“Soon I am carried out into the sunlight, where I am poured and poured, again and again, bringing happiness and wonder to all whom I serve.  I am deeply satisfied and full of joy myself.  Regardless of what happens next, it is this moment for which I was born.”

“The statement, “‘Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick,” certainly rings with us in this age of pandemic and seemingly endless variants. So many deny that there is anything wrong, that they might get sick or even die, or that they can make others ill and risk death because they take no precautions for themselves or others.”

“All it took
Was the glance back “like they knew all along”
Or the tone in their voices on the phone,
To affirm that, indeed, I’d done the best I could,
Even if I’d failed.”

“Isn’t that where the miracle is? Jesus enters with us in our struggles just like he showed up at that small town wedding, assuring us that, yes, there IS enough.”

“None of us is the Messiah, of course.  But we each are children of God, and, as such, we are more than we usually imagine ourselves to be.  We were conceived before the world began to be a unique part of God’s holy plan.  Do we know who we really are and what our mission is?”

“What Jesus intended to teach was what God had planned all along: that people get along together, work to help each other, take care of their neighbors, work to make the stranger feel welcome, feed the hungry, clothe those who are lacking, visit those who are in prison, and any one of many ministries that make the world better.”

“Hope is hard to come by these days. Never ending pandemic and mutations, inflation, escalating global tensions, crime and political divisions on the home front. A mental health practitioner told me that, regardless of her patients’ diagnoses, every single one is suffering anxiety and increased stress.”

“Faith is not a box on a checklist. The point of faith is not primarily knowledge or mastery. The point of faith is relationship—to be specific, to accept the unimaginable truth that God loves us fiercely, tenderly, protectively, intimately as our Creator.”

“As I gazed through the ice I wondered, how often do we become frozen and harden, causing our view of what lies ahead to become obscured?  My reflection was not abstract or rhetorical, but practical, as I could feel my own heart hardening.”