Featured

The fruit of silence is prayer. The fruit of faith is love. The fruit of love is service.

How would it change the shape of social struggle if we understood that we wrestle not just against flesh and blood but also against principalities, against powers, against the world rulers of this present darkness, against the spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenlies? What are the practical implications of putting on the whole armor of God and praying at all times in the Spirit (Eph. 6:10-20)? How would it change the nature of our wrestling if we did so in the context of continuous Bible study and singing and worship? . . . It is the way increasing numbers of others have learned they must live, in order to keep on struggling against the Beast without being made bestial.

Paradoxically, this total Instruction [God’s Spirit moving in our lives] proceeds in two opposing directions at once. We are torn loose from earthly attachments and ambitions. And we are quickened to a divine but painful concern for the world. He plucks the world out of our hearts, loosening the chains of attachment. And he hurls the world into our hearts, where we and He together carry it in infinitely tender love.

At the center of our pain, we glimpse a fairer world and hear a call. When we are able to keep company with our own fears and sorrows, we are shown the way to go, our parched lives are watered, and the earth becomes a greener place. Hope begins to grow, and we are summoned to the work that will give us a feeling of wellness and make possible that which we envision.

It is not sufficient to discuss the present crisis on the informational level alone. . . . We need to help each other process this information on an affective level, if we are to digest it on the cognitive level.

What we do with our lives outwardly, how well we care for others, is as much a part of meditation as what we do in the quietness and turning inward. In fact, Christian meditation that does not make a difference in the quality of one’s outer life is short-circuited. It may flare for a while, but unless it results in finding richer and more loving relationships with other human beings or in changing conditions in the world that cause human suffering, the chances are that an individual’s prayer activity will fizzle out.

We trust God when we are able to let go, despite our pain and fears, and leap into life.

It is in solitude that compassionate solidarity grows. In solitude we realize that nothing human is alien to us, that the roots of all conflict, war, injustice, cruelty, hatred, jealousy, and envy are deeply anchored in our own heart. In solitude our heart of stone can be turned into a heart of flesh, a rebellious heart into a contrite heart, and a closed heart into a heart that can open itself to all suffering people in a gesture of solidarity.

Liturgy is a microcosm of the work which God is doing in the world, and it is there that salvation is being worked out. Liturgy must never become an alternative world to that of social reality.

The job of the peacemaker is to stop war, to purify the world, to get it saved from poverty and riches, to heal the sick, to comfort the sad, to wake up those who have not yet found God, to create joy and beauty wherever you go, to find God in everything and in everyone.