“This is what we learn at Christ’s table, and it carried us through our lives as it will carry you. We learn that life is fleeting, and that the only thing that matters is love. Love wins out over death every single time.”
“I am in sympathy with the more ancient church, even though their doctrines and practices are foreign to me in many ways. There is something quite compelling about a church whose roots reach deeply and uniquely through both Indian and Palestinian history.”
“This makes me ponder what we call the Easter moment. In all our Easters isn’t there that element of the unexpected? Perhaps it is that I wanted to be reinstated to a position from which I’d been wrongfully dismissed. Instead, a new job comes along, one closer to my particular skill set. Or my house burned down and I prayed for the money to rebuild.”
“The powerlessness is a gateway. Self-emptying for the sake of love is a gateway. It is Christ’s gateway. The gentle letting go of everything – the spilling of pain, of life itself – for love – we’re called to do it in just the same way as he did. We’re called to do it for love.”
“Christ in the midst of his suffering looks strangely serene. He himself is a portal to a whole new way of looking at things. It isn’t some glorious heaven full of adoring angels and sycophantic saints – which would be more of the same ol’ same ol’. It’s something else, a new reality, a new way of understanding.”
“I think of the spiritual director who offered group spiritual direction to the folks staying at the Mission – for free and without fanfare. And I think of the thousands of people in Europe offering homes, supplies, money, transportation, and encouragement to the millions of refugees fleeing Ukraine.”
“And no, before you ask, there’s no saving of a People involved in this story. There’s no dramatic call. I AM WHO I AM simply spoke to me in the raw, authentic place of my woundedness and simply asked me to be who I am.”
“Do we fall into anxiety and anger, hoarding, pushing others away, and trying for a security that is ephemeral? Or do we respond with compassion, as Jesus would have us do, lamenting the entrenched evil that threatens the cities we love? (O, Moscow, how I long to gather you. . .) And reaching out in compassion to those who are hurting?”
In this frightening time, may we remember that the kingdom to which we belong transcends pain and death. No matter what happens, it cannot be taken away. It cannot be subverted.
“Where we turn in a certain direction out of love, stooping to be present, quieting to be available, there we are met by God’s prophets. Where we give up the edifices we have built, no matter how good they are, for the sake of peace, reconciliation, and compassion, there we have something to talk about with those who have gone before.”