“Jesus, who is wisdom incarnate, gives us access to the Creator to reveal hidden things and invites us to seek out our sacred responsibility to perceive God’s unscripted presence here and now,” – Peter Enns. The reality of Jesus offers to us not only an ancient story about the past, but, among other things, it reveals to us what relationship with the unseen Creator-God can look like in the present, as well. As well as […]
“We habitually stand in ournow and look back by faith to see the past filled with God.We look forward and see Him inhabiting ourfuture;but ournow is uninhabitedexcept for ourselves.Thus we are guilty of a kind of temporary atheismwhich leaves us alone in the universe while,for the time,God is not.”– A.W Tozer Here I like how Tozer draws attention to how we might be affected by living in our present world (and all of the difficulty […]
“I believe God is a fan of people connecting and I think the enemy of God is a fan of people breaking off into paranoid tribes. And I think all the clanging pots and pans in the kitchen to scare people from the territory we feel compelled to defend is playing into the hands of dark forces. I think a lot of the shame-based religious and political methodology has more to do with keeping people […]
Jesus to his disciples ahead of his crucifixion: “I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you.” John 14:18 I’ve been thinking about Easter Sunday. And how like, I want to make sure I don’t lose sight of the warmth of the Easter-Sunday, Jesus-qualified hope of not being left alone. I want to make sure that in the aftermath of the Good-Friday death of the King – the King I’ve come to […]
What if, in our relationships with others, instead of being driven by a need to be ‘authentic’ we instead tuned our senses to moments of vulnerability? Sometimes I wonder if we are more concerned about striving to be authentic in the presence of others than we are about allowing ourselves to be vulnerable in the presence of others. And I wonder if we forget there is a difference between the two – that they aren’t […]
“If I get to be me, I belong. If I have to be like you, I fit in.” – Brené Brown It’s pretty easy to absorb as true whatever are the social norms we are surrounded by. But when we do that thoughtlessly, we run the risk of discarding any experience or knowledge we feel and/or hold that lands outside of said social norms. What we want, though, in the communities of which we are […]
“Stop scouring people’s faces for evidence that you’re not enough.You will always find it (the evidence)because you’ve made that your goal.” -Brené Brown And to build on this, I would further mention the sort of evidence you use to qualify the degree to which you belong any such place could also be the same information that has you isolated from a sense of belonging anywhere. Over the time I have spent as a counsellor, and […]
“You’re blessed when you’re content with just who you are—no more, no less. That’s the moment you find yourselves proud owners of everything that can’t be bought.” Matt 5:5 MSG I was thinking about how readily we absorb as our own whatever are the social norms that we are surrounded by, and how if we don’t do that mindfully, we run the risk of completely discounting any experience we feel that lands outside. Why does […]
The decision to be Brave is vulnerable because it reveals the parts of us that feel undesirably under-developed. Especially to the eyes that surround us. Brave is vulnerable because it requires action in the very space our preference would be to hide. Because “what will people think when they see me wobble with even *this.*” I think for this very reason we need to take care that we don’t measure brave according to the bigness […]
“In the middle of their talk and questions, Jesus came up and walked along with them. But they were not able to recognize who he was. He asked, “What’s this you’re discussing so intently as you walk along?” They just stood there, long-faced, like they had lost their best friend. Then one of them, his name was Cleopas, said, “Are you the only one in Jerusalem who hasn’t heard what’s happened during the last few […]
anne-marie elizabeth 