.”… [Jesus] was God’s Beatitude—God’s blessing to the weak in a world that admires only the strong.

Reference:
Nadia Bolz Weber, Accidental Saints: Finding God in All the Wrong People (Convergent Books, 2015), 184, 185–186, 188.

John Chaffee – Five On Friday

1.

“Seek freedom and become captive of your desires. Seek discipline and find your liberty.”

– Frank Herbert, Author of the Dune Series

Currently, I am reading the first Dune book.  I have attempted to read it before, but it did not stick.

This time around, though, it is, and I am rather enjoying it.

One thing that stands out to me is the interplay among social, religious, and technological commentary.  Apparently, Herbert was quite interested in desert mysticism, and that means Dune is suffused with many of those themes and values.

So far, the heroes of the story are disciplined and principled.  Their lives make sense, and they are honorable in the eyes of others.  This is so much the case that one political enemy actually wishes his daughter would marry the said political enemy!

It is very true, though, that in the desert monastic tradition, they held that if you are constantly looking to avoid discipline or morality, then you will become a slave to impulsive desires and be easily manipulated.  To be so wishy washy as to go along and do whatever the desires demand is actually making oneself a slave, which the book shows is quite sad and pitiable.

At some point, perhaps I will give a review of Dune.  I can see why it is a science fiction classic while also raising serious questions and critiques that feel prescient today.

2.

“For we will all stand before the judgment seat of God.  For it is written, ‘As I live, says the Lord, every knee shall bow to me, and every tongue shall εχομολογησεται (exomologesetai) to God.”‘

– St. Paul of Tarsus in Romans 14:10-11

Exomologeo can be translated as “to openly and joyfully profess, to announce with glee, to profess without reservation.”

Rarely do I hear people quote beyond Romans 8, but the later chapters of Paul’s letter to the church in Rome have some really interesting things to say.

I always felt as though this passage challenged the majority of conventional Western Christianity.  Most people, when I tell them about this passage, either did not know it was in the Bible at all or were unaware that it is often translated in an unfavorable way.

Go ahead, read Romans 14:10-11 for yourself in whatever English translation you so choose. 

Let me know what you find.

3.

“Contemplation is a sudden gift of awareness, an awakening to the Real within all that is real.”

– Thomas Merton, Trappist Monk

The Gospel of John is my favorite Gospel.

And, not just for the obvious reason that we share a name!

I believe the NT scholar Raymond Brown was correct when he asked if John’s Gospel is more symbolic and cryptic than the other three.  It just has so much meaning and symbolism packed into it that it is not intentional.

In college, one of my professors said that one of the keys to reading John’s Gospel is the healing of the blind man.  If you pay attention throughout the Gospel, you will see a commentary on those with spiritual sight and those with spiritual blindness.

In fact, what the West calls “spiritual blindness” might be relatively close to what the East calls “illusion.”

In the life of faith, I have most enjoyed and been changed by those “eureka!” moments.  You know, those moments when something shifts, and you see something that you have always seen in a completely new way.  If that has ever happened to you, then you know that it feels like a blindfold has been taken off, and you can see something clearly.

In Christianity, this is known as “contemplation.”  Contemplatio is the Latin word the early church used for prayer.

I do not know about you, but it certainly feels to me like modern society is more interested in keeping us entertained and shopping rather than gaining spiritual sight and seeing the deeper Reality before us.

4.

“What are kingdoms without justice? They’re just gangs of bandits.”

– St. Augustine of Hippo in The City of God

Christianity is absolutely interested in Justice.

It truly boggles my mind that some people do not believe this is the case.

There is not much worse than a Christianity that excuses and then goes so far as to say that injustice is not worth fighting against with every fiber within.

Without Justice, according to St. Augustine, we are just “gangs of bandits.”

That sounds very much like the Wild West, if you ask me.

5.

“Sin has not a particle of substance. It is ‘no-thing,’ and can only be known through the pain that it causes.”

– Julian of Norwich in The Showings of Divine Love

The older I get, the more I think about vices and virtues.

The world has enough vices, and I really don’t need to contribute to that side of the fence.  What the world needs is for you and me to both contribute to the virtues.

That said, I kind of understand how both conservatives and liberals lament how sin is understood today.

Sure, the conservative side seems to highlight or prioritize individual sins and to emphasize that we are each accountable for our own actions.  Meanwhile, the progressive side seems to highlight or prioritize corporate sins committed by entire groups of people.  In a very real sense, both individual and corporate sins wreck the world.

But into all of this also comes the wisdom of Julian of Norwich.

We know a sin is a sin because of the pain it causes.  Sometimes we don’t know what is going on in the moment, but in the aftershock of it all, it becomes apparent.

Julian seems intent on saying that sin is not a thing; it has no ontological basis or existence.  It is not a “thing” like a table or a chair, or an uncle, whose existence depends on God.  Rather, sin is “no-thing.”  It is a vacuum, said some of the early desert monastics.  Sin is the absence of goodness, of healing, of truth.

We know an act is good because it protects and mends, just as we know a sin is a sin because it creates victims and fractures what was once whole.

Actually, the Apostle Paul said something poignant about this…

“Love does no harm to a neighbor.  Therefore, love is the fulfillment of the law.” – (Romans 13:10)

I guess from this we can also say that if a “love” causes “harm” then it actually isn’t the fulfillment of the law?

Who knows?  I am likely rambling at this point.  The longer I type, the less articulate I feel.

Goodness, I am still figuring out what love is myself… so who am I to talk?

But… at least I have a decent grasp on what defines sin from Julian of Norwich.

Thursday, July 16, 2026

Blessed are those who are persecuted in the cause of justice, the kingdom of heaven is theirs. Blessed are you when people revile you and persecute you.… Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven.
—Matthew 5:10–12

Father Richard considers how this beatitude challenges Jesus’s listeners to prepare for the consequences of following him:

Up until now Jesus has been talking generally, saying “Blessed are the poor, meek, merciful,” and so on. But following this beatitude he says, “Blessed are you when people revile and persecute you.” He’s likely talking about what’s going on right in front of him. He continues teaching what could really be called the ninth beatitude, although it more likely is an explanation of the eighth. Persecution has begun to happen to the believing community, and he’s encouraging them to “rejoice and be glad.” Persecution for the cause of justice is inevitable. Instead of seeking to blame someone for their well-earned scars, he is telling them two clear things: You can be happy—and you can be happy now! The self that Jesus proclaims is so grounded that it can consider persecution an asset.

Jesus appears to be saying that the disciples’ response is a prophetic action itself. To live joyfully in the midst of misunderstanding and persecution points beyond our smaller “kingdoms” to the larger kingdom of God. Jesus promises us that when we live joyfully under persecution, the world won’t understand. In fact, it will hate us. Many before me have said that a clear sign that something is the true gospel is if it engenders criticism and a spreading of falsehoods, what we used to call “calumny.” Goodness can never be attacked directly; the messengers or the motivation must be discredited.

Luke’s Gospel presents the same message in the opposite form: “Alas for you when the world speaks well of you! This was the way their ancestors treated the false prophets” (Luke 6:26 emphases added). Too much praise or widespread acceptance is probably an indication that something is not the full gospel. In either case, Jesus clearly knew that his teaching would turn conventional values on their head.

Jesus’s Sermon on the Mount is not about maintaining the status quo. “Bad” people didn’t kill Jesus; conventional wisdom crucified him. Jesus taught an alternative way of being instead of the maintenance of the social order. When we can weep, when we can identify with the humble ones, when we can make peace, when we can be persecuted and still be joyful—then we are doing it right. The Beatitudes are describing what holiness looks like in the kingdom of God. 

Reference:
Adapted from Richard Rohr, Jesus’ Alternative Plan: The Sermon on the Mount (Franciscan Media, 2022), 150–151, 152.

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

Caude Response to the Prompt, “Can you provide a brief devotional that studies Matthew 5: 10-12?“

Blessed Are the Persecuted — Matthew 5:10–12

“Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven…”

This is the hardest beatitude to accept, because it doesn’t describe a virtue we cultivate — it describes a wound we suffer. The other beatitudes speak of inward qualities: poverty of spirit, mourning, meekness, hunger for righteousness, mercy, purity of heart, peacemaking. But this final beatitude turns outward. It’s not about who you are, but about how the world responds to who you are.

Notice the progression Jesus makes. He moves from a general statement (“those who are persecuted”) to something startlingly personal: “Blessed are you when people revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account.” The pronoun shifts from third person to second person. Jesus isn’t offering a detached theological observation — he’s looking into the eyes of people who will actually suffer this, and calling them blessed before it happens.

Why would opposition be a sign of blessing rather than a sign of failure?

Because it means your life has become legible as belonging to Christ. Cultures generally don’t organize resistance against people who blend in seamlessly with their values. Persecution — whether it’s outright hostility or the quieter forms of exclusion, mockery, or being misunderstood — often means your commitments have become visible enough to provoke a reaction.

But notice the qualifier: “falsely, on my account.” This isn’t a blank check to feel persecuted whenever we face criticism, especially criticism we’ve earned through our own arrogance, insensitivity, or genuine wrongdoing. The blessing is specifically for suffering that comes from faithfulness to Christ and to justice — not from being difficult, self-righteous, or careless with others.

“Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven.”

This is a strange command. Not “endure” or “grit your teeth through it,” but rejoice. Jesus adds a reason: “for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you.” You’re in good company. The line of the faithful — Elijah, Jeremiah, Isaiah — was rarely a line of the comfortable. Suffering for righteousness doesn’t mean you’ve drifted from God’s path; it may mean you’re walking directly on it.

Something to sit with today:
Where in your life has faithfulness cost you something — a friendship, a reputation, a sense of ease? Can you receive that cost not as evidence that something has gone wrong, but as a strange kind of confirmation that something has gone right?

A closing thought: the reward Jesus names isn’t relief from persecution — it’s the kingdom of heaven itself, already present tense (“theirs is” not “theirs will be”). The blessing isn’t only future. It’s now.

Peacemaking Is Not Keeping the Peace

Wednesday, July 15, 2026

Blessed are the peacemakers: they shall be recognized as children of God.—Matthew 5:9

This beatitude places Jesus in a lineage of peacemakers who reject the false promises of violence. Father Richard writes:

This beatitude in Matthew’s Gospel is the only time the word peacemakers is used in the whole Bible. Peacemakers literally are the “ones who reconcile quarrels.” We can clearly see Jesus is not on the side of the violent but on the side of the nonviolent. Jesus is saying there must be a connection, a clear consistency, a constant unity between means and ends. There is no way to peace other than peacemaking itself. 

To this day, many think we can achieve peace through violence. We’ve all witnessed actions coming from the logic “We’ll stop killing by killing.” It’s a common way to think, even though it’s in opposition to all great religious teachings. Our desire for immediate control leads us to disconnect the clear unity between means and ends. The peace we are “keeping” is a false peace. Jeremiah the prophet would say about our “peacekeeping” wars what he said to Israel’s leaders: 

“Peace! Peace!” they say, whereas there is no peace. 
They should be ashamed of their loathsome deeds. 
Not they! They feel no shame, they do not even know how to blush. 
—Jeremiah 8:11–12 

In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus defines peace in a different way, what we call Pax Christi, the peace of Christ. The Pax Romana creates a false peace by sacrificing others; the Pax Christi waits and works for true peace by sacrificing the false self of power, prestige, and possessions. [1]

The pastor Rich Villodas makes a distinction between peacemaking and peacekeeping:

Peacemakers are those who work for right relationships at the expense of their comfort. We don’t usually choose this route, nor do we understand what it really means. Jesus does not say, “Blessed are the peacekeepers.” [But] what’s the difference between peacekeeping and peacemaking?…

Peacekeeping tries not to rock the boat, avoids conflicts, and is superficial. It ensures that no one gets upset. That’s not real peace. When, out of fear, we avoid conflict and appease people, we are false peacemakers….

Here’s the thing with peacekeeping: sooner or later, it brings chaos—not peace—into your life. Peacemaking is quite different. Peacemakers don’t avoid conflict; in fact, sometimes peacemaking creates it. We see this with Jesus. As the epitome of love, he wasn’t always nice—at least not in the way modern people visualize niceness….

He burst into the temple and flipped over tables because poor, vulnerable people were being taken advantage of (see Matthew 21:12). When he saw the Pharisees putting yokes of religious condemnation on people, he confronted the religious leaders with harsh words. As Jesus’s life reveals, peacemaking is often met with resistance.

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

Every Sparrow Still Falls

And Every Sparrow Still Finds a Home

BRADLEY JERSAK

JUL 15, 2026

Your Father in Heaven Sees Every Sparrow that Falls

Even the sparrow finds a home

and the swallow a nest for herself,

where she may lay her young,

at your altars, O Lord of hosts,

my King and my God.

—Psalm 84:3

⁶ Are not five sparrows sold for two pennies? Yet not one of them is forgotten in God’s sight. ⁷ But even the hairs of your head are all numbered. Do not be afraid; you are of more value than many sparrows.

—Luke 12:6-7

In the Psalms and in Jesus’ teaching, we hear that God’s care extends to all, even down to the smallest sparrow. And if God sees them, we know we’re not forgotten, even the least and most vulnerable among us. If God can number the hairs on your head, then never fear that your name and circumstances escape heaven’s notice. 

I have always needed this assurance. That I’m seen, that my prayers are heard, that my life is in God’s care.

“But the Sparrow Still Falls”

“There’s an old Jewish story that says in the beginning God was everywhere and everything, a totality. But to make creation, God had to remove Himself from some part of the universe, so something besides Himself could exist. So He breathed in, and in the places where God withdrew, there creation exists.”

“So God just leaves?”

“No. He watches. He rejoices. He weeps. He observes the moral drama of human life and gives meaning to it by caring passionately about us, and remembering.”

“Matthew ten, verse twenty-nine: ‘Not one sparrow can fall to the ground without your Father knowing it.’”

“But the sparrow still falls.”

—Mary Doria Russell, The Sparrow (New York: Villard Books, 1996).

The sparrow still falls. 

I know this. I have seen them fall. 

So do the dwindling hairs on my head. I see it in the mirror.

If God can count them, then it’s in the subtraction ledger. 

That God cares and sparrows still die matters to me. 

God cares for tiny, vulnerable people. Good. And they still die.

God cares. And babies still die. 

Of crib death and malnutrition and sniper bullets. 

Just as I needed assurance of God’s care, I also need that reality to be acknowledged.

Any faith that refuses to name the truth—that stubborn fact—is going to be worthless to us when we need it most. It’s not real. I would rather grieve than delude myself.

But I can also get stuck there. I may practice acceptance of life on life’s terms, but if I think God simply watches the sparrows and babies die and does nothing, I lose hope and my prayers whither to a cynical evasion of trusting that God or prayer or life even matter. 

That’s haunted me since my unravelling in 2008. Part of that trauma has yet to leave my body. But then…

“The Father Falls WITH Each One of Them”

I sometimes go to Bp. Chris E.W. Green for confession. This topic was one of those times. Here we were on Iona a year ago.

He happened to be immersed in Matthew’s version of the sparrow text: 

²⁹ Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? Yet not one of them will fall to the ground apart from your Father. ³⁰ And even the hairs of your head are all counted.

Matthew 10:29-30

Not a sparrow falls “apart from your Father.” 

Not a baby, not an addict, not a cancer patient, not a lonely senior.

No one dies “apart from your Father.”

Chris made this radical observation that—how do I say it?—did something, effected something, changed something in me. He said,

+Chris: The text says not even a sparrow falls without the Father, which suggests NOT that the Father “knows” in some detached, objective way that the sparrow has died but that the Father falls with each one of them, and breaks the fall. 

How does the Father have this knowledge? Because all things, including each sparrow, are in his Son in such a way that what happens to them is known by him as his own. 

All the deaths are his. 

But what do you mean, “breaks the fall”? He doesn’t. They fall. They die. 

+Chris: All deaths are his. As all lives are his. 

And he will destroy death so that we can have his life as his own. 

This is eternal life. That’s how it felt to my heart, anyway.

I’m not saying I understand what that means. I’m saying that it did something. 

I think what it did was help me to overcome the real contradiction between “God cares” and “God watches but does nothing.” 

Whatever theological work we do is secondary to how he gets closer to Jesus’ intended meaning: that nothing escapes God’s notice, happens outside God’s care, or is untouched by God’s life. Nothing. 

God’s Indiscriminate Care — the Sun and the Rain

Jesus also revealed that God’s care is indiscriminate. God’s hospitality and generosity are all-embracing and without favouritism. This is how God is love, how God is “perfect,” and to emulate God’s all-embracing kindness is what being children of our heavenly Father means. 

⁴³ “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ ⁴⁴ But I say to you: Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you,⁴⁵ so that you may be children of your Father in heaven, for he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good and sends rain on the righteous and on the unrighteous. ⁴⁶ For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax collectors do the same? ⁴⁷ And if you greet only your brothers and sisters, what more are you doing than others? Do not even the gentiles do the same? ⁴⁸ Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect. 

God causes the rain to fall on thirsty crops and the sun to shine to make them sprout, grow, and become ripe for harvest. Weil writes,

God created the universe and his Son, our First-born brother, created beauty for us. The beauty of the world is the tender smile of Christ to us through matter. He is really present in universal beauty. Love of this beauty proceeds from God and descends into our souls and goes out to God present in the universe. It is something like a sacrament.

—Simone Weil, Awaiting God

And Floods and Tornadoes and …

The kindness of God does NOT direct the rain and shine for the good and withhold it from the wicked. The rain is for everyone. The sun is for everyone.

And the raging floods.

And the violent tornadoes.

And the scourging droughts.

And the earthquakes…

Some of these effects are surely the impact of human folly and our mismanagement of the world. But that argument only goes so far. Not every weather pattern or seismic tremor started as a result of factory smog, oil refineries, frackers, or data centres. And even when they are, their destructive effects aren’t limited to the billionaires who profit from them. 

Again, as sparrows still fall to the ground, so too, many hurricanes make landfall. 

Hopefully, we’re past the superstitious notion that God literally sends adverse weather to punish a particular demographic sin de jour. And can dispense with questions like, “Why did God let the hail stones smash my righteous mother’s windshield?” 

But we still wonder, “If God didn’t really send the tornadoes and the floods, is it still true that God sent the sun and the rain?” We might say that saying God created the universe for our good, including favourable conditions for life on our planet, that doesn’t mean God micromanages every wave in the sea, every cloud in the sky, or this morning’s heat index on my grandchildren’s block. But there’s a more important response, or rather, two-fold response.

Christ: Under the Rubble and Digging through It

First, where is Christ in the midst of our unnatural wars and natural disasters? Dr. Munther Isaac answers, “Christ is IN the rubble.” He’s buried beneath the broken blocks of collapsed apartment blocks, hospitals, and schools… in the same sense that no sparrow falls apart from the Father. 

Second, Christ is in the rubble in the hands and hearts of first responders, good neighbours, and family members frantically digging through the twisted rebar and shattered concrete, hoping beyond hope to retrieve loved ones or at least their bodies. 

Even when someone’s child or grandchild is certainly gone, they keep digging because, like Christ, their death is their death, and the Good Shepherd never stops searching, even in death, so that death will not be the final word. 

In Christ, the Father’s love is assured. 

Every sparrow that falls will yet find a home, 

and every swallow a nest for her young in the Temple of God. 

Tuesday, July 14, 2026

Blessed are the pure in heart: they shall see God.
—Matthew 5:8

Richard Rohr explores Jesus’s metaphor, connecting the eyes and the heart:

In this beatitude, Jesus is saying, “When the heart is right, seeing will be right.” He ties together heart and sight. We might have heard the saying, “Beauty is in the eyes of the beholder”—so is God. All we need to do is keep the lens clean and the heart pure. If our heart is cold, our vision is distorted. If we hold coldness and unforgiveness, the desire to do violence with words or actions, or avert our loving gaze so that another will feel our rejection, we will not be able to see clearly. Our heart is not pure. Jesus calls us to purity of heart with the promise that correct seeing will follow. [1]

The author and spiritual director Carl McColman reflects on what Jesus might have meant by “purity of heart,” calling it “the beatitude that points toward the goal of every restless heart—to see God”:  

Over the centuries, purity has been used for religious and political control. It can be a dangerous concept—used to justify genocide like the Shoah (Holocaust) as well as a code word for controlling people’s sexual behavior. But the word Jesus uses—­the Greek word katharoi— carries a different meaning. Katharoi is a root of the word catharsis. Catharsis, in the annals of Western mysticism, is the necessary first step on the journey toward union with God. Here pure not only suggests a freedom from contaminating elements; it also could simply be rendered as clean. We might rephrase the beatitude as “Blessed is a free and cleansed heart, for it shall see God.”

“Seeing God” doesn’t happen automatically. The God of love is gentle and not willing to force the divine presence on those who just don’t want it. Most of us are a paradox: we want it, and we don’t want it. We have mixed hearts, hearts that know the only true rest is in God but nevertheless remain invested in all sorts of other pleasures—­some perfectly benign and others not so good. With this reality in mind, it’s important to read Jesus’s beatitude as a challenge as well as an invitation—­not as an accusation or a shaming.

Jesus knows that no human being has a perfectly clean (pure) heart. But in his wisdom, he’s asking, “Are you willing to show up? Are you willing to do the work? Are you willing to clean up your mess?” To answer yes to these questions is to commit to the path…. There’s the cleansing right there. Are we willing to begin to let go of gratuitous cynicism, nursed resentments, dispiriting bitterness, and the kind of negativity that leaches away our energy and gives us nothing in return? Letting go of those kinds of afflictive thoughts launches us on the journey of catharsis, of inner cleansing, that prepares us to receive the presence of the One who is already there

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

BZ with BZ on the 4th of July

Reflections On A Special Night with Bob Dylan

BRIAN ZAHND JUL 6

I spent the 4^th of July at Starlight Theatre in Kansas City, Missouri with another BZ—Bobby Zimmerman. Although sixty-four years ago the other BZ walked into the St. Louis County courthouse in Hibbing, Minnesota and legally changed his name to Bob Dylan. Once, when asked what influence Dylan Thomas had exerted on him to adopt the name of the Welsh poet, the erstwhile Robert Zimmerman merely quipped, “I’ve done more for Dylan Thomas than he ever did for me.” And that’s probably true.

As is well documented, I’ve been an ardent fan of Bob Dylan for over fifty years, and of course I’ve been to many a Bob Show, as I call them. But for the last few years quirks of schedule have caused me to miss the Dylan shows. Either I was out of the country when he would come to Kansas City or nearby, or I would just miss him by a few days for some date in Europe. Last year Peri and I had tickets to see Dylan at the Thunder Ridge Nature Arena near Branson, Missouri—a four-hour drive. We left right after church on a Sunday and arrived just in time for the show to be cancelled due to a thunderstorm that rolled through and wrecked a lot of equipment. Oh, well.

But then the stars finally aligned. Bob Dylan at Starlight Theatre on the 4^th of July—his most recent tour date in what has been popularly dubbed as the Never Ending Tour ever since Dylan began touring more-or-less nonstop in June of 1988. Over the past thirty-eight years Dylan has performed nearly four thousand shows—that’s over a hundred shows a year. That would be impressive for any artist, but for someone who is now halfway into their ninth decade it’s truly astounding. Bob Dylan is the truest and most traveled of all the troubadours. You don’t really have to go to Dylan—wait long enough and he’ll come to you.

Geographically that is. Artistically you come to Dylan on his terms. He’s not going to “play the hits,” he’s not going to try to ingratiate himself to the audience, he’s not going to endear you with lively repartee between songs. In fact he’s not going to speak a word. No, “Hello, Kansas City.” No, “Let me introduce the band.” Not even a single, “Thank you.” These days the songs do all the talking for him. And that’s just fine. At eighty-five I believe Dylan has finally become what he always wanted to be when he first left Hibbing at eighteen—a wizened old bard who has nothing to offer but his songs.

So meet the artist on his own terms. You can’t say you saw Shakespeare at the Globe Theatre, but you can say you saw Dylan at Starlight Theatre. Or at Mystic Lake Amphitheater in Shakopee, Minnesota if you go see him tonight. These days I always wonder if the latest leg of the Never Ending Tour will be Dylan’s finale. But just last night Dylan posted the first shows of a fall tour in Europe. The Never Ending Tour kicks off again in mid-October in Oslo and Bergen. So to all my newfound friends in these recently visited cities, do yourself a favor and go see Dylan when he shows up in your neighborhood.

One of the things that continues to amaze me about a Dylan show is how many young people attend. Not long ago I took a fourteen-year-old grandson to see ZZ Top, and I’m convinced he was the youngest person there by about fifty years. It was all old folk. Not so at a Dylan show. Young people continue to find the poet laureate of rock ‘n’ roll and want to see the legend in the flesh. Good for them. 

So I saw Dylan once again. This time on the 250^th birthday of America. To be honest that’s the most American thing (in a good way) that I can think of. The only way it could have been more American is if the ghost of Johnny Cash had joined his old friend on stage for a duet of “Girl from the North Country.” Lucinda Williams and the John Doe Folk Trio were the openers. Both were excellent, and both made cryptic and not so cryptic references to the difficult time America is passing through on a jubilee anniversary. Many in the crowd were there for the solace they knew they would find in the songs of the one who wrote,

They say that patriotism is the last refuge
To which a scoundrel clings
Steal a little and they throw you in jail
Steal a lot and they make you king

Then at about the time that “the evening shadows and the stars appear” the headliner took the stage. There was no introduction. The giant screens were turned off. Our phones were put away. (As we had been warned to do in no uncertain terms.) Dylan took his place behind a piano at the back of a nearly dark stage. He wore a hoodie pulled down low. Dylan wasn’t there to be seen. If he could get away with it, I think Dylan would perform behind a screen—like an Orthodox priest performing mysteries behind an iconostasis. The octogenarian minstrel from Minnesota didn’t want to be seen but he did want to sing us his songs. A stripped down four-piece band is all Dylan needs these days. (A shout-out to Chicago guitarist Joel Paterson who was playing just his fifth show with Dylan—he was brilliant!) The whole performance was magical and better than I could have hoped for.

The first words we heard sung were, To be alone with you, just you and me . . . And it felt that way. On the third song the crowd sang along with “It Ain’t Me, Babe”—a song that Dylan was performing for the 1,153rd time since the first time he performed it in 1964. In “Tryin’ to Get to Heaven,” the fourth song, Dylan sang the line, There’s a rumbling in the skies—indeed there was. Starlight Theatre is located in Swope Park, and fireworks were booming overhead for the whole show. The “bombs bursting in air” provided a strange, but maybe these days an apropos, juxtaposition as Dylan softly sang,

Sitting on my terrace lost in the stars
Listenin’ to the sound of the sad guitars
Been thinking it over and I’ve thought it all through
I’ve made up my mind to give myself to you.

The highlights for me in the ninety-minute set were “When I Paint My Masterpiece,” “Crossing the Rubicon,” and “Under the Red Sky.” Lately Dylan has been closing with the achingly beautiful “Every Grain of Sand.” But on this night the eighty-five-year-old Noble Laureate closed with a gorgeous rendition of “I Shall Be Released.” In the late autumn of his life the lyrics take on a more poignant meaning than when they were written sixty years ago.

They say everything can be replaced
Yet every distance is not near
So I remember every face
Of every man who put me here
I see my light come shining
From the west down to the east
Any day now, any day now
I shall be released.

BZ

Sunday, July 12, 2026

Father Richard Rohr considers how the Beatitudes build on the wisdom of the Ten Commandments:

The Beatitudes are paradoxical “commandments.” They don’t tell Christians what to do; they tell them what they will be like if they are living in the kingdom: They will be poor in spirit, pure in heart, merciful and gentle peacemakers; they will thirst for what is right and be persecuted because of it, and they will mourn. Not a very happy prospect! And yet the Beatitudes call discipleship a happy life. Why? Because when we live in right relationship with God and one another, we are comforted, our hunger is satisfied, we are shown mercy, and we see God; and so, we are called God’s children, and we live under God’s reign!

The Beatitudes are as concerned about a new way of relating as the Ten Commandments were in the ancient days of Israel. The commandments spoke of showing honor to God and to one’s parents, of not killing, lying, stealing, cheating, or being jealous. The Beatitudes take nothing away from this revelation, but they do add something new. Instead of asking us to obey rules, they invite us to a lifestyle based on vulnerability, self-emptying, and cooperation.

Yet if we ask most Christians what it means to be moral, they think of the Ten Commandments, not the Beatitudes! They think in terms of legalistic morality. But to follow Jesus is to follow him out of the legality of systems and into living in a much larger truth. It’s to move to a more mature level of faith, where we discover God much more as lifegiver than lawgiver. [1]

The law makes us aware of problems. It gives a certain basic order to society and a framework within which people can live their lives. But what if people just obey the law and nothing more? Is there any law that requires you to make friends? Is there any law that compels you to fall in love? Is there any law that says you have to have agency, accomplish something, or be happy? Is there any law that states people have to care about you when you are suffering? Of course not! Almost everything that makes life enjoyable and satisfying comes from people going beyond the legal minimum. It’s going beyond the letter of the law that makes life worth living.

The same is true in our spiritual life. The framework of the commandments provides a basic and needed regularity in our spiritual life. We need such a “container” if we are ever to move beyond commandments and discover blessings. We can’t expect to be blessed with the happiness of living in the reign of God if we never obey God’s laws. Yet even God’s laws are not an end in themselves. Living within them simply frees us to hear the call of the Spirit to the more radical spiritual life of the Beatitudes. [2]

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

Mercy Endures Forever

Monday, July 13, 2026

Blessed are the merciful: They shall have mercy shown them.
—Matthew 5:7

Father Richard teaches that mercy is the essence of who God is:

Mercy is like the mystery of forgiveness. By definition, mercy and forgiveness are unearned, undeserved, and not owed. If it isn’t all those three, it won’t be experienced as mercy. If we think mercy is mandatory, or that it must be earned, we lose the mystery of both mercy and forgiveness. I believe with all my heart that mercy and forgiveness are the whole gospel.

The experience of forgiveness or mercy is the experience of a magnanimous God who loves out of total gratuitousness. There’s no tit for tat with God, no buying or selling in the temple. We cannot buy or sell God’s love by worthiness or achievement. Salvation is God’s lovingkindness, a lovingkindness that is “forever.” Read Psalm 136 for an ecstatic description.

More than a description of something God does now and then, mercy is who God is. According to Jesus, “Mercy is what pleases me, not sacrifice” (Matthew 9:13; 12:7). The word mercy is hesed in Hebrew: “the steadfast, enduring love which is unbreakable.” Sometimes the word is translated as “lovingkindness” or “covenant love.” God has made a covenant with creation and will never break the divine side of the covenant. It’s only broken from our side. God’s love is steadfast. It is written in the divine image within us. We are the ones who instead clutch at our sins and punish ourselves instead of surrendering to the divine mercy. The refusal to be forgiven is a form of pride. It is saying, “I’m better than mercy. I’m only going to accept it when I’m worthy and can preserve my so-called self-esteem.” Only the humble person can live in and after mercy.

Clarence Jordan (1912–1969), an activist for racial and economic justice, considers the economic outcome of being immersed in God’s mercy:

The word translated “mercy” … isn’t a cold, condescending kind of mercy such as one in power might extend to his victim in return for gratitude or service. It is warm, compassionate, tender, and never seeks to barter. It is almost exactly the same word that Jesus uses later on in the Sermon in referring to “almsgiving.”… Jesus rescued that world from the mere act of proudly pitching a coin to a beggar and made it into a whole attitude of life.

By “the merciful” he means those who have an attitude of such compassion toward all [people] that they want to share gladly all that they have with one another and with the world…. To them, [people] are no longer beggars to whom one gives a part, but brothers [and sisters] with whom one shares all. This concept of charity, or mercy, led some of the early Christians to a state of voluntary poverty in which “All the believers were together and held all things in common” (Acts 2:44).

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

Individual Reflection:
Where in your life right now are you clutching at law (earning, proving, achieving) instead of surrendering to mercy?

Group Discussion — choose one:

• What would change in how you treat others if you believed mercy was truly unearned and un-owed?
• Where do you resist Jesus’ math — that the kingdom belongs to the poor, the mourning, the persecuted?
• Is there a mercy you’ve been refusing to accept because you don’t feel worthy of it?

Friday, July 10, 2026

Reflecting on the many ways the Beatitudes have been understood, author Debie Thomas clarifies what she believes the Beatitudes are not:

People who know little else about Jesus know the Beatitudes. Some folks read them as lines of poetry. Some consider them a rule of life. Others find them naïve and impractical. Having grown up in the church, I’m familiar with the ways the Beatitudes are often misread and misused. I want to start there, by naming what they are not:

The Beatitudes are not sentiments. It’s easy in our consumerist culture to allow a word like “blessing” to become greeting card fodder, bland and meaningless. (“I’m so #Blessed.”) But the Beatitudes are not meant to settle and soothe us; they’re meant to startle us awake. Yes, they are pastoral, and yes, they give us hope. But Christian hope is not a sedative. Christian hope gets us up and out the door.

The Beatitudes are not to-do items. They are not suggestions, instructions, commandments, or quid pro quos. There is nothing transactional about them, nothing that smacks of a “should,” a “must,” or an “ought.” It is emphatically not the case that if I try very hard to be poorer, sadder, meeker, hungrier, thirstier, purer, more peaceable, and more persecuted than I am right now, God will like, love, reward, and appreciate me more than God already does.

The Beatitudes are not shame tactics. The point is not to read Jesus’s litany of blessings for the poor and the disenfranchised and walk away feeling like an overprivileged wretch. The takeaway Jesus intends for his listeners is neither shame nor self-condemnation. The last thing Jesus’s Beatitudes should do is defeat us.

The Beatitudes are not permission slips for passivity. To use Jesus’s teachings about sorrow, meekness, poverty, and persecution to keep oppressed people oppressed is to distort his words and intentions. There is nothing in the Beatitudes that excuses injustice, nothing that relativizes abuse, nothing that frees us to tell suffering people that their suffering is God-ordained and redemptive.

Through Jesus’s example, we learn that the Beatitudes are a vocation for our lives. Thomas points out:

Jesus acts. He doesn’t simply speak blessing; he lives it. Through his words, his hands, his feet, his life, he brings about the very blessings he promises. Insisting that pain in and of itself is neither holy nor redemptive in the Christian story, Jesus works to bring healing, abundance, liberation, and joy to everyone who crosses his path.

This is the vocation we are called to. The work of sharing the blessings we enjoy is not the work of a distant someday. It is the work we’re called to now. The Beatitudes remind us that blessing and justice are inextricably linked. If it’s blessing we want, then it’s justice we must pursue.

Reference:
Debie Thomas, Into the Mess and Other Jesus Stories: Reflections on the Life of Christ (Cascade Books, 2022), 120–121, 123–124.

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

John Chaffee – Five On Friday, 7-10-2026

1.

“You can save lives by giving someone a hug.”

– Father Greg Boyle, Founder of Homeboy Industries

Every morning at Homeboy Industries, the largest gang rehabilitation program in the world, people gather to share updates, celebrate victories, and share a short reflection.

A recent reflection from their opening meeting included, “You can save lives by giving someone a hug.”

Without sounding too dark or morbid, there are people in this world for whom there was a lack of love shown.  This creates a very wounded individual, and that contributes to their overall unhealth.  And, from there, we all know that incredibly unhealthy people can do tragic acts in society.

It may very well be that showing kindness, giving loving attention, and a sincere hug may not just save the life of the person you are with, but also the lives of others whom they might harm if they did not receive love from you.  Think of mass shooters, people who commit violence with a knife or gun, or anything else that your imagination might bring to mind.

I understand this might seem rather intense to start with, but I find this quite hopeful.

We can save lives by giving people a simple hug.

2.

“We don’t actually fear death; we fear that no one will notice our absence, that we will disappear without a trace.”

– TS Eliot, 20th Century British Poet

One of my deep wounds is the belief that I will not be missed. 

I do not know where the thought originally came from, but there have been events in my life that have seemingly “confirmed” it to me.

Perhaps I am being melodramatic.  Perhaps my Enneagram 4 wing is particularly strong on some days.

One of the ways in which I combat this diabolical thought is by remembering the people who have actually told me they miss me,g and also remind myself that I am perpetually in the memory of God.  Sincere love is not to be taken for granted, and I am glad that my faith reminds me that I am not absent from God and that God is not absent from me.

3.

“Dispassion (apatheia) does not mean that the soul no longer feels the passions, but that it remains undisturbed when they attack.”

– Maximus the Confessor, 7th Century Syrian Monk

This past week, I finished Apatheia in the Christian Tradition: An Ancient Spirituality and Its Contemporary Relevance by Joseph Nguyen SJ.

It was a fascinating read.  In some ways, it is more of a biography of a concept, tracing its evolution as it was passed from one generation to the next.  Beginning with the Stoics, then Evagrius Ponticus, then John Cassian, then Maximus the Confessor, and finally Ignatius of Loyola, it traced how Christian spirituality used “apathy” as a spiritual discipline.

Apatheia is the practice of being appropriately detached from the strong emotions and passions that cause us and others pain and suffering.  Contrary to modern thought, the early church’s teaching on Apatheia is not about being completely unemotional but about being detached from immature emotions and replacing them with mature love, wisdom, and joy.

If you are the kind of person whose emotions sometimes get the better of you, I highly encourage you to check out Nguyen’s book.

4.

“It’s not about right belief; it’s about right practice.”

– Cynthia Bourgeault, Episcopal Priest

I mean, let’s be honest…

Here is a theological question for you…

According to how we think about God, how wrong is “too wrong”?

This singular question came to me about 15 years ago, and it changed the way I thought about many things.

Jesus himself did not seem to place the same emphasis on doctrine, orthodoxy, or belief as we do today.

Jesus seemed more interested in orthopraxy.  That is probably why he was able and willing to meet with people whom the religious elite of his day dared not associate with.

In The Parable of the Good Samaritan, the hero of the story is not the one with the “right orthodoxy” but the one with “right practice.”

Rather than trying to prove to ourselves, one another, or God of our own “orthodoxy,” perhaps we need to stop and look at our own lives and ask ourselves if we have the “right practice” of the Christian faith.

5.

“Love in action is a harsh and dreadful thing compared to love in dreams.”

– Fyodor Dostoyevsky in The Brothers Karamazov

According to my Kindle, I am 52% through my re-read of The Brothers Karamazov.

It took me almost a year to get through it the first time.

And, since then, I have failed at other re-reads, but this current one seems to be going well! 

It is a fascinating read, even if it is difficult.

The quote above summarizes several of the book’s plotlines.  Much of the story is about the love between brothers, sons and fathers, lovers and beloveds, God and humanity.  For Dostoyevsky, love is not a simple, easy, or sentimental thing alone.  Rather, it is the chief virtue that somehow holds the world together, forgives the world for being broken, and gives perpetual hope toward the rapscallions and ragamuffins.

Perhaps once I finish my re-read, I will share more about the book and what stood out to me this time around.