Land for the Humble

Wednesday, July 8, 2026

Blessed are the gentle: They shall have the earth as their inheritance.
—Matthew 5:5

Father Richard explains why the third beatitude would have been simultaneously shocking and comforting to Jesus’s listeners:

The third beatitude is almost taken verbatim from Psalm 37:11: “The humble shall have the land for their own.” Some translate “gentle” as “the nonviolent,” but perhaps the most familiar translation is “the meek.” There’s an irony here. If there was one hated group in the Palestine of Jesus’s day, it was landlords—those who possessed the land. Nobody possessed land except by violence and oppression, by holding onto it and making all the powerless peasants pay a portion of their harvest. The landlords certainly weren’t meek or gentle, so Jesus is turning that around and saying, “No, it’s you, humble ones, who are finally going to possess the land.” [1]

Author Micha Boyett considers how Jesus’s listeners would have understood the paradox of the meek “inheriting the land”:   

[Jesus] says that those who have no power and those who choose to give up their power are the ones who inherit the earth, which could also be translated as “the land.” The people sitting before him … are certainly not landowners. They are most likely what we could consider today to be sharecroppers, working the land for a wealthy owner, who didn’t need to get his hands dirty….

“Makarioi [Greek for “happy”] are the powerless ones,” Jesus says. “They shall have the earth as an inheritance.” They will recognize that the earth has always been theirs. He is getting at something essential to the spiritual life: our ownership is temporal. According to the psalmist, human beings are like the leaves of grass, here for a moment and then, poof, gone. We’re all stewards here, and the land remains long after we’ve become the dust we came from. Only the divine one possesses it. In God’s dream for the world, possession is an illusion. When we humble ourselves, when we release our hands from all that we have tried to control and cling to, we discover that those who possess the land are the ones living under the illusion. But the ones who release their power and the ones who never had power to begin with inherit the really real….

This feels like the secret Jesus is letting his listeners in on: the power we’re born into and the power we gain throughout our lives is a mirage. In the really real, power can only be shared…. Meekness—the upside-down possibility that when we let go of the power we hoard, power grows wide enough to share. When the few in power release their hold on the land, everyone has space to spread out and flourish. Meekness is the way toward an earth where we live in peace, where resources are shared, where everyone has enough. [2]

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Sarah Young

Jesus Calling: July 8th

When you seek My Face, put aside thoughts of everything else. I am above all, as well as in all; your communion with Me transcends both time and circumstances. Be prepared to be blessed bountifully by My Presence, for I am the God of unlimited abundance. Open wide your heart and mind to receive more and more of Me. When your Joy in Me meets My Joy in you, there are fireworks of heavenly ecstasy. This is eternal life here and now; a tiny foretaste of what awaits you in the life to come. Now you see only a poor reflection as in a mirror, but then you will see face to Face.

RELATED SCRIPTURE:

John 15:11 (NLT)
11 I have told you these things so that you will be filled with my joy. Yes, your joy will overflow!

Additional insight regarding John 5:11: When things are going well, we feel elated. When hardships come, we sink into depression. But true joy transcends the rolling waves of circumstances. Joy comes from a consistent relationship with Jesus Christ. When our lives are intertwined with his, he will help us walk through adversity without sinking into debilitating lows and manage prosperity without moving into deceptive highs. The joy of living with Jesus Christ daily will keep us levelheaded, no matter how high or low our circumstances.

1st Corinthians 13:12 (NLT)
12 Now we see things imperfectly, like puzzling reflections in a mirror, but then we will see everything with perfect clarity. All that I know now is partial and incomplete, but then I will know everything completely, just as God now knows me completely.

Additional insight regarding 1st Corinthians 13:12: When Paul wrote of “full understanding,” he was referring to when we must see Christ face to face. God gives believers spiritual gifts for their lives on earth to build up, serve, and strengthen fellow Christians. The spiritual gifts are for the church. In eternity, we will be made perfect and complete and will be in the very presence of God. We will no longer need spiritual gifts, so they will come to an end. Then, we will have a full understanding and appreciation for one another as unique expressions of God’s infinite creativity. We will use our differences as a reason to praise God! Based on that perspective, let us treat each other with the same love and unity we will one day share.

Tuesday, July 7, 2026

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Blessed are those who mourn: They shall be comforted.
—Matthew 5:4

Father Richard reflects on the sacred nature of our ability to grieve—our own pain and that of the world:

In this beatitude, Jesus is describing the state of those who weep, those who have something to mourn about. They feel the pain of the world. Jesus is saying that those who can grieve, those who can cry, are those who will understand by coming closer to the heart of God.

Jesus praises the weeping class, those who can enter into solidarity with the pain of the world and not try to extract themselves from it. Weeping over our sin and the sin of the world is an entirely different mode than self-hatred or hatred of others. The weeping mode, if I can call it that, allows us to bear the pain of the world without looking for perpetrators or victims. Instead, we recognize the tragic reality in which both sides are trapped. Tears from God are always for everybody, for our universal exile from home. [1]

New Testament scholar Amy-Jill Levine describes how Jesus’s listeners would have heard echoes of the Hebrew prophet Isaiah’s message of consolation:

The beatitude has a particular resonance for Jesus’s followers that also draws from the Jewish tradition…. The passage Jesus partially cites as part of his address to the Nazareth synagogue in Luke 4, reads,

The spirit of the Lord GOD is upon me …; he has sent me to bring good news to the oppressed, to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and release to the prisoners … ; to comfort all who mourn; to provide for those who mourn in Zion—to give them a garland instead of ashes, the oil of gladness instead of mourning, the mantle of praise instead of a faint spirit…. [Isaiah 61:1–3]

[Isaiah] comforts the mourners in Zion by telling them that theirs is not the last generation, that what they may not see to fruition, their children and their children’s children will. To mourn in Israel means that we are not alone; we have not only our friends and relatives but also the previous generations and the generations to come. And we take comfort in that. [2]

Father Richard recognizes mourning as a quality that connects the Ten Commandments and the Beatitudes:

Mourning might be thought of as the prophetic “way of tears,” a letting down of our defenses, in stark contrast to our more common ways of heroic willpower, commandment, obedience, force, anger, and legitimated violence. It takes an initial tender vulnerability (“wounding”) to defeat our ego and to open us to full consciousness—which must include the scary unconscious! It is a movement, frankly, from the Ten Commandments to the eight Beatitudes. A movement that the prophets illustrated for us twenty-five hundred years ago, and that we need—out of desire and desperation—to recover today.

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Sacred Storytelling

All the world’s a stage…and the church is too.

BRIAN ZAHND JUN 30

All the world’s a stage.
–William Shakespeare

We humans are story-crafting, storytelling, story-loving creatures. What we do best with the gift of human language is to tell a story. And this storytelling appears to be something of a miracle. I say a miracle, because the origin of the human capacity for complex language is a mystery that continues to baffle philologists, philosophers, and anthropologists, leading some thinkers in the field to claim that the reality of complex human language cannot be explained as a gradual, emergent phenomenon. Increasingly it appears that life, mind, and language did not and cannot arise from a purely materialist cause; rather it is a gift from elsewhere. In All Things Are Full of Gods David Bentley Hart writes, 

No anthropologist, no matter how diligent, has ever discovered some intermediary form of communication . . . no philologist, no matter how clever, has ever been able to fabricate a plausible pre-linguistic system of signification, or even a primitive form of language lacking the essential features of fully developed tongues.

In other words, language doesn’t seem to evolve from the ground up, it seems to be bestowed from above. In whatever way it came into being, the capacity for complex human language is unquestionably central to what it means to be human. We humans are the storytellers. While other animals are capable of communicating basic information about danger, food, courtship, and the like, the human animal is composing the Iliad, Hamlet, and Moby Dick.

We spend an enormous amount of our life telling, reading, hearing, and watching stories—from grand fantasy epics like The Lord of the Rings to the mildly interesting anecdote told to co-workers at the office. All we have to do is hear or read the words “Once upon a time” and our interest is piqued with the hope that we can once again be enchanted by some captivating tale. We’re always game for a good story. That’s why at this very moment all over the world hundreds of millions of stories are being disseminated and consumed—a bit of embellished family folklore repeated by grandma for the umpteenth time, a young girl in her bedroom reading A Wrinkle in Time, a commuter on a subway listening to a Harry Potter audiobook, the twelve movies showing at the local cineplex, the masses scrolling through Netflix trying to decide what story will entertain them tonight. This is what we do.

There is a reason why Homer, Shakespeare, J.R.R. Tolkien, and J.K. Rowling are some of the most famous people in history: they rank among our greatest storytellers. Why are Tom Hanks, Morgan Freeman, and Meryl Streep so well-known, so beloved, and so well-compensated? Because they are so gifted and skilled at playing roles in some of our favorite stories. We have an innate love of stories and a remarkable ability to remember stories. If we hear the names Romeo and Juliet or Bonnie and Clyde, an unbidden narrative immediately arises in our imagination. To remember something all we need to do is hear it in the form of a story. From forty-thousand-year-old paleolithic cave art to the Theatre of Dionysus in ancient Athens to the flat screen television in your living room, storytelling has always occupied a central place in the human experience.

All of this indicates that our love for story comes from a deeper place than a fleeting desire for a bit of entertaining diversion. Our love of story is rooted in our search for meaning. Having been summoned out of the dread void of nonbeing we find ourselves hurled into the astounding phenomenon of existence. We have come to be. We are here. We exist. But what does is it all mean? Is there a purpose to it all? To avoid the despair that Søren Kierkegaard called the sickness unto death, we need to believe that our life is more than an absurd and meaningless cosmic accident tumbling out of a random assortment of atoms. We have our physical senses by which we experience the world around us; we have our self-consciousness through which we can contemplate on a deep level our own existence; but what do we make of this? Coherence requires some sort of narrative structure. To prevent life from being just one damn thing after another we need a story. Story is the essence of meaning. 

We want our life to have a narrative, and we want our story to be part of something beyond our own atomized existence. We want to belong, to have our part in some bigger story. Absent a metanarrative to interpret our reason for existing and our place within history, the yawning abyss of nihilism awaits. In Fyodor Dostoevsky’s dark novel Demons the nihilistic Alexi Kirillov is constantly asserting that nothing matters, and nothing makes any difference. So we are not surprised when Kirillov kills himself. 

Most of us would rather cling to any story, even a tragedy, than to fall into the black hole of meaninglessness where suicide takes on its own logic. In The Lord of the Rings the reason the ever-optimistic Samwise Gamgee doesn’t succumb to despair even in the dark depths of Mordor is because he can muse, “I wonder what sort of tale we’ve fallen into?” Sam can bear up under most any burden as long as he knows he’s part of a story worth telling. Storytellers aren’t mere entertainers, they are evangelists.

This is why post-Enlightenment Christians in the postmodern West need to be reminded of the true nature of the gospel: It’s a story! The gospel is not a set of spiritual laws or abstract theological principles or debated atonement theories. No. The gospel is the story of Jesus Christ. In its most abbreviated form it’s the story of Jesus’ death, burial, and resurrection. A fuller telling of the story takes us from a manger in Bethlehem to an empty tomb in Jerusalem. The biblical Gospels are the gospel. The director’s cut edition is the big story the whole Bible tells—the story that takes us from Genesis to Revelation, from paradise lost to paradise regained, from the alpha of creation to the omega of new creation. To tell the story of Jesus is to preach the gospel.

What we do in church on Sunday morning is not just singing songs, praying prayers, and preaching sermons; rather we are telling a sacred story that others are invited to participate in. There is a sense in which church is a theater for our sacred story—but a theater where everyone is invited to join the performance. Evangelism at its best is akin to the art of storytelling. The possibility of faith arises as we tell the beautiful story of Jesus Christ. We don’t need to cajole or threaten, we just need to tell the story. 

The gospel story itself carries with it the capacity to evoke faith. “So faith comes from what is heard, and what is heard comes through the word of Christ.” (Rom 10:17) A good sermon is not a didactic lecture but a well-told story where Jesus is the hero. And because the gospel is the best and greatest of all stories, the church should seek to excel at storytelling—storytelling in sacrament, sermon, liturgy, and even architecture.

Wake Up Dead Man is the third film in the Knives Out detective mystery series. It’s a brilliant dark comedy that surprisingly carries a profound and beautiful Christian message. At a crucial point in the film, the private detective Benoit Blanc meets the young priest Father Judd Duplenticy for the first time. The meeting takes place in the sanctuary of a neo-Gothic Catholic church in upstate New York. As Benoit Blanc admires the architecture, Father Judd asks what he senses in the sanctuary. The agnostic detective demurs in his southern drawl, “It’s like someone has shown a story at me that I do not believe.” Rather than be defensive about Blanc’s critical observation, Father Judd responds like this:

You’re right. It’s storytelling. And this church is not medieval. We’re in New York. Neo-Gothic nineteenth century. Has more in common with Disneyland than Notre Dame, the rites and rituals and costumes, all of it. It’s storytelling. You’re right. I guess the question is, do these stories convince us of a lie? Or do they resonate with something deep inside of us that’s profoundly true? That we can’t express any other way . . . except storytelling.

Wake Up Dead Man writer and director Rian Johnson places in Father Judd’s mouth the perfect answer to a world skeptical of the Christian gospel. Of course, it’s storytelling. But what does it convince us of? A lie or profound truth? Everyone has to decide that question for themselves. The gospel story can bring us to the precipice of decision, but the leap of faith remains within the realm of our own freedom. 

C.S. Lewis as a scholar of literature recognized the mythic qualities in the Christian gospel, but he eventually crossed the chasm of his own skepticism by understanding the gospel as true myth. Alan Jacobs says of Lewis, “He became a Christian not through accepting a particular set of arguments but through learning to read a story the right way. And maybe others could move closer to Christian belief by the same path.”

To preach the gospel is to tell the story of Jesus—not to explain it, but simply to tell it. The magic of The Lord of the Rings or any other great epic is not found in literary analysis, but in the story itself! The same is true of the gospel. Rather than explaining the gospel or making it “practical” or telling hearers how to “apply” it to their life, the primary task of evangelism is to simply tell the evangel as the compelling story that it really is. We don’t need to fully understand the gospel to be drawn into its beautiful mystery. The gospel is not an axiom, it’s an epic—the adventure of God joining humanity in Christ. 

After a lifetime of hearing, reading, and studying the gospel I can’t explain all of it, but I love the story and I believe it. And most important of all, the gospel story has been and is being woven deeply into my own story, which is another way of saying I am being saved.

BZ

Sunday, July 5, 2026

Over the next two weeks, the Daily Meditations will reflect on the Beatitudes (Matthew 5:1–16), Jesus’s core teachings from the Sermon on the Mount. CAC teacher Brian McLaren sets the scene:

Imagine yourself in Galilee, on a windswept hillside near a little fishing town called Capernaum. Flocks of birds circle and land…. The Sea of Galilee glistens blue below us, reflecting the clear midday sky above.

A small group of disciples circles around a young man who appears to be about thirty. He is sitting, as rabbis in this time and culture normally do. Huge crowds extend beyond the inner circle of disciples, in a sense eavesdropping on what he is teaching them. This is the day they’ve been waiting for. This is the day Jesus is going to pass on to them the heart of his message.

Jesus begins in a fascinating way. He uses the term blessed to address the question of identity, the question of who we want to be. In Jesus’s day, to say, “Blessed are these people” is to say “Pay attention: these are the people you should aspire to be like….” It’s the opposite of saying “Woe to those people” or “Cursed are those people,” which means, “Take note: you definitely don’t want to be like those people….” His words no doubt surprise everyone, because we normally play by these rules of the game:

Do everything you can to be rich and powerful.
Toughen up and harden yourself against all feelings of loss.
Measure your success by how much of the time you are thinking only of yourself and your own happiness.
Be independent and aggressive, hungry and thirsty for higher status in the social pecking order.
Strike back quickly when others strike you, and guard your image so you’ll always be popular.

But Jesus defines success and well-being in a profoundly different way…. He advocates an identity characterized by solidarity, sensitivity, and nonviolence. He celebrates those who long for justice, embody compassion, and manifest integrity and nonduplicity. He creates a new kind of hero: not warriors, corporate executives, or politicians, but brave and determined activists for preemptive peace, willing to suffer with him in the prophetic tradition of justice….

It’s hot in the Galilean sunshine. Still the crowds are hanging on Jesus’s every word. They can tell something profound and life-changing is happening within them and among them. Jesus is not simply trying to restore their religion to some ideal state in the past. Nor is he agitating unrest…. He spurs his hearers into reflection about who they are, who they want to be, what kind of people they will become, what they want to make of their lives.

As we consider Jesus’s message today, we join those people on that hillside, grappling with the question of who we are now and who we want to become in the future…. As we listen to Jesus, each of us knows, deep inside: If I accept this new identity, everything will change for me. Everything will change.

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How Do We Become Poor in Spirit?

Monday, July 6, 2026

How blessed are the poor in spirit: the kingdom of God is theirs.
—Matthew 5:3

Father Richard Rohr explores the first beatitude as a call to interior freedom, a key to participating in the kingdom of God:

What an opening line! It’s crucial, a key to everything Jesus is teaching, or it wouldn’t be the opener. It’s hard to imagine that a saying so radical should become so familiar, so normalized. Matthew may have chosen to soften it from the original phrase that we see in Luke and the noncanonical Gospel of Thomas. Luke’s Gospel is for the poor, so he leaves the hard words of Jesus as many scholars believe they were originally spoken: “Blessed are you who are poor” (Luke 6:20).

Matthew, however, was addressing a more stable, even middle-class Jewish community, so he says, “Happy are the poor in spirit.” The truth is still there—poor in spirit means to live without a need for our own righteousness. It’s inner emptiness without a need to bolster our own reputation. For middle class folks, if we’re poor in spirit, we may eventually become poor in fact. In other words, we won’t waste the rest of our lives trying to get rich, because we’ll know better.

Christian Scripture scholars point out that the Greek word usually used for the peasant class is tapeinoi, but that is not the word Matthew and Luke use here. They use the word ptochoi, which literally means “the very empty ones, those who are crouching.” They are the beggars, the nobodies of this world who have nothing left. Jesus is saying, “Happy are you, you’re the freest of them all.”

The higher up we are in the system, the more trapped we are. The more we are outside the system, the freer we are. When we are high up in anything, we are expected to represent it, hold it together, and affirm it. The price of the truth can be very great, so we say what is needed to survive and to be liked inside the group, and to hold the group in unity.

“How blessed are the poor in spirit” (Matthew 5:3), the ones who don’t have to play any of these games. Jesus is recommending a social reordering here, quite different from common practice. Notice how he also uses present tense: “The kingdom of God is theirs” (Matthew 5:3). He doesn’t say “will be theirs.” That tells us that the kingdom of God isn’t later. It’s present tense: We are the free ones now, if we remain without anything to protect or anything we need to prove or defend.

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Individual Reflection

What are you still protecting?

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Group Discussion — choose one:

1. Where in your life are you “high up in the system” — expected to represent, defend, or hold something together?
2. Rohr says the kingdom is present tense, not future — that we’re free now if we have nothing left to prove. Do you believe that, or does it feel like something you’re still earning?
3. What would it cost you to actually become poor in fact, not just in spirit?

Who Do You Say

We Are?

Friday, July 3, 2026

For the theologian Diana L. Hayes, the question “Who am I?” is a central question for people of faith:

Who am I? I am a child of God, whether black, brown, yellow, red, or white, because race does not exist in God. Nor do other divisions exist in God, not those of Muslim, Jew, Christian, Hindu, or other, because God is God for all of humanity, however God is named…. We are all created in God’s own image and likeness, a creation that God declared to be good without caveats. Why am I here on this earth at this time and place? To help bring about God’s kin-dom by recognizing and, more importantly, by affirming my co-createdness with all of humanity and thus the presence of God in all with whom I come into contact. I am called, as all are called, to contribute to the rebuilding of … a community in which all are welcome.

Hayes reflects on what we can learn about love from those who have not experienced belovedness in our families, cultures, and churches:

Those who are the least among us already know the answer to this most critical spiritual question for our time: “Who do you, God, say that I, humanity, am?” This is not because their lives are so simple and childlike … but because they, like Job, have been tested and survived. Their everyday lives are such a constant struggle simply to survive … that they are drawn ever closer to God, who is the answer to all of our longings….

Is it not time for us to learn from the example of those who have suffered the most and yet have a rich, nurturing life of the spirit that enables them to persevere in their daily struggle?….

We are all our brothers’ and sisters’ keeper. God has placed upon all of us the responsibility of following in God’s own footsteps, of loving all people as God loves us, of seeking their greater good rather than our own individual success. We can only do this by letting go of the “isms” that continue to plague humanity—negativisms based on race, ethnicity, gender, class, sexual orientation, and religious creed. We must begin to remove the blinders we have placed on ourselves that restrict our vision, blinding us to the light of God shining through the face of all God’s people. We must come together as one, seeking to build a community of the faithful that rejects a narrow, dualistic perception of life.

“Who do you, God, say that we are?” We are your children, lost and wandering in a confusing and confused world, but never abandoned, never forsaken, never alone. We are your chosen ones, given knowledge of life and death, and the ability through your grace to use that knowledge to choose life in all of its diversity and to transform this world into your reign. This is our challenge for the coming century and perhaps for the new millennium. May we continue to be blessed with the wisdom and love of God in order to reclaim our full life in the Spirit and be transformed.

Reference:
Diana L. Hayes, No Crystal Stair: Womanist Spirituality (Orbis Books, 2016), 77, 78–79.

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You Are My Beloved – An “original” devotional from Claude AI that pairs with the Hayes reading

Friday, July 3, 2026

Before Jesus does anything—before a single sermon, a single miracle, a single act of healing—he is baptized. And as he comes up out of the water, a voice speaks from heaven: “You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased” (Mark 1:11).

Notice what has not happened yet. Jesus has not proven himself. He has not fed a crowd or raised the dead or said a wise word. The word beloved arrives before the résumé. Belovedness is not a reward for accomplishment; it is the ground he stands on before he does anything at all.

This is the same truth Diana Hayes points to when she writes that we are “created in God’s own image and likeness, a creation that God declared to be good without caveats.” No caveats. Not good, if. Not beloved, once. Just good. Just beloved.

Most of us live as though the opposite were true—as though love were a wage we earn through usefulness, attractiveness, achievement, or belonging to the right group. We spend our lives trying to prove what was already true of us in the water.

The voice at the Jordan did not speak only to Jesus. It speaks over every person who has ever wondered whether they are enough, whether they belong, whether the divisions others have placed on them are the final word. They are not. Before you had done anything to deserve it or ruin it, the word was already spoken over you: beloved.

The question is not whether God says this over us. The question is whether we will believe it long enough to say it over one another.

Five On Friday – John Chaffee

1. “It seems easier to change our facts than to change our schema.” – Dr. Jerome Wagner, Psychologist and Enneagram Author   This is probably why, several years ago, the term “alternative facts” entered the public lexicon.   When we are presented with new information that challenges our long-held schemas or worldviews, we are more likely to discredit it and seek “alternative” information that reconfirms our original schemas or worldviews.   This is exactly why it is so difficult for us to change our minds.   The fascinating thing, though, is that the New Testament word for “repent” is metanoia, which actually means to “change your mind.”   Deep within the Christian tradition is a commitment, not to alternative facts that bolster our preconceptions and opinions, but to a perpetual openness to new information and to trying to see the world with more and more clarity.   And guess what? This is just trivia.   Metanoia is Jesus’ literal first word of public ministry in Matthew 4:17. 2. “What if we ceased to pledge our allegiance to the bottom line and stood, instead, with those who line the bottom?” – Father Greg Boyle, SJ, Founder of Homeboy Industries   Our commitment to money, to gaining more and more, to the acquisition of material possessions comes at the cost of devaluing other Image-Bearers.   In any capitalist society, there are “winners,” and there are “losers.”  For someone to be at “the top,” there must inherently be a “bottom” to step on.   Throughout the Gospels, Jesus has a “preferential option for the poor.”  It is not the rich that he spends the most time with; it is those whom we might consider not worthy of receiving help.   In church tradition, we know the names of the two criminals crucified alongside Jesus, Dismas and Gestas.  The innocent and righteous God-man, Jesus of Nazareth, in whom, through whom, and by whom all things were created and sustained, became incarnate and consented to being crucified between two criminals.  This shows us two things: the humility of God and the willingness to identify with those whom society has discarded and, therefore, are treated inhumanely.   It boggles the mind if we think about it.   Below is a painting I found called “The Last Sigh of Christ” by Julien Michel Gue.   3. “Those who cannot see Christ in the poor are atheists indeed.” – Dorothy Day, Founder of the Catholic Worker   I like this one.   Dorothy Day had a way with words.   This one is a punch right to the gut.   It reminds me of what Richard Rohr says: the mature Christian sees Christ in everyone and everything. 4. “With words preach virtue and with your work, proclaim it.” – Neilos the Ascetic, 5th Century Syrian Theologian   About two years ago, I found myself reading the Philokalia.  In Greek, “Philokalia” means “love of the good/beautiful.”   You have probably heard of “philosophy” or the “love of wisdom.”   The Philokalia, however, is the name that Eastern Orthodoxy gives to its collection of ancient sayings and writings of its best saints, mystics, holy fools, theologians, etc.  It compiles the best writings from faithful Christians from the 4th to the 15th centuries.   Neilos the Ascetic is included in that collection.   I’ll be honest, it isn’t an easy read.  It does not exactly flow, and there is not a narative structure to the Philokalia.  It reads more like an anthology or an appendix that can be read alongside the Bible.  In many ways, it can feel like reading the book of Proverbs straight through.   All that said, it is interesting to see how much they wrote about the need to consciously choose virtue over vice, the true necessity of each of us to discipline ourselves towards the Good, the True, the Beautiful, and the Loving.   The older I get, the more I see how lives are ruined, and there are reverberations that expand out from us when we choose vices over virtues.  Sin not only affects us individually but also everyone and everything around us.   I did not expect this commentary to become something of a slight exposition on hamartiology, but it is what it is! 5. “Prayer is a long, loving look at the Real.” – Walter Burghart, SJ, Jesuit Theologian   This one is hard for me.   Often, Reality is too harsh, raw, and repulsive for me to give it a “long, loving look.”   There are things that happen in the world that are beyond my comprehension, and that I consider completely outside the bounds of what should be acceptable or allowed.   And yet, prayer is giving a “long, loving look” at all of those things I wish I could shut my eyes to, etch out of my field of view, and not have to consider again.

Loved to Love Others

Thursday, July 2, 2026

Father Richard writes about the transformative power of accepting our own belovedness:

We can only transform people to the degree that we have been transformed. We can only lead others as far as we have gone. We have no ability to affirm or to communicate to another person that they are good or special until we know it strongly ourselves. Once we get our own “narcissistic fix,” as I call it, then we can stop worrying about being on center stage, and we have plenty of time and energy to promote other people’s empowerment and specialness. And if you want more fun you could also try a sportylaylaa virtual girlfriend online.

If we do not understand election as inclusive election (chosenness is for the sake of communicating the same to others), religion almost always becomes an exclusionary system against the “non-elect,” “unworthy,” or “impure.” It becomes “my belonging system” instead of any good news for the world, which is exactly what Jesus did not do. In any kind of exclusive election, the “chosen one” does not see their experience as a gift for others, but merely a gift for themselves. This creates a very smug and self-satisfied religion.

I would encourage you to take your time and read through both Deuteronomy 7:7–9 and Romans 11. There, you’ll see how both Moses and Paul beautifully teach about chosenness and election. It’s not to make people think they are better than others or to create a society of the superior ones. If anything, in fact, it is the gathering of the weak and the wounded, to show how God transforms and heals.

Jesus knew who his best audiovisual aids were for his transformative message: “I did not come for the healthy, but for the sick” (see Luke 5:31–32). The lives of saints and mystics never point to themselves, but always and forever beyond themselves to the One who chooses them, uses them, and loves them. They become models for us. [1] 

To allow ourselves to be God’s beloved is to be God’s beloved. To allow ourselves to be chosen is to be chosen. To allow ourselves to be blessed is to be blessed. It is so hard to accept being accepted, especially from God. It takes a certain kind of humility to surrender to it, and even more to persist in believing it. Any persons used by God know this to be true: God chooses and then uses whom God chooses, and their usability comes from their willingness to allow themselves to be chosen in the first place. What a paradox!  

God’s love is constant and irrevocable; our part is to be open to it and let it transform us. There is absolutely nothing we can do to make God love us more than God already does, and there is absolutely nothing we can do to make God love us less. We are stuck with it! The only difference is between those who allow it and those who don’t. They are both equally and objectively the beloved, but one just enjoys it and draws ever-new life from that realization. [2]

References:
[1] Adapted from Richard Rohr, Things Hidden: Scripture as Spirituality (Franciscan Media, 2022), 44–45.

[2] Adapted from Rohr, Things Hidden, 182.

Life of the Beloved Quotes

Life of the Beloved Quotes 

“Aren’t you, like me, hoping that some person, thing, or event will come along to give you that final feeling of inner well-being you desire? Don’t you often hope: ‘May this book, idea, course, trip, job, country or relationship fulfill my deepest desire.’ But as long as you are waiting for that mysterious moment you will go on running helter-skelter, always anxious and restless, always lustful and angry, never fully satisfied. You know that this is the compulsiveness that keeps us going and busy, but at the same time makes us wonder whether we are getting anywhere in the long run. This is the way to spiritual exhaustion and burn-out. This is the way to spiritual death.”
― Henri J.M. Nouwen, Life of the Beloved: Spiritual Living in a Secular World

“the real “work” of prayer is to become silent and listen to the voice that says good things about me.

To gently push aside and silence the many voices that question my goodness and to trust that I will hear the voice of blessing– that demands real effort. ”
― Henri J.M. Nouwen, Life of the Beloved: Spiritual Living in a Secular World

“First of all, you have to keep unmasking the world about you for what it is: manipulative, controlling, power-hungry, and, in the long run, destructive. The world tells you many lies about who you are, and you simply have to be realistic enough to remind yourself of this. Every time you feel hurt, offended, or rejected, you have to dare to say to yourself: ‘These feelings, strong as they may be, are not telling me the truth about myself. The truth, even though I cannot feel it right now, is that I am the chosen child of God, precious in God’s eyes, called the Beloved from all eternity, and held safe in an everlasting belief.”
― Henri J.M. Nouwen, Life of the Beloved: Spiritual Living in a Secular World

“Our humanity comes to its fullest bloom in giving. We become beautiful people when we give whatever we can give: a smile, a handshake, a kiss, an embrace, a word of love, a present, a part of our life…all of our life.”
― Henri J.M. Nouwen, Life of the Beloved: Spiritual Living in a Secular World

Jesus Came for Everyone

Wednesday, July 1, 2026

I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you, and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and the one who curses you I will curse; and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.
—Genesis 12:1–4

For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.
—John 3:16

Brian McLaren reflects on how God’s promise to Abraham in Genesis 12:1–4 softened the exclusive way his evangelical tradition interpreted John 3:16:

The brilliant British missiologist Lesslie Newbigin said these words [in Genesis 12:1–4] addressed the greatest heresy (or dangerous idea) in the history of monotheism. Many people understand being blessed by God as an exclusive matter, Newbigin said, as if God blesses some to the exclusion of others.

But no, Newbigin says. From the very beginning in the creation story in Genesis 1, when God blesses all creation—both day and night, both land and sea, both plant and animal, both animal and human—God’s blessings have been universal, because that is who God is and how God lives, an overflowing fountain of blessing. When God calls Abraham (then known as Abram), God doesn’t bless Abram and his descendants to the exclusion of others, but for the benefit of others.

God’s blessings are not exclusive, but rather instrumental.

McLaren summarizes the way that John 3:16 has often been taught, and contrasts it with the biblical message of blessing, which is always to love and bless others:

That is the way many people [have been] taught John 3:16. All you have to do is raise your hand, say yes to the privileges promised to those who are chosen, and you will be pronounced as a “born again Christian,” which means you would have a free ticket to safety, security, and enjoyment in heaven for yourself and yourself alone, forever.

But that is not what Genesis 12 or John 3:16 are actually about, contrary to a very popular belief. God chooses Abram, not for elite and exclusive privilege for his descendants alone, but for deep responsibility and service for all the nations of the world. God chooses Abram not to the exclusion of others, but to the benefit and blessing of others. As Lesslie Newbigin said, you can’t claim God’s blessings for yourself, your race, your culture, or your religion, and leave out and “in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.”…

God’s desire, Jesus says, is not to condemn everyone or anyone, but to save everyone. In other words, divine blessing is not exclusive; it is instrumental. We are not blessed to the exclusion of others; we are blessed to be a blessing to others, so that through us, others can be included in the generous circle of divine blessing.

Reference:
Adapted from Brian D. McLaren, “Seeing the World in Radically New Ways,” The Cottage, Substack, February 28, 2026. Used with permission.

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Jesus Calling: 

    Thank Me for the conditions that are requiring you to be still. Do not spoil these quiet hours by wishing them away, waiting impatiently to be active again. Some of the greatest works in My kingdom have been done from sick beds and prison cells. Instead of resenting the limitations of a weakened body, search for My way in the midst of these very circumstances. Limitations can be liberating when your strongest desire is living close to Me.

    Quietness and trust enhance your awareness of My Presence into you. Do not despise these simple ways of serving Me. Although you feel cut off from the activity of the world, your quiet trust makes a powerful statement in spiritual realms. My Strength and Power show themselves most effective in weakness. 

RELATED SCRIPTURE: 

Zechariah 2:13 NLT

13 Be silent before the Lord, all humanity, for he is springing into action from his holy dwelling.”

Isaiah 30:15 NLT

15 This is what the Sovereign Lord,

    the Holy One of Israel, says:

“Only in returning to me

    and resting in me will you be saved.

In quietness and confidence is your strength.

    But you would have none of it.

2nd Corinthians 12:9 NLT

9 Each time he said, “My grace is all you need. My power works best in weakness.” So now I am glad to boast about my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ can work through me.

God Shows No Partiality

Tuesday, June 30, 2026

In the Acts 10, the apostle Peter experiences a vision of God’s inclusive love for all people and nations—and not only the people of ancient Israel. Author Barbara Brown Taylor describes this critical moment for the early Christian movement. Peter meets a gentile named Cornelius and shares what he has learned from the Spirit in his vision:

Peter began by telling them what he had just learned for himself. “I truly understand that God shows no partiality, but in every nation anyone who fears [God] and does what is right is acceptable to [God].”

If anyone in that room breathed for a full minute after he said that, there was something wrong with them. Because Peter had just said something no one on earth had authorized him to say. He had just opened the church to those it had previously shut out, people with whom he was not even supposed to associate. He had not checked with anyone in Jerusalem first. He did not even quote a passage of scripture to back him up. He based what he said on the fresh revelation God had given him, and on his belief that Jesus Christ is Lord of all. Not some, but all.

While he was still speaking, the Holy Spirit fell on everyone in the room, both the Jews who were there with Peter and all of Cornelius’ crowd. Everyone was speaking in tongues and praising God, so that Peter could hardly make himself heard…. And they were all baptized right then and there.

Peter got in big trouble for it too. When he arrived back in Jerusalem, his Jewish brothers jumped all over him…. From their perspective, Peter had sold out. He had crossed over the dividing line between God’s people and other people. He had disobeyed the law, which was not negotiable, which was the one thing that made them who they were.

As gently as he could, Peter told them what had happened to him, how God had taken that one thing [the Jewish dietary law] away from him, but had given him something else instead—a vision that included all creatures, all people, whom God alone had the right to call clean or unclean. He had not sold out….

“If God gave them the same gift that [God] gave us when we believed in the Lord Jesus Christ,” Peter said, “who was I that I could hinder God?” When he said that, everyone got very quiet. Then they praised God, saying, “Then God has given even to the Gentiles the repentance that leads to life.”

How often, in the church, do we try to say where the Spirit may or may not blow, when the only thing God has asked us to do is to try to keep up with it wherever it goes?

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Sarah Young Jesus Calling

I am all around you, like a cocoon of Light. My Presence with you is a promise, independent of your awareness of Me. Many things can block this awareness, but the major culprit is worry. My children tend to accept worry as an inescapable fact of life. However, worry is a form of unbelief; it is anathema (something. that one vehemently dislikes) to Me.
     Who is in charge of your life? If it is you, then you have good reason to worry. But if it is I, then worry is both unnecessary and counterproductive. When you start to feel anxious about something, relinquish the situation to Me. Back off a bit, redirecting your focus to Me. I will either take care of the problem Myself or show you how to handle it. In this world you will have problems, but you need not to lose sight of Me.

RELATED BIBLE VERSES:
Luke 12:22-31(NLT)
Teaching about Money and Possessions
22 Then, turning to his disciples, Jesus said, “That is why I tell you not to worry about everyday life—whether you have enough food to eat or enough clothes to wear. 23 For life is more than food, and your body more than clothing. 24 Look at the ravens. They don’t plant or harvest or store food in barns, for God feeds them. And you are far more valuable to him than any birds! 25 Can all your worries add a single moment to your life? 26 And if worry can’t accomplish a little thing like that, what’s the use of worrying over bigger things?
27 “Look at the lilies and how they grow. They don’t work or make their clothing, yet Solomon in all his glory was not dressed as beautifully as they are. 28 And if God cares so wonderfully for flowers that are here today and thrown into the fire tomorrow, he will certainly care for you. Why do you have so little faith?
29 “And don’t be concerned about what to eat and what to drink. Don’t worry about such things. 30 These things dominate the thoughts of unbelievers all over the world, but your Father already knows your needs. 31 Seek the Kingdom of God above all else, and he will give you everything you need.

Additional insight regarding Luke 12:22-34: Jesus commands us to not worry. But how can we avoid it? Only faith can free us from the anxiety caused by greed and covetousness. Working and planning responsibly is good; dwelling on all the ways our planning could go wrong is bad. Worry is pointless because it can’t fill any of our needs; worry is foolish because the Creator of the universe loves us and knows what we need. He promises to meet all our real needs but not necessarily all of our desires. Overcoming worry requires: (1) Simple trust in God, our heavenly Father. This trust is expressed by praying to him rather than worrying. (2) Perspective on your problems. This can be gained by developing a strategy for addressing and correcting your problems. (3) A support team to help. Find some believers who will pray for you to find wisdom and strength to deal with your worries.

Additional insight regarding Luke 12:31: Seeking the Kingdom of God above all else means making Jesus the Lord and King of your life. He must control every area – your work, play, plans, and relationships. Is the Kingdom only one of your many concerns, or is it central to all you do? Are you holding back any areas of your life from God’s control? As Lord and Creator, he wants to help provide what you need as well as guide how you use what he provides.

John 16:33 (NLT)
33 I have told you all this so that you may have peace in me. Here on earth you will have many trials and sorrows. But take heart, because I have overcome the world.”

Additional insight regarding John 16:33: Jesus summed up all he had told them this night, tying together themes from John 14:27-29; John 16:1-4; and John 16:9-11. With these words he told his disciples to take courage. In spite of the inevitable struggles they would face, they would not be alone. Jesus does not abandon us to our struggles either. If we remember that the ultimate victory has already been won, we can claim the peace of Christ in the most troublesome time.

The Grace Is From God’s Side

Monday, June 29, 2026

Father Richard points to God’s covenant with the Jewish people to illustrate how the choosing rests entirely on God’s side, not on our own merit:

We first see the idea of grace in the Hebrew Scriptures through the concept of election or chosenness. This is eventually called “covenant love” because it finally becomes a mutual giving and receiving. This love is always initiated from God’s side toward the people of ancient Israel, and they gradually learn to trust it and respond in kind. The Bible shows a relentless movement toward intimacy and divine union between Creator and creatures. For this to happen, there needs to be some degree of compatibility, likeness, or even “sameness” between the two parties. In other words, there has to be a little bit of God in us that wants to find itself.

We see the message of implanted grace clearly in Jesus. He recognizes that he is one with God. Jesus knows that it is God in him doing the knowing, loving, healing, and serving. Jesus fully trusts his deepest identity and never doubts it, which is the unique character of his divine sonship. We often doubt, deny, and reject our true identity, our own belovedness, finding it hard to believe what we did not choose, create, or earn for ourselves. Such unaccountable gratuity is precisely the meaning of grace and also why we are afraid to trust it. Yes, it is God in us that always seeks and knows God; like always knows like. We are made for one another from the beginning (Ephesians 1:4–6). Maybe the ultimate grace is to know that it is all grace to begin with! It is already a grace to recognize that it is grace. [1]

God doesn’t love the ancient Hebrew people or anybody else because we are good. God loves us from a free and deliberate choice. Receiving God’s love has never been a worthiness contest. This is very hard for almost everyone to accept. It is finally a surrendering and never a full understanding. The proud will seldom submit until they are “brought down from their thrones,” as Mary put it (Luke 1:52). It just does not compute inside our binary, judging, competing, and comparing brains.

God does not love you because you are good; God loves you because God is good, and then you can be good because you draw upon such an Infinite Source of Goodness. The older I get, the more I am sure that God does all the giving and we do all the receiving. God is always and forever the initiator in my life, and I am, on occasion, the half-hearted respondent. My mustard seed of a response seems to be more than enough for a humble God, even though the mustard seed is “the tiniest of all the seeds” (Matthew 13:32).

God makes use of everything that we offer and thus expands our freedom. Otherwise, it would not be a covenant love, but a mere coercion. God implants the desire within us to desire even more intimacy with God.

_____________________________________________________

Everyone is Chosen

Called and Sent

Sunday, June 28, 2026

Father Richard Rohr invites us to accept with humility that we are chosen by God:

In Romans 11, Paul is trying to define chosenness. Speaking of the chosenness of the Jewish people, he says chosenness is definitive and irrevocable (Romans 11:29). But he also says chosenness has nothing to do with worthiness, which is so hard for our tit-for-tat minds to understand. God’s choice has to do with God alone, not with us being worthy or ready. No one is ever ready! In fact, the readiness comes from experiencing and surrendering to the chosenness. That’s a subtle point, but it’s absolutely foundational. The biblical tradition goes to great lengths to show that God always chooses the unworthy, the weak, the sinful, and the broken, so that no flesh can glorify itself in God’s sight. We are merely God’s instruments. When we love God and love others, it is God doing that through us and in us.

Paul also says that chosenness is for the sake of experiencing mercy (see Romans 11:30–31). Ancient Israel’s chosenness is not so they can feel superior and saved, which is where immature religion always stops. Rather, Paul says very clearly that we experience chosenness so that we can know what it feels like to be God’s beloved and experience God’s mercy. Only then can we communicate that chosenness to everybody else. Now we are a fit instrument to describe what it feels like to be beloved, to be elect, to be significant, to be validated, to be gazed at with the gaze of God, and to be mirrored by the ultimate mirror.

Being loved by God in this way, we know we cannot love back the way we are loved. However, our inability to love God fully keeps us in the realm of desire—always yearning, longing, and wanting more. Knowing we are not there yet is good! It keeps us humble and honest. It keeps us aware of our need for mercy. We know we will never get it right on our own.

I think religion is the best thing and the worst thing. It can create the most narrow-minded, petty, self-protective, racist people who stop at that first stage of: “We’ve got it right. We’re elect. We’re chosen.” But their faith really hasn’t transformed them, so they don’t know how to communicate chosenness to anyone else. Without a love relationship with God, religion doesn’t keep us moving or growing. It doesn’t keep transforming. It becomes a sideshow for elitism, that’s all.

The biblical tradition begins with chosenness for a few, but it always moves toward egalitarian chosenness for everyone. And the only people who are equipped to communicate the inclusivity and the boundless abundance of God are people who first experience that boundless abundance in themselves.

The Prime Motive of Love

Friday, June 26, 2026

Even if hope fails, something bigger can replace it, and that is love.
—Brian McLaren, Life After Doom

Brian McLaren suggests that love can serve as a deep source of hope that is not dependent on outcome:  

If we can see a likely path to our desired outcome, we have hope; if we can see no possible path to our desired outcome, we have despair. If we are unsure whether there is a possible path or not, we keep hope alive, but it remains vulnerable to defeat if that path is closed. 

When our prime motive is love, a different logic comes into play. We find courage and confidence, not in the likelihood of a good outcome, but in our commitment to love. Love may or may not provide a way through to a solution to our predicament, but it will provide a way forward in our predicament, one step into the unknown at a time. Sustained by this fierce love (as my friend Jacqui Lewis calls it), we may persevere long enough that, to our surprise, a new way may appear where there had been no way. At that point, we will have reasons for hope again. But even if hope never returns, we will live by love through our final breath. 

To put it differently, even if we lose hope for a good outcome, we need not lose hope of being good people, as we are able: courageous, wise, kind, loving, “in defiance of all that is bad around us.” [1] … 

We feel arising within us this sustained declaration: We will live as beautifully, bravely, and kindly as we can as long as we can, no matter how ugly, scary, and mean the world becomes, even if failure and death seem inevitable. In fact, it is only in the context of failure and death that this virtue develops. That’s why Richard Rohr describes this kind of hope as “the fruit of a learned capacity to suffer wisely and generously. You come out much larger and that largeness becomes your hope.” [2] 

The ecotheologian Sallie McFague (1933–2019) centers hope in our faith in God, who is love:

As we consider the basis for our hope, let us recall who God is…. The hope we have lies in the radical transcendence of God…. God’s transcendence—God’s power of creative, redeeming, and sustaining love—is closer to us than we are to ourselves. God is the milieu, the source, of power and love in which our world, our fragile, deteriorating world, exists. The world is not left to fend for itself, nor is God “in addition” to anything, everything. Rather, God is the life, love, truth, goodness, and beauty that empower the universe and shine out from it….

This faith, not in ourselves, but in God, can free us to live lives of radical change. Perhaps it is the only thing that can. We do not rely on such hope as a way to escape personal responsibility—“Let God do it”—but rather this hope frees us from the pressure of outcomes so that we can add our best efforts to the task at hand. [3]

References:
[1] Howard Zinn, You Can’t Be Neutral on a Moving Train: A Personal History of Our Times (Beacon Press, 1994), 208.

[2] Richard Rohr, A Lever and a Place to Stand: The Contemplative Stance, the Active Prayer (Hidden Spring, 2011), 104; Brian D. McLaren, Life After Doom: Wisdom and Courage for a World Falling Apart (St. Martin’s Essentials, 2024), 84–85.

[3] Sallie McFague, A New Climate for Theology: God, the World, and Global Warming (Fortress Press, 2008), 169, 171.

John Chaffee – Five on Friday

1.

“Prophetic preaching does not put people in crisis.  Rather, it names and makes palpable the crisis already pulsing among us.”

– Walter Brueggemann, Old Testament Scholar

‘This coming Sunday, I will be giving a sermon on the role of a prophet, taking cues from Jeremiah 28.  It is an important passage because it involves Jeremiah rebuking another prophet, Hananiah.

Here is what happens in Jeremiah 28…

Hananiah tells the leadership of Israel what they want to hear: that Yahweh will bless them, smash their Babylonian oppressors, and return Israel to its promised land.

Jeremiah then exclaims that he wishes it were the case and instead calls out Hananiah for telling wishful fantasies as “prophecies,” then says that things will remain difficult for Israel as long as they continue in their stubbornness and disregard for Yahweh.

In preparation for the sermon, I have been flipping through Brueggemann’s The Practice of Prophetic Imagination: Preaching an Emancipating Word.  Prophets don’t foretell the future as much as they name the ugly truth about the now, and from there can send out a warning of what might happen, as well as a hopeful stance about what is possible if people turn back to Yahweh.

2.

“Values give us direction – pointing us toward what we estimate is good for us.”

– Dr. Jerome Wagner, Clinical Psychologist

Dr. Wagner wrote a very interesting book on the Enneagram called Nine Lenses on the World: The Enneagram Perspective.

What sets the book apart from other books on the Enneagram is the extent to which modern psychology is brought into the discussion.  He brings it alongside conversations about paradigms, maladaptive schemas, survival strategies, childhood development, mid-life crises, and more.

“Values” feels to me like a neutral word.  One could have good or bad values, right?

What about virtues?  With values, we might end up choosing something we “estimate” is good for us, but that is ultimately terrible for us and those around us.  Virtues, though, seem more concerned with ultimate Goodness, Beauty, Truth, and Love.  If we live our lives in the direction of Virtues, that is a categorically different life, isn’t it?

One thing I believe is helpful here is recognizing that we try to orient ourselves toward what we believe is good for us, which is a completely subjective stance.  You and I might both be completely heartfelt and sincere about the direction we think we want to go, but that does not exempt us from the responsibility of repairing things if what we “estimated” we wanted ends up hurting those around us.

I guess the only thing to say is that we are all doing our best and simply trying to aim toward what we think is good for us.  Lord, have mercy.

3.

“There are truths that can be discovered only through suffering or from the critical vantage point of extreme situations.”

– Ignacio Martin-Baro, Jesuit Priest and Martyr

Man, this is true.

There are some things I have learned about life that I never would have come across if I had not gone through serious discomfort, suffering, pain, loss, disappointment, etc.  If I had never spent time around the homeless, the poor, the lonely, or the dying, I would have a very different (and misinformed) view of the world.

It’s a shame we avoid such things, especially if they can lead to some incredible transformation.  It makes sense, though.  We want to shelter ourselves and never have to adapt our worldview to the reality of what is.  We would rather stay small in our scope of the world, and dismiss the uncomfortable parts.

Perhaps this is why Jesus uses the word metanoia?

It is famously translated in the New Testament as “repent,” but a more accurate translation might be: “elevate your mind, change your mind, mind your mind, reconsider, rethink, the mind after your current mind, evolve your mind, and so on.”

It is impossible to be a Christian and not to stay open to constantly “reconsidering everything” we thought we knew about ourselves, others, God, poverty, vices, virtues, justice, hospitality, life, death, and so on.

4.

“Between God and the soul there is no between.”

– Julian of Norwich, 14th-Century English Mystic

Something about the tenderness of Julian of Norwich keeps coming back to me.

She famously created the word “oneth.”  It means to be made “one” with something else.  She used it in various ways to describe the uniting of the human soul with God, in her book The Revelations of Divine Love.

In the same book, she also writes about how the human and the divine are “knotted” together in the person of Jesus.

Honestly, there is a lot of “union-talk” in Julian, but also much of the contemplative tradition of Christianity.

I have said this before in other ways, but some interpretations of Christianity are built on being separated from God, but I am in a season of life or a faith journey where I would rather have a faith built on being united with God.

5.

“A church that doesn’t provoke any crises, a Gospel that doesn’t unsettle, a word of God that doesn’t get under anyone’s skin, a word of God that doesn’t touch the real sin of the society in which it is being proclaimed-what Gospel is that?”

– St. Oscar Romero, Archbishop of El Salvador

Yes, this might seem like a contrasting quote to the #1, but I think it is possible to hold two things true at the same time!

Oscar Romero was a famous priest in El Salvador who preached that devout Christians in the El Salvadorian military would stop engaging in dehumanizing atrocities.  As a result, he was shot in front of the altar right after giving a sermon.  Government officials have since confirmed their complicity in his assassination.

I am led to believe that Oscar Romero faithfully carried the prophetic tradition in his ministry, and it cost him his life.

The Gospel of Jesus is absolutely de-centering, and as a result, it is most able to help us re-center on what should be the center: God and the Kingdom of God.  Any Gospel that does not destabilize our sense of the world is likely not helping us to see it as God does.  Yes, the Gospel is comforting, but only after it first points out the ways in which our common life is disconcerting.  If we go to church and all we experience is a service that reaffirms that everything is fine and nothing needs to change about ourselves or the world we find ourselves in, it is tragically short of being the Gospel

Hope Is a Discipline

Thursday, June 25, 2026

Organizer and activist Mariame Kaba reflects on hope as a discipline.

For me, hope doesn’t preclude feeling sadness or frustration or anger or any other emotion that makes total sense. Hope isn’t an emotion, you know? Hope is not optimism….

The idea of hope being a discipline is something I heard from a nun many years ago who was talking about it in conjunction with making sure we were of the world and in the world. Living in the afterlife already in the present was kind of a form of escape, but it was really, really important for us to live in the world and be of the world. The hope that she was talking about was this grounded hope that was practiced every day….

I bowed down to that. I heard that many years ago, and then I felt the sense of, “Oh my God. That speaks to me as a philosophy of living, that hope is a discipline and that we have to practice it every single day.” Because in the world we live in, it’s easy to feel a sense of hopelessness, that everything is all bad all the time, that nothing is going to change ever…. I understand why people feel that way. I just choose differently. I choose to think a different way, and I choose to act in a different way. I choose to trust people until they prove themselves untrustworthy.

Jim Wallis, who people know as a liberal Evangelical … talks about the fact that hope is really believing in spite of the evidence and watching the evidence change. And that, to me, makes total sense. I believe ultimately that we’re going to win, because I believe there are more people who want justice, real justice, than there are those who are working against that.

Kaba describes how short-term thinking prevents us from accessing hope: 

I take a long view, understanding full well that I’m just a tiny, little part of a story that already has a huge antecedent and has something that is going to come after that. I’m definitely not going to be even close to around for seeing the end of it. That also puts me in the right frame of mind: that … [what] I’m doing is actually pretty insignificant in world history, but if it’s significant to one or two people, I feel good about that….

I talk to a lot of young organizers.… I’m always telling them—“Your timeline is not the timeline on which movements occur. Your timeline is incidental. Your timeline is only for yourself to mark your growth and your living.” But that’s a fraction of the living that’s going to be done by the universe and that has already been done by the universe. When you understand that you’re really insignificant in the grand scheme of things, then it’s a freedom, in my opinion, to actually be able to do the work that’s necessary as you see it and to contribute in the ways that you see fit.

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Sarah Young

Wait patiently with Me while I bless you. Don’t rush into My Presence with time-consciousness gnawing at your mind. I dwell in timelessness: I am, I was, I will always be. For you, time is a protection, you’re a frail creature who can handle only twenty-four-hour segments of life. Time can also be a tyrant, ticking away relentlessly in your mind. Learn to master time, or it will be your master.
     Though you are time-bound creature, seek to meet Me in timelessness. As you focus on My Presence, the demands of time and tasks will diminish. I will bless you and keep you, making My Face shine upon you graciously, giving you Peace.

RELATED SCRIPTURE:

Micah 7:7 (NLT)
7 As for me, I look to the Lord for help.
    I wait confidently for God to save me,
    and my God will certainly hear me.

Revelation 1:8 (NLT)
8 “I am the Alpha and the Omega—the beginning and the end,” says the Lord God. “I am the one who is, who always was, and who is still to come—the Almighty One.”

Additional insight regarding Revelation 1:8: Alpha and omega are the first and last letters of the Greek alphabet. The Lord God is the beginning and the end. God the Father is the eternal Lord and Ruler of the past, present, and future (see also Revelation 4:8; Isaiah 44:6 and 48:12-15). Without him, you have nothing that is eternal, nothing that can change your life, nothing that can save you from sin. Is the Lord your reason for living, “the Alpha and the Omega” of your life? Honor the one who is the beginning and the end of all existence, wisdom, and power.

Numbers 6:24-26 (NLT)
24 ‘May the Lord bless you
    and protect you.
25 May the Lord smile on you
    and be gracious to you.
26 May the Lord show you his favor
    and give you his peace.’
Additional insight regarding Numbers 6:24-26: A blessing was one way of asking for God’s divine favor to rest upon others. The ancient blessing in these verses helps us understand what a blessing was supposed to do. Its five parts conveyed hope that God would (1) bless and protect them; (2) smile on them (be pleased); (3) be gracious (merciful and compassionate); (4) show his favor toward them (give his approval); (5) give peace. When asking God to bless others or yourself, you are asking him to do these five things. The blessing you offer will not only help the one receive it, it will also demonstrate love, encourage others, and provide a model of caring for others.