“Many people in churches today don’t have a sense of community and in order to get a sense of community, church leaders start gathering people up and giving them jobs.  We’ve lost a talent for relationship and showing interest in the other person.  We don’t have community because we skip over the critical part: being in relationship with the people knowing their kids, knowing their jobs, knowing the neighborhood” (Eugene Peterson, who reports he knew every one in his 600-person congregation by name, in  an interview with CT, December, 2018).

 ♦   ♦   ♦   ♦   ♦

“Religion tends to prefer and protect the status quo or the supposedly wonderful past, yet what we now see is that religion often simply preserves its own power and privilege. God does not need our protecting. We often worship old things as substitutes for eternal things. (Richard Rohr, Daily Meditation for Jan. 1, 2019).

 ♦   ♦   ♦   ♦   ♦

“The beauty we find in the painter’s canvas, in the composer’s symphony, or even tucked away in a chef’s culinary creation is humanity’s attempt to replicate the goodness we’ve found in God’s beautiful world. The good that He Himself saw at the very beginning (Gen 1:31). When human beings create something beautiful, whether it’s a work-of-art or a work-of-charity, they’re simply following the deepest and wildest impulses of their nature. The beautiful things we create are a reflection of God’s beauty” (Jonathan Bailey in  jonathan @ jonathanrbailey.com 

♦   ♦   ♦   ♦   ♦

“We have no choice about death.  But we do have choices to make about how we hold the inevitable – choices made difficult by a culture that celebrates youth, disparages old age, and discourages from facing our mortality. The laws of nature that dictate the sunset dictate our demise. But how we travel the arc between our own sunrise and sundown is ours to choose: Will it be denial, defiance, or collaboration?” (Parker Palmer in On the Brink of Everything: Grace Gravity & Getting Old).

♦   ♦   ♦   ♦   ♦

“I am beginning to now see how radically the character of my spiritual journey will change when I no longer think of God as hiding out and making it as difficult as possible for me to find him, but, instead, as the One who is looking for me while I am doing the hiding” (Henri Nouwen in You are the Beloved).