Might just be the most faithful thing you can do.

Spending time in the places where you feel most at home. Relating to those people that feel like your people. Doing the tasks that you are experienced in accomplishing. Simply being who you are.

As Thomas Merton puts it:

“A tree gives glory to God by being a tree. For in being what God means it to be it is obeying God. It ‘consents,’ so to speak, to God’s creative love… a tree imitates God by being a tree… The more a tree is like itself, the more it is like Him.”

New Seeds of Contemplation

There’s never enough time or paper or ink or bandwidth to tell the entire story. Details must be left out. Entire scenes must be left out. What is included must be worth the time, energy, and expense on the part of the author as well as the reader.

A storyteller’s task is to write something worth reading. Which means leaving out content that is less potent or valuable.

The very best storytellers, the giants in literature, don’t merely write willy-nilly. Rather, they are exacting and cunning in their craft, choosing what to keep and what to cut with purpose and poise.

But, thankfully, it’s not the only way that one comes to believe in something.

Hearing can be believing. Someone’s story of redemption. A love song. Thunder in the distance. A parable.

Touching can be believing. A comforting hug. Sunshine on the face. A miraculously healed disease. The blessing hand of a priest.

We all need a reason to believe. The question is, is the reason we’re looking for realistic or unrealistic?

Let me suggest a simple test: Have a number of credible people that you know experienced something that has made them believers? Ask for that experience yourself. Don’t go crazy. Don’t think of some bizarre cosmic test for God to pass in order to impress you. Begin with the experiences of people you know and trust.

As supernatural as God may be, he manifests himself within our natural reality. Start there.

Are in personal experience. Real belief doesn’t get passed on through DNA. We can pass on religious traditions through our family and extended community, but not actual faith. We learn whole-hearted trust in someone else not by reading their bio, but rather by giving them time to prove themselves in relationship with us.

At some point, your faith has to have a foundation that is not simply taking someone else’s word for it—you have to encounter the divine for yourself.

At some point, you have to let someone else encounter the divine for themselves—you have to give them the freedom to build their own foundation rather than just take your word for it.

At some point, “We have seen the Lord!” must become, “I have seen the Lord!”

Unforgiveness  a lock. Condemnation and judgment are a prison. Guilt and shame are shackles.

When I am unrelenting in my unforgiveness towards others, I restrict their flourishing. When I am pitiless in my unforgiveness toward myself, I hold myself from the joy of being fully alive.

We lock our doors for protection—of our belongings, of our privacy, of our loved ones, of our own selves.

We lock our doors out of fear—of intrusion, of harm, of damage, of theft.

We lock our doors out of upbringing, training, habit, and good old fashioned common sense.

It’s one thing to be someone’s assistant. To help. To accomplish tasks. To pay attention to details. To anticipate needs. To follow directives.

It’s another thing to be someone’s friend. To live life together.  To spend time together. To share thoughts and emotions, hopes and heartbreaks, laughter and tears.

It’s yet another thing to be someone’s sibling. To be family. To be deeply bonded. To share blood and DNA. To have a common lineage and legacy.

She wasn’t entirely wrong.

This “mistake” was not lost on John as he wrote his Gospel: He began with his own creative retelling of the Creation Story found in Genesis. God had now returned to his Garden in human form. Evil had killed him in a garden. Faithful followers had buried him in a garden. And the first person to see him resurrected assumed he was a gardener.

New life. New creation. New world. New kingdom. New everything.

A question like “Why are you crying?” can come across very differently depending on the tone of voice.

With sharpness and disdain, it sounds like a frustrated parent to a child who is upset over not getting a second helping of ice cream.

With softness and compassion, it is an invitation to share one’s innermost grief with a trusted friend who is ready to hear and help bear anything.