Peace: After A Destructive Encounter …

God does not spill milk. God did not bash the truck into your father’s car. Nowhere in scripture does it say, ‘God is car accident’ or ‘God is death.’ God is justice and kindness, mercy, and always—always—love. So if you want to know where God is in this or in anything, look for love.
— Kate Braestrup from Here if You Need Me

We look forward to the time when the Power of Love will replace the Love of Power. Then will our world know the blessings of peace.
— William Gladstone (attr. The National Elementary Principal)

Do not be daunted by the enormity of the world’s grief.
Walk humbly now.
Do justly now.
Love mercy now.
You are not obligated to complete the work,
but neither are you free to abandon it.

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The Living Image Of God …

The highest form of love is the love that allows for intimacy without the annihilation of difference.
— Parker J. Palmer from  The Courage to Teach

I conclude by saying that each of us must keep faith in the future. Let us not despair. Let us realize that as we struggle for justice and freedom, we have cosmic companionship. This is the long faith of the Hebraic-Christian tradition: that God is not some Aristotelian Unmoved Mover who merely contemplates upon himself. He is not merely a self-knowing God, but an other-loving God forever working through history for the establishment of His kingdom.

Courage: The Most Important Virtue …

There’s a long road of suffering ahead of you. But don’t lose courage. You’ve already escaped the gravest danger: selection. So now, muster your strength, and don’t lose heart. We shall all see the day of liberation. Have faith in life. Above all else, have faith. Drive out despair, and you will keep death away from yourselves. Hell is not for eternity. And now, a prayer – or rather, a piece of advice: let there be comradeship among you. We are all brothers, and we are all suffering the same fate. The same smoke floats over all our heads. Help one another. It is the only way to survive.
— Elie Wiesel from Night

I am convinced that courage is the most important of all the virtues. Because without courage, you cannot practice any other virtue consistently. You can be kind for a while; you can be generous for a while; you can be just for a while, or merciful for a while, even loving for a while. But it is only with courage that you can be persistently and insistently kind and generous and fair.

Heal The World Through Joy …

Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again: Rejoice! Let your gentleness be evident to all. The Lord is near. Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God,which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.
— Philippians 4:4-7

Jung’s conviction is that the most effective way to redeem or transform the world is first of all to transform the little piece of it that is oneself.
– Edward Edinger from The Mystery of the Coniunctio

Once upon a time, when women were birds, there was the simple understanding that to sing at dawn and to sing at dusk was to heal the world through joy. The birds still remember what we have forgotten, that the world is meant to be celebrated.

The Redemptive Power of Love …

The truth is, indeed, that love is the threshold of another universe. Beyond the vibrations with which we are familiar, the rainbow-like range of its colours is still in full growth. But, for all the fascination that the lower shades have for us, it is only towards the “ultra” that the creation of light advances. It is in these invisible and, we might almost say, immaterial zones that we can look for true initiation into unity. The depths we attribute to matter are no more than the reflection of the peaks of spirit …

What paralyzes life is lack of faith and lack of audacity. The difficulty lies not in solving problems but expressing them … whatever is the more true comes out into the open, and whatever is better is ultimately realized. The day will come when, after harnessing space, the winds, the tides, gravitation, we shall harness for God the energies of love. And, on that day, for the second time in the history of the world, man will have discovered fire.

The Hope Of Loving …

Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love.
— 1 John 4:7-8

 

I have a choice about where to stand in my inner landscape as I move toward others in relationship. I can consciously make the decision that I’m not going to stand in my fear, but that I’m going to stand in my hope. I still have fears, but I’m not ‘being’ my fears.

Hope: Better Days Ahead …

All night my heart makes its way however it can over the rough ground of uncertainties, but only until night meets and then is overwhelmed by morning, the light deepening, the wind easing and just waiting, as I too wait (and when have I ever been disappointed?) for redbird to sing.
— Mary Oliver from A Thousand Mornings

We Look With Uncertainty

We look with uncertainty
beyond the old choices for
clear-cut answers
to a softer, more permeable aliveness
which is every moment
at the brink of death;
for something new is being born in us
if we but let it.
We stand at a new doorway,
awaiting that which comes…
daring to be human creatures,
vulnerable to the beauty of existence.
Learning to love.

One Heart Grace (Grace Before Meals) …

As we make ready to eat this food
we remember with gratitude
the many people, tools, animals, and plants,
air and water, sky and earth,
turned in the wheel of living and dying,
whose joyful exertion
provide our sustenance this day.

Eternal Now (Christmas Meditation) …

Time is too slow for those who wait,
too swift for those who fear,
too long for those who grieve,
too short for those who rejoice,
but for those who love, time is eternity.
— Henry Van Dyke from Music and Other Poems

The LIFE WITH GOD posture is predicated on the view that relationship is at the core of the cosmos: God the Father with God the Son with God the Holy Spirit. And so we should not be surprised to discover that when God desired to restore his broken relationship with people, he sent his Son to dwell with us.