“If equity is to emerge in the way Jesus envisioned it, those of us who are “the first,” who occupy privileged positions at the front of the line, will have to give things up. In a big way.”
“Surely it is not a naïve faith that says everything is going to be as we would like. It says: no matter what happens, no matter how long the trek through the valley of the shadow of death, I will have the one thing I cannot live without. That is, union with the Great Spirit. And as long as that abiding, that connection remains, I won’t only survive, I will be well in my depths.”
“Healing on a soul level has to supersede healing on a physical level.”
“We need to listen to certain stories again and again, whether those from our religious traditions, from our cultural traditions (oral traditions or folk tales), or even from the corpus of Shakespeare or Toni Morrison or Star Wars, if preferred. We need to pick a tradition we admire, and then let it work through us. Story is somehow essential, somehow part of the warp and weft of the universe, part of our God-nature.”
“The life of faith is about living from this perspective of abundance. It is trusting that even when things feel and look impossible, “way opens,” to use a phrase of the Quakers.”
“Because identity is so critical for our lives—because it gives us the power to “do what needs to be done,” people grasp at a false sense of belonging, grasping for a sense of identity that empowers them and makes them feel safe. People go to “race” and nation in their quest for identity.”
“The fact is, the US has received barely a trickle of the world’s refugees and asylums seekers in past months, whereas our friends in other countries have put our so-called Christian nation to shame with hospitality and compassion, albeit imperfectly.”
“What we dwell on will increase, and what we refuse to indulge (negative thinking, resentment thinking, fear) will gradually lose neural-connective strength.”
“We still operate under mega-stories telling us what it means to live a good life.”
“So if not a formerly demon-possessed, reformed prostitute, who was this woman who according to near unanimous New Testament tradition was at the cross, witness to Jesus’ burial, and the first witness to the resurrection?”