How could I love God with all my heart, soul, mind, and strength while disengaging those very faculties every time I read the Bible?

It was the 80s, so all my earliest memories of Jesus smell like hairspray.

Anytime the Bible is used to justify the oppression and exploitation of others, we have strayed far from the God who brought the people of Israel out of Egypt.

There is something about that touch, that act of consecration, which turns a prayer into a pulse that ripples down to the toes. Just as God comes to us through water and wine, God comes to us through touch, through the holy acts of holy hands.Through touch, God gave us the power to injure or to heal, to wage war or to wash feet. Let us not forget the gravity of that. Let us not forget the call.

Death is something empires worry about, not something gardeners worry about. It's certainly not something resurrection people worry about.

I may be wrong, but I think the point is this: what each of us longs for the most is to be both fully known and fully loved. Miraculously, God feels the same way about us. God, too, wants to be fully known and fully loved.

With God's help, I will.

The annoying thing about being human is that to be fully engaged with the world, we must be vulnerable. And the annoying thing about being vulnerable is that sometimes it means we get hurt. And when your family includes the universal church, you're going to get hurt. Probably more than once.

I can't be a Christian on my own. Like it or not, following Jesus is a group activity, something we're supposed to do together...We're going to need each other's help.