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Voice of the Day: On Community
Too many people come into community to find something, to belong to a dynamic group, to find a life which approaches the ideal. If we come into community without knowing that the reason we come is to discover the mystery of forgiveness, we will soon be disappointed.
Jean Vanier
Community and Growth
Verse of the Day: 'Your princes are rebels'
Your princes are rebels
and companions of thieves.
Everyone loves a bribe
and runs after gifts.
They do not defend the orphan,
and the widow's cause does not come before them
Isaiah 1:23
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Verse of the Day: 'There was not a needy person among them'
Now the whole group of those who believed were of one heart and soul, and no one claimed private ownership of any possessions, but everything they owned was held in common. With great power the apostles gave their testimony to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus, and great grace was upon them all. There was not a needy person among them, for as many as owned lands or houses sold them and brought the proceeds of what was sold. They laid it at the apostles' feet, and it was distributed to each as [...]
Voice of the Day: On God's Work
Gradually, the deep ambiguity of human life was turned from a burdensome into a freeing mystery. Freed from my energetic desire to constantly "get it" and "keep it together," I could genuinely allow God to work in and through my abjections, not to make them better or neaten them up, but to allow me to be more compassionate, to judge others less, to serve them better.
Wendy M. Wright
The Rising
Verse of the Day: The Spirit of the Lord
Who has directed the spirit of the Lord,
or as his counselor has instructed him?
Whom did he consult for his enlightenment,
and who taught him the path of justice?
Who taught him knowledge,
and showed him the way of understanding?
Even the nations are like a drop from a bucket,
and are accounted as dust on the scales;
see, he takes up the isles like fine dust.
- Isaiah 40:13-15
Verse of the Day: Waiting For Light
Therefore justice is far from us,
and righteousness does not reach us;
we wait for light, and lo! there is darkness;
and for brightness, but we walk in gloom.
Isaiah 59:9
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Voice of the Day: On Prophets
We still need prophets to summon us back to the spiritual roots of wholeness and peace. We still need broadcasters of God's word and magnifiers of God's truth, so that we will understand and turn and be healed.
- Kenneth L. Waters, Sr.
I Saw the Lord [...]
Verse of the Day: 'our salvation in the time of trouble'
O Lord, be gracious to us; we wait for you.
Be our arm every morning,
our salvation in the time of trouble.
- Isaiah [...]
Voice of the Day: On Relationships
We live today in a world of growing isolation, frantic activity, and desperate violence, where paradoxically, we find ourselves longing for both solitude and companionship, intimacy and community. Some of us may look back to times when life seemed to make sense and relationships were more certain. Whether or not such times ever existed, we nevertheless long today for relationships that acknowledge who we are and who we want to be. We want someone to hear us, to hear our hearts beating, to hear [...]
Verse of the Day: On Good and Evil
Ah, you who call evil good
and good evil,
who put darkness for light
and light for darkness,
who put bitter for sweet
and sweet for bitter!
Ah, you who are wise in your own eyes,
and shrewd in your own sight!
Ah, you who are heroes in drinking wine
and valiant at mixing drink,
who acquit the guilty for a bribe,
and deprive the innocent of their rights!
- Isaiah 5:20-23
Voice of the Day: God's City
Though it hardly seems possible now, we cling to the hope that God's City will be established in the gift of the new heavens and the new earth. Our work is to live by the customs of the new City before it has fully come to be. In this way, the church draws the world to God. We hold forth not a condemning, but a welcoming word. All nations are invited to come to this City. And the quality of our interactions as a community will be a stronger witness than our words. The vibrancy of our worship [...]
Voice of the Day: 'cast our awful solemnity to the winds'
For the world and time are the dance of the Lord in emptiness. The silence of the spheres is the music of a wedding feast. The more we persist in misunderstanding the phenomena of life, the more we analyze them out into strange finalities and complex purposes of our own, the more we involve ourselves in sadness, absurdity, and despair. But it doesn not matter much, because no despair of ours can alter the reality of things, or stain the joy of the cosmic dance which is always there. Indeed, we [...]
Verse of the Day: On Human Authority
But Peter and the apostles answered, "We must obey God rather than any human authority"
- Acts 5:29
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Verse of the Day: On Cleanliness
"Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you clean the outside of the cup and of the plate, but inside they are full of greed and self-indulgence. You blind Pharisee! First clean the inside of the cup, so that the outside also may become clean.
- Matthew [...]
Voice of the Day: Storey On Love and Forgiveness
Many find Jesus' teaching on enemy love and forgiveness a stumbling block to faith. Because we find it too difficult to practice, we dismiss it as unrealistic and utopian. We should think again, and we should pray that it is not unrealistic, because this congruence of Jesus-the consistency between his teaching on forgiveness and his action on the cross-is really our only hope. It is all that stands between us and the consequences of our monumental frailty. Thank God today that Jesus died as he [...]
Verse of the Day: The Wise and the Fool
It is better to hear the rebuke of the wise than to hear the song of fools.
- Ecclesiastes 7:5-5
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Voice of the Day: Ripple On Love
Jesus reassures us that every effort to love ourselves and others more faithfully, however imperfectly we are able to do this, is a response to God's call to love as he loved. It is a response to the two greatest commandments as they stand in relationship to one another
- Paula Ripple
Called to Be Friends
Verse of the Day: 'Enter through the narrow gate'
Enter through the narrow gate; for the gate is wide and the road is easy that leads to destruction, and there are many who take it. For the gate is narrow and the road is hard that leads to life, and there are few who find it.
- Matthew 7:13-14
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Voice of the Day: On Blessings
Could there be anything more blessed than to imitate on earth the ring-dance of the angels and at dawn to raise our voices in prayer and by hymns and songs to glorify the rising Creator?
- St. Basil
Bishop of Caesarea (4th Century)