9.18.23 Jesus left us this promise in John 8:32: “The truth shall set you free.” I don’t think He was telling us to shout it from the rooftops, to tell everyone the truth about us, but more to admit the whole truth of who we are to ourselves and to God so that we […]
2.13.23 We have a choice about what consumes us in our lives. The first half of our lives is often spent launching ourselves into adulthood, building a career, getting married/having children, establishing ourselves, getting as far as we can materially and professionally. We live out the cultural paradigms and, hopefully, thrive. I know that […]
I remember American History taught in my fourth grade in the late 1940s as myths like “George Washington never told a lie,” “we’re the good guys” and more like it, idealized versions of our history. Today, as so many schools are under fire by parents and conservatives in our country who still want to […]
The narrative is the story we’ve each grown up with, the stories in our culture, the stories in our families, and our own take on what has happened to us. The narrative is what we look to be affirmed in the world, in ourselves. We are wholly dependent on this, our version of the […]
When we live in the truth, as Jesus taught us [John 8:32], the truth will set us free, free from the rules of the culture, our own self-image, from all the “shoulds” of our lives. We don’t realize how enslaved we are to all the world’s ways, until we begin to follow the Indwelling Spirit […]
Over the last few weeks I’ve written about the Beatitudes each as a rung on the ladder[1] which takes us up to the highest expression of human beings in their love of God. Today, we’re looking at the sixth Beatitude, Blessed are the pure in heart. It would be easy for us to think that […]
Jesus said, “If you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples. Then you will know the truth,[1] and the truth will set you free.” He asks us, commands us to live in the truth, and yet so little of what we say and do in this modern world is true. So how […]
In our history, we enslaved African men and women, but today we are all in captivity because of this blot on our history. I’m not enslaved, you say, but I would disagree. Look at what the aftermath of this sinful part of our history leaves us with: our guilt and shame at what our country […]
We are called by Jesus to live in truth, the truth that Jesus revealed about God and the truth that the Spirit of God reveals about ourselves to each of us: “Whoever lives in the truth comes into the light.”[1] No hiding, no defensiveness, no cloaking ourselves in fine dress to obscure the truth about […]
How well do we know ourselves? Our own motivations? Our own deepest desires? Our own true selves, our souls? I’ve been thinking lately about some of the inner “characters” who might be ruling our minds without us knowing it consciously. Do you, like me, have an Inner Critic whose voice is loud and clear on […]