But grace is also contagious. An act of kindness inspires another act of kindness. A random smile is exchanged for an opened door.A single act of forgiveness can feel like it heals the world. Grace begets grace. Love rubs off on those who are loved….

The truth is that we’re all on a wilderness journey out of some form of slavery. On a personal level, we know what it is to be enslaved to fear, alcohol, food, rage, worry, lust, shame, inferiority, or control.

All journeys require an open mind—a mind that is not conditioned by past knowledge and experience, but open to possibility. Questioning opens the doors of our imagination, enabling us to consider alternatives to the status quo. Unless one is capable of imagining one cannot free oneself from bondage

In Moses, we see the connection between action and contemplation. Contemplation is the link to the Source of Love that allows activists to stay engaged for the long haul without burning out. Moses shows us that this marriage of action and contemplation is essential and possible.

The desert helped these Christians lean more deeply into undermining their assumptions and cravings for what is and what should be. —Rachel Wheeler

There is no way of talking about prayer or the spiritual teaching of the Desert Fathers -they had the hard work & experience of a lifetime of striving to re-direct every aspect of body, mind, and soul to God, and that is what they talked about. Prayer was a life continually turned towards God. Ward

The self, the place where we live, is a place of illusion. Goodness is connected with the attempt to see the unself… to pierce the veil of selfish consciousness and join the world as it really is.

Innocence The innocence and purity of heart which belong to paradise are a complete emptiness of self in which all is the work of God, the free and unpredictable expression of [God’s] love, the work of grace. In the purity of original innocence, all is done in us but without us.

The way back to Eden, the space between “paradise lost & gained” the place where we live our lives, can be one of love and suffering, humility and awe. It can also be a return to wonder - to the movement or the dance of belonging and becoming. It is the place where we laugh and cry and sing. @CAC

Our goal is not to create enemies but to proclaim the vision of God that is so big that everyone is welcome - it also means that those who have been oppressed are free from oppression, and those who have done the oppressing are free from being the oppressor, that everyone is set free.

scarcity or abundance? The worldview of abundance. We have to choose it, because it doesn’t come naturally. I’m convinced that it’s the worldview of the gospel. It’s a big world out there. There’s always another creative way to look at things. Do we remember to look at life that way? #Rohr

The consequences of justice and righteousness are shalom, an enduring Sabbath of joy and well-being. But the alternative is injustice and oppression, which leads inevitably to turmoil and anxiety, with no chance of well-being.

Almost all of Jesus’s parables begin with the same phrase: “The reign of God is like….” Jesus fully knows he is speaking in simile, metaphor, story, and symbol. Many Christians have not granted him that freedom, and thus we miss or avoid many of his major messages. We are much poorer for it.

From Rohr This is what Walter Brueggemann, in Theology of the Old Testament, calls a “credo of five adjectives” that continually recurs in the Hebrew Scriptures: This God that Israel—and Jesus—discovered is consistently seen to be “merciful, gracious, faithful, forgiving, and steadfast in love.”

The view from here

There is no pressure on infinite holy mystery to create and continuously support a world. How could there be? It is done freely, as a flaming, generous act of love, the plentitude of infinite love overflowing. —Elizabeth Johnson

Creation (what God did and continues to do daily) and the carrying out of shalom (what we are to do daily) are inextricably interwoven. We have the opportunity each day to participate in God’s shalom activities.

One of the hardest things to learn in life is that the heart is a clock too fast not to break. We lurch into loving, only to discover again and again that it takes a long time to know people, to understand people — and “understanding is love’s other name.”

A great paradox of being alive in this civilization is that we have come to dread and devalue the triumph of having lived, forgetting that to grow old is not a punishment but a privilege — that of having survived in order to begin the continuous creative act of holding on while letting go. #oldage

BLESSING FOR OLD AGE May the light of your soul mind you May all your worry and anxiousness about becoming old be transfigured, May you be given a wisdom with the eye of your soul, to see this beautiful time of harvesting -John O’Donahue

Refreshing, cold and bright Chirk Castle this morning #NewYear26

My first Negroni of the year: and raising the glass to wish you all well for this new year !

Thinking about some space and time for yourself ? Do consider @sarumcollege.bsky.social www.sarum.ac.uk/learning/pri...

2026 : A new Beginning ? There are moments in life when we are reminded that we are unfinished, that the story we have been telling ourselves about who we are and where our life leads is yet unwritten. To begin anything — is to cast upon yourself a spell against stagnation.

On this date in 1926, Rainer Maria Rilke died of leukemia at a clinic on Lake Geneva, at the age of 51. Three years before, he had published the Duino Elegies, the first of which has these lines (my translation): Voices, voices. Listen, my heart, as only saints have listened . . .

We live on in the ongoing fragility and brokenness of ourselves, but we don’t walk in the darkness that surrounds us. Rather, we live in the light that transcends, permeates, and unexplainably shines through that darkness. We walk in the light that shines on …

To be alive in the adventure of Jesus is to kneel at the manger and gaze upon that little baby who is radiant with so much promise for our world today.

For Teilhard, the seeing of Christ in all things was the most powerful source for Christian renewal, for the transformation of humanity, and for the responsible, reverential care of our planet.

Religion’s essential function is to radically connect us with everything. A cosmic notion of the Christ competes with and excludes no one. The Creator’s love and presence are grounded in the created world, distinction between “natural” and “supernatural” falls apart.

For the eternal optimists it’s the first day of summer tomorrow 🥳🌳

Christ is a word for the Primordial Template through whom “all things came into being, and not one thing had its being except through him” Seeing in this way has reframed, reenergized, and broadened my own belief, and I believe it could be Christianity’s unique contribution in the world religions.

Awe is more than an emotion; it is a way of understanding, insight into a meaning greater than ourselves. The beginning of awe is wonder, and the beginning of wisdom is awe. Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel (1907–1972)

Contemplation is nothing other than a secret, peaceful, loving inflow of God. If given room, it will fire the soul in the spirit of love. —John of the Cross

Earth is so thick with divine possibility that it is a wonder we can walk anywhere without cracking our shins on altars.

God is the wisdom of every lifetime, a deep plunge, the sinew and muscle of ethical responsibility, a community of goodness, but more. Descriptions reach out as far as they can toward God and then, like a rubber band stretched too far, they snap back and we are left with the silence of mystery & awe

The roots of ultimate insights are found … on the level of wonder and radical amazement, in the depth of awe, in our sensitivity to the mystery.

How do we live whole in a breaking world? It helps to bless what is simply for being. It helps to thank everything for its unbidden everythingness. And still we need help — help holding on to the beauty amid the brutality, help stripping the armors of certainty to be complicated by contraction.

Our delivery of the 2026 Retreats Handbooks has arrived! Members' copies and pre-orders have been posted - have you received yours yet? Or order a copy now on promotingretreats.org/resources! #retreat

www.churchtimes.co.uk/articles/202... @mshahn.bsky.social

We journey on and into Advent with Jim Cotter

The divine-human love affair really is a reciprocal dance. Sometimes, in order for us to step forward, our partner must step away a bit. The withdrawal lasts only a moment, and its purpose is to pull us closer—but it doesn’t feel like that in the moment. It feels like our partner is retreating.

Prayers for colleagues @salisburycathedral.bsky.social as they move into serving, singing and carolling

We walk this earth as bewildered animals trying to recover the divinity within — descendants of the great apes who invented gods to mirror back to us the best in ourselves and bridle the worst, but we are still and always have been our own only shepherds.

#SarumCollege #Learning www.sarum.ac.uk

Advent verses from Jim Cotter December 7th 2025

Advent verses from Jim Cotter

I am a Christian because of women who said yes. —Rachel Held Evans

Glad to have some days with the Sisters of the Love of God at Fairacres east of Oxford #Advent