Contrary to popular opinion, all religions are not alike. Their followers see the world in very distinct ways. Their understandings of the human condition proceed from different assumptions, leading t...
All I am saying is that anyone can do this. Anyone can ask and anyone can bless, whether anyone has authorized you to do it or not. All I am saying is that the world needs you to do this, because ther...
Religion is more than a source of conflict or a calculated way to stay out of hell. Religions are treasure chests of stories, songs, rituals, and ways of life that have been handed down for millennia.
I had spent hours talking with people who had trouble believing. For some, the issue was that they believed less than they thought they should about Jesus. They were not trouble by the idea that he ma...
Those of us who wish to draw near to God should not be surprised when our vision goes cloudy, for this is a sign that we are approaching the opaque splendor of God. If we decide to keep going beyond t...
Being ordained is not about serving God perfectly but about serving God visibly, allowing other people to learn whatever they can from watching you rise and fall.
You shall love the stranger, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt. Those most likely to befriend strangers, in other words, are those who have been strangers themselves. The best way to grow em...
Who had persuaded me that God preferred four walls and a roof to wide-open spaces? When had I made the subtle switch myself, becoming convinced that church bodies and buildings were the safest and mos...
What if I could learn to trust my feelings instead of asking to be delivered from them? What if I could follow one of my great fears all the way to the edge of the abyss, take a breath, and keep going...
WHEN YOU LIVE IN GOD, your day begins when you open your eyes, though you have done nothing yourself to open them, and you take your first breath, though there is no reason why this life-giving breeze...
To lie flat on the ground with the breath knocked out of you is to find a solid resting place. This is as low as you can go. You told yourself you would die if it ever came to this, but here you are....
The whole purpose of the Bible, it seems to me, is to convince people to set the written word down in order to become living words in the world for God’s sake. For me, this willing conversion of ink b...
Susan B. Anthony. I distrust those people who know so well what God wants them to do, she once said, because I notice it always coincides with their own desires.
So of course when it came time to decide what to do with my life, I decided to go to seminary. What else do you do when you are in love with God?
Salvation happens every time someone with a key uses it to open a door he could lock instead.
Prayer, according to Brother David, is waking up to the presence of God no matter where I am or what I am doing. When I am fully alert to whatever or whoever is right in front of me; when I am electri...
People ask me: why do you write about food, and eating and drinking? Why don’t you write about the struggle for power and security, and about love, the way the others do? The easiest answer is to say...
I spent a great deal of time trying to be good, but was good the same as whole?
Busy? The word loses all meaning under the canopy of this sky.
Somewhere along the line we bought—or were sold—the idea that God is chiefly interested in religion. We believed that God’s home was