Beyond the walls

Throughout the world an unrelenting hunger to know the life of Jesus is inviting thousands of men and women beyond the structures of religious performance into a meaningful relationship with him that is transforming their lives. And even though they’ve been marginalized by false accusations, they are learning to follow the Shepherd instead of the voices of those who want to use fear to draw them back into dependency on religious structures or leaders.

Wayne Jacobsen

Life Everlasting

The justice of the scribes, who perfectly understood the letter of the law, was not sufficient to gain anyone admittance to the Kingdom of Heaven.  It was necessary for the law to be fulfilled in spirit and in truth.  It was necessary that men should be perfect in the law, not by exterior observance of precepts but by the interior transformation of their whole being into sons of God.

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In Christ we die to the letter of the law so that our conscience can no longer see things in the dead light of formalism and exterior observance.  Our hearts refuse the dry husks of literal abstraction and hunger for the living bread and eternal waters of the spirit which will spring up to life everlasting.

Thomas Merton

Wild Kingdom

If animals had my problem...

Oh Yeah!

My mind is aglow with whirling transient nodes of thought careening through a cosmic vapor of invention.

Because of Love

The proclamation of the gospel is the proclamation of the forgiveness of sin, not a promise of the potential for forgiveness based on us and what we do.

 

One thing is certain: Jesus didn’t tell us to love our enemies while He won’t love His own. He has loved and so we love. He has forgiven and so we forgive. Thank God, grace doesn’t require an invitation. Instead, it rushes right into the place where it is needed simply because of love.

 

 

Steve McVey

Lord, have mercy

You wonder what to do when you feel attacked on all sides by seemingly irresistible forces, waves that cover you and want to sweep you off your feet.  Sometimes these waves consist of feeling rejected, feeling forgotten, feeling misunderstood.  Sometimes they consist of anger, resentment, or even the desire for revenge, and sometimes of self-pity and self-rejection.  These waves make you feel like a powerless child abandoned by your parents.

What are you to do?  Make the conscious choice to move the attention of your anxious heart away from these waves and direct it to the One who walks on them and says, "It's me.  Don't be afraid" (Matthew 14:27; Mark 6:50; John 6:20).  Keep turning your eyes to him and go on trusting that he will bring peace to your heart.  Look at him and say, "Lord, have mercy."  Say it again and again, not anxiously but with confidence that he is very close to you and will put your soul to rest.

Henri Nouwen

Few really know

Men judge generally more by the eye than by the hand, for everyone can see and few can feel.  Every one sees what you appear to be, few really know what you are.

Niccolo Machiavelli