Good morning. “The great Jewish theologian Abraham Heschel once wrote that “To pray is to take notice of the wonder, to regain a sense of the mystery that animates all beings, the divine margin in all attainments.”

Good morning! ”The doctrine of the Trinity is not ultimately a teaching about God but a teaching about God's life with us and our life with each other. It is the life of communion and indwelling, God in us, we in God, all of us in each other . . .

Good morning. “These are the signs of the presence of the Spirit: when there is enthusiasm in the work of the community; when there is courage to devise new approaches to new problems; when there is resistance to all oppression;

Good morning. This short list is a wise guide for living. I call it Felicia's Compass. “Am I loving? Am I including all? Am I abounding in grace? Am I walking in freedom and allowing others the opportunity to be free? 1/2 #LifeWisdom

Whew… I am laughing so hard. Did you know that the day after his show was closed by CBS, Colbert hosted public access in Michigan. It is more entertaining than any expensive late night show I’ve ever watched. youtu.be/jJTXB5uT_C4?...

Whew... Love's Wide Embrace is off to the editor for the final pass. What's next? Advanced Reader copies to the folks I'm hoping to get endorsements from, and for the person writing the Foreword (very excited about this!) And then to start talking about the book on social media way too much....

Good morning. Howard Thurman’s prayers continue to speak to me. “I seek the enlargement of my heart that there may be room for Peace. Already, there is room enough for chaos. There is in every day's experience much that makes for confusion and bewilderment.

Bellatrix (destroyer of worlds, and judge of all, the 2nd of her name) and I, starting this beautiful day together surveilling the squirrels.

Good morning! Another counter-intuitive take that expresses where I'm at in my Christianity. This time from Simone Weil. “Hitler could die and rise again fifty times, and I would not regard him as the Son of God. And if the Gospels were to omit all mention of the resurrection of Christ... 1/8

Good morning. Another of Howard Thurman’s prayers, that I join in. My soul needs this today! “I seek this day an active wonder. An active wonder is the desperate need of my mind and spirit. #prayer 1/4

Good morning! “If God is love, He is also sacrifice, which manifests the victorious power of love and its joy only through suffering." - Kenneth Oakes, “Gathering Many Likenesses: Trinity and Kenosis,” Nova et Vetera, 17, no. 3 (2019): 871–91. #GodIsLove

Good morning. A thoughtful prayer from Howard Thurman: “The wisdom of patience I seek this day. Patience in understanding the tendencies of my own Spirit . . . In my disgust over my own failure, I lose patience with myself and bog down in irritation and frustration.

Good afternoon (Slow start for me today...) “It is true that in some sense a man's whole life may be regarded as his prayer. Ordinarily, what a man does is an expression of his intent, and his intent is the focusing of his desiring, and his desires are the prayers of his heart.” 1/2 #Prayer

Good morning. Here's a prayer I needed today. Maybe you do, too. “May you settle, Dear Soul, into Love's embrace. May you quiet as you rest in Love's generosity. You are here, and you are held.” 1/2 #Prayer #Rest #Anxiety

Good.... afternoon? This is from a reflection on Acts 10:44–48, Peter's vision of inclusion. 1/6 #InclusiveTheology #GodsLove #Inclusion

Finishing up a final edit pass on Love's Wide Embrace. Came across a passage I wrote almost two years ago. Still resonates. "As happened so often, those who followed Jesus most closely didn’t understand. Many assumed God wanted a strong nation that defended God’s law and stood up to God’s enemies.

Good morning. “Together, we all hold wholeness, God's goodness, within us; and our individual journeys toward wholeness lead us to something greater. Through safe, compassionate community, through connection in and through Christ, we become one as the body of Christ. This is making new creation.

Good morning! 🌞 “The Word of God, our Lord Jesus Christ, who did through his transcendent love, become what we are, that he might bring us to be even what he is himself.” - Irenaeus of Lyons. Against Heresies (Adversus Haereses). V, Preface. #theosis #transformation #GodisLove

"For the children of noise, silence is both unfamiliar and uncomfortable, but it is in this quiet that we discover the voice of Spirit and the truth of our own hearts." 6 Weeks to Build a Habit that Fosters Spiritual & Emotional Maturity, updated! https://bit.ly/4lmLPCw

Good morning. “Jesus was a ‘wholemaker,’ bringing together those who were divided, separated, or left out of the whole. He initiated a new way of ‘catholicity,’ a gathering together of persons in love.

Come on now! "if Jesus is the window through which we see the nature of God, then God’s reign looks less like Rome and more like Golgotha." 🔥 I can't wait for you to read Love's Wide Embrace.

Making another editing pass on my next book, Love's Wide Embrace. Crashed headlong into this sentence: "The line between defending our images of God and our own egos is dangerously thin." 🔥😅

Good morning. "Ultimately, how we see God and how we see people will determine how we are together. Our desire to fix, shame, or control exposes our view of God as controlling judge and our view of ourselves as innately sinful or somehow bad. 1/4 #Kenosis #Healing #Theology

Good morning. “The immutably omnipotent God cannot provide an answer to the world’s suffering, and for Moltmann it is not this deity that we encounter at the cross of Christ." 1/3 #TheCross #HealthyChristianity #Love

I don’t plan or lead Worship as much as I once did, but it’s incredibly life-giving to me. Excited about the set this weekend. Three voices, harmony forward, acoustic guitar. #SmallChurchPastor #Worship #ProgressiveChristian

I'm doing another editing pass on my next book, Love's Wide Embrace, after the manuscript has been in other people's hands for a while. Coming back to words I wrote a while ago is always interesting. Sometimes, I wonder what Past Marc was up to. 1/6 #WritersLife #SocialJustic #ProgressiveChristian

Good morning. “In spaces characterized by the compassion of listening, witnessing, and co-suffering love, our souls and bodies heal and thrive.” 1/2 #healing

Just made these changes. Fantastic.

I cannot get this SNL sketch out of my head! Saturday Night Live's Prophetic Question: Will We Offer a Safe Place to Land? Would love to hear your thoughts. My new essay -> marcalanschelske.com/snl-question/

A new essay of mine ➡️ We're standing on a knife's edge right now, and Ashley Padilla at Saturday Night Live is asking who we will be. marcalanschelske.com/snl-question/

Good morning. This is IT right here, everybody. So thrilled to read this release from my colleague and SSU friend, Susan Carson: #Healing #Contemplation #Kenosis 1/3

Good morning. ”Love has no opposite. Love is strong enough to hold all things, even your fears. Love is not afraid of your wrestle, your anger, or your disappointment. Love does not ask you to hide big mad or your questions or angst. 1/2 #Love #GodsLove

Good morning. “When confronted with difficult Scriptural texts, we must strive to bring our interpretation in line with the dominical revelation that God is love--absolute, infinite, unconditional love.” 1/2 #Hermeneutics #GodIsLove

"Any spiritual practice that doesn't allow gracious flexibility for the unpredictability of life is too brittle to survive." 🤩Available now! 🥳 Journaling for Spiritual Growth, 2nd ed. 6 Weeks to Build a Habit that Fosters Maturity, updated! 🎉 https://bit.ly/4lmLPCw

Good morning! ”Love is infinite, and in the bounty of Love, we are held, and we are known. Within the frame of both/and, our story and other stories weave together in the native language of be-ing, which is oneness. 1/5 #Trinity #Perichoresis #Love

Good morning. “The cross displays God’s solidarity with mankind in the face of suffering; he suffers with us in true compassion. . . . The whole of the Trinity is involved in this suffering . . . 1/4 #TheCross #Solidarity #Kenosis

Good morning. “If we believe in democracy…we must not be a party to means that make use of bigotry, prejudice, and hate. We must search and find the facts that are needed for judgment and cast our lot on the side of the issues which we are willing to embrace as our private and personal ends. 1/3

Ya'll should probably watch this, OK? (20 min or so. The current state of AI Chatbots and the danger they present, even when you don't think they are dangerous.) youtu.be/Ykvf3MunGf8?...

Good morning. "It is easy indeed to confess that I have not fasted on prescribed days, or missed my prayers, or become angry. It is quite a different thing, however, to realize suddenly that I have defiled and lost my spiritual beauty, 1/3 #repentance

Good morning. “Back in the day when there was prayer in school, there was slavery, lynching, and the genocide of the indigenous too. Our abuse, torture, and killing of others betray our prayerlessness and lack of love for sister and brother. 1/2

Good morning. “Father Stephen Freeman, an Eastern Orthodox priest, writes, “If we are to be transformed ‘from one degree of glory to another’ then it is towards the ‘glory’ of the crucified, self-emptying Christ that we are being transformed. . .

Good morning. “Little by little, or vast area by vast area, my life must be transmuted in the life of God. As this happens, I come into the meaning of true freedom and the burdens that I seemed unable to bear are floated in the current of the life and love of God.” 1/2 #theosis #discipleship

Good morning. "His justice simply is his unmerited love and prodigal mercy." That's it. That's all of it. That's enough. Quote from: Alvin F. Kimel Jr, Destined for Joy: The Gospel of Universal Salvation, with Brad Jersak and David Bentley Hart (2022).8.

Good morning. “God forgives! This liberating gospel truth alone should alone compel us to reevaluate our inherited notion of retributive justice. The infliction of suffering upon the wrongdoer does not provide redress; it does not rectify; it does not heal the disorder created by the crime. 1/5

Good morning. “Conversion is not a precondition for God’s mercy but the discovery of his mercy, a discovery of a love that is always patient and kind.” - Alvin F. Kimel Jr, Destined for Joy: The Gospel of Universal Salvation, with Brad Jersak and David Bentley Hart (2022). 28. #Faith #Love

Good morning. “We can never wrestle God too much if we do so out of pure concern for the truth. Christ loves that we prefer the truth to him, because before being the Christ, he is the Truth. If someone takes a detour from him to go towards the truth... 1/4 #Doubt #Faith #Deconstruction

Good morning. “I exist to exist. I exist to love. I exist to receive Love as a continuous experience in my heart, to live in it and give it away to others.” Sometimes it's not more complicated than this. 1/2 #Love #Living #Faith

Good morning. “Discipline means effort at times, self-control, a certain mastery of self, or of the situation. But the discipline of trust is a putting down, an easing up, a releasing of tension, an intense relaxation of spirit.”

Good morning. "Here we must emphasize that the cross is not just one theophany among many; it is the definitive theophany . . . Unfortunately, however, the embedded theology of most Christians still revolves around a non-cruciform model of God's power, and a crucial corrective is needed. 1/2

Good morning. "It is quite the fragile god who needs political power to enforce their will. It is quite the powerful God who partners with peasants, is born in poverty, washes feet, heals the sick, advocates for the oppressed, is unjustly killed, and still changes the world." - Rev. Ben Cremer