Going Public - February 9, 2020

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“Do not think you must speak the truth to a Christian but can lie to a ‘pagan.’ You are speaking to your brother or sister, born like you from Adam and Eve: realize all the people you meet are your neighbors even before they are Christians; you have no idea how God sees them. The ones you mock for worshiping stones … may worship God more fervently than you who laughed at them…You cannot see into the future, so let every one be your neighbor.”

~ Augustine of Hippo (354-430)

The Crazy Farmer - February 2, 2020

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“Many churches sing the hymn, ‘There’s a Wideness in God’s Mercy,’ but the church is not always generous in dispensing it. God does not dole out mercy like cookies only for good, repentant children. God’s mercy is not conditioned by our response. God is mercy. So, wide is wider than we guess.”

~ David Buttrick

Half-Baked - January 26, 2020

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“Every time you close another door—be it the door of immediate satisfaction, the door of distracting entertainment, the door of busyness, the door of guilt and worry, or the door of self-rejection—you commit yourself to go deeper into your heart and thus deeper into the heart of God. This is a movement toward full incarnation. It leads you to become what you already are—a child of God; it lets you embody more and more the truth of your being; it makes you claim the God within you.”

~ Henri J. M. Nouwen (1932-1996)

One in Christ Jesus - January 19, 2020

Bruce Salmon

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“Let us move now from the practical how to the theoretical why: Why should we love our enemies? The first reason is fairly obvious. Returning hate for hate multiplies hate, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars. Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that. Hate multiplies hate, violence multiplies violence, and toughness multiplies toughness in a descending spiral of destruction. So when Jesus says, ‘love your enemies,’ he is setting forth a profound and ultimately inescapable admonition. Have we not come to such an impasse in the modern world that we must love our enemies—or else? The chain reaction of evil—hate begetting hate, wars producing more wars—must be broken, or we shall be plunged into the dark abyss of annihilation.”

~ Martin Luther King, Jr.
“Loving Your Enemies” sermon, 12/25/57

God’s Gentle Justice - January 12, 2020

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As swimmers dare to lie face to the sky and water bears them, as hawks rest upon air and air sustains them, so would I learn to attain freefall, and float into Creator Spirit's deep embrace, knowing no effort earns that all-surrounding grace.

~ Denise Levertov
“The Avowal”

The Beginning - January 5, 2020

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“God did not just start talking to us with the Bible or the church or the prophets…The radiance of the Divine Presence has been glowing and expanding since the beginning of time, before there were any human eyes to see or know about it.”
~ Richard Rohr

The Messiah Standing in Solidarity - December 29, 2019

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A Season of Promises: A Promise in Plain Wrapping - December 24, 2019

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“In his teaching and preaching, Jesus was forever calling our attention to the seemingly trivial, the small, and the insignificant—like lost children, lost coins, lost sheep, a mustard seed. The kingdom involves the ability to see God within those people and experiences that the world regards as little and of no account, ordinary.”

~ Stanley Hauerwas & William Willimon

A Season of Promises: The Promise of Kindness - December 22, 2019

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“I have always thought of Christmas time, when it has come round, as a good time; a kind, forgiving, charitable time; the only time I know of, in the long calendar of the year, when men and women seem by one consent to open their shut-up hearts freely, and to think of people below them as if they really were fellow passengers to the grave, and not another race of creatures bound on other journeys.”
~ Charles Dickens (1812-1870) A Christmas Carol

A Season of Promises: The Promise of Justice - December 15, 2019

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"Whenever we look to Mary, we come to believe once again in the revolutionary nature of love and tenderness. In her we see that humility and tenderness are not virtues of the weak but of the strong who need not treat others poorly in order to feel important themselves." ~ Pope Francis

A Season of Promises: The Promise of Presence - December 8, 2019

Forever at his door

I gave my heart and soul.

My fortune, too.

I’ve no flock anymore,

No other work in view.

My occupation: Love. It’s all I do.

~ St. John of the Cross (1542-1591)

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A Season of Promises: The Promise of Home - December 1, 2019

A prison cell, in which one waits, hopes...and is completely dependent on the fact that the door of freedom has to be opened from the outside, is not a bad picture of Advent.

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~ Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1906 - 1945)

Flawed and Faithful: The Life of David - Giving Genuine Gifts - November 24, 2019

If the only prayer
you ever say in your entire life is
Thank You,
it will be enough.

~ Meister Eckhart

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Flawed and Faithful: The Life of David - Leaving Unfinished Dreams - November 17, 2019

Nothing worth doing is completed in our lifetime;
therefore, we must be saved by hope.

Nothing true or beautiful makes complete sense
in any immediate context of history;
therefore, we must be saved by faith.

Nothing we do, however virtuous, can be accomplished alone;
therefore, we are saved by love.

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~ Reinhold Niebuhr

Flawed and Faithful: The Life of David - Lamenting the Unthinkable - November 10, 2019

O God, teach me to see You,
and reveal Yourself to me
when I seek you,
For I cannot seek You
unless You first teach me,
Nor find You
unless You first reveal Yourself to me.
Let me seek You in longing,
and long for You in seeking.
Let me find You in love,
and love You in finding.

~ Ambrose of Milan

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Flawed and Faithful: The Life of David - Navigating Betrayal - November 3, 2019

For those who walked with us,

this is a prayer.

For those who have gone ahead,

this is a blessing.

For those who touched and tended us,

who lingered with us

while they lived,

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this is a thanksgiving.

For those who journey still with us

in the shadows of awareness,

in the crevices of memory,

in the landscape of our dreams,

this is a benediction.

~ Jan Richardson, “For Those Who Walked With Us”

Flawed and Faithful: The Life of David - Grieving Great Loss - October 27, 2019

There is often more wisdom to be found at the edges of life than in its middle. A life-threatening illness, for instance, may shuffle our values like a deck of cards. Sometimes a card that has been on the bottom of the deck for most of our lives turns out to be the top card, the thing that really matters. Having watched people sort their cards and play their hands in the presence of death for many years, I would say that most often the top card is love.

~ Rachel Remen, My Grandfather’s Blessings

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Flawed and Faithful: The Life of David - Owning Our Guilt - October 20, 2019

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Traditionally, the two marks of the saint

are joy and penitence:

joy because one knows that one is not God,

and yet with God all things are possible.

The saint knows that perfection rests

in divinity and not in the ability

of the believer to negotiate reality

so that one "comes off best."

The saint knows that he or she is not God,

and yet knows how easily one can forget

this simple fact.

The saint knows about darknesses

and shadows that cloud judgment.

~ Alan Jones

Flawed and Faithful: The Life of David - Living with Abandon - October 6, 2019

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There is…a voice inside me that urges caution. It tells me to be careful, to keep my head, not to go too far, not to burn my boats… I don’t want to be carried away into any resolution which I shall afterwards regret, for I know I shall be feeling quite different after breakfast… This is my endlessly recurrent temptation: to go down to that Sea [which is God], and there neither to dive nor swim nor float, but only to dabble and splash, careful not to get out of my depth, and holding on to the lifeline which connects me with my things temporal… Of course, that lifeline is really a death line.

~ C. S. Lewis

Flawed and Faithful: The Life of David - Repaying Evil with Good - September 29, 2019

If you love Jesus Christ more than you

fear human judgment,

then you will not only speak of compassion,

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but act with it.

Compassion means seeing your friend

and your enemy in equal need

and helping both equally.

It demands that you seek and find the stranger,

the broken, the prisoner, and comfort him

and offer him your help.

Herein lies the holy compassion of God

that causes the devil much distress.

~ Meditations of Mechthild of Magdeburg (1207-1294)