Tom Blair

“To grow a church preach from the heart, work for the poor, welcome the stranger, embrace the Spirit. Laugh more than cry. Fail more than wait. Give more than keep. Be unexpected love and trust the becoming to God.”
― Steven Charleston, Cloud Walking:: A Spiritual Diary

“In the spiritual life, we all have a job description to fulfill. In two of the messages I received, this is seen in the image of a spiritual medic or a spiritual construction worker. These are different images, but they carry similar messages: We are here for a reason. Our lives are entrusted to us for a purpose. It is not always an easy or glamorous job, but it is the vital work of restoration, reconciliation, and renewal that must be done, and done on the run in the face of rapid changes.”
― Steven Charleston, Ladder to the Light: An Indigenous Elder's Meditations on Hope and Courage

“The world for which you have been so carefully prepared is being taken away from you,' he said, 'by the grace of God.' (Walter Brueggemann)”
― Barbara Brown Taylor, Leaving Church: A Memoir of Faith

“...I had spent hours talking with people who had trouble believing. For some, the issue was that they believed less than they thought they should about Jesus. They were not trouble by the idea that he may have had two human parents instead of one or that his real presence with his disciples after his death might have been more metaphysical than physical. The glory they beheld in him had more to do with the nature of his being than with the number of his miracles, but they had suffered enough at the hands of true believers to learn to keep their mouths shut.

For others, the issue was that they believed more than Jesus. Having beheld his glory, they found themselves running into God's glory all over the place, including places where Christian doctrine said that it should not be. I knew Christians who had beheld God's glory in a Lakota sweat lodge, in a sacred Celtic grove, and at the edge of a Hawaiian volcano, as well as in dreams and visions that they were afraid to tell anyone else about at all. These people not only feared being shunned for their unorthodox narratives, they also feared sharing some of the most powerful things that had ever happened to them with people who might dismiss them.

Given the history of Christians as a people who started out beholding what was beyond belief, this struck me as a lamentable state of affairs, both for those who have learned to see no more than they are supposed to see as well as for those who have excused themselves from traditional churches because they see too little or too much. If it is true that God exceeds all our efforts to contain God, then is it too big a stretch to declare that dumbfoundedness is what all Christians have most in common? Or that coming together to confess all that we do not know is at least as sacred an activity as declaring what we think we do know?”
― Barbara Brown Taylor, Leaving Church: A Memoir of Faith