Simple/Profound

What Life Is About

No matter how varied and rich our experiences, how honored we’ve been, how great our achievements, we will have missed what life was all about if we do not become love…. I think one of the great failures of ministers like myself is that we have exhorted people to love, and we have deplored the lack of love in the world, yet we have not become love. We have not known how to instruct our own souls in the art of loving.

Seized by the Power of a Great Affection is available here.

N. Gordon Cosby
Source: Seized by the Power of a Great Affection

Add your thoughts at inward/outward

What Jesus might inspire. . .

Christian Values

Confession seldom heard. . .

"Saint Francis Xavier, the noble Jesuit missionary, said that in the confessional men had confessed to him all sins that he knew and some that he had never imagined, but none had ever of his own accord confessed that he was covetous."

 

Christianity and the Social Crisis

Walter Rauschenbusch



Easter faith

Easter 2014.

The streamers will fly!

The music will rise to amazing crescendos!

The litany will inspire to tears.

The faith will be confessed again.

The children will laugh!

The pews will swell!

The preachers will preach an ancient message of surprising hope.

The Christian year ascends to its highest point before a time of more waiting.

Easter 2014.

How did we get here again, and so quickly?

Today should be a time to remember and reflect.  The cross, the place of death, signaled the results of an extremely radical message, a word from heaven directed to earth. 

Easter teaches us:

Defend widows. . .

Receive without exception children who are poor. . .

Challenge unjust, oppressive authority. . .

Resist injustice. . .

Shine a spotlight on wealth and its dangers. . .

Question religion. . .

Eat with the poor as buds. . .

Embrace sinners. . .

Accept "Samaritans". . .

Touch the "unclean". . .

Champion the homeless as fellow residents of the streets. . .

Welcome women as leaders/contributors. . .

Call for a new Kingdom emerging from within everyone. . .

Dare to announce forgiveness to thieves. . .

Befriend enemies. . .

Welcome the world to your party. . .

Prefer the poor and the weak. . .

Indeed, these are the sure, certain steps to a cross, yet giving birth to individual acts of resurrection upon which to build a life that blesses all.

An empty tomb must lead to emptied lives.

Easter 2014!

Now what?

National grace; redemptive hearts

New York Times columnist, David Brooks always challenges me.

Have a quick look here for a load of truth, maybe even a road map for the nation.

Pope Francis: Lenten message

From the National Catholic Reporter:

Full text of Pope Francis' Lenten message

NCR Staff  |  Feb. 4, 2014Share on facebook

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Dear Brothers and Sisters,

As Lent draws near, I would like to offer some helpful thoughts on our path of conversion as individuals and as a community. These insights are inspired by the words of Saint Paul: 'For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sake he became poor, so that by his poverty you might become rich'. The Apostle was writing to the Christians of Corinth to encourage them to be generous in helping the faithful in Jerusalem who were in need. What do these words of Saint Paul mean for us Christians today? What does this invitation to poverty, a life of evangelical poverty, mean to us today?

Read the entire message here. 

Blue, my friend and theological partner

Last Thursday at "the Corner," I noticed my dear friend, Blue seated on the steps that rise from the sidewalk onto the pathway leading to the old, abandoned house on whose porch I was sitting.

Blue was reading a book.

After a few minutes of conversation with several other people, I approached my friend to ask how he was doing.

He opened the book he had been reading and pointed me to a particular paragraph and told me to read it.  The content involved a moving analysis of faith and the mystical position of the believer in the life of Christ.

After reading the paragraph out loud, I turned to the cover to discover whose words I had read.

As seen in the photo here, Blue was reading the work of Thomas Merton.

Here's a portion of what Wikipedia has to say about Merton:

an Anglo-American Catholic writer and mystic. A Trappist monk of the Abbey of Gethsemani, Kentucky, he was a poet, social activist, and student of comparative religion. In 1949, he was ordained to the priesthood and given the name Father Louis.

Merton wrote more than 70 books, mostly on spirituality, social justice and a quiet pacifism, as well as scores of essays and reviews, including his best-selling autobiography, The Seven Stormy Mountain (1948), which sent scores of World War II veterans, students, and even teenagers flocking to monasteries across the US, and was also featured in National Review's list of the 100 best non-fiction books of the century. Merton was a keen proponent of interfaith understanding. He pioneered dialogue with prominent Asian spiritual figures, including the Dalai Lama, the Japanese writer D.T. Suzuki, and the Vietnamese monk Thich Nhat Hanh. Merton has also been the subject of several biographies.

"Larry, if I'm sleeping on Billy's driveway," he said, pointing over toward the old service station next door where he beds down most nights, "I'm 'in Christ.'  And if I'm under a tree, I'm 'in Christ.' And if you put me in a house, I'm 'in Christ.'"

He concluded, "I'm just Blue, 'in Christ.'"

Blue, my good buddy, sitting on a South Dallas sidewalk, reading Merton, lecturing me about the mystery of solitude and solidarity.  

Reflecting on this amazing experience, it occurred to me that lots of people ask me if I share faith with the poor.  

Share faith with the likes of Blue?  Certainly, with most of the benefit coming back my way.

I live for the day that someone asks me if I ever share faith with bankers and venture capitalists.  

When it comes to faith, I'm enrolled in a class taught by my friend, Blue. 

President Carter: a message unheard today