Our healing doesn’t take place in isolation. The blind man, Job…even Jelly Roll…return to their community healed. The lives of the people around them benefit from that. Redemption has a ripple effect.

God is present in the morning stars and the heavenly beings, in the clouds and rains and lightning, in the lions and ravens and their prey, because God brought them all into being and sustains them on their course.

In being an everyday mystic, St. Francis believed that his spiritual practice should have a positive impact on the world around him.

As Meister Eckhart, the 13th century priest and mystic, said: “God asks only that you get out of God’s way and let God be God in you.”

I found such solace in a daily meditation I read recently by the Franciscan priest, Richard Rohr.  In his blog post, he quoted the novelist Marilynne Robinson. When she was asked by an interviewer, “What single thing would make the world, in general, a better place?”, she replied, “Loving it more.”

May you know that the same breath of God that is keeping you alive is keeping your neighbor alive and is given equally and indiscriminately to each one of us.

In today’s gospel reading, we have a profound but not uncommon, difference of opinion between the Pharisees and Jesus. It is a difference of opinion between rituals and one’s motives. Between the head and the heart.

“As shoes for your feet, put on whatever will make you ready to proclaim the gospel of peace.”

Wisdom doesn’t just come from reading the right books or having a good education. Wisdom draws on all of our knowledge, intelligence, and life experience and applies it to make just decisions, and to take just actions, for the good of ourselves and others. But there is another element in defining wisdom, when we look at it from a spiritual perspective, and that is being attuned to the Spirit in each one of us to discern what is true, and to be guided in ways that transcend our understanding.

At this table, everyone is invited and everyone receives bread, wine, and a blessing. And everyone leaves differently than how they came here: fed, nourished, and blessed.

Through our efforts as a community, God will help us work toward liberating others, as we ourselves are liberated.

Agape love is the kind of love that challenges us to see beyond our biases and our disagreements. It is the kind of love that allows us to pray for peace and goodness for those whom we don’t like. 

Agape love, which is not always easy to achieve, is the type of love that causes us to see the full humanity of all of God’s people. 

Are we willing to speak truth to power and speak for those who cannot speak for themselves? Are we willing to leave our comfort zones long enough to be God’s hands and feet in the world?

The assumption in contemplative prayer is that God is already here—within us…around us—waiting for us to become more aware of God’s presence.

Christians are a new creation – there’s a new way to be human in the world, and it looks like being reconciled to God and then becoming a minister of reconciliation.

The Apostle Paul refers to this shift of the heart as the “spirit of faith,” as he helps the Corinthians understand that losing our lives is the path to freedom, because surrendering to God opens us to the fullness of God.

We can start by rediscovering the Sabbath. Enjoying the gift of rest and renewal that comes with the Sabbath. Use it as a means to recharge your physical, emotional, and spiritual batteries so that you are fully charged to embrace the world.

“…the only thing sillier than thinking we can explain the ways of God from a human perspective, is thinking that it doesn’t matter.”