Jesus was not crucified for telling people to love God and our neighbors. He was killed for challenging the authorities of that time. He challenged the Jewish authorities, and he challenged the Roman authorities.

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?

I’m not sure why we can be so idealistic about human love when human love is profoundly imperfect and so often unreliable.

What I know is that I need to not beat myself up for having a hard time when I’m having a hard time.

When they sang together, you could hear the harmony that should define this country’s relationships across race.

If we want peace, it has to start with us. We must uproot violence from our language, in the ways we relate to one another.

The cross, the symbol of the Christian faith, has been the subject of much theological discussion through the ages.

To what extent do churches accommodate the values of their worshippers and merely give them a sense of comfort, and to what extent do churches set high standards and encourage Christian growth and social commitment?

If we want peace, it has to start with us. We must uproot violence from our language, in the ways we relate to one another.

We stand on the brink of everything collapsing. The entire world. It's unraveling.

"We transgenders here feel a bit more human because the fact that Pope Francis brings us closer to the Church is a beautiful thing," Carla Segovia, 46, a sex worker, told Reuters. "Because we need some love."

At the heart of the Christian tradition, we say there is “faith (πίστις, ‘pistis’ Gr. - trust), hope (ἐλπίς, Gr. elpis = meaning expectation, in a positive sense), and love ( ἀγάπη Gr. ‘agapé’ ‘love’ or φιλανθρωπία Gr. ‘caritas’ = charity).

So why do we persist in comparing ourselves to others? And suffering the frustration that results?

There are a few words I have had “allergies” to over the years. Words like discipline, obedience, and accountability. Some have a more intense allergic reaction than others, such as difficulty breathing, maybe getting itchy or nauseous. Of course I jest, yet they are words that have produced some measure of tension in my body because of previous life experiences.

I am writing this because I have an uncommon employment history that has provided me with a very unique skill-set and perspective when it comes to making difficult and challenging hospital, hospice or nursing facility visits.

We look happy. And we are. But when a friend called this morning and was like, “great photos of you and Eric this weekend!” and all I could think was, you have no idea what shit-show this week has been for me.

Years ago, my dear wife, Roberta Maran, came up with an idea at Christmas that enchanted me.  “In addition to other presents, let’s give people Christmas boxes that have nothing inside of them – except messages that are deep and pithy!”

Why not at least integrate working on gratitude as our routine attitude during “the season” this and each year —and continue our practice into each new day of the fresh year?

Advent holds such a sacred space – the story and formation of the womb is tucked into our souls. Advent is most often thought of as an individual journey, even though we may celebrate together.

  Kim, who bakes the artisanal matzah I annually send to friends throughout the US, tested COVID positive in the weeks before Passover,

  A little Episcopal church on Martha's Vineyard flipped the anti-immigrant scripts of Governor Abbott and Governor DeSantis by embracing, with open doors

Dear reader, let me ask you, where are you on a scale of one to five in accepting other people’s love?

We had our Synod Assembly yearly meeting with the bishop of all clergy and lay leaders and I am aware of how exhausted the clergy are right now. (And I am sure… all other helping professions.) So here is a blessing for my colleagues.

If you’re looking for some stimulating summer reading, I have two novels to recommend. "The Storyteller" by Jodi Picoult and Kristen Hannah’s novel, "The Great Alone", is another page turner.

We are a little bit obsessed in our culture around ideas of worth and value. We spend so much of our time running after something, what we might call the “gems,” or running away from other things, the “pebbles,” in the hopes of having a sense of belonging, feeling worthy and valuable.

“We all strive for purpose and understanding, to hear and to be heard, to see and to be seen, to leave this world a better place than we found it.”  – Jon Linton

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?

For the sake of learning, I’d like to ask you to consider the circumstances since the start of 2020 as a grand psychological experiment.

I’ve been thinking about sin and evil in recent days. That’s somewhat unusual for me. But it is difficult to avoid the daily news assault of people treating others badly, political treachery and revenge, random and meaningless gun violence, and racial and ethnic hatreds tearing nations apart. Sin and evil are on full display.