Opposite of Disgust

Acceptance, Compassion, Jesus, Love 0

We aren’t so much afraid of one another as disgusted – a much harder truth to face. We don’t resist the foreigner, orphan, and widow out of fear for our lives and well-being so much as out of a fear that they will contaminate us – change us into something we do not want to become. It’s a very human and very normal reaction but not one that Jesus seemed to follow. The Way of Jesus runs in the opposite direction of the exclusion that disgust instigates: it welcomes instead of rejecting, integrates instead of segregating, and loves instead of fearing.

–Paul Hoard and Billie Hoard, Eucontamination, p. xiii

Photo: South Riding, Virginia, November 22, 2025

Look at the World

Beauty, Blessing, Core Value, Joy 0

So clean your windows. Take a look again at the world and see it, this time, the way you were meant to see it. Recover your sacramental wonder and be shocked anew by the color green. Become like a child and enter the kingdom of heaven. Count your blessings and rejoice. Always rejoice. Look to the horizon in hope, even in the Valley of Dry Bones. And remember why you matter. You are a child of God.

–Richard Beck, Hunting Magic Eels, p. 116

Photo: Blackwater River Valley, West Virginia, October 8, 2025

What Unity Means

Community, Love 0

Unity is not a claim that we agree on all things, or even the hope of future agreement. Unity is a commitment to grapple with one another, rather than give one another up. Unity insists that we have something to learn from each other, and that our gifts can complement each other. Unity does not mean integrating smoothly or sweeping disagreements under the rug. Unity means curating spaces in which we can challenge one another in a spirit of love.

–Hanna Reichel, For Such a Time as This: An Emergency Devotional, p. 100

Photo: South Riding, Virginia, November 10, 2025

Beloved

Core Value, God, Grace, Love 0

The gospel – the good news – is that you are already fully loved and accepted. That’s the message of grace at the heart of Christianity. You don’t have to do anything to be loved. Not anything at all. The work is always to receive it, to believe it. You don’t need to “be saved” to be loved. Salvation is just a way of describing the moment we come to know and believe that we are already loved, that we have always been loved. And our belovedness is not inspite of who we are but simply because we are worthy of love.

— Brian Recker, Hell Bent, p. 45

Photo: South Riding, Virginia, November 4, 2025

Lament as a Path to Praise

Peace, Prayer, Trials 0

You might think lament is the opposite of praise. It isn’t. Instead, lament is a path to praise as we are led through our brokenness and disappointment. The space between brokenness and God’s mercy is where this song is sung. Think of lament as the transition between pain and promise.

It is the path from heartbreak to hope.

— Mark Vroegop, Dark Clouds, Deep Mercy, p. 28

Photo: South Riding, Virginia, August 9, 2025

Our Father

Calling, Community, God 0

When I pray this line of the prayer, I put a special emphasis on the word our as a way of reminding myself that God is not simply my Father, but he is the God and Father of us all. Whether others acknowledge him or not, he is still the Creator of all things, the Giver and Sustainer of all life. He is the Father of all humans. This seems particularly important in a world prone to polarization and divisions. God is not simply the God of Protestants but also of Catholics and Orthodox believers. God is not simply the God of conservatives, but also of liberals. God is not the Father of any one nation, or ethnic group, but the Father of all nations and peoples. He is not merely the Father of Christians, but the Father of Jews, Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, and even atheists and agnostics who don’t believe in him.

— Adam Hamilton, The Lord’s Prayer, p. 7

Photo: Burg Falkenstein, Germany, June 19, 2024

Witnesses to Resurrection

Calling, Faith 0

It is very interesting to me that the New Testament only “sends out” those (apostolos) who can be “witnesses to resurrection” (Luke 24:48, Acts 1:22, 3:15b, 13:31), that is, witnesses to this immense inner and outer conversation that is always going on. Otherwise, we have little to say that is really helpful, and we just create unnecessary problems for people. Negative or cynical people, conspiracy theorists, and all predictors of Armageddon are the polar opposites of witnesses to resurrection. And many such people appear to be running the world and even the churches. The Christ of John’s Gospel says, “Be brave. I have overcome the world” (16:33) and its hopelessness. Courage and confidence is our message! Not threat and fear.

— Richard Rohr, The Universal Christ, p. 175-176

Photo: Blackwater Falls, West Virginia, April 23, 2025.

Making Things Right

Compassion, Healing, Love 0

The reason to do repentance work is not because you are BAD BAD BAD until you DO THESE THINGS but because we should care about each other, about taking care of each other, about making sure we’re all OK. Taking seriously that I might have hurt you — even inadvertently! even because I wasn’t at my best! — is an act of love and care. It is an opportunity to open my heart wider than it has been, to let in more empathy, more curiosity about how my choices or knee-jerk reactions have impacted you, have impacted others. To care about others’ perspectives. To let your experience matter, deeply, to me. To look at another person — or a community, or a team of people — and say: Where are you? What are you feeling and experiencing now, and how might I have (even unwittingly) brought you pain or difficulty? And to care about making that as right as I can.

It’s an act of concern. And facing the harm that I caused is an act of profound optimism. It is a choice to grow, to learn, to become someone who is more open and empathetic.

It’s also important to remember that sincere repentance work isn’t the same as self-flagellation — in fact, the latter can become a convenient way to stay stuck in inaction. We probably all know at least one person who, when told they have done something harmful, will go deep into their feelings and their reasons and the ways they were acting out of their pain, and they feel so bad and they know that it’s so not OK and on and on. And yet — they don’t focus on the needs of the person they hurt, and they don’t do the work of change.

— Danya Ruttenberg, On Repentance and Repair, p. 58

Photo: Falls Creek Falls, Washington, June 16, 2025

Blessed Are the Poor.

Blessing, Jesus 0

It’s true that the gospel of Luke records Jesus as saying, “Blessed are you who are poor” – period. In Luke’s Beatitudes, Jesus simply blesses the poor, and the further categorization of “in spirit” is omitted. In Luke, Jesus blesses the poor without reference to what kind of poverty it is. The truth is this: Jesus meets us at our point of poverty, not our place of strength. If we want to position ourselves to receive Christ’s blessing, we must identify an area of need and cry out for grace from there. If we think we have no area of weakness, need, or poverty, we essentially have no need for Jesus. This is why in the Book of Revelation Jesus condemns the people in the church of Laodicea for arrogantly confessing, “I am rich, I have prospered, and I need nothing.” They were essentially saying, “Thank you very much, Jesus, but I really don’t need you right now because I’m not poor.” So be it. Jesus has no blessing for them. The grace of Christ is perfected in weakness and poverty, not in strength and wealth. As Mary said of Messiah in her prophetic Magnificat, “He has filled the hungry with good things but has sent the rich away empty.” This is the spirit of the first beatitude – and to the poor it is beautiful.

–Brian Zahnd, Beauty Will Save the World, p. 190-191

Photo: South Riding, Virginia, August 16, 2025

Becoming Lowly

Calling, Community, Generosity, Jesus 0

On the last night of his life, at his last supper, Jesus puts into words what we’ve seen throughout the entire Gospel. This is what he’s done in befriending outsiders and outcasts, in seeking to lift up the lowly. He came as a servant-king. Everything we’ve seen to this point in the Gospel is a picture of Jesus doing what finally now he puts into words. He gave himself to love, heal, and care for the broken and hurting. He sought to show mercy and grace to the marginalized and those far from God. He came to see those who were often overlooked or unseen. And if he did that for us, as his disciples this must be our posture and the mission we are called to as well. This is what it means to be his disciple: we follow him, and we lift up the lowly.

Lifting up the lowly requires becoming lowly. Greatness is defined by lowering ourselves and serving others. In our world, this is utterly countercultural, but it is absolutely the culture of the Kingdom.

If the disciples, who spent three years with Jesus, were still focused on status and power at the Last Supper, it should not surprise us that we struggle with those same things at times as well. But nearly every one of the conversations Jesus had over his final week were on this same theme. He encouraged a rich young ruler to lay down the source of his status. He blessed and healed a blind beggar. He befriended a wealthy and powerful tax collector who gave up half of what he had to the poor. He praised the poor widow while castigating the powerful and status-loving religious elite. “The greatest among you must become like a person of lower status and the leader like a servant” (Luke 22:6).

–Adam Hamilton, Luke: Jesus and the Outsiders, Outcasts, and Outlaws, p. 107

Photo: pink Mandevilla flowers, August 6, 2025.