Wonder

Beauty, Delight, Joy 0

When I speak of wonder, I mean the practice of beholding the beautiful. Beholding the majestic – the snow-capped Himalayas, the sun setting on the sea – but also the perfectly mundane – that soap bubble reflecting your kitchen, the oxidized underbelly of that stainless steel pan. More than the grand beauties of our lives, wonder is about having the presence to pay attention to the commonplace. It could be said that to find beauty in the ordinary is a deeper exercise than climbing to the mountaintop.

— Cole Arthur Riley, This Here Flesh, p. 32

Photo: Tree Swallow, South Riding, Virginia, April 21, 2026

God Persists in Love.

Forgiveness, God, Love 0

Since God persists in love, no matter how dark things get, God is not preoccupied nor enfeebled by our “sin.” This is true because God doesn’t see sin but wholeness. God sees right through it. A homie texted me, sending a YouTube homily by a bishop who spoke of sin and the need for a “contrite heart.” This gave the homie a passageway to deem himself really, “a worthless piece of shit.” I texted back only this: “God doesn’t see sin. God sees son.” The relief in his next text was palpable. His notion of sin was self-estranging. He wanted to accept that he was “son” but didn’t know how to dare to believe it.

— Gregory Boyle, Forgive Everyone Everything, p. 26

Photo: Bluebells at Bull Run Regional Park, Virginia, April 3, 2026

Theologizin’ Bigger

Atonement, Community, Imagination, Jesus 0

Red and yellow tulips in a field.

Salvation is an act of reclamation and restoration. When Jesus saves us, he helps us reclaim the bits of humanity we’ve lost. Jesus gives us the ability to imagine good things and the power to realize them here and now. Community without exploitation. A sense of wealth that doesn’t demand scarcity. A love that doesn’t bleed us dry, but makes us whole. If only we imagine them, we can experience all these things. That’s what we were made to do. That’s what it means to be human.

If Jesus has the power to save, then we have the power to imagine again. We have the ability to theologize bigger. That is the image of God in us.

— Trey Ferguson, Theologizin’ Bigger, p. 186

Photo: Burnside Farms, Nokesville, Virginia, April 7, 2026

To Win Us Over

Atonement, God, Jesus, Love 0

Jesus did not die in order to win God’s love for us, but to win us over with God’s love. God’s love went to the limit for us, dove into the depths of the human condition, suffered the consequences of our sin by dying a terrible death as an innocent man. And in the midst of that suffering love, Jesus revealed the greatest love of all — forgiving his enemies and praying to God to do the same. Through the incarnation, God took on human flesh and gave human flesh the life of God.

— Sharon L. Baker, Executing God, p. 147

Photo: South Riding, Virginia, May 16, 2026

Power to Love

Forgiveness, Healing, Jesus, Love 0

Just as Middle-earth could not be saved, only enslaved, by the Ring of Power, so Christianity cannot save the world by political power; it can only be corrupted by it. Jesus Christ crucified is the everlasting indictment on those who forsake the way of the cross to reach for the ring of political power. The power we are promised by our Lord is the power of the Holy Spirit – the power to love, forgive, and heal. If we try to wield the Ring of Power (or Caesar’s sword), it will only corrupt us.

— Brian Zahnd, The Wood Between the Worlds, p. 97

Photo: South Riding, Virginia, May 16, 2026

Too Busy Loving Us

God, Love 0

Part of the quest is to be freed from everything that is not God. Eckhart thought we should rid ourselves of the irrelevant stuff, the tired views of God and religious language that block the pores of our soul. Richard Rohr says that your image of God creates you. Our God is self-effacing. We aren’t. This may be one of the reasons why we have such a hard time connecting to the God of love. God is not needy. We are. God does not long to be liked. We do. God is never fishing for a compliment. That’s our thing. Homies are endlessly insisting, for example, that everything happens for a reason. God is behind every reasonableness and everything unreasonable. When the opportunity affords itself, I will tell homies that God is too busy loving them to have any time left for orchestration. Sometimes we are saddled with an image of God that does not create us in God’s image.

— Gregory Boyle, Cherished Belonging, p. 17

Photo: Burnside Farms, Nokesville, Virginia, April 7, 2026

God Didn’t Make Us to Hate Us

Beauty, Bible, Delight, God, Love 0

God is not so small-minded or vindictive as to make people in order to just . . . hate them. I mean, look at the sheer multitude of galaxies in the universe. The membranes of butterfly wings. The way a toddler’s teeth make the most crooked and sublime smile when they laugh. The dreamer-upper of these things isn’t an asshole. I just don’t buy it. The Bible doesn’t sell it, either; while full of challenging and complex stories that do dip into the lament and wrath of God, scripture on the whole has an undercurrent and over-arc of God’s delight in God’s people.

— Rev. Lizzie McManus-Dail, God Didn’t Make Us to Hate Us, p. xii-xiv

Photo: Goslings, South Riding, Virginia, May 8, 2026

A Lover, Not a Dictator

Acceptance, Forgiveness, God, Love 0

Everything belongs. God uses everything. There are no dead-ends. There is no wasted energy. Everything is recycled. Sin history and salvation history are two sides of one coin. I believe with all my heart that the Gospel is all about the mystery of forgiveness. When you “get” forgiveness, you get it. We use the phrase “falling in love.” I think forgiveness is almost the same thing. It’s a mystery we fall into: the mystery is God. God forgives all things for being imperfect, broken, and poor. Not only Jesus but all the great people who pray that I have met in my life say the same thing. That’s the conclusion they come to. The people who know God well – the mystics, the hermits, those who risk everything to find God – always meet a lover, not a dictator. God is never found to be an abusive father or a tyrannical mother, but always a lover who is more than we dared hope for. How different than the “account manager” that most people seem to worship.

— Richard Rohr, Everything Belongs, p. 130-131

Photo: Irises, South Riding, Virginia, May 2, 2026