SIN
Sin is shorthand for my attempts to meet my deepest need by my own resources… and always coming up short.
Tyler Staton
PRAY AS YOU CAN
Pray as you can, and do not try to pray as you can’t.
Dom John Chapman
ONE NEVER SEES A THING FOR THE FIRST TIME
“In nature one never sees a thing for the first time until one has seen it for the fiftieth.”
Joseph Wood Krutch
The Desert Year
INCARNATION IS ALREADY REDEMPTION
Incarnation is already redemption.
The problem is solved.
Now go and utterly enjoy all remaining days.
Richard Rohr
Preparing for Christmas
IDENTITY AS DEEPLY LOVED BY GOD
God’s love for you has nothing to do with your behavior. Neither our faithfulness nor your unfaithfulness alters Divine love in the slightest degree.
Whether we realize it or not, our being is grounded in God’s love, the generative love of God is our origin.
Love is our identity and calling, for we are children of Love. Created from love, of love and for love, our existence makes no sense apart from Divine love.
Our identity is who we experience ourselves to be - the I each of us carries within. An identity grounded in God would mean that when we thank of who we are, the first thing that would come to mind is our status as someone who is deeply loved by God.
David Benner
The Gift of Being Yourself
FEAR KNOCKED AT THE DOOR
Fear knocked at the door.
Faith answered.
There was no one there.
Martin Luther King Jr.
Strength to Love
ONLY LOVE CAN DO THAT
Darkness cannot drive our darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.
Martin Luther King Jr.
A HIGHER LAW PRODUCES LOVE
Morality cannot be legislated, but behavior can be regulated.
Man-made laws assure justice, but a higher law produces love.
Martin Luther King Jr.
Strength to Love
I KNOW NOT ALL THAT MAY BE COMING
I know not all that may be coming, but be it what it will, I'll go to it laughing.
Herman Melville, Moby Dick
NO REMEDY FOR LOVE
There is no remedy for love but to love more.
Henry David Thoreau
BLESSING FOR THE BROKENHEARTED
Let us agree
for now
that we will not say
the breaking
makes us stronger
or that it is better
to have this pain
than to have done
without this love.
Let us promise
we will not
tell ourselves
time will heal
the wound,
when every day
our waking
opens it anew.
Perhaps for now
it can be enough
to simply marvel
at the mystery
of how a heart
so broken
can go on beating,
as if it were made
for precisely this—
as if it knows
the only cure for love
is more of it,
as if it sees
the heart’s sole remedy
for breaking
is to love still,
as if it trusts
that its own
persistent pulse
is the rhythm
of a blessing
we cannot
begin to fathom
but will save us
nonetheless.
Jan Richardson