When we are so caught up handling sin, peddling forgiveness, and getting people into heaven, we forget that Jesus was also a great non-dual teacher. His teaching was revelatory, revolutionary and bewildering. Sometimes we think his teaching was merely a secondary part of his life, like “while I’m here to save everybody from their sins, I might as well say some stuff.” I don’t think we have to determine if one was more important than the other. What Jesus was teaching was very much in line ...
Category: Blog
God Absorbs Darkness And Tragedy
Part of the problem with this transactional view of the gospel – that Jesus just came to offer forgiveness of sins and get you into heaven where everything is perfect – is that it doesn’t help us deal with the darkness we are still presently in. You get forgiven and punch your ticket, but you still do and think bad stuff and the world is still full of brokenness and tragedy.
This transactional gospel focuses on sin and sin management. It’s like this: God can’t put up with sin ...
Non-Violence Is Superhuman
I think what I want to communicate with pointing out that grace is everywhere is that what God is doing in the world here and now is just as important as yours and everybody else’s “salvation transaction.” If “getting people saved” is the only thing that is necessary, we can have this attitude of all but giving up on this world because it’s so crazy and tragic. The thinking is, “make sure you are going to heaven and try to bring as ...
Grace is Pervasive
When I said I was deeply Christian, I wasn’t just saying that. Grace is the number one reason. Most of my life, I have been captivated by the phenomenon of grace in the Christian story. Maybe it’s because I was a guilty child, but maybe it’s because grace is a revolution in thinking for all of us. Maybe we are just built to be big containers for grace. When you drink from that well, a big reservoir opens up inside you and grace is the only thing.
It is just the most beautiful story. You ...
I Am Deeply Christian And Don’t Call Me That
Every once in a while, I am employed to help someone “deconstruct their faith.” I consider it a high honor since it helps me fulfill one of my life commitments – to “undo things.” It is #3 on my list I like to call “My Life Plan.” The text in My Life Plan reads this way: “Undo things – like Jesus, defy expectations and convention.” This is also one of the reasons I find myself floating away from what we call Christianity, but then also finding profound truth in ...
Hospitality: Inviting Your Enemies Inside
It is difficult to understand people sometimes. Some people rub you the wrong way, but if you sit in the same space with anyone long enough seeking only to understand them, it will be hard to continue holding them in contempt. Of course, it depends on your stance. If you really want to hold them down in contempt, you will find reasons. It’s an orientation of your heart to attempt to understand and love someone you would have otherwise written off and walled off.
In these days when even people ...
The Contempt In Us
Search any human heart and you will find contempt. It comes in many forms and is unfortunately as natural to us as breathing and eating. It organizes us. Somewhere along the way (probably in adolescence), we start identifying everything we hate – everything we think we are not and everything we do not want to be. This is probably a necessary process of forming our identity; the problem is too often we get stuck there and believe that is the only way to “be somebody.” Long into our adulthood, ...
That Is Free
Imagine a world where all people of color are in charge
We will rejoice
Not because one is better than the other
But because we live in a world where the tables can turn and everyone is okay
Where everyone gets a chance to play and sometimes those who have played the longest let someone else have their day
Only poetry will save us
Not logic or politic or rhetoric
But beauty, art and music
Because poetry helps you understand
Things you were not meant to understand
And when people of color take ...