Tag: christianity

“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!!

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 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.