“For Christians, questions of truth and falsehood are spiritual matters.  The ninth commandment states, ‘Thou shalt not bear false witness thy neighbor.’ This forbids speaking falsely, lying, equivocating, or designing to deceive our neighbor. It also prohibits speaking unjustly against our neighbor. The focus on care for one’s neighbor recognizes that truthfulness is essential for sustaining community.

Moreover, lying, falsehood, and deceit are understood biblically as essential tools of evil. Jesus calls the devil “the father of lies” (John 8:44). Truth is not merely a preferred practice, it’s foundational to a just social order. Therefore, for objective truth to be in dispute – and falsehoods named as ‘alternative facts’ – is not just a political danger, it strikes at the core of a trustworthy society” (Wesley Granberg-Michaelson in Sojourner, April, 2917).

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“Sometimes staying open to the Holy is just the sheer tenacity of hope, a steady desire not to lose the thread of connection. Thank God we are created with an innate thirst for this relationship and cannot finally be satisfied without it. A contemplative writer once noted that God is on the inside of our longing. God resides within our hope and desire, prompting our growth toward the Light. It seems to be the great task of the Spirit to draw us back to our soul’s magnetic North” (from “On Keeping and Open Heart,” Weavings: A Journey of the Christian Spiritual Life, Vol. XXXII, No. 1 (Nashville, TN: The Upper Room, 2017), 21-22.\

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“Loss and renewal is the perennial, eternal, transformative pattern.  It’s like a secret spiral: each time you allow surrender, each time you can trust the dying, you will experience a new quality of life within you” (Richard Rohr, Daily Meditation for April 24, 2017).

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“Faith opens a “window” to the presence and working of the Spirit.  It shows us that, like happiness, holiness is always tied to little gestures. ‘Whoever gives you a cup of water in my name will not go unrewarded,’ says Jesus (Mark 9:41). These little gestures are those we learn at home, in the family; they get lost amid all the other things we do, yet they do make each day different. They are the quiet things done by mothers and grandmothers, by fathers and grandfathers, by children.  They are little signs of tenderness, affection, and compassion. . . . Love is shown by little things, by attention to small daily signs which make us feel at home. Faith grows when it is lived and shaped by love” (Pope Francis, in the Closing Mass of the Eighth World Meeting of Families,  September 27, 2015, quoted in Mark K. Shriver’s book Pilgrimage, My Search for the Real Pope Francis).