What Are We Teaching the Children?

 What are we teaching the children?

Children have been on my mind a lot these past few days. How do we adults explain to our children the political climate in our country? How do we discuss the recent conviction of former President Donald Trump? What do we want them to know about integrity, honesty, and leadership?

The children are watching us. They are seeing how we engage in difficult conversations with each other. They are noting the language we use when talking about people we disagree with. They are studying how we treat others.

What are they learning from you?

This weekend, I am praying each sentence of the Epistle lesson for Sunday. I am letting each word reverberate in my soul:

“Let love be genuine; hate what is evil, hold fast to what is good; Love one another with mutual affection; outdo one another in showing honor. Do not lag in zeal, be ardent in spirit, serve the Lord.  Rejoice in hope, be patient in suffering, persevere in prayer. Contribute to the needs of the saints; extend hospitality to strangers. Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse them. Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep. Live in harmony with one another; do not be haughty, but associate with the lowly;” (Romans 12:9-16b)

I invite you to sit with these words in prayer. Let God come to you as you pray. What does God want to teach you through this text? How will that inform how you live?

What will the children watching learn from you?

Where Love and Joy Dance

 How apt that this past week’s lectionary was from I John 4, a beautiful passage on love—the love God has for us and the love we ought to have for one another.

Love is the bedrock of the Christian life.

And love is what I am experiencing in Charlotte at General Conference.

For years, General Conference has felt more like a battleground than an experience of Christian conferencing. Voices were silenced. Lives were demeaned. Hope was dashed, over and over again.  

But something is happening in Charlotte. At first there was a timidity of spirit, but then an open-heartedness to one another grew and even in the midst of differences, joy has bubbled up in contagious ways. Truly, the Holy Spirit is in this place.

What’s changed?

One of the best lines I ever heard in a church meeting was when a group was moving through a difficult topic but slowly aligning in consensus. Someone disagreed with the direction and said, “I just need to be a devil’s advocate and say…” Someone else said, “The church is the last place that needs an advocate of the devil.”

Differences of opinion and diverse voices are so vital for healthy conferencing. But those who just seek to disrupt, divide, and disorder do little to build up the Body of Christ.

Continue to pray for the delegates, who are working hard to respond to the Spirit’s leading, who are listening intently to one another,  and who are helping us realize the future of our beloved denomination.

And may this gracious spirit pervade our local churches, so that all who walk through our doors will find a place of welcome, where love and joy dance together down the aisles.

Called to a Life of Love

I love the story of Jesus' first calls to the disciples. His cousin John the Baptist has been imprisoned for critiquing Herod’s behavior. In this charged political climate, Jesus begins his ministry, recruiting those who are willing to let go of all they are doing to follow him. Nets were dropped, tools put down, schedules abandoned as Jesus’ call took hold of the disciples’ lives, and they could do no other but follow him.

In hindsight, the easy part was the initial call—“Come, follow me.” The disciples left the familiar and ran to Jesus, hungry for direction and meaning. But we get to see the whole story: when the demands of faith seemed too great, the risks of faith too frightening, the disciples shrank in fear.

In fact, being a disciple of Jesus was (and is!) a pretty high-risk venture. It meant leaving oneself open to a great deal of loss: the loss of friends and family, the loss of home and possessions, the loss of job and status. And by the world’s standards, the gains weren’t very pretty. Since Jesus, from his very birth, was considered a political subversive, the disciples risked a great deal to follow him. And when Jesus was arrested and crucified and the going got real tough, the disciples scattered in fear.

God wouldn’t leave them alone but kept beckoning to them. They discovered that their commitment was greater than their fear, so that they were able to live out their call of preaching, teaching, and healing in Jesus’ name.

Living out God’s claim on our life is a scary venture. It calls us into a future that is unknown. It puts us in relationships with people we might not otherwise choose to be in relationship with. It opens us to experiences that we would rather avoid.

Too often we try to put guard rails on faith. We try to stifle where the Spirit calls us. We pull ourselves back from the very places God would have us go. This is not only to our own detriment but also to the world, which God has called us to engage with hearts on fire for compassion, for healing, for justice.

During our Civil Rights Pilgrimage in Montgomery, I read one person’s words that challenged me: “We committed ourselves so completely to the vision of civil rights that the risk of dying was secondary.” I confess reading that while standing in the epicenter of the civil rights movement, learning about how costly the civil rights movement was to those who participated in it, felt like a punch to the gut. How committed am I to my faith, to this life of Love that Jesus calls me to? Am I willing to live it so completely that the risk of death is a secondary thought?

The Love Jesus calls us to live is a demanding Love. This Love isn’t content with the status quo. It demands that structures and systems get shaken up so that people can not merely survive but thrive. It insists on recognizing all persons as possessing the image of God. It always moves us to the margins of any group, any community, to build the center of community (and ministry!) there.

“And they’ll know we are Christians by our love.” Many of us belted this song out with gusto when we were young. Is the fire of that faith still burning? Where is Love leading you and your church today as you follow Jesus?

God is Coming, Ready or Not!

 I am so thankful that Robin puts up with me throughout Advent and Christmas. I don’t think of myself as a rigid person, but apparently, when it comes to the holidays, family members simply roll their eyes at me when I say that. I like to say that there are rituals and traditions that I like to honor. These are the things that bring meaning and joy for me, and enable me to sink into the Christmas story as fully as possible, helping me see signs of God’s coming in my life and in my world once again.

 

Because that is what good rituals do: they help reorient us and attune our senses to see beyond the usual and mundane to see where God is showing up, to lead, heal, challenge, comfort, and call.

 

That’s why I love the season of Advent. These four weeks leading up to Christmas help me prepare to receive God’s gift of Love once again. Throughout the year, there is so much I let get in the way of my walk with God, so many distractions that keep me from listening and looking for God.

 

This year, the church calendar and the secular calendar have nearly undone clergy and lay leaders. Advent is marked by the four Sundays before Christmas. But this year, the fourth Sunday is the 24th, making it Christmas Eve! How does one simultaneously prepare AND receive? Some churches have made the decision to start Advent a week early so that people can have four Sundays to prepare and then experience the wonder and joy of Christmas Eve.

 

Yesterday I wrote a post on FB: “Advent is here! Are you ready for the journey?” To which Pastor Matt Franks replied, “No, but I have found great peace in just letting it happen vs being so stressed about what needs to be done.”

 

Thanks, Matt. I needed this reminder, and I have a hunch I’m not the only one. May we all find peace in letting the season unfold. There is no “perfect” way to do Advent, no “perfect” way to prepare for Christmas. Perhaps the best way is to simply stay alert to the signs of the sacred, showing up in our world once again.

 

Because in the end, God is coming, ready or not!

 

God Loves You!

Yesterday as I took a walk I listened to a reflection on the app “Pray As You Go”. This is a great app to use while you are driving, heading into the office, or taking a quick break. The segment I listened to instructed me to “Imagine God looking upon you with great love: ‘You are my Beloved, says the Lord, precious in my eyes.’ How does it feel to hear those words spoken to you?  Take a moment to recognize how precious, important, and significant you are to the Lord. God delights in you.”

The day was already warmed by the sun, and as I listened to these words, I felt enveloped in God’s love, as warm and real as the sunshine against my skin. It made me stop and think about all the people in my life who have helped me know this truth of God’s love for me: family members, Sunday School teachers, friends, pastors, colleagues, strangers in the check-out line, the person sitting next to me on a flight…I give thanks for all these and so many more who, when I had forgotten my own significance and worth, helped me remember that God delights in me.

In the course of my ministry, my heart has been broken too many times when I have encountered people who never had someone tell them that God loves them with a love that will never let them go. They were never assured that they have a friend in Jesus. No one took the time to help them experience God’s love for them, that they are precious in God’s sight.

Who has helped you know you matter to God, and that you are loved by wildly generous God? Give thanks for those precious souls!

And who are you helping to know God’s love? Every encounter is an opportunity—by your actions and words—to be a vessel of God’s love. May you be a wellspring of that love!

 

The Deadly Silence of Muzak Churches

 I love traveling across our area and seeing the towns and villages where our United Methodist Churches are located. As I stop to pray for the church, its laity, clergy, and ministries, I wonder what that church means to the community it sits in the middle of. Is it seen as a beacon of hope? A refuge from the storm? A place of welcome? A source where basic needs (like water and food) can be met? Does it offer a spiritual path that enriches the lives of those it touches? Does it matter at all to those around it? If it closed its doors the day after tomorrow, what would be different in the town? Would anyone even notice?

When I was growing up, we derided “Elevator Music” which was found in department stores, doctors’ offices, and, well, in elevators. Muzak was invented in 1934 by Major General George O. Squier as a way to send recorded music to businesses without the use of a radio signal. Science entered in when it was found that music could be used to bolster productivity in workers and calm people down. One of the company’s slogans was, “Muzak fills the deadly silences”. At the height of its popularity, Muzak reached tens of millions of people a day, from presidents and astronauts to someone in the produce section of a grocery store.

A professor at Queens College said of Muzak: “[it’s] a kind of amniotic fluid that surrounds us; and it never startles us, it is never too loud, it is never too silent; it’s always there.”

Sometimes, I wonder sadly if the same can be said of our churches.

Have our churches blended into the landscape so completely that people don’t even know we are here anymore? Are we “there” but not “out there” in a world that has so much brokenness and so many needs? Have we watered down Jesus’ message so much that it no longer startles us?

There are “deadly silences” in our churches and communities that the Church must speak into, bringing the light of God’s Love and the healing balm of the Holy Spirit as we minister as disciples of Jesus Christ. This is not the time for us in the church to fade into a comfortable background. Drugs and division, violence and viciousness are causing our communities to crumble.

How can you and your church move out of the background shadows and sing loudly and boldly a new song of hope, healing, and liberation, so that the entire community can dance to Love’s song?

LOVING THROUGH DISAGREEMENT

Thank you for your comments on last week’s reflection on reformation in The United Methodist Church. The many posts and emails I received in response to the reflection revealed a love of our church and a deep hunger for it to be all it can be amid a fracturing time. Where there is brokenness, there is a need for healing—there must be a time for rest and recovery as that which is broken is reformed. With the help of the Holy Spirit, the people called United Methodist will be a church of reformation as the broken pieces are stitched together in new and beautiful ways.

Can we sit in the rest and healing part for a moment?

My hunch is that you—like me—are sick and tired of the half-truths, mistruths, and just plain lies that have been said about our beloved church. I regularly get emails from folks across the connection saying that their church is considering disaffiliation because they were told I don’t believe in the divinity of Christ and that I use Tarot cards to make decisions in my annual conference. Both are false! And I give thanks for those folks who took it upon themselves to do a little research and seek out the facts.

I do have critiques about our church. There are things I wish were different. Some decisions pain me deeply. But disagreement is a part of living in community. I have yet to belong to a community that was free from dissenting voices. What matters is how we enter into the disagreements as we embrace a mutual desire to make our shared life better.

One thing I recognized early on as a pastor was that our appointment system makes it much too easy to leave a church (or for a church to request a new pastor) when the going gets rough. What I learned was that this doesn’t bring resolution, it simply delays an honest engagement of the disagreements. When all parties stay close, leaning in together, keeping aware of their commonalities instead of their differences, it helps move through the disagreement. We learn so much together! When we truly seek to move through our differences and stay united, we are all brought through the conflict to a whole (and holy) place of mutuality and trust. And it is from that place that great things can happen as we seek to serve as disciples of Christ!

(Image by Gerd Altmann)

I believe that God works even in the discord, for “in all things God works for good.” May we stay open-hearted to those with whom we disagree, for the Body of Christ is a diverse one and we need each other in order to know God as fully as we can. May love be the guide in all we do, in every ministry we undertake, in every decision we ponder; a love that enlarges our world, our views, our understandings, because this love requires us to take into account not only ourselves and those close to us, but even those we see as “other” and “strange” yet still possess the image of God.

May love undergird our life in Christ’s church as we seek to be faithful stewards of it.

WALKING INTO 2023

2022 has not been an easy year. Divisions seem to have deepened and multiplied. Civility is in short supply. It feels like anger, mistrust, and disinformation guide personal and communal actions. We’ve grown accustomed to war and rumors of war. We have stopped seeing the image of God in some faces. Heartbreak crowds the corners of our heart, nudging out joy.

Looking at the blank slate of the New Year, I wonder what it will hold for you and me. When will a sunset create a deep pang so poignant that catches in our throat? What call will we receive in the middle of the night? How will joy well up so fast it will surprise us, and beauty suddenly appear and take our breath away? What strangers will become friends? What will we learn that will inform how we live for the rest of our lives? When and where will love blossom unbidden?

As I look for a word to guide my steps into the uncharted map of 2023, I found this section of I Peter from the First Nations Version of the New Testament:

Walk side by side in harmony with each other. Try to feel what others feel. Love each other as
family. Be tenderhearted and walk with a humble spirit.

Never return evil for evil or insult for insult. Instead, speak words of blessing over each other, for you were chosen to share together in the Creator’s blessings. (I Peter 3: 8-9)

I receive the gift of these words from the Holy Spirit and will hold fast to them each day. I don’t think they will keep hardships at bay, but I do believe that they will make the way through hardships clearer. Grounded in Jesus’ way of love, I pray that my walk in 2023 will be one of gentleness and tenderness, caring for the earth and others as best I can.

What words will guide your steps into 2023?

MY JOB IS TO LOVE

 Last week, I worshipped with FUMC Prairie Campus in Colorado Springs (CO). It was a somber day as the impact of the shootings at ClubQ continued to reverberate across the community. Following the service, Robin and I stopped to look at the memorial that had been created at ClubQ. Rainbow flags, bouquets of flowers, prayer cards and signs had been left in front of large pictures of the five people who had lost their lives in the shooting. The cries of people weeping were the only sound that pierced the silence as folks came to pay their last respects.

One sign left a deep impression on me was a black poster board with white letters: MY JOB IS TO LOVE. In the face of hate and death, the power of those words hit me hard and I have been pondering them all week.

We are in the season of Advent. Each Sunday is a chance for us to focus our waiting on the coming of Christ. The second Sunday of Advent’s focus is Love. We are reminded of a God who loved us enough to become one of us.

Through his teaching, Jesus makes love the center over and over again. He reminds his followers that all of the law can be summed up in two things: Love God and love others. He shows us what love looks like by standing with those on the margins, by being a healing presence, by pushing back on oppressive forces. Love, for Jesus, is an action verb that compels us to act when there is suffering, wrong-doing, and prejudice. In this way, our love of God is made visible in the world.

As we face a world where hate is paraded in the public square, where violence seems to have the upper hand, where we wonder if God has abandoned us, take time this week to ponder the Christmas miracle: Emmanuel, God-With-Us! Make God’s presence known to those around you through the love you share. Live the truth that is found in the familiar song: They will know we are Christians by our love.

Your job is to love.

Make this your aim. In everything you do, ask yourself, “Does this action, is what I am saying, increasing love in the world? Is it a visible sign of my love of God and neighbor?”

As you move through Advent, with your eye on the Christmas gift of love, keep practicing grounding all you do in love. And watch your world change.

MAY WE STAND FOR LOVE?

 I am sitting with one more email from a queer person who is scared about the stated intent of at least one Supreme Court member and countless Republicans who want to overturn Obergefell v. Hodges, which gave LGBTQ+ couples the legal right of marriage. They are asking if they should move up their wedding plans in the hopes their marriage can be grandfathered in should such a ruling occur.

For those who are not LGBTQ+ and are married, can you imagine what it feels like to have the love you share, which brings you so much joy and bears so much fruit in the world, outlawed? Can you imagine being stripped of the rights you share as a married couple (which include but are not limited to):

• Visiting your spouse in a hospital intensive care unit or during restricted visiting hours in other parts of a medical facility.
• Making medical decisions if your spouse becomes incapacitated and unable to express wishes for treatment.

• Making burial or other final arrangements.
• Filing for stepparent or joint adoption.
• Receiving a share of marital property if you divorce.

• Receiving Social Security, Medicare, and disability benefits for spouses.
• Receiving veterans' and military benefits for spouses, such as those for education, medical care, or special loans.
• Filing joint income tax returns with the IRS and state taxing authorities.
• Obtaining priority if your spouse needs a conservator--that is, someone to make financial or medical decisions on your spouse's behalf.
• Obtaining insurance benefits through a spouse's employer.
• Taking family leave to care for your spouse during an illness.
• Receiving wages, workers' compensation, and retirement plan benefits for a deceased spouse.
• Taking bereavement leave if your spouse or one of your spouse's close relatives dies.
• Receiving crime victims' recovery benefits if your spouse is the victim of a crime.
• Obtaining immigration and residency benefits for noncitizen spouse.
• Visiting rights in jails and other places where visitors are restricted to immediate family.
• Automatically renewing leases signed by your spouse.

• Receiving family rates for health, homeowners', auto, and other types of insurance.
• Other consumer discounts and incentives offered only to married couples or families.

(from https://www.nolo.com/legal-encyclopedia/marriage-rights-benefits-30190.html)

 

I grieve a society (and a church) that fails to honor and support love. I grieve couples that feel an urgency to marry because they fear they might lose the chance to do it in the future. I grieve couples that have built a life together that cannot rest in the security legal marriage provides but must yet again defend their love from attack.

In a world so divided by hate, may we stand together for love?

The Dream of a Common Language

 Today, the United States elected a new president. Looking at the vote tallies, I am struck by what a divided nation we are. It is as if there are two (or more) understandings of the US, and the chasm between the two is wide and deep.  I have heard from people who are no longer speaking with parents, who have unfriended friends, and who have been maligned by those who live in that “other” America.

How do we close the chasm? How do we share a vision for an America that is for everyone?

The poet Adrienne Rich wrote about “The Dream of a Common Language”. The poet felt that poetry, art, and feminist ideas could create a common language to unite a fractured humanity. As a Christian, I, too, yearn for a common language. This language, for a Jesus-follower, is Love.

Love is the language that helps us enter into another’s worldview.

Love is the force that causes us to open our hearts to another’s pain.

Love is the energy that drives us to build a better world.

Love keeps us growing, pushes our world to expand beyond our comfort zone to include those who don’t live, love, or look like us.

Whether you are cheering the election results or feeling despair, learn the language of Love. Lean into this Love as you greet your neighbor who had the other candidate’s signs on their lawns. Listen with love. Bring your full self into this moment, and step into Love’s demands.

One of the poems in Rich’s book holds up a model for us of how we begin to speak a common language together:

“I choose to love this time for once
with all my intelligence”

Be well! Stay safe! Wear a mask!

Rejoice?

It feels like every day offers us a new assault: another person we know diagnosed with COVID-19, word that someone we know has died, an experience of yet another instance of racism, seeing incivility take over the public square and public discourse, another quick change of plans because of the rise in COVID cases, another business closed, feeling the pang of separation from those we love not only because of distance but because of the political division of this historical moment…

We are all tired, depressed, angry and carrying individual and communal trauma of these past 7 months.

This morning I read the week’s lectionary (Philippians 4:1-13 ) and there was Paul admonishing me,

“Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, Rejoice.”

Oh, come on now.

Joy and rejoicing certainly feel in short supply these days. And it is hard to muster it at all sometimes. Then I remember a little bit more about what Paul was doing when he said these words. He was not in the middle of a hymn sing or a church potluck. He had not just returned from a reunion with followers of Jesus or a revival at which more people chose to follow the carpenter from Nazareth.

He wrote these words from prison. He wrote about rejoicing from a prison cell. He wrote these words from a prison cell wondering if his execution was near. In the midst of persecution and pain, what does he advise? “Rejoice.”

At a time when some of us are forgetting what joy looks like, I invite you to reflect on Paul’s words. What does it mean for you to rejoice? What might be a cause for rejoicing? How does rejoicing in God’s love and presence help us draw even closer to God?

One of the ways I am trying to do this is to find joy in the little things:

· The tinkling of a wind chime outside my window

· The feel of new bath towels (the first in almost two decades!) as they envelop me

· The warm sun on my face, and the way the wind, with a hint of coolness, caresses my arms

· The smell of something baking in the oven

· How seeing a friend in person—even masked and socially distanced—fills me up with energy I hadn’t realize I was missing

· The way the leaves are changing color each day, and watching some already release themselves and fall to the ground

· Taking a walk and hearing the giggles of children nearby

There is a passage from Alice Walker’s “The Color Purple” that reminds me of how God is always placing in front of us small joys:

“I think it pisses God off if you walk by the color purple in a field somewhere and don't notice it.' 'What it do when it pissed off?' I ast. 'Oh, it make something else. People think pleasing God is all God care about. But any fool living in the world can see it always trying to please us back.' 'Yeah?' I say. 'Yeah,' she say. 'It always making little surprises and springing them on us when us least expect.' 'You mean it want to be loved, just like the bible say.' 'Yes, Celie,' she say. 'Everything want to be loved.”

May you look, and find, those small joys God has put in your life today. May it be a source of rejoicing. May it cause you to fall more deeply in love with God and those around you.

Be well. Stay safe. Wear a mask.

Doors May Be Closed, But the Church is Open

Each Saturday I pray for the clergy and laity of the Mountain Sky Conference, as we get ready for worship. I pray that you will greet one another and newcomers with a generous and warm hospitality; that the burdens and joys you bring will be lifted together in prayer to God, that the Word spoken will both challenge and comfort you in your faithful living, and that the music will shake something lose in you so that its message will bring you healing and hope, and that when you rise from your pew, you will have found yourself changed by the whole worship experience: you will live your Monday more deeply as a disciple than ever before.

But tomorrow, most of our churches will not be holding worship in an attempt to slow the rate of transmission so our local health care systems will not be overwhelmed by a spike in infections. By closing our doors, we are living into the first General Rule of our church: do no harm. We are also following Christ’s command to love our neighbor by protecting the most vulnerable in our midst: the elderly as well as those with underlying health conditions, because the mortality rates in these populations are so high.

But just because the doors of the church will be closed doesn’t mean the church is closed. This is a moment for us to step forward in our communities as the hands of Christ and offer love in bold tangible ways. In order to do that, may we in these days of pandemic response sink more fully into our individual and communal growth through the spiritual discipline found in the means of grace.

For we United Methodists, the means of grace are inward and outward focused to help us be open to God’s work in us to strengthen our faith.

In the days to come, may you order your life together in reading and studying scripture, in prayer and fasting, in caring for our bodies as well as engaging in Christian conferencing.

But the means of grace don’t stop with us, the means of grace also includes doing good works, visiting the sick, visiting those in prison, feeding the hungry, and giving generously to the needs of others as well as seeking justice, ending oppression and discrimination and addressing the needs of the poor

We are in uncharted waters. Your ministry is needed in vital, life-saving ways. May the work of your church be undergirded by the ways you will engage in the means of grace so that together, you and your church will grow more spiritual and share the love of God in ways that will help us emerge from this pandemic a more faithful church and a healthier and stronger community.

May God bless you all.

TO LOVE BOLDLY

I confess, my heart is troubled. The political posturing in our country has reached a new level of incivility and I fear for the nation we are becoming. White nationalism has been paraded on the public stage and given a new level of validation. The teachings of Jesus have been distorted and discarded in the unholy name of political power and expediency.

In times like this, we need to bring in the moral compass of Christ to the public square to reset political policies and discourse.

Jesus tells all who follow him:

“You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be children of your Father in heaven; for he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the righteous and on the unrighteous. For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax collectors do the same? And if you greet only your brothers and sisters, what more are you doing than others? Do not even the Gentiles do the same? Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect. (Matthew 5:43-48 NRSV)

We who follow Jesus cannot opt out of the command to love, even those we consider our enemies.

Love doesn’t mock those with whom we disagree, nor does it demean, belittle, or bully, because love makes us aware that these things dehumanize others and fracture the human family.

Love doesn’t create borders or barriers that separate “us” from “them”.

Love demands us to go to the margins and begin to build structure and policies from that starting point.

Love always asks, “who is being harmed and what must we do to relieve the suffering”?

Love doesn’t fear those who are not familiar but delights in difference, knowing that these differences help us see the face of God more clearly.

Love puts us on a permanent quest for right relationships.

Love is the opposite of fear.

Love isn’t a naïve or weak orientation. It takes tremendous strength, courage, and humility to walk in the world grounded in love’s imperative.

If you find your heart breaking over the state of the world, may you drink from the reservoir of God’s grace so that you might find Love healing your heart and guiding your feet to challenge the world’s inequities and injustices.

If you are afraid because the comfort you are experiencing might be disrupted, may the Holy Spirit trouble placid waters and in the ripples created may Love help you discover that your welfare is intimately tied to the welfare others.

If you would rather turn away from the state of things, may Christ continue to be a disruptive presence who will tap you on the shoulder and say, “Come, follow me.” As you step into His footsteps, may Love grow in your heart and may it spill into the world, providing a transforming experience for all you encounter.

Love is the only way. May we live it boldly.