When we are faced with the presence of the Glory of the Lord, do we try to stare at it and burn out our spiritual retinas? Do we try to keep it all to ourselves by putting a box over our head? Or do we trust there’s enough there to share with the whole world?
There are so many times when I wish I didn’t have to make decisions, especially difficult ones that are part of an intensely internal flood of emotions. Those emotions pull me this way and then that as I consider the consequences of my decision. Even after I decide, there are second, third and fourth thoughts, causing me to ask if I really made the correct decision.
By this time in our Genesis narrative, Jacob has been assured and reassured of God’s intention to bless him. . . But Jacob has never really trusted God. He has always made his own way, usually by cunning — willing to cheat, lie or deceive to advance his cause.
…[T]hrough the luminous brightness that shone from the face of the Lord on the mount the thrice-blessed apostles were secretly led in an ineffable and
When Jesus names himself the “Good Shepherd,” it might have been heard as a very political statement. When Jesus speaks of himself as the Good Shepherd, he may have in mind a challenge similar to the metaphor of the Kingdom of God.
Today’s readings are reminders of how we bring conflict, division, jealousy, and sin into nearly everything we touch.
One of the ways of thinking about the process of life is to see creation as the Divine emptying Itself of its transcendent nature into material creation, a process of “involution” — Spirit becomes matter; out of no-thing is something. From that point on, creation is being gathered back into its Source, a process of evolution.
If the desire of possession in a man is stronger than the sense of brotherhood,” he wrote, “he may be a tyrant or a slave, or both in one. He in whom a sense of brotherhood is uppermost may suffer, even to death, but he will preserve society from destruction. ~Charles Freer Andrews
This is my story, this is my song,
Praising my Savior, all the day long;
This is my story, this is my song,
Praising my Savior, all the day long
Let every person be subject to the governing authorities; for there is no authority except from God, and those authorities that exist have been instituted by God. Therefore whoever resists authority resists what God has appointed and those who resist will incur judgment. For rulers are not a terror to good conduct, but to bad. Romans 13:1-3a