“…Christ is right here beside me, in companionable solidarity. Whatever happens to me as an individual, to my faith community, to my country, Christ is right here. Love accompanies me. Love accompanies me, and for that reason my hands can be busy in the activity of love. Christ pours through me right along with genuine love. In fact, perhaps they are one and the same.”
“John O’Donohue, my spiritual and writing hero, calls hurt and loss “dark gifts.” And I find that intriguing. In order to metabolize disappointment, we need resilience and what psychologists tell us about resilience is that it is like a muscle. It gets stronger as you use it – as you lift heavier and heavier things. And what we know about muscles is that the lifting rips their fibers – and the ripped fibers are what, when healed, build more muscle.”
David and Charlette discuss the story of Jesus rebuking Peter from this week’s gospel, it’s implications for our spiritual lives, and what conversations at home will be like based on these gospel themes
The story of Moses and the burning (not burning!) bush sparks a wide ranging conversation about God’s presence and movement in our lives
“Praise the Lord for all that is good, and even stuff that may be bad at the time but which later on may be revealed as something quite the opposite. The pandemic may have shown us that we are all brothers and sisters in the same boat, we are all responsible for one another, and we can still pull together to help each other get through this time. We are stronger because we can do things we didn’t know we could, and that’s a lesson we can take with us throughout the rest of our lives.”
David and Charlette talk about the story of Peter identifying Jesus as the messiah from this week’s gospel, it’s implications for our spiritual lives, and what conversations at home will be like based on these gospel themes
Is Jesus of the past or is He the living God right now, and tomorrow?
“The darkness is where creation takes place. The darkness is ancient. The darkness was the companion of God long before the universe came to be. And it is from the creative, velvet darkness that God’s call to Moses, and many of us, actually originates.”
We continue to sit with Job’s story through our Daily Office readings (today, Job 6:1; 7:1-21). He is a parable for the prophet, a paragon for the saint, a mouthpiece for the protest, a sibling to the sorrowful whose sighs are too deep for words.
“God invites us to stop and listen, to take a deep breath, to trust that we are not alone. In our walking, taking one step after another, we catch glimpses of hope – the gentle breeze, the sun’s warmth, light breaking through, a star-filled sky, birds chirping, mushrooms, the hand of a neighbor reaching out to us. Signs of God’s presence in our midst. Keep walking forward with eyes wide open and be surprised.”