The Parish

I'm trying to pay attention at every stop light, not because I thing that something amazing happens at every corner...but if something did happen, I wouldn't miss it.

Some of the lovely fruit that the Spirit produces in our lives is very outwardly evident while other aspects are not. But even though they are less showy, those internal aspects can provide a steady, interior platform that allows us to weather difficult circumstances and flourish.  

Do you ever wonder if in our need explain an extraordinary experience..that we can sometimes lose a bit of the mystery that made it significant in the first place?

The shortest distance between two points may be a straight line. but when it comes to seeing the fruit of the Spirit produced in our lives, we may need to take an indirect route.

God is not just an idea to be discussed, but a presence to be experienced.

We don't carry one another just because we are strong enough to do it. We carry one another because love makes each others struggle matter to us

When Jesus offered living water to the woman at the well, he already knew the details of her sordid life. But, instead of dwelling on that past, he seemed far more interested in how he could help her move forward.

Sometimes we keep carrying the consequences of someone else's sin, someone else’s choices long after they have stopped carrying them themselves. 

In the parable we are looking at today, Jesus talks about honouring the things from the past without letting them keep us trapped in that past.

Too often we get so busy building a life, that we never take time to live a life.  That requires us to stop and examine what it is we are actually creating.

The rich man and Lazarus belonged to the same community but the walls between them prevented them from ever connecting.

Maybe spiritual maturity is not becoming someone who thinks they have it all figured out. Maybe it is becoming someone who is increasingly easy to surprise.

The religious leaders disapproved of Jesus' loving acceptance of tax collectors and sinners. So Jesus gives them a parable to explain it.... and then invites them to join the party!

Sometimes the truth we're looking for doesn't arrive because we've finally figured it out. It’s is revealed when we've learned to notice what was growing in front of us all along.

We live in a world that ruthlessly pursues efficiency and productivity. In that kind of a world intangibles like beauty can get pushed to the margins. But Jesus may see a more central role for beauty.

Celebrate when you recognize God at work in front of you, and search when you can’t. Both are spiritual practices. Both are holy work.

We live in an age of spectacle and it can be tempting to think that the church needs to follow suit. But Jesus has a different idea.

Jesus is starting a revolution, but not the kind anyone expected.  His followers would have felt unqualified to challenge the systems around them.  Yet Jesus insists that darkness is not defeated by power, but it is overcome by light.

When you challenge the status quo....when you expose what others would rather ignore....when you call people back to the heart of God, opposition often follows.

We sow the seeds of peace when we speak graciously, share generously and love deferentially

Have you ever felt that your life is spread too thin, with so many things competing for your attention, and loyalty. That shallow life is robbing us of not just seeing ourselves more clearly, but in seeing God more easily.  Spirituality has always insisted that the sacred is found in the depths, not merely at the surface.

Mercy-we need it more than we think...and we need to give it more than we think we do.

What if we could find satisfaction in working towards justice, not just in the experience of justice, It would mean planting trees of whose fruit we might never get a chance to eat.

When Jesus pronounces blessing on those who are meek he isn't addressing those who are weak and ineffectual but rather those who may have power and privilege but choose to hold them in reserve.

Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted... both troubles and intrigues me, if this is a promise, it doesn’t seem to work the way we think promises work.