“The heart is meant to be vulnerable, malleable, broken open by love. The ancient Hebrew prophets regularly preached about turning our hearts of stone into hearts of flesh.”
—Christine Valters Paintner, PhD, A Midwinter God: Encountering the Divine in Seasons of Darkness
When has your heart hardened out of self-protection? What helps soften your heart, allowing for both sorrow and love?
To register for the self-study companion retreat to the book with additional resources and guidance, click here. Use code MIDWINTERGOD20 to take 20% off through October 31st.
Verse of the day
Do not repay evil for evil or abuse for abuse, but, on the contrary, repay with a blessing. It is for this that you were called—that you might inherit a blessing.
– 1 Peter 3:9
Voice of the day
We lay down our arms so we can reach out our arms to one another. / We seek harm to none and harmony for all.
– Amanda Gorman, “The Hill We Climb”
Prayer of the day
God, release us from the impulse to react with gestures that induce harm. Let us cling to your grace instead.
You cannot get through a single day without having an impact on the world around you. What you do makes a difference, and you have to decide what kind of difference you want to make. (Source)
This is the oath that every commissioned officer in the US Military swears when they are first commissioned. For me, that was April 15, 1985.
I, [STATE YOUR NAME], having been appointed a [RANK] in the United States [BRANCH OF SERVICE], do solemnly swear [OR AFFIRM] that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the office upon which I am about to enter. So help me God.
No community, whether class or nation, can build a society by destroying everything outside of itself. — Moral Man and Immoral Society, p. 157
“When we walk the earth with reverence, beauty will decide to trust us.”—John O’Donohue, Beauty: The Invisible Embrace
Verse of the day
If you offer your food to the hungry and satisfy the needs of the afflicted, then your light shall rise in the darkness and your gloom be like the noonday.
– Isaiah 58:10
Voice of the day
The first essential component of social justice is adequate food for all (hu)mankind. Food is the moral right of all who are born into this world.
– Norman Borlaug
Prayer of the day
Continue to nourish us, God who provides, so that we can continue offering up our good works to you and nourishing those around us.
Every time we see a major crisis in the history of the Church, such as the Great Schism of the eleventh century, the Reformation of the sixteenth century, or the immense secularization of the twentieth century, we always see that a major cause of rupture is the power exercised by those who claim to be followers of the poor and powerless Jesus. What makes the temptation to power so seemingly irresistible? Maybe it is that power offers an easy substitute for the hard task of love. It seems easier to be God than to love God, easier to control people than to love people, easier to own life than to love life.
“In virtually every community, people are coming together in remarkable ways—learning about each other’s histories of struggle, marching together, co-creating with each other, planting seeds of something new together, making another way possible: a way out of no way. People are casting off old ways of seeing the world and being in the world and recognizing that everything depends on us rising to the challenges of our times, speaking unpopular truths, and acting with courage and love and the fierce urgency of now.”—Michelle Alexander, “Only Revolutionary Love Can Save Us Now”
Verse of the day
Thus says the Lord God: Enough, O princes of Israel! Put away violence and oppression, and do what is just and right. Cease your evictions of my people, says the Lord God.
– Ezekiel 45:9
Voice of the day
War is not a courtesy but the most horrible thing in life; and we ought to understand that, and not play at war…As it is now, war is the favorite pastime of the idle and frivolous.
– Leo Tolstoy, “War and Peace” (1867)
Prayer of the day
God, lead our communities and our nations not into zones of conflict, but instead into realms of life.
Pastor Michael Moore's Blog 