Live in the wisdom of accepted tenderness. Tenderness awakens within the security of knowing we are thoroughly and sincerely liked by someone...Scripture suggests that the essence of the divine nature is compassion and that the heart of God is defined by tenderness.

The life of Jesus suggests that to be like Abba is to show compassion. Donald Gray expresses this: "Jesus reveals in an exceptionally human life what it is to live a divine life, a compassionate life.

Our hearts of stone become hearts of flesh when we learn where the outcast weeps.

we unwittingly project onto God our own attitudes and feelings toward ourselves... But we cannot assume that He feels about us the way we feel about ourselves -- unless we love ourselves compassionately, intensely, and freely.

The ragamuffin gospel reveals that Jesus forgives sins, including the sins of the flesh; that He is comfortable with sinners who remember how to show compassion; but that He cannot and will not have a relationship with pretenders in the Spirit.

What makes the Kingdom come is heartfelt compassion: a way of tenderness that knows no frontiers, no labels, no compartmentalizing, and no sectarian divisions.