“When Jesus took the bread and said, “This is my body which is broken for you” (1 Corinthians 11:24), it’s hard to believe that even in his wildest dreams he foresaw the tragic and ludicrous brokenness of the Church as his body. There’s no reason why everyone should be Christian in the same way and every reason to leave room for differences, but if all the competing factions of Christendom were to give as much of themselves to the high calling and holy hope that unites them as they do now to the relative inconsequentialities that divide them, the Church would look more like the Kingdom of God for a change and less like an ungodly mess” (Frederick Buechner in Whistling in the Dark).
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“When we are brave enough to sit with our pain, it deepens our ability to sit with the pain of others. It shows us how to love them” (Valarie Kaur).
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“Many so-called celebrations are not much more than a painful moment between bothersome preparations and boring after-talks. We can only celebrate if there is something present that can be celebrated. We cannot celebrate Christmas when there is nothing new born here and now; we cannot celebrate Easter when no new life becomes visible; we cannot celebrate Pentecost when there is no Spirit whatsoever to celebrate. Celebration is the recognition that something is there and needs to be made visible so that we can all say yes to it” (Henri Nouwen).
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“Doubt need not be the death of faith, it can be, instead, the birth of a new kind of faith, a faith beyond beliefs, a faith that expresses itself in love, a deepening and expanding faith that can save your life and save the world” (Brian D. McLaren).
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“Are we on the verge of a new reformation? I rather think so, I even hope so. So much is falling apart in the American church at least, but sometimes falling apart is exactly what has to happen in order for something else new to grow. The process is always messy and bewildering and painful. But the process belongs to the Spirit, and that means surprises are always coming” (Deb Rienstra, The Twelve blog, June 5, 2021).
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“. . .[T]he Bible is not afraid of a dynamic and unfolding understanding of God. The notion of “The Lord” clearly evolves with many other iterations in the Hebrew Scriptures. For the New Testament writers, these images inspire the Christian notion of Jesus and lead to the utterly relational and totally interactive doctrine of the Trinity. A dynamic understanding of God is not only rather obvious in the Bible, but also necessary—and surely exciting. Remember, the only language available to religion is metaphor. God is always like something else we have experienced visibly and directly” (Richard Rohr, Daily Meditation for May 30, 2020).
Living as Apprentices 