Do. Love. Walk.

“The great weakness in the North American church at large, and certainly in my life, is our refusal to accept our brokenness. We hide it, evade it, gloss over it. We grab for the cosmetic kit and put on our virtuous face to make ourselves admirable to the public. Thus, we present to others a self that is spiritually together, superficially happy, and lacquered with a sense of self-deprecating humor that passes for humility. The irony is that while I do not want anyone to know that I am judgmental, lazy, vulnerable, screwed up, and afraid, for fear of losing face, the face that I fear losing is the mask of the impostor, not my own!”

– Brennan Manning

“In a futile attempt to erase our past, we deprive the community of our healing gift. If we conceal our wounds out of fear and shame, our inner darkness can neither be illuminated nor become a light for others.”

Brennan Manning, Abba’s Child: The Cry of the Heart for Intimate Belonging

Our lives are but a breath, but our breaths are drawn from your divine Spirit.  You have created us as walking paradoxes.  Specks of dust and divine-image bearers.  We are constantly restless until we rest in you.

The axis of the Christian moral revolution is love, and it is the only sign given by Jesus by which the disciple would be recognized. The danger lurks in our subtle attempts to minimize, rationalize, and justify our moderation in this regard.

Turning the other cheek, walking the extra mile, offering no resistance to injury, being reconciled with one’s brother, and forgiving seventy times seven are not arbitrary whims of the Son of Man. He did not preface the Sermon on the Mount with, “It would be nice if…” So central is the precept of fraternal love that Paul called it the fulfillment of the law.

– Brennan Manning

“What we would like to do is change the world—make it a little simpler for people to feed, clothe, and shelter themselves as God intended them to do. And, by fighting for better conditions, by crying out unceasingly for the rights of the workers, the poor, of the destitute—the rights of the worthy and the unworthy poor, in other words—we can, to a certain extent, change the world; we can work for the oasis, the little cell of joy and peace in a harried world. We can throw our pebble in the pond and be confident that its ever widening circle will reach around the world. We repeat, there is nothing we can do but love, and, dear God, please enlarge our hearts to love each other, to love our neighbor, to love our enemy as our friend.”

Dorothy Day

“I really only love God as much as I love the person I love the least.”

-Dorothy Day

“People of our time are losing the power of celebration. Instead of celebrating we seek to be amused or entertained. Celebration is an active state, an act of expressing reverence or appreciation. To be entertained is a passive state—it is to receive pleasure afforded by an amusing act or a spectacle…. Celebration is a confrontation, giving attention to the transcendent meaning of one’s actions.

Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel, The Wisdom of Heschel

nomoresea:

“The poor in spirit will be making the kingdom of heaven happen. The meek will be taking over the earth, so gently that the powerful won’t notice until it’s too late. The peacemakers will be putting the arms manufacturers out of business. Those who are hungry and thirsty for God’s justice will be analysing government policy and legal rulings and speaking up on behalf of those at the bottom of the pile. The merciful will be surprising everybody by showing that there is a different way to do human relations: some people know only how to be judgmental, to give as good as they get, to lash out and get their own back, but the Beatitude-people will unveil, and by their example encourage, a refreshingly different way. You are the light of the world, said Jesus. You are the salt of the earth. He was announcing a programme yet to be completed. He was inviting his hearers, then and now, to join him in making it happen. This is what it looks like when Christian faith is doing its job within the public life of today’s and tomorrow’s world.”

—

N.T. Wright

solideogloriaa:

“O my God, Thou fairest, greatest, first of all objects, My heart admires, adores, loves thee, For my little vessel is as full as it can be, And I would pour out all that fullness before thee in ceaseless flow. When I think upon and converse with thee, Ten thousand delightful thoughts spring up, Ten thousand sources of pleasure are unsealed, Ten thousand refreshing joys spread over my heart.”

—

Valley of Vision

Isaiah, Amos, and many of the prophets wrote about what God wants to bring about in the future—the kingdom of God, the new heaven and new earth, a healed material creation: “The wolf lying down with the lamb; the child playing with the cobra and adder without fear” (Isaiah 11). Absolute wholeness and well-being, physically, spiritually, socially, and economically. When John the Baptist sends a messenger from prison who says to Jesus in Matthew 11: “Are you really the Messiah? Are you the one who is bringing the kingdom of God?” Jesus answered:

The blind receive sight, the lame walk, those who have leprosy are cured, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the good news is preached to the poor” (Matthew 11:5).

That is the kingdom of God—Shalom—complete healing of all relationships in the creation. We will be reconciled to God; to nature; to one another; and to ourselves.

And to the extent that that future is real to you, it will change everything about how you live in the present. For example, who is it so hard to face suffering? Why is it so hard to face disability and disease? Why is it so hard to do the right thing if you know it’s going to cost you money, reputation, maybe even your life? Why is it is hard to face your own death or the death of loved ones? It’s so hard because we think this broken world is the only world we’re ever going to have. It’s easy to feel as if this money is the only wealth we’ll ever have. As if this body is the only body we’ll ever have. But if Jesus is risen then your future is so much more beautiful, and so much more certain, than that.

Tim Keller, King’s Cross

joyandbicycles:

“I want oh God, to see you, savor you, be satisfied in you, trust you, desire you, so deeply, so firmly that your infinite value, that your beauty, your treasure, would shine off our lives whether by life or by death.”

—

John Piper (via yhwhlives)