Tag: acceptance

Non-violence

Slowing Down Becomes Non-Violence

February 1, 2026

Given a long enough timeline, you can do anything. The work must happen on the inside, which means you must slow down. That is what all this inner work is aimed at doing: giving you control over your internal experience. Meditation, then, is not just an end in itself (trying to rid yourself of thoughts). It is a practice that is fundamental to redeeming everything that has come from outside you and has become your inner experience. Once you ...  Keep reading

Your Orientation Matters

December 13, 2025

So much of our consternation and anxiety come about because we are oriented against the way life is. When you’re oriented toward always being right, it hurts real bad to be wrong. When you are oriented toward being perfect, you get defensive when it is insinuated you are not. And when you are oriented toward projecting a certain image to the world, you brace yourself against anything less being portrayed. All this fighting against the natural way of things creates anxiety. We spend a lot of ...  Keep reading

When In Pain

September 6, 2025

When I am in pain, just let me be

I don’t need your pity or outrage or sympathy

I only need Presence

Just give me your eyes

You lived out your story, now this one’s for me

Let me be wrenched

Let me feel it myself

Let me pass through it fully

Or, rather, let it pass through me

I earned it wholeheartedly, now let it consume me

Too many people have tried to explain it

They give it a name

They give antecedents

But pain has been pure since the beginning

It’s the thing that melts wings and it’s ...  Keep reading

Deconstructing

Deconstructing Is Bursting Your Own Bubble

March 19, 2025

Everyone begins their life inside some context. Inside that context, things make sense to you. People who were also born into the same circumstances live there, speak your language and have similar ways of thinking. There is nothing wrong with the place you come from. It is home. You might always feel most comfortable with people who have a similar background and come from the same place you do. The problem is when you think the way you are is the best or only way to be and you devalue others, ...  Keep reading

Mother Death

January 17, 2022

Loving death

With all of its requisite pains,

Has come

To each of us in its own way

Each secret strand is strange to the others

Though they flow from the same spring

Silent and dark, barren and daring

You always feel

It is your fault:

“What did I do to deserve this?

“There must have been something.”

No one else seems to be suffering

In this way

Though they suffer in secret

With the same questions

When you first woke up, you did not know death

Though you were given directly from it

You were born ...  Keep reading

God Absorbs Darkness And Tragedy

April 7, 2021

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 ...  Keep reading

Grace is Pervasive

March 27, 2021

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 ...  Keep reading

Hospitality: Inviting Your Enemies Inside

February 14, 2021

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 ...  Keep reading