So what about loving our enemies? What do we normally feel, what do others who have modeled destructive behavior and attitudes expect us to feel and what can we possibly feel? Why should we choose not to feel what virtually everyone expects us to feel?

    It has been so hard to watch the events unfolding in Gaza and not fall into the ease of a hardline

The one thing that enraged most people about Jesus of Nazareth was that he had the gall to tell people that their sins were forgiven when clearly there were systems of civic and religious power that were set up to make sure people got what they deserved.

When, if ever, is anger appropriate? If we want to be good actors in the world, and become the peace we’d like to see in the world, can we allow anger to exist? How do we know when anger is ok and how much anger is ok?

Wading out of a hard time is awful. But it’s really all we can do. There is no panacea. No miracle fix. No post-it note on the side of a monitor—“take time to notice what is right”—will instantly un-funk a funk.

Don't try so hard. Be ok being a bit disappointing.

Jesus was, however, not the first person to challenge the lex talionis (law of retaliation) – the belief that if you are harmed it is OK to follow your gut and harm the person who harmed you.

Love can be a tricky business because it’s not a feeling – not really. We may have desire or longing or other feelings that we equate to love, but I believe love, or loving someone, while certainly is inherent, is largely something we have to learn, like a skill.

Do you also tell yourself that you don’t have the right to be upset when you are upset? What if, instead, we trained ourselves on compassionate self-talk?

Amanda Gorman mesmerized a nation with her inauguration poem "The Hill We Climb." The beauty of her presence and the power of her words captured a country battle-scarred and looking for a lifeline.

I recite the Lord’s Prayer daily, and often the most challenging phrase for me is the second part of “Forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors.” Though I’ve received everything I have from a generous and gracious God, it’s hard to let go of grudges and wrongs and the feeling that others owe me something or that somehow I have unfairly missed out.

Larry says that good people never think they are doing enough. Maybe you don’t have to be brilliant today, either.

The Jesuits are returning more than 500 acres in South Dakota to the Rosebud Sioux. The formal return of the property is expected to be complete sometime in May.

“Black lives matter” is not just wisdom for protesting “issues” of law enforcement. It should be a mantra for all of life.

An exercise in self-love.

This week many of us were moved by Brandt Jean, the brother of Botham Jean, when he told his brother’s killer, Amber Guyger, that he forgives her, and then came off the stand and hugged her in the courtroom.

I think these kind of stories are like haikus or koans that are meant to shake us up with paradox and make us realize and/or remember that words are very limiting and they cannot convey the multidimensional complex reality we live in.

A few weeks ago, I stood on a hill in Edinburgh, Scotland, at sunset. Somewhere on that mound, one of my ancestors was burned as a heretic by the Catholic Church and died as martyr to the new Protestant faith. As the sun fell toward the horizon, the sky turned red – a fitting fiery tribute – and through the blazing clouds a double rainbow formed. A sort of divine apology for whole mess? I couldn’t help but wonder.

It's a been long summer! One filled with a lot of reflection and thought. And over these last few months, I've felt stirred to speak about things I've been quiet about. One thing I've been quiet about has been abuse.

About 600 years before the writers of the Gospels of Mark, Matthew and Luke penned Jesus’ Parable of the Mustard Seed, Buddha told a parable of a mustard seed.

The profundity of Christianity is that nothing in it has but one meaning. So it is with Easter Week.

When there is an absence of conscious symbolic ritual, what happens with such a lack of awareness about the power that signs and symbols play in our lives, and the depth or richness of value and meaning they provide? How can we otherwise express what is ultimately inexpressible?

But now that we’re halfway through the season of Lent, I think it’s the right time to talk about what is possibly the most important spiritual practice of all, the practice that makes all the others possible: the spiritual practice of letting something go. All the spiritual teachings in the world are not going to help us–even a personal invitation from the spiritual master himself is not going to help us–if we keep ourselves too busy to show up for him. Thanks for coming over, Martha says to Jesus this morning. But you know, I really don’t have time for this stuff!

I get the idea: thinking leads to judgment, and judgment leads to problems.

Most people are familiar with Meister Eckhart’s, 13th and 14th century philosopher, theologian and one of the great Christian mystics, statement on thankfulness… so simple, yet not always easy to really live. “If the only prayer you ever say in your entire life is thank you, it will be enough.” Think about this for a minute… how many of us and how often do we think of “thank you” as a prayer? And an even bigger question for me is, “Is this true? IS it enough?”

What might constitute an adequate improvement to the world order? This commentary constitutes an exploration of this pesky, perennial question about "a better world" from the vantage point of one faith tradition, and in contemporary context. Its intention is not to offer novelty or any new revelatory insight, but rather to remember and restore a perspective that lies at the heart of a biblical gospel tradition; based on the teachings of a pre-Easter human Jesus.

The Parliament of the World's Religions is proud to distribute It's About Time, a weekly podcast produced in partnership with our allies at Religica.org and Seattle University.

Imagine a person praying at bedtime. He is confused. Unsure of what to do in life. What are his next steps, he wonders? He prays fervently to God for direction. Amazingly enough, God answers! Love God Love one another

Do you ever hear words emanating from your lips, and instantly while the words break from your mouth you think, “Did I really just say that??” You are still in the nanosecond of surprise, when you discover you probably have a small list of sentences or phrases you could never have imagined uttering. If you look back on those experiences that were the catalysts for such words, you notice a powerful tapestry – threads that make life sometimes unbearable and yet at other times so amazingly awe-inspiring – and everything in between.

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