For followers of Jesus it all boils down to this: we want to be “rooted and grounded in love.” People who are “rooted and grounded in love” have been given the gift of a realization that their ground, the “root” of their being, is the love of God dwelling inside their actual body. Thus, their daily starting place is love. They come at the day before them from a place of rootedness in love.

The old man’s wife died suddenly after 60 years of marriage. His priest, a much younger man, asked if he could come over for a visit. “I’ll come to you," said the old man. “Meet me down by the creek?”

Mark 4:35-41

You’re in a boat out on the water. You are the boat and the water is your life. A storm kicks up out of nowhere or maybe it has been slowly building for years. Either way the wind and waves are like a wild animal battering your boat and body and racing around inside your chest. The fear and anxiety caused by the storm within and without are too much, you don’t know how you can go on.

Discouragement is a perfectly normal part of the spiritual journey. In the first half of the journey (which can go on for many, many years if not most of one’s life) we meet our discouragements with prayer, church attendance, and by reaching out to trusted friends for spiritual insight. We are consoled in our discouragement, and we carry on. This rhythm is just as it should be, and it is good.

“When the sins of others come to mind, the soul that wants peace should flee from such thoughts as she would run from the pains of hell.”

Julian of Norwich

Shortly before he died Jesus said this to his disciples, “Do not let your hearts be troubled. Believe in God, believe also in me. In my Father’s house there are many rooms.”

Shortly after she died my sister, Laura, came to me in a dream and showed me an extra room in my house that I did not know was there. I was amazed. I said to her, “There is so much room in here.”

The earth is spinning on its axis at about 1,000 miles per hour. In addition to that motion the earth is orbiting the sun at about 67,000 miles per hour. The sun, the earth, and the entire solar system are orbiting around the center of our galaxy at about 504,000 miles per hour. The Milky Way galaxy itself is moving through the wider universe at about 90,000 miles per hour. The cells in your body regenerate daily by the billions. Everything is in motion. 

Recently I was writing a sermon and a story about my sister, Laura, came to mind. It seemed like a good story to use to further illustrate the point I was trying to make. I wrote for a little while and then began to feel self-conscious and doubtful as to whether using that particular story was the right choice.

Years ago, when she was giving a talk on how tragedy has shaped her life, the wise and quite wonderful teacher, Paula D’Arcy, said somewhat spontaneously, “God comes to you disguised as your life.” That line for me is a deep well from which I have drawn meaning and healing time and time again.

When everything feels heavy and dim-lit I remember what the teacher said, “The kingdom of God is among you.” Then I hear him add, “Look deeper.”

There was a father who had two sons. One was good for whatever you needed and the other was good for nothing. That’s the way it seemed most days anyway. The boy's father was divided on the matter. He didn’t have to say, “No,” to one and he couldn’t say, “No”, to the other.

The Ascension is a pretty wild thing to wrap your mind around. If you said to me, “I am down with Jesus and the resurrection, but I don’t believe in the Ascension,” I would say, “Yeah, I get it. I hear you. I am all in on it, but it is kind of a stretch for a lot of people. Don’t worry, you don’t have to believe in the Ascension to go to heaven.”

At the end of a long hallway in our church my friend, Dan, put a new trash bag into a trash can that he had just emptied. It was the most ordinary thing to do on a very ordinary day. As he was pressing the bag into the bottom of the can I rushed up to him and delivered some bad news about some gossip that had been spread about us by a fellow named John.

There is a story of a man who was married to a woman and he did something terrible that harmed their marriage and devastated the woman.