“Clinging to what you already know is the path to an unlived life. So cultivate beginner’s mind, move directly into your not-knowing, and take the risk of failing and falling, again and again-then getting up to learn again and again. That’s the path to a life lived large in the service of love, truth, and…
“The security this world offers is a delusion. The security God offers is a promise.” ~Marilyn Chandler McEntyre We live in a world where security breaches are an ongoing occurrence. Several times a day messages pop-up on my cell phone and computers with various security alerts or offers to upgrade my security systems. As our…
“Jesus teaches us the Beatitudes because they speak a truer truth about what happiness is. Want to be happy? Choose to live differently than what the world sells as happiness.” ~jdj Every day we are told lies. There is the blatant fake news on social media. There are the “facts” that are twisted to support…
“Courage is the power of the mind to overcome fear.” ~Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. The legacy of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. is timeless. He learned to survive and thrive in the real world, a world mired in fear-based racism. One form of exile is racism. Rev. Dr. King refused to accept…
David said to the Philistine, “You come against me with sword and spear and javelin, but I come against you in the name of the LORD Almighty, the God of the armies of Israel, whom you have defied. This day the LORD will deliver you into my hands . . . and the whole world…
“Life can only be understood backwards, but it can only be lived forwards.” ~ Soren Kierkegaard Spiritual writer Clifford Rawley, on a trip to China, was journeying on the Yangtze River when he noticed an unusual sight: old shoes floating by. He learned these old shoes were not careless litter, but were part of a…
“. . . the angel Gabriel’s first words to Joseph were, ‘Do not be afraid.’ If we want to enter into God’s messy story, then perhaps these are the first words we need to hear, too: do not be afraid. Do not be afraid when God’s work in your life looks alarmingly different than you…
“God is in the advent wilderness of this holy season. God knows what I look like in my bathrobe, all alone late at night. And never once has God suggested that the sight is pathetic. Instead, in those empty hours God says, ‘Talk to me. Then be still and know that I am God.’” ~…
Joy to the World, the Savior reigns! Let all their songs employ While fields and floods, rocks, hills and plains Repeat the sounding joy, Repeat the sounding joy, Repeat, repeat the sounding joy. “Joy to the World” verse 2, Isaac Watts This Sunday begins the season of Advent. This is the time to intentionally prepare…
You need imagination in order to imagine a future that doesn’t exist.” ~Azar Nafisi The life, death, and resurrection of Jesus call us to imagine the unimaginable. Between Good Friday and Easter Sunday Jesus enters the darkness. Then, darkness is reimagined as a place of hope reborn. It is a holy darkness, a place without…
