Tag: bible

The Episcopal Church Must Resurrect “God Is Love” From Page 849 Of Its Own Prayer Book

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“God is love” is buried on page 849 in the Episcopal Book of Common Prayer. And those words are absent from any and every single one of the Church’s liturgies, prayer services, you name it

The Episcopal Church must resurrect them into a place where their life-changing, world-shaping light can shine with fullest effect. Right now they are, in effect, under a bucket rather than on a lamp-stand.

The BCP is a jewel—my companion early morning, throughout the day, and right before I turn off the lights and fall asleep—but we have buried its greatest treasure in the Catechism:

“What is the nature of God revealed in Jesus? God is love.”

If only those words were written across the sky across the world every day. Then, perhaps, they would find their way into the hearts of more and more people everywhere.

We can’t write them in the sky but we can resurrect them from the 848 pages and 200,000 words which precede and have the effect of burying them. If we go and tell this truth on a mountain it will be harder for people to keep weaponizing Jesus for personal and political gain.

Personally, I believe they belong in every single liturgy, every daily prayer. They should be our motto, our banner. On the first page of the BCP: “We believe that the nature of God revealed in Jesus is love. God is love.” 

I’ve been an Episcopalian for 57 years, since I was 11, and licensed lay preacher in the Diocese of Southern Virginia since 2005. I know what it could have meant to me as a child had the Church made “God is love” part of its liturgy, if they had told me that truth.

For me, this is deeply personal. I wasn’t on a horse riding to Damascus to persecute Christians. I was driving a VW bug on July 2, 1980, pursued by the ongoing post-traumatic effects of a soul-deep wound from my childhood. On my way home from covering the Buckingham County School Board meeting for The Farmville Herald, there was a burst of light around me in the car and I simultaneously heard a voice tell me, “Be happy” and I was engulfed, embraced, submerged by the most beautifully intense and complete feeling of love. I burst into uncontrollable sobs of deepest joy, shouting “Thank you, God! Thank you, God!” and had to pull off the road because I could no longer drive. It was immediately clear to me what, and who, I was experiencing.

Eventually, I made my way home, love surrounding me. Love inside me. Chapter 17, verse 23 of the Gospel of John come true in my life. I was literally inside LOVE and LOVE was literally inside me. Not a feeling but the thing itself. God as LOVE. The feeling lasted for hours, even as I did the laundry at a laundromat. I stood outside and the whole world was LOVE. I was breathing it. Exhaling it. (I’ve preached on this and written about it in Forward Day By Day).

Through God’s love and grace, I know those words in the BCP are true and when I discovered them on page 849 a month ago, I had to do something about helping my Church lift them up, raise them up, for all to see.  I believe every Protestant denomination must do the same thing. Tell the world that God is love. 

I have felt the Holy Spirit in all of this so strongly. There is a Task Force for Liturgical and Prayer Book Revision in the Episcopal Church, so it feels that the time is now. Please join me and help spread these words as far as you can. I believe that God has others waiting for us to find them, too, and move this forward. We simply want to elevate a few words from our own catechism and tell the hungry world the truth: God is love.

Will you please help? Shout it out loud from your own mountaintop!!


“God is love” is buried on page 849 in the Episcopal Book of Common Prayer. And those words are absent from any and every single one of the Church’s liturgies, prayer services, you name it
The Episcopal Church must resurrect them into a place where their life-changing, world-shaping light can shine with fullest effect. Right now they are, in effect, under a bucket rather than on a lamp-stand.
The BCP is a jewel—my companion early morning, throughout the day, and right before I turn off the lights and fall asleep—but we have buried its greatest treasure in the Catechism:
“What is the nature of God revealed in Jesus? God is love.”
If only those words were written across the sky across the world every day. Then, perhaps, they would find their way into the hearts of more and more people everywhere.
We can’t write them in the sky but we can resurrect them from the 848 pages and 200,000 words which precede and have the effect of burying them. If we go and tell this truth on a mountain it will be harder for people to keep weaponizing Jesus for personal and political gain.
Personally, I believe they belong in every single liturgy, every daily prayer. They should be our motto, our banner. On the first page of the BCP: “We believe that the nature of God revealed in Jesus is love. God is love.”
I’ve been an Episcopalian for 57 years, since I was 11, and licensed lay preacher in the Diocese of Southern Virginia since 2005. I know what it could have meant to me as a child had the Church made “God is love” part of its liturgy, if they had told me that truth.
For me, this is deeply personal. I wasn’t on a horse riding to Damascus to persecute Christians. I was driving a VW bug on July 2, 1980, pursued by the ongoing post-traumatic effects of a soul-deep wound from my childhood. On my way home from covering the Buckingham County School Board meeting for The Farmville Herald, there was a burst of light around me in the car and I simultaneously heard a voice tell me, “Be happy” and I was engulfed, embraced, submerged by the most beautifully intense and complete feeling of love. I burst into uncontrollable sobs of deepest joy, shouting “Thank you, God! Thank you, God!” and had to pull off the road because I could no longer drive. It was immediately clear to me what, and who, I was experiencing.
Eventually, I made my way home, love surrounding me. Love inside me. Chapter 17, verse 23 of the Gospel of John come true in my life. I was literally inside LOVE and LOVE was literally inside me. Not a feeling but the thing itself. God as LOVE. The feeling lasted for hours, even as I did the laundry at a laundromat. I stood outside and the whole world was LOVE. I was breathing it. Exhaling it. (I’ve preached on this and written about it in Forward Day By Day).
Through God’s love and grace, I know those words in the BCP are true and when I discovered them on page 849 a month ago, I had to do something about helping my Church lift them up, raise them up, for all to see. I believe every Protestant denomination must do the same thing. Tell the world that God is love.
I have felt the Holy Spirit in all of this so strongly. There is a Task Force for Liturgical and Prayer Book Revision in the Episcopal Church, so it feels that the time is now. Please join me and help spread these words as far as you can. I believe that God has others waiting for us to find them, too, and move this forward. We simply want to elevate a few words from our own catechism and tell the hungry world the truth: God is love.
Will you please help? Shout it out loud from your own mountaintop!!






The Yoke Of Love

kenwoodley31 Comment

By Ken Woodley

The weight is so heavy.

Too burdensome.

I don’t see how I can go any further.

No way.

It has been so hard for so long.

Years and years, it seems, so another single step feels impossible.

The valley of this dark shadow seems to stretch forever and the slopes that surround me look and feel too steep. 

Each time I try to climb up and out of this, I slip and slide and stumble and fall. I am cut and bleeding and still this burden refuses to fall from my shoulders, fall away from my heart, or from my soul. Its weeds are everywhere and there are days when I cannot see my flowers. Can’t even smell them.

Today is one of those days.

The weeds of this burden blind me to even a single petal of one solitary flower.

And all around me are people on the same journey.

Carrying their own burdens that are too burdensome.

They don’t see how they can go any further.

No way.

It has been so hard for them, too, for so long.

Years and years, it seems, even if it has been a few days, weeks or months, so another step feels impossible to them.

The valley of the shadow surrounding them seems to stretch forever and the slopes surrounding them look and feel too steep.

Weeds surround them. Their flowers are nowhere to be seen. They can’t even smell them.

All of us have stumbled and fallen and the weeds seem certain to take every one of our blossoms away.

But, on our bruised and bleeding knees we pray.

Unable to gaze skyward any longer, we look down and see our bent and humbled shadow in prayer.

Prayer is all we have left, hopeless words searching for hope.

And that—yes, that—is when we see the second shadow.

A second shadow beside us.

Beside every one of us.

The shadow of someone carrying a yoke across his shoulders.

This shadow of the man and his yoke look just like the shadow of a cross, a crucified man somehow journeying right by our side.

Has he been there all along?

Did we mistake our burden for his?

Or his burden for ours?

None of that matters, we realize, as the flowers of this moment bloom, the sudden petals painting even the weeds into some kind of rainbow pasture where we rest and feel our burdens lifted. Our heads are anointed with oil. 

In a moment, we shall all journey on.

Our burden won’t be gone but it will feel less heavy because we do not carry it alone.

Jesus knows all about crosses.

That’s why he can help us carry our own.

The only thing Jesus adds to our darkness is light.

The one thing he adds to our burden is love.

That is why there are occasional moments when we’ll actually feel weightless, defying the world’s gravity.

For just a moment or two, perhaps, but they make the next few miles so much easier than they might have been.

And we move on toward beyond.

By Ken Woodley


The weight is so heavy.
Too burdensome.
I don’t see how I can go any further.
No way.
It has been so hard for so long.
Years and years, it seems, so another single step feels impossible.
The valley of this dark shadow seems to stretch forever and the slopes that surround me look and feel too steep.
Each time I try to climb up and out of this, I slip and slide and stumble and fall. I am cut and bleeding and still this burden refuses to fall from my shoulders, fall away from my heart, or from my soul. Its weeds are everywhere and there are days when I cannot see my flowers. Can’t even smell them.
Today is one of those days.
The weeds of this burden blind me to even a single petal of one solitary flower.
And all around me are people on the same journey.
Carrying their own burdens that are too burdensome.
They don’t see how they can go any further.
No way.
It has been so hard for them, too, for so long.
Years and years, it seems, even if it has been a few days, weeks or months, so another step feels impossible to them.
The valley of the shadow surrounding them seems to stretch forever and the slopes surrounding them look and feel too steep.
Weeds surround them. Their flowers are nowhere to be seen. They can’t even smell them.
All of us have stumbled and fallen and the weeds seem certain to take every one of our blossoms away.
But, on our bruised and bleeding knees we pray.
Unable to gaze skyward any longer, we look down and see our bent and humbled shadow in prayer.
Prayer is all we have left, hopeless words searching for hope.
And that—yes, that—is when we see the second shadow.
A second shadow beside us.
Beside every one of us.
The shadow of someone carrying a yoke across his shoulders.
This shadow of the man and his yoke look just like the shadow of a cross, a crucified man somehow journeying right by our side.
Has he been there all along?
Did we mistake our burden for his?
Or his burden for ours?
None of that matters, we realize, as the flowers of this moment bloom, the sudden petals painting even the weeds into some kind of rainbow pasture where we rest and feel our burdens lifted. Our heads are anointed with oil.
In a moment, we shall all journey on.
Our burden won’t be gone but it will feel less heavy because we do not carry it alone.
Jesus knows all about crosses.
That’s why he can help us carry our own.
The only thing Jesus adds to our darkness is light.
The one thing he adds to our burden is love.
That is why there are occasional moments when we’ll actually feel weightless, defying the world’s gravity.
For just a moment or two, perhaps, but they make the next few miles so much easier than they might have been.
And we move on toward beyond.

Even Holy Routines Can Become Merely Routine

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By Ken Woodley

My soul felt dusty on the morning of Friday, December 27. Despite the joys of Christmas still caroling in the air, I felt a desperate need to walk more closely with God and with Jesus than I had the day before, to literally walk as closely as I possibly could. To feel them. To even see them if I could.

I needed manna from heaven and I needed it badly. Heading toward my familiar daily trails at our local national park, I turned and drove, instead, to James River State Park. I would walk the River Trail, where I have sometimes heard the whispered echoes of the Holy Spirit.

I usually have this trail entirely to myself, especially in the winter on a week day. Nearly a mile into my solitary walk, the trail took a hard right turn at the end of a line of trees. Emerging from the riverside path 100 yards in front of me, I suddenly saw someone. 

Then my mind and my soul did a double take. The man headed in my direction was wearing priestly garb, flowing black robes. And a second was right behind him. Then a 10th, a 20th, a 30th. There had to be more than 40 of them, and most of them young men.

It was totally surreal. So completely out of context. Or was it? 

Astonishment filled me as we exchanged greetings during this crossing of paths. Then, moments later, I began to weep, tears of pure joy, and I started thanking God and thanking Jesus over and over again, thanking them aloud as I walked along the side of the river.

I had literally hungered to walk closer to the Lord and set that spiritual goal for myself earlier in the morning but this seemed utterly miraculous to me.

Just like manna from heaven.

And I knew I had to share my experience with them. I turned around and retraced my steps but there was no sight of them. I drove to the park office and they told me that when the group had arrived, one of the priests had asked how to pay the entrance fee for 23 cars.

The park attendant didn’t know where they were from, but she could tell me where they had parked. I drove as quickly as I could and saw the group approaching the wooded entrance to another trail. 

I stopped my car in their midst just in time, got out and told them of the spiritual hunger I had felt that morning and the tears of joy had I had experienced after passing them on the trail.

My prayer had been answered, I told them, and they were the physical manifestation of God’s Holy Spirit bringing that answer. 

Then one of them came up to me, smiling, and introduced himself as Brother Maximillian. They were from St. Thomas Aquinas Seminary in Buckingham County, Catholic priests, brothers and seminary students. He reached into a pocket and gave me a very special medallion made in honor of the Virgin Mary.

The card that came with what is known as The Miraculous Medal had a painting of the Virgin Mary on one side and these words on the other:

“Mary, the Mother of Our Lord Jesus Christ, appeared to St. Catherine Laboure in 1830. She requested that this medal be made and worn in her honor. Mary has promised her special protection to those who wear it constantly, especially around the neck, and devoutly pray this prayer each day: O Mary conceived without sin, pray for us who have recourse to thee.

“This medal is called Miraculous due to the countless miracles associated with this devotion. This medal is blessed,” the words on the back of the card concluded, “so please give it due respect.”

It’s been around my neck ever since, reminding me of how close God and Jesus are, even when I do not feel them.

But it also reminds me how close I had come to missing out entirely on this moment of pure grace. And it made me wonder how many other moments I might have missed in my life because I didn’t do what I had done that day.

It would have been so easy to feel my hunger for intimate proximity with God and Christ but remained content to keep to my familiar daily paths and routines, praying and meditating before dawn and then walking nearby trails just down the road.

Instead, I’d had to suddenly turn my day upside down and drive 30 miles to a state park. I had to reach my heart and soul out beyond routine. God knew the St. Thomas Aquinas Seminary priests, brothers and seminary students were there but God had to get me there too.

And just at the right time.

Then I needed to listen to the Holy Spirit tell me to turn around after that first encounter and go find them to share the importance, to me, of our paths crossing, sharing it with them so that the day would fill them with a shared experience of the Holy Spirit. 

I couldn’t be content to have the beautiful wonder of it all to myself.

It wasn’t just about me. It was about them, too. Sharing a “manna moment” out of the blue with someone they’d never seen before, Holy scripture lived out in real time and all of them part of it.

I especially wanted the seminary students to feel validation of the path they had chosen. I told them that I would be preaching a sermon that very Sunday titled “In The Footsteps Of Christmas” and that the footsteps were now theirs. “You can’t make this stuff up,” I told them.

This experience taught me that we all need to reach out beyond our normal routines, even if those moments are filled with prayer, because it is beyond our normal daily borders that God and Christ can most emphatically touch our deepest needs.

It doesn’t mean we have to drive 30 miles and go on a hike. It can be a journey of 30 spiritual miles and a hike, in your mind, around the Sea of Galilee with Jesus. Just the two of you.

Our daily routines, even if filled with devotion, can become too familiar. Even the best routines eventually become only routine. They can dull our spiritual senses. 

Holy routines can often insulate us against the world’s encroaching darkness but they can also insulate us from the deeper illuminations of the brightest light.

There’s nothing routine about meeting God beyond the edge of our usual spiritual boundaries. And that new frontier of the soul can feel like the Promised Land when we need it most, manna from heaven all around us. 

By Ken Woodley


My soul felt dusty on the morning of Friday, December 27. Despite the joys of Christmas still caroling in the air, I felt a desperate need to walk more closely with God and with Jesus than I had the day before, to literally walk as closely as I possibly could. To feel them. To even see them if I could.

I needed manna from heaven and I needed it badly. Heading toward my familiar daily trails at our local national park, I turned and drove, instead, to James River State Park. I would walk the River Trail, where I have sometimes heard the whispered echoes of the Holy Spirit.

I usually have this trail entirely to myself, especially in the winter on a week day. Nearly a mile into my solitary walk, the trail took a hard right turn at the end of a line of trees. Emerging from the riverside path 100 yards in front of me, I suddenly saw someone.

Then my mind and my soul did a double take. The man headed in my direction was wearing priestly garb, flowing black robes. And a second was right behind him. Then a 10th, a 20th, a 30th. There had to be more than 40 of them, and most of them young men.
It was totally surreal. So completely out of context. Or was it?


Astonishment filled me as we exchanged greetings during this crossing of paths. Then, moments later, I began to weep, tears of pure joy, and I started thanking God and thanking Jesus over and over again, thanking them aloud as I walked along the side of the river.

I had literally hungered to walk closer to the Lord and set that spiritual goal for myself earlier in the morning but this seemed utterly miraculous to me.
Just like manna from heaven.

And I knew I had to share my experience with them. I turned around and retraced my steps but there was no sight of them. I drove to the park office and they told me that when the group had arrived, one of the priests had asked how to pay the entrance fee for 23 cars.

The park attendant didn’t know where they were from, but she could tell me where they had parked. I drove as quickly as I could and saw the group approaching the wooded entrance to another trail.

I stopped my car in their midst just in time, got out and told them of the spiritual hunger I had felt that morning and the tears of joy had I had experienced after passing them on the trail.

My prayer had been answered, I told them, and they were the physical manifestation of God’s Holy Spirit bringing that answer.

Then one of them came up to me, smiling, and introduced himself as Brother Maximillian. They were from St. Thomas Aquinas Seminary in Buckingham County, Catholic priests, brothers and seminary students. He reached into a pocket and gave me a very special medallion made in honor of the Virgin Mary.

The card that came with what is known as The Miraculous Medal had a painting of the Virgin Mary on one side and these words on the other:

“Mary, the Mother of Our Lord Jesus Christ, appeared to St. Catherine Laboure in 1830. She requested that this medal be made and worn in her honor. Mary has promised her special protection to those who wear it constantly, especially around the neck, and devoutly pray this prayer each day: O Mary conceived without sin, pray for us who have recourse to thee.

“This medal is called Miraculous due to the countless miracles associated with this devotion. This medal is blessed,” the words on the back of the card concluded, “so please give it due respect.”

It’s been around my neck ever since, reminding me of how close God and Jesus are, even when I do not feel them.

But it also reminds me how close I had come to missing out entirely on this moment of pure grace. And it made me wonder how many other moments I might have missed in my life because I didn’t do what I had done that day.

It would have been so easy to feel my hunger for intimate proximity with God and Christ but remained content to keep to my familiar daily paths and routines, praying and meditating before dawn and then walking nearby trails just down the road.

Instead, I’d had to suddenly turn my day upside down and drive 30 miles to a state park. I had to reach my heart and soul out beyond routine. God knew the St. Thomas Aquinas Seminary priests, brothers and seminary students were there but God had to get me there too.
And just at the right time.

Then I needed to listen to the Holy Spirit tell me to turn around after that first encounter and go find them to share the importance, to me, of our paths crossing, sharing it with them so that the day would fill them with a shared experience of the Holy Spirit.

I couldn’t be content to have the beautiful wonder of it all to myself.

It wasn’t just about me. It was about them, too. Sharing a “manna moment” out of the blue with someone they’d never seen before, Holy scripture lived out in real time and all of them part of it.

I especially wanted the seminary students to feel validation of the path they had chosen. I told them that I would be preaching a sermon that very Sunday titled “In The Footsteps Of Christmas” and that the footsteps were now theirs. “You can’t make this stuff up,” I told them.

This experience taught me that we all need to reach out beyond our normal routines, even if those moments are filled with prayer, because it is beyond our normal daily borders that God and Christ can most emphatically touch our deepest needs.

It doesn’t mean we have to drive 30 miles and go on a hike. It can be a journey of 30 spiritual miles and a hike, in your mind, around the Sea of Galilee with Jesus. Just the two of you.

Our daily routines, even if filled with devotion, can become too familiar. Even the best routines eventually become only routine. They can dull our spiritual senses.

Holy routines can often insulate us against the world’s encroaching darkness but they can also insulate us from the deeper illuminations of the brightest light.

There’s nothing routine about meeting God beyond the edge of our usual spiritual boundaries. And that new frontier of the soul can feel like the Promised Land when we need it most, manna from heaven all around us.























A Recipe From Heaven

kenwoodley31 Comment

By Ken Woodley

If today’s Gospel reading were an earthly recipe, I would have had the ingredients all over me many times, all over the floor, the ceiling and all over Kim if she happened to be walking through the kitchen. 

Despite my best efforts, I’ve often made a mess of them.

But this is no recipe found in the pages of a cookbook. It’s a recipe from  heaven given to us by Jesus.

“Love your enemies.

Do good to those who hate you.

Bless those who curse you.

Pray for those who abuse you.

If anyone strikes you on the cheek, offer the other also.

And from anyone who takes away your coat do not even withhold your shirt.”

Those words are so easy for me to read aloud but so very hard to put into practice in my daily life.

As with many holy recipes, this one can be hard to swallow, especially when I’m wrestling with a fresh hurt, or an old familiar wound.

Jesus doesn’t even recommend any particular amount for most of the ingredients. 

We don’t know whether it’s two pounds of lean cut love for our enemies.

Maybe a cup of goodness to those who hate us?

Perhaps a quarter cup of blessing for those who curse us?

Possibly two tablespoons of praying for those who abuse us?

Who knows?

The only time Jesus gives us specific directions about quantity is that we’re to offer our entire other cheek to those who smack us in the face and the complete shirt off our back to anyone who steals our coat.

It would take a five-star restaurant chef to make anything out of this recipe worth serving.

Except, Jesus isn’t talking to a convention of celebrity chefs with their own television series.

Jesus is talking to a large crowd of his disciples, as well as a great number of people from all over Judea who had come to hear him and be healed.

And, of course, Jesus is also talking to us.

At first glance, it may initially appear that Jesus is more concerned with those who are harming us physically and emotionally. As if he’s letting them off the hook and putting a great burden on us.

But, with Jesus, merely glancing at his words is like quickly turning our backs on a masterpiece.

We’ve always got to go deeper.

We’ve got to loosen up and stretch our spiritual selves because, as is so often the case, Jesus is encouraging us to practice spiritual gymnastics because he’s turning everything upside down and inside out again, as he always seems to do. Blessed are those who mourn, for example.

This time it’s:

Love the haters.

Pray for the abusers.

How challenging were his words then? Just as challenging as they are today. And will be a thousand years from now.

The haters and abusers seemed to be winning everywhere in Jesus’s day, just has hatred and abuse seem too often triumphant in the world today.

So, Jesus, are you asking us to help them?

The answer is Yes.

And No.

Jesus does want us to help them.

But he doesn’t want us to help them hate or abuse or steal. I don’t think Jesus is trying to enhance the wardrobe of coat-stealers or train cheek slappers to become mixed martial arts experts.

Jesus wants us to help them stop hating and start loving.

He wants us to help them stop abusing and start loving.

Jesus wants us to help them stop hitting and start loving.

But not by hating, abusing or hitting them back.

Not even Superman or Wonder Woman could put out a fire by pouring gasoline on the flames.

Trying to extinguish even a single flame in our homes with gasoline would produce an inferno that would burn the whole house down.

So why try and defeat hatred with more hate?

Love would have no chance. Only ashes would remain.

The only victor in a battle of hatred versus hatred would be hatred. And hatred would emerge far stronger than it was before the fight began.

Nobody can defeat darkness by trying to overcome it with more darkness.

The result would be a deeper, darker darkness.

The peace and love of God that we all wish we’d feel more often throughout the day—if only the world would stop bruising us—finds room in our hearts and souls when we turn on our light to drive darkness away.

Loving those who hate us and praying for those who abuse us—turning our physical and emotional cheeks—makes us stronger spiritually and gives us power over the pain that others inflict. We cease to feel like victims. 

Anger is a difficult companion—a weed that quickly consumes every flower in the garden and plants the seeds of hatred.

Hatred then wraps the heart in a heavy chain and in the darkness it is impossible to find the key.

Forgiveness, on the other hand, is our soul’s best friend.

And love is our guardian angel.

They are the water with which we put out the fires in our lives and in the world around us.

They are the light that drives the darkness away.

That’s why Jesus gave us the recipe.

Yes, following this recipe may not stop all, or any, of the haters and abusers. But the one thing it will most certainly do is save us from becoming one of them, sparing us from spreading darkness into our own communities, homes and the lives of those closest to us.

There’s a reason Jesus didn’t give us any specific measurements for this  recipe of spiritual gymnastics.

The amounts of each ingredient will vary person to person, depending upon the individual situation we are responding to and degree of difficulty in turning the other cheek, or responding to hatred with love.

A pound, a quart, a cup or a tablespoon, wherever we are able to begin, is the right amount of any of these ingredients because it is, at that moment, all we have to give. The amounts will vary but the essential spiritual recipe remains the same. Today a teaspoon, but tomorrow may find us able to give much more.

And besides, Jesus knew that any amount—even just a pinch of true, deep love at the right time, and in the right place, can stand us on our head so we can see things right side up.

Not as they always are.

But as they are always meant to be.

One more person, one more part of the world, seeing its true self through the eyes of Christ.

The kingdom of heaven so near.

All lit up with our light and our love.

                                               AMEN




By Ken Woodley

If today’s Gospel reading were an earthly recipe, I would have had the ingredients all over me many times, all over the floor, the ceiling and all over Kim if she happened to be walking through the kitchen.
Despite my best efforts, I’ve often made a mess of them.

But this is no recipe found in the pages of a cookbook. It’s a recipe from heaven given to us by Jesus.

“Love your enemies.
Do good to those who hate you.
Bless those who curse you.
Pray for those who abuse you.
If anyone strikes you on the cheek, offer the other also.
And from anyone who takes away your coat do not even withhold your shirt.”

Those words are so easy for me to read aloud but so very hard to put into practice in my daily life.
As with many holy recipes, this one can be hard to swallow, especially when I’m wrestling with a fresh hurt, or an old familiar wound.
Jesus doesn’t even recommend any particular amount for most of the ingredients.

We don’t know whether it’s two pounds of lean cut love for our enemies.
Maybe a cup of goodness to those who hate us?
Perhaps a quarter cup of blessing for those who curse us?
Possibly two tablespoons of praying for those who abuse us?
Who knows?

The only time Jesus gives us specific directions about quantity is that we’re to offer our entire other cheek to those who smack us in the face and the complete shirt off our back to anyone who steals our coat.

It would take a five-star restaurant chef to make anything out of this recipe worth serving.
Except, Jesus isn’t talking to a convention of celebrity chefs with their own television series.

Jesus is talking to a large crowd of his disciples, as well as a great number of people from all over Judea who had come to hear him and be healed.

And, of course, Jesus is also talking to us.

At first glance, it may initially appear that Jesus is more concerned with those who are harming us physically and emotionally. As if he’s letting them off the hook and putting a great burden on us.
But, with Jesus, merely glancing at his words is like quickly turning our backs on a masterpiece.

We’ve always got to go deeper.
We’ve got to loosen up and stretch our spiritual selves because, as is so often the case, Jesus is encouraging us to practice spiritual gymnastics because he’s turning everything upside down and inside out again, as he always seems to do. Blessed are those who mourn, for example.

This time it’s:
Love the haters.
Pray for the abusers.

How challenging were his words then? Just as challenging as they are today. And will be a thousand years from now.
The haters and abusers seemed to be winning everywhere in Jesus’s day, just has hatred and abuse seem too often triumphant in the world today.

So, Jesus, are you asking us to help them?

The answer is Yes.
And No.
Jesus does want us to help them.
But he doesn’t want us to help them hate or abuse or steal. I don’t think Jesus is trying to enhance the wardrobe of coat-stealers or train cheek slappers to become mixed martial arts experts.

Jesus wants us to help them stop hating and start loving.
He wants us to help them stop abusing and start loving.
Jesus wants us to help them stop hitting and start loving.
But not by hating, abusing or hitting them back.

Not even Superman or Wonder Woman could put out a fire by pouring gasoline on the flames.
Trying to extinguish even a single flame in our homes with gasoline would produce an inferno that would burn the whole house down.
So why try and defeat hatred with more hate?
Love would have no chance. Only ashes would remain.

The only victor in a battle of hatred versus hatred would be hatred. And hatred would emerge far stronger than it was before the fight began.
Nobody can defeat darkness by trying to overcome it with more darkness.
The result would be a deeper, darker darkness.

The peace and love of God that we all wish we’d feel more often throughout the day—if only the world would stop bruising us—finds room in our hearts and souls when we turn on our light to drive darkness away.

Loving those who hate us and praying for those who abuse us—turning our physical and emotional cheeks—makes us stronger spiritually and gives us power over the pain that others inflict. We cease to feel like victims.

Anger is a difficult companion—a weed that quickly consumes every flower in the garden and plants the seeds of hatred.
Hatred then wraps the heart in a heavy chain and in the darkness it is impossible to find the key.

Forgiveness, on the other hand, is our soul’s best friend.
And love is our guardian angel.
They are the water with which we put out the fires in our lives and in the world around us.
They are the light that drives the darkness away.
That’s why Jesus gave us the recipe.

Yes, following this recipe may not stop all, or any, of the haters and abusers. But the one thing it will most certainly do is save us from becoming one of them, sparing us from spreading darkness into our own communities, homes and the lives of those closest to us.

There’s a reason Jesus didn’t give us any specific measurements for this recipe of spiritual gymnastics.
The amounts of each ingredient will vary person to person, depending upon the individual situation we are responding to and degree of difficulty in turning the other cheek, or responding to hatred with love.

A pound, a quart, a cup or a tablespoon, wherever we are able to begin, is the right amount of any of these ingredients because it is, at that moment, all we have to give. The amounts will vary but the essential spiritual recipe remains the same. Today a teaspoon, but tomorrow may find us able to give much more.

And besides, Jesus knew that any amount—even just a pinch of true, deep love at the right time, and in the right place, can stand us on our head so we can see things right side up.
Not as they always are.
But as they are always meant to be.

One more person, one more part of the world, seeing its true self through the eyes of Christ.
The kingdom of heaven so near.
All lit up with our light and our love.






















Three Dreams

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(A meditation on December 25, January 15 and July 4)

By Ken Woodley

Jesus Christ of Nazareth had a dream.

He had been to the mountaintop.

Jesus had a dream that we would love our neighbors as ourselves.

That we would turn the other cheek.

That those who hunger and thirst for righteousness would be filled.

He had a dream about the blessedness of peacemakers and he called them children of God.

Jesus had a dream that you and I are the light of the world and that we would let that light shine so bright that it would give light to everyone in the house.

Yes, Jesus very definitely had a dream.

And he was not alone.

The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. also had a dream.

He had been to the mountaintop.

Dr. King had a dream that the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave-owners would one day sit down at the table of brotherhood.

That the heat of injustice would be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice.

He had a dream that one day his children would live in a nation where they would not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.

That one day little black boys and black girls would be able to join hands with little white boys and girls as sisters and brothers.

Yes, Jesus Christ of Nazareth and the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. very definitely had a dream.

And they were not alone.

The United States of America also had a dream.

It had been to the mountaintop.

The United States had a dream about truths that were so obvious that they were self-evident.

A dream that all people are created equal.

That they are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights.

A dream about life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

A dream about forming a more perfect union.

A trinity of dreamers and dreams that share so much in common:

Peace. Love. Humanity.

None of them was, or is, a danger to anybody.

They are fiercely innocent.

But they are so utterly vulnerable.

The first dream was crucified with hammers and nails.

The second was assassinated by a single finger on a trigger.

And the third dream was pursued by its own dreamers—hunted down by lynch ropes and chains. The Liberty Bell didn’t crack on July 4, 1776 because it was rung so hard for so long. No, it cracked because liberty rang for far too few people on that day. For African Americans, the liberty bell made no sound at all that day.

They were, and are, still so vulnerable. They are stalked daily by a darkness that does not understand the light that fills them and shines through them.

The dark divisions of hate surround them.

Back them into a corner.

Certain that one day they will smother the light.

That’s where we come in.

You and I have a question to answer:

What happens to those dreams?

Where do they go from here?

Each of those dreamers articulated a vision that has—so far—been beyond humanity’s ability to make come fully true for everyone.

The United States of America, in fact, failed to grasp the full meaning of its own dream, believing for far too long that its life, liberty and pursuit of happiness were meant only for white males of a certain social stature.

January 15 is the birthday of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., who we honor on January 20 with a national holiday. But there are still some who would like to make that dream—and the challenge it still sets for our nation—disappear.

Just as the hammers and the nails sought to erase the meaning and message of Jesus Christ, whose birthday carols still ring in our ears.

But the assassin’s bullet failed and the instruments of crucifixion were unable to complete their mission.

Dreams filled with the light and love of God cannot be eradicated.

The love of God for all people—and the light of that truth—cannot be hammered and nailed out of existence. It cannot be assassinated.

But the struggle to reach the light of that love to all people is very real. The darkness of this world is no joke. It is alive and well and living in the human heart. 

Even, sometimes, our own.

But the light, too, is alive and well and reaches for our wrinkles and veins, yearns for our heart, longing to go where only our footsteps can take it. 

We are the light of the world. Jesus said so. I believe him. 

God didn’t light up our souls so that we could hide behind locked doors and shuttered windows.

God lit up our souls so that we would shine, shine, shine.

And that is what we must do because we are in a desperate race, you and I, a relay of light against the darkness. We must run the light of healing love and reconciliation as far as we can.

We run it to those living in darkness and despair, and then they run their own light as far as their lives can take it.

Because the darkness has its own footsteps, the footsteps of those who try to divide us over race, separate us because of the color of our skin, segregate us over the language that we speak, partition us over how we choose to pray to God, disjoin us because of who we choose to love.

The relay of light is no spectator sport. There is no sitting on the sidelines. If we don’t run our light into the world the vacuum of our absence will be filled with the darkness of division. 

There are hundreds of thousands of ways, large and small and none insignificant, to shine our light into the world toward one another, to heal and reconcile. 

A light that might inspire a nation.

A light that Jesus knows is inside us.

A light that Dr. King, who preached the Gospel of Christ, saw from the mountaintop.

A light the United States of America declared over and over and over until it finally began to believe its own declaration.

A light in which their three dreams—walking in your footsteps—can gather, join hands and say:

Hallelujah.

(A meditation on December 25, January 15 and July 4)

By Ken Woodley
Jesus Christ of Nazareth had a dream.
He had been to the mountaintop.
Jesus had a dream that we would love our neighbors as ourselves.
That we would turn the other cheek.
That those who hunger and thirst for righteousness would be filled.
He had a dream about the blessedness of peacemakers and he called them children of God.
Jesus had a dream that you and I are the light of the world and that we would let that light shine so bright that it would give light to everyone in the house.
Yes, Jesus very definitely had a dream.
And he was not alone.

The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. also had a dream.
He had been to the mountaintop.
Dr. King had a dream that the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave-owners would one day sit down at the table of brotherhood.
That the heat of injustice would be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice.
He had a dream that one day his children would live in a nation where they would not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.
That one day little black boys and black girls would be able to join hands with little white boys and girls as sisters and brothers.
Yes, Jesus Christ of Nazareth and the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. very definitely had a dream.
And they were not alone.

The United States of America also had a dream.
It had been to the mountaintop.
The United States had a dream about truths that were so obvious that they were self-evident.
A dream that all people are created equal.
That they are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights.
A dream about life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
A dream about forming a more perfect union.

A trinity of dreamers and dreams that share so much in common:
Peace. Love. Humanity.
None of them was, or is, a danger to anybody.
They are fiercely innocent.
But they are so utterly vulnerable.

The first dream was crucified with hammers and nails.
The second was assassinated by a single finger on a trigger.
And the third dream was pursued by its own dreamers—hunted down by lynch ropes and chains. The Liberty Bell didn’t crack on July 4, 1776 because it was rung so hard for so long. No, it cracked because liberty rang for far too few people on that day. For African Americans, the liberty bell made no sound at all that day.

They were, and are, still so vulnerable. They are stalked daily by a darkness that does not understand the light that fills them and shines through them.
The dark divisions of hate surround them.
Back them into a corner.
Certain that one day they will smother the light.

That’s where we come in.
You and I have a question to answer:

What happens to those dreams?
Where do they go from here?

Each of those dreamers articulated a vision that has—so far—been beyond humanity’s ability to make come fully true for everyone.

The United States of America, in fact, failed to grasp the full meaning of its own dream, believing for far too long that its life, liberty and pursuit of happiness were meant only for white males of a certain social stature.

January 15 is the birthday of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., who we honor on January 20 with a national holiday. But there are still some who would like to make that dream—and the challenge it still sets for our nation—disappear.

Just as the hammers and the nails sought to erase the meaning and message of Jesus Christ, whose birthday carols still ring in our ears.

But the assassin’s bullet failed and the instruments of crucifixion were unable to complete their mission.

Dreams filled with the light and love of God cannot be eradicated.

The love of God for all people—and the light of that truth—cannot be hammered and nailed out of existence. It cannot be assassinated.

But the struggle to reach the light of that love to all people is very real. The darkness of this world is no joke. It is alive and well and living in the human heart.
Even, sometimes, our own.

But the light, too, is alive and well and reaches for our wrinkles and veins, yearns for our heart, longing to go where only our footsteps can take it.

We are the light of the world. Jesus said so. I believe him.

God didn’t light up our souls so that we could hide behind locked doors and shuttered windows.

God lit up our souls so that we would shine, shine, shine.

And that is what we must do because we are in a desperate race, you and I, a relay of light against the darkness. We must run the light of healing love and reconciliation as far as we can.

We run it to those living in darkness and despair, and then they run their own light as far as their lives can take it.

Because the darkness has its own footsteps, the footsteps of those who try to divide us over race, separate us because of the color of our skin, segregate us over the language that we speak, partition us over how we choose to pray to God, disjoin us because of who we choose to love.

The relay of light is no spectator sport. There is no sitting on the sidelines. If we don’t run our light into the world the vacuum of our absence will be filled with the darkness of division.

There are hundreds of thousands of ways, large and small and none insignificant, to shine our light into the world toward one another, to heal and reconcile.

A light that might inspire a nation.

A light that Jesus knows is inside us.
A light that Dr. King, who preached the Gospel of Christ, saw from the mountaintop.
A light the United States of America declared over and over and over until it finally began to believe its own declaration.

A light in which their three dreams—walking in your footsteps—can gather, join hands and say:

Hallelujah.





The Footsteps of Christmas

kenwoodley34 Comments

By Ken Woodley

What a compelling reaction by Mary in Luke’s birth narrative as the  invisible snowflakes of grace fall all around her, shepherds recounting their encounter with angels.

“Do not be afraid,” Luke’s account states, because this is “good news for all people. Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; he is Christ the Lord.”

Go to the manger to see for yourselves, the angels told the shepherds.

So they did and those listening to their story, Luke tells us, “were amazed.” 

But what of Mary? Her reaction deserves our full attention, a deep, silent and thoughtful response, as if she could see the footsteps of the Lord in those  unseen snowflakes of grace that began covering the world around the manger.

She “treasured all these words and pondered them in her heart.” Mary was clearly beginning a meditative journey about the deepest meaning of her son’s birth.

The angel Gabriel had sketched out the meaning when he’d visited Mary in Nazareth nine months earlier. You will give birth to a son, Gabriel had told her, conceived by the Holy Spirit, a son to be called Jesus. 

“He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give him the throne of his father David,” Gabriel had further explained, “and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever; his kingdom will have no end.”

Mary’s reaction had often left me perplexed. Why did she need to ponder the shepherd’s words? Gabriel had made things clear to her. But then I reconsidered.

Anyone would be awash in wondering about an encounter with an angel. There may even have been times when she doubted her own understanding of what had happened. Could it have merely been a dream?

“The Lord God will give him the throne of his father David and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever….”

Did that mean her son would some day become an earthly king, sitting upon an earthly throne?

The throne of David, after all, was very much an earthly throne and David was an earthly king.

Mary surely wondered about the precise meaning of those words. 

Nor was she alone in doing so. People have been pondering them ever since.

The question—like footprints in the snow—followed Jesus all of his life.

From his very first moments in this world to the final hours before his death—when Pilate asked him “Are you king of the Jews?”—people have wondered about the true meaning and message of his birth. 

In the end, each of us will decide for ourselves who this Jesus is in our lives and how that answer influences the way we see the world, what we see in each other, and how we see ourselves.  

And, crucially, the decisions we make in response to our answer.

We can choose to treasure the answering of that question in our hearts, and ponder it for a lifetime, joining Mary in a contemplative journey. If we choose that path, the nuances and subtleties of our answer will develop in different ways during our lifetime. A spiritual journey is organic, not static. 

There will be layers of understanding, flashes of clear insight—as if they were spoken to us by an angel—that may, at times, seem like an uncertain mirage or a dream when our daily lives intrude, pushing them to the side. We may also find that we return to previous understandings, but with deeper insight into them.

But if we treasure this and ponder it in our hearts, as Mary did, it can become both sustenance and light for our journey when we need it most.

The sun eventually melts even the deepest of snowfalls and every footstep taken through them disappears.

But not these footprints.

Because they are not left in the snow.

Every footstep we take on this journey is left firmly planted in the heart of our soul where the deepest meaning of Jesus’ birth is waiting to be born.

By Ken Woodley

What a compelling reaction by Mary in Luke’s birth narrative as the invisible snowflakes of grace fall all around her, shepherds recounting their encounter with angels.
“Do not be afraid,” Luke’s account states, because this is “good news for all people. Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; he is Christ the Lord.”
Go to the manger to see for yourselves, the angels told the shepherds.
So they did and those listening to their story, Luke tells us, “were amazed.”
But what of Mary? Her reaction deserves our full attention, a deep, silent and thoughtful response, as if she could see the footsteps of the Lord in those unseen snowflakes of grace that began covering the world around the manger.
She “treasured all these words and pondered them in her heart.” Mary was clearly beginning a meditative journey about the deepest meaning of her son’s birth.
The angel Gabriel had sketched out the meaning when he’d visited Mary in Nazareth nine months earlier. You will give birth to a son, Gabriel had told her, conceived by the Holy Spirit, a son to be called Jesus.
“He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give him the throne of his father David,” Gabriel had further explained, “and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever; his kingdom will have no end.”
Mary’s reaction had often left me perplexed. Why did she need to ponder the shepherd’s words? Gabriel had made things clear to her. But then I reconsidered.
Anyone would be awash in wondering about an encounter with an angel. There may even have been times when she doubted her own understanding of what had happened. Could it have merely been a dream?
“The Lord God will give him the throne of his father David and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever….”
Did that mean her son would some day become an earthly king, sitting upon an earthly throne?
The throne of David, after all, was very much an earthly throne and David was an earthly king.
Mary surely wondered about the precise meaning of those words.
Nor was she alone in doing so. People have been pondering them ever since.
The question—like footprints in the snow—followed Jesus all of his life.
From his very first moments in this world to the final hours before his death—when Pilate asked him “Are you king of the Jews?”—people have wondered about the true meaning and message of his birth.
In the end, each of us will decide for ourselves who this Jesus is in our lives and how that answer influences they way we see the world, what we see in each other, and how we see ourselves.
And, crucially, the decisions we make in response to our answer.
We can choose to treasure the answering of that question in our hearts, and ponder it for a lifetime, joining Mary in a contemplative journey. If we choose that path, the nuances and subtleties of our answer will develop in different ways during our lifetime. A spiritual journey is organic, not static.
There will be layers of understanding, flashes of clear insight—as if they were spoken to us by an angel—that may, at times, seem like an uncertain mirage or a dream when our daily lives intrude, pushing them to the side. We may also find that we return to previous understandings, but with deeper insight into them.
But if we treasure this and ponder it in our hearts, as Mary did, it can become both sustenance and light for our journey when we need it most.
The sun eventually melts even the deepest of snowfalls and every footstep taken through them disappears.
But not these footprints.
Because they are not left in the snow.
Every footstep we take on this journey is left firmly planted in the heart of our soul where the deepest meaning of Jesus’ birth is waiting to be born.







Even Fools Like Me

kenwoodley34 Comments

By Ken Woodley

Christmas is still two weeks away, but oh, what a blessed gift it is to be a fool and yet still loved and saved by God.

What a blessed, blessed gift for us to unwrap.

I read the 35th chapter of the book of Isaiah (New International Version) nearly every morning before sunrise because, in typical Isaiah fashion, everything will be made right: 

“The Wilderness and the dry land shall be glad,

the desert shall rejoice and blossom;

… Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened,

and the ears of the deaf unstopped;

then the lame shall leap like a deer,

and the tongue of the speechless sing for joy … 

the burning sand shall become a pool,

and the thirsty ground springs of water….”

How wondrously miraculous for us because there are individual, highly personal “wildernesses” through which we all must travel, times when we feel blind, unable to speak or hear, and our hearts weary and broken to the point of lameness.

Sometimes the difficulty is just making it to the starting line through another cold, gray, dark morning that seems to dawn without any promise of a true sunrise.

But that is not all we are left with. That is never all there is, where God is concerned. There is a light that always shines, through any weather and every season—even shining in the seasons deep within other seasons.

How do we journey through our times of great trouble—or minor rough patches—into that spiritual “promised land” where even the driest deserts are turned inside out?

There is a highway, Isaiah assures us, the Holy Way, the way for God’s people, and on that Holy Way none of life’s “ravenous beasts” can stop us unless we let them.

That assurance is wonderful in its own right but the truly glorious thing is this:

“No traveler, not even fools, shall go astray,” we are told by God through the prophet Isaiah in the New Revised Standard Version.

Of that fact I rejoice and cheer until I go hoarse. Even in my most foolish moments—and God knows I’ve had several thousand—God has not let me go truly astray. God’s love and grace have kept me on that Holy Way. Or led back on that path after I’d wandered off.

God knows humanity and understands that all of us will act foolishly at times. Sometimes it’s simply the foolishness of putting our own words into God’s mouth, framing our own expectations as if they were the word of God, and then becoming disheartened when those expectations aren’t met.

I’ve had to remind myself that, with the best of intentions, I put those words in God’s mouth. There is a huge difference between a genuine communication from the Holy Spirit and my own wishful thinking.

If, when that happens, I don’t realize that what I’ve done is perform a ventriloquist act—putting my voice in God’s mouth—then I am the real dummy in the performance.

Ironically, another opportunity for human foolishness is ignoring the voice of God when it does speak to our soul—when it is not us putting words in God’s mouth but actually the Holy Spirit of God communicating with us directly. 

Especially when God is recommending a course correction in our lives to keep us on the Holy Way.

But God is ever-forgiving and ever-encouraging, even in the midst of our most foolish moments. God is always with us, speaking ceaselessly through the Holy Spirit until we listen, God promising that our deserts shall rejoice and blossom if we would only follow God’s signposts on the Holy Way.

There will be desert moments in our lives—we cannot avoid them—but, if we persevere, God promises that our troubled hearts shall some day leap like a deer.

Leap like the heart of a little child on Christmas Day.

Leap like a heart that understands the greatest gift of all is far too large to wrap.

Because that gift itself is wrapped around the whole, wide world:

God’s love. 

If we’d only all open it together.


By Ken Woodley
Christmas is still two weeks away, but oh, what a blessed gift it is to be a fool and yet still loved and saved by God.
What a blessed, blessed gift for us to unwrap.
I read the 35th chapter of the book of Isaiah (New International Version) nearly every morning before sunrise because, in typical Isaiah fashion, everything will be made right:
“The Wilderness and the dry land shall be glad,
the desert shall rejoice and blossom;
… Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened,
and the ears of the deaf unstopped;
then the lame shall leap like a deer,
and the tongue of the speechless sing for joy …
the burning sand shall become a pool,
and the thirsty ground springs of water….”
How wondrously miraculous for us because there are individual, highly personal “wildernesses” through which we all must travel, times when we feel blind, unable to speak or hear, and our hearts weary and broken to the point of lameness.
Sometimes the difficulty is just making it to the starting line through another cold, gray, dark morning that seems to dawn without any promise of a true sunrise.
But that is not all we are left with. That is never all there is, where God is concerned. There is a light that always shines, through any weather and every season—even shining in the seasons deep within other seasons.
How do we journey through our times of great trouble—or minor rough patches—into that spiritual “promised land” where even the driest deserts are turned inside out?
There is a highway, Isaiah assures us, the Holy Way, the way for God’s people, and on that Holy Way none of life’s “ravenous beasts” can stop us unless we let them.
That assurance is wonderful in its own right but the truly glorious thing is this:
“No traveler, not even fools, shall go astray,” we are told by God through the prophet Isaiah in the New Revised Standard Version.
Of that fact I rejoice and cheer until I go hoarse. Even in my most foolish moments—and God knows I’ve had several thousand—God has not let me go truly astray. God’s love and grace have kept me on that Holy Way. Or led back on that path after I’d wandered off.
God knows humanity and understands that all of us will act foolishly at times. Sometimes it’s simply the foolishness of putting our own words into God’s mouth, framing our own expectations as if they were the word of God, and then becoming disheartened when those expectations aren’t met.
I’ve had to remind myself that, with the best of intentions, I put those words in God’s mouth. There is a huge difference between a genuine communication from the Holy Spirit and my own wishful thinking.
If, when that happens, I don’t realize that what I’ve done is perform a ventriloquist act—putting my voice in God’s mouth—then I am the real dummy in the performance.
Ironically, another opportunity for human foolishness is ignoring the voice of God when it does speak to our soul—when it is not us putting words in God’s mouth but actually the Holy Spirit of God communicating with us directly.
Especially when God is recommending a course correction in our lives to keep us on the Holy Way.
But God is ever-forgiving and ever-encouraging, even in the midst of our most foolish moments. God is always with us, speaking ceaselessly through the Holy Spirit until we listen, God promising that our deserts shall rejoice and blossom if we would only follow God’s signposts on the Holy Way.
There will be desert moments in our lives—we cannot avoid them—but, if we persevere, God promises that our troubled hearts shall some day leap like a deer.
Leap like the heart of a little child on Christmas Day.
Leap like a heart that understands the greatest gift of all is far too large to wrap.
Because that gift itself is wrapped around the whole, wide world:
God’s love.
If we’d only all open it together.






The Journey and Adventure of a Lifetime

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By Ken Woodley

Why? Rather than go to the blind man, Jesus made the beggar Bartimaeus find him in a large crowd leaving Jericho. Why?

Wouldn’t it have been far kinder for Jesus to go to the blind man?

Let’s set the scene: In the time of Jesus, Jericho was a “gateway city.” Anyone traveling to Jerusalem from the north or the east passed through Jericho. That’s in addition to the city’s bustling population. Herod the Great, in fact, built his winter palace there. So today’s gospel lesson from Mark is overflowing with people.

But here’s the fascinating thing: Bartimaeus had zero difficulty finding Jesus among the throng going in and out of Jericho.

“So throwing off his cloak,”the Gospel tells us, “he sprang up and came to Jesus.” Bartimaeus had no problem at all.  And that is the crucial point.

Despite the crowded confusion, a man who cannot see was able find one person in particular and stand face to face with Jesus.

He did not have to search by trial and error, bumping into people, falling down, getting back up and trying again and again. 

Surrounded by the darkness of being blind, Bartimaeus was able to see the light of Christ.

It was as if his soul had a homing signal that led him unerringly to one man among everyone else in that crowded place.

 Bartimaeus, though blind, could see Jesus, and the truth of Jesus, far more clearly than just about anyone else in this very crowded scene. 

Especially those who sternly warned him to be quiet and stop bothering Jesus. If they thought that Jesus couldn’t be bothered to heal someone, they just couldn’t really see Jesus at all.

And perhaps that explains why Jesus instructs them to tell Bartimaeus to come to him. Jesus wanted them to witness and ponder a blind man finding him in a large crowd.

Maybe he wanted them to wonder what a blind beggar could see in Jesus that they themselves were blind to. Might Jesus have been addressing the widespread spiritual blindness he sensed all around him?

Jesus, of course, heals Bartimaeus, telling him, in his very meaningful way, that Bartimaeus’s own faith has made him well.  I believe Jesus intuitively knew that Bartimaeus would easily find him. The blind man’s insistent call was a cry of deep faith. But the events leading up to that healing almost seem more important than the healing, itself.

We all suffer times of momentary inner or spiritual blindness. 

The world outside our own Jerichos is crowded with things that can blind us to the light of Christ and the love of God and make our souls feel surrounded by darkness, unable to feel the presence of God or Christ, stumbling, struggling to regain our spiritual footing and then falling again..

When that happens, it’s a good idea to follow the example of Bartimaeus and shout with our lips and with our soul for Jesus to come and heal our inner blindness. 

And keep on shouting with stubborn persistence, no matter how much the crowded world tries to keep us silent, as those around Bartimaeus had attempted to silence him. 

When we persist in crying out for Jesus, we will find Christ. Our soul will be opened to his light. And in that light we will understand that Jesus never went anywhere. 

He never left us behind, outside the walls of our own Jerichos. In our inner blindness, we couldn’t see that he was right there with us all the time, and in a very special way that we might have lost sight of.

Like Bartimaeus, we mustn’t forget to throw off our “cloaks.” His  beggar’s cloak had become a cocoon of imprisonment, the “skin” of Bartimaeus’s previously blind existence. 

Throwing it off, as he sprang up and came to Jesus, he became like a new butterfly pulling free of its chrysalis. Spreading the wings of his new life of full sight and employment and a new cloak.

We can also pull free from the cocoon of our inner blindness. Throwing off the mental cloak that the world has crowded into our mind. Throwing it off so that our soul can see what so much of the crowded world is blind to—the presence of the Holy Spirit within us. 

Jesus repeatedly describes it with such simple, beautiful power in the Gospel of John. God, Jesus tells us in the 14th chapter, will send us the Holy Spirit. The world cannot accept the Holy Spirit, Jesus explains, because the world neither sees it nor knows it. But we will know it, Jesus assures us, because it lives with us and will actually be inside us.

“I in them and you in me,” Jesus prays to God in the 17th chapter. “May they be perfectly one.” That is a Holy Trinity of love that deserves our full attention and we are right in the very middle of it. God loves us, Jesus tells us, just as much as God loves him.

That transcendent, transformational truth is what the cloak of the crowded world can make us forget, leaving our souls feeling blind and alone, stumbling in the dark, unable to find—not one person in a crowded place—but unable to find what God has actually put within us.

The deepest truth in today’s gospel lesson about Bartimaeus’ encounter with Jesus is that the most profound “sight” we possess has nothing at all to do with our eyes.

And exploring that truth is the journey, and adventure, of a lifetime.

By Ken Woodley

Why? Rather than go to the blind man, Jesus made the beggar Bartimaeus find him in a large crowd leaving Jericho. Why?

Wouldn’t it have been far kinder for Jesus to go to the blind man?

Let’s set the scene: In the time of Jesus, Jericho was a “gateway city.” Anyone traveling to Jerusalem from the north or the east passed through Jericho. That’s in addition to the city’s bustling population. Herod the Great, in fact, built his winter palace there. So today’s gospel lesson from Mark is overflowing with people.

But here’s the fascinating thing: Bartimaeus had zero difficulty finding Jesus among the throng going in and out of Jericho.

“So throwing off his cloak,”the Gospel tells us, “he sprang up and came to Jesus.” Bartimaeus had no problem at all. And that is the crucial point.

Despite the crowded confusion, a man who cannot see was able find one person in particular and stand face to face with Jesus.

He did not have to search by trial and error, bumping into people, falling down, getting back up and trying again and again.

Surrounded by the darkness of being blind, Bartimaeus was able to see the light of Christ.

It was as if his soul had a homing signal that led him unerringly to one man among everyone else in that crowded place.

Bartimaeus, though blind, could see Jesus, and the truth of Jesus, far more clearly than just about anyone else in this very crowded scene.

Especially those who sternly warned him to be quiet and stop bothering Jesus. If they thought that Jesus couldn’t be bothered to heal someone, they just couldn’t really see Jesus at all.

And perhaps that explains why Jesus instructs them to tell Bartimaeus to come to him. Jesus wanted them to witness and ponder a blind man finding him in a large crowd.

Maybe he wanted them to wonder what a blind beggar could see in Jesus that they themselves were blind to. Might Jesus have been addressing the widespread spiritual blindness he sensed all around him?

Jesus, of course, heals Bartimaeus, telling him, in his very meaningful way, that Bartimaeus’s own faith has made him well. I believe Jesus intuitively knew that Bartimaeus would easily find him. The blind man’s insistent call was a cry of deep faith. But the events leading up to that healing almost seem more important than the healing, itself.

We all suffer times of momentary inner or spiritual blindness.

The world outside our own Jerichos is crowded with things that can blind us to the light of Christ and the love of God and make our souls feel surrounded by darkness, unable to feel the presence of God or Christ, stumbling, struggling to regain our spiritual footing and then falling again..

When that happens, it’s a good idea to follow the example of Bartimaeus and shout with our lips and with our soul for Jesus to come and heal our inner blindness.

And keep on shouting with stubborn persistence, no matter how much the crowded world tries to keep us silent, as those around Bartimaeus had attempted to silence him.

When we persist in crying out for Jesus, we will find Christ. Our soul will be opened to his light. And in that light we will understand that Jesus never went anywhere.

He never left us behind, outside the walls of our own Jerichos. In our inner blindness, we couldn’t see that he was right there with us all the time, and in a very special way that we might have lost sight of.

Like Bartimaeus, we mustn’t forget to throw off our “cloaks.” His beggar’s cloak had become a cocoon of imprisonment, the “skin” of Bartimaeus’s previously blind existence.

Throwing it off, as he sprang up and came to Jesus, he became like a new butterfly pulling free of its chrysalis. Spreading the wings of his new life of full sight and employment and a new cloak.

We can also pull free from the cocoon of our inner blindness. Throwing off the mental cloak that the world has crowded into our mind. Throwing it off so that our soul can see what so much of the crowded world is blind to—the presence of the Holy Spirit within us.

Jesus repeatedly describes it with such simple, beautiful power in the Gospel of John. God, Jesus tells us in the 14th chapter, will send us the Holy Spirit. The world cannot accept the Holy Spirit, Jesus explains, because the world neither sees it nor knows it. But we will know it, Jesus assures us, because it lives with us and will actually be inside us.

“I in them and you in me,” Jesus prays to God in the 17th chapter. “May they be perfectly one.” That is a Holy Trinity of love that deserves our full attention and we are right in the very middle of it. God loves us, Jesus tells us, just as much as God loves him.

That transcendent, transformational truth is what the cloak of the crowded world can make us forget, leaving our souls feeling blind and alone, stumbling in the dark, unable to find—not one person in a crowded place—but unable to find what God has actually put within us.

The deepest truth in today’s gospel lesson about Bartimaeus’ encounter with Jesus is that the most profound “sight” we possess has nothing at all to do with our eyes.

And exploring that truth is the journey, and adventure, of a lifetime.