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Of love, compassion and the unexpected angel of mercy
Without passion there’s no compassion. In the same way there has to be eros in the mixture if there is to be agape as well. Thus open this morning’s ‘Lent Daily Reflections’ by the World Community for...
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Martin Luther King on love
Envy, jealousy, a lack of self-confidence, a feeling of insecurity, and a haunting sense of inferiority are all rooted in fear. … Is there a cure for these annoying fears that pervert our personal...
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Playing a game with oneself?
ne of my principles for the content of this blog to offer positive, life-affirming thoughts and perspectives. It is no coincidence, therefore, that there is much on love and hope in these posts. Having...
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Best Reads 2013. VIII: Henri J. M. Nouwen, The Inner Voice of Love: A Journey...
his is one of the lesser known books by the late Dutch Roman Catholic priest Henri Nouwen, best remembered perhaps for books such as The Return of the Prodigal Son and The Wounded Healer. In the...
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The challenge
If we do not transform our pain, we will most assuredly transmit it. This is one of the statements that I most associate with Richard Rohr; and it is one that he must have said dozens of times. And so...
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Friendship and intimacy
I urge you … to open your heart to friendship and intimacy, remembering that your friendships are an extension of your contemplative prayer. They are indeed contemplative friendships. As mystical...
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Stories
Stories. Mostly, as it happens, women’s stories. One writes: ‘When I was forty-one I lost the ability to read. … I was trying to get myself and my two children free of a husband I had been with for...
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I have no enemies
Some thoughts on love, fear and violence from Living without Enemies: Being Present in the Midst of Violence, a book that I am enjoying more and more: Living beyond fear … means hearing God say, ‘Love,...
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Breathing in and breathing out – or passing out
Here’s my last quote from Samuel Wells and Marcia A. Owen, Living without Enemies: Being Present in the Midst of Violence: Receiving God’s love is like breathing in. Responding to the suffering of...
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Awful silence
Belief in a God of infinite mercy and transforming love means [to] hold on to the belief that there is no place from which God is absent. […] God’s silence signifies not absence, but total engagement....
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Taking up the cross
‘Taking up the cross’ in costly discipleship means a willingness to struggle against evil, for the sake of fullness of life, for the ‘bringing back of beauty’. It does not mean the passive acceptance...
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Faith is countercultural
Because of [faith], you freely, willingly, and joyfully do good to everyone, serve everyone, suffer all kinds of things, love and praise the God who has shown you such grace. Thus Martin Luther in ‘An...
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Secondary realities that are to be strongly resisted
Here’s another insightful quote from John Swinton’s Raging with Compassion: Pastoral Responses to the Problem of Evil: Sin, evil, and suffering … are secondary realities, intruders into the goodness of...
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One fingernail at a time
When Christians try to exercise power as if it were God doing it, cruelty and suffering and tyranny follow swiftly. In short order, we get the steely-eyed monks of the Inquisition trying to drag the...
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Suffering and transformation
Transformed life can only be found through confusion, struggle, literal and metaphorical deaths because we understand only from within the constellation of our present suffering. Mark Vernon in Third...
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To see through every regime
To be a follower of Jesus … means … to see through every regime that promises peace through violence, peace through domination, peace through genocide, peace through exclusion and intimidation....
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Faith is countercultural
Because of [faith], you freely, willingly, and joyfully do good to everyone, serve everyone, suffer all kinds of things, love and praise the God who has shown you such grace. Thus Martin Luther in ‘An...
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Secondary realities that are to be strongly resisted
Here’s another insightful quote from John Swinton’s Raging with Compassion: Pastoral Responses to the Problem of Evil: Sin, evil, and suffering … are secondary realities, intruders into the goodness of...
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Lovers as artists – and the inner landscape of beauty
Here are some passages from Krista Tippett’s book Becoming Wise: An Inquiry into the Mystery and Art of Living, passages that struck, inspired, challenged me. In connection with the Irish poet and...
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