Christians
Christians are not a special, better class of person. We’re normal people, but we’re normal people to whom God has delivered a high moral call. The Sermon on the Mount, for example, is one of the most profoundly challenging declarations of moral purpose ever uttered. Thank God for His remarkable grace, because I fail to achieve that standard every day. But the call still remains.
David French
Inspiration
Inspiration is not about some disembodied ethereal voice dictating words or notes to a catatonic host. It’s a collaborative process, a holy give-and-take, a partnership between Creator and creator. . . . God is still breathing. The Bible is both inspired and inspiring. Our job is to ready the sails and gather the embers, to discuss and debate, and like the biblical character Jacob, to wrestle with the mystery until God gives us a blessing.
Rachel Held Evans
The Other Epidemic
Something has been replicating in the American mind. It is not microbial. It cannot be detected by nasal swab. To treat an affliction, you must first identify it. But you can’t slide a whole country into an MRI machine
“There’s no diagnosis for this,” Fauci says. “I don’t know what is going on.”
Relationship
We could say that the original blueprint for everything that exists is relationship. John’s word for that was Logos (John 1:1). In other words, the first blueprint for reality was relationality. It is all of one piece. How we relate to God reveals how we eventually relate to everything else. And how we relate to the world is how we are actively relating to God, whether we know it or not (1 John 4:20). How we do anything is how we do everything!
Richard Rohr
The rate of U.S. traffic deaths is now lower than it was in 1921, back when less than 10% of the population had cars.
CHRISTIANS
“There are two kinds of Christians: list makers and storytellers.” And “List makers will talk about doctrines you must believe or commandments you must keep.” And “Storytellers … will say: ‘Let me tell you about my grandmother ….’ That’s when I lean in, because I find the art of Christian living far more compelling that a theological argument. It didn’t used to be that way, though. When I was a young man, I relished” the list making approach. “But these days, I’d rather hear about an embodied faith – a story that must be imagined to be believed.”
Rodney Reeves in his new book, Spirituality according to John. Scot McKnight
The Bible
If we want the Bible to be a constitution, it isn’t enough. It isn’t at all. Nor is it enough as a road map for successful living, as a set of blueprints for building a life, institution, or nation, or as an “owner’s manual” . . . . But as the portable library of an ongoing conversation about and with the living God, and as an entrée into that conversation so that we actually encounter and experience the living God—for that the Bible is more than enough. . . .
Richard Rohr
Journey with Jesus
Jesus’ call to “Come and follow me” doesn’t only occur at the beginning of our journey with him. I think we hear it again and again as we begin new phases of our life with him. In those moments, we have a choice either to stay where we are, content with what the journey has produced in us or to answer the call again. We begin something new again, accepting new risks and challenges.
Jason Zahariades
Fan or follower
They’d gathered outside the giant football stadium as early as 3 a.m. but didn’t seem to mind the cold. The frigid and faithful few had waited 18 months for this, what was a few more hours?
At promptly 8:59 a.m. Wednesday, the doors to the team store at FedEx Field swung open and some two dozen fans, most dressed in a custom burgundy and gold outfits, rushed inside to check out the new merchandise.
“Let’s go! Let’s go! Let’s go! Let’s go!” yelled one, as he weaved through racks of T-shirts.
Washington’s NFL team unveiled its new name — the Commanders
View from the Lanai
Sometimes the desire to be lost again, as long ago, comes over me like a vapor. With growth into adulthood, responsibilities claimed me, so many heavy coats. I didn’t choose them, I don’t fault them, but it took time to reject them. Now in the spring I kneel, I put my face into the packets of violets, the dampness, the freshness, the sense of ever-ness. Something is wrong, I know it, if I don’t keep my attention on eternity. May I be the tiniest nail in the house of the universe, tiny but useful. May I stay forever in the stream. May I look down upon the windflower and the bull thistle and the coreopsis with the greatest respect.
Mary Oliver
Still on thr Journey
