“When we learn to fall, we learn that only by letting go our grip on all that we ordinarily find most precious—our achievements, our plans, our loved ones, our very selves—can we find, ultimately, the most profound freedom. In the act of letting go of our lives, we return more fully to them. (Philip Simmons, Learning to Fall, The Blessings of an Imperfect Life).

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“We must imitate His life, we must let it all the way into ours, absorbing His eternal action and recreating it in our actual living. This principle of absorption, intrinsic in the act of imitation, is crucial. Because virtue isn’t learned like an academic discipline. We learn virtue like we learn to ride a bicycle, not by someone lecturing on balance or memorizing some formulas of forward motion. But by being given a little push, by being held as we get the pedals round, by being lifted up when we fall down—and then repeating that process over-and-over. That’s how we learn virtue, in relationship, in collaboration, or to put in the words of our Christian ancestors, by imitation “(jonathan@jonathanrbailey.com).

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“As Christians committed to social justice, we are not called to merely put our fingers in the air to detect which way the wind is blowing, as so  many politicians and candidates do. We are called instead to change the wind” (Jim Wallis in Sojourner, May, 2019).