relationships and community on Rejection

Dearest Brothers and Sisters, the One who was rejected by family, friend, and neighbor, is the One who expresses love for sinners like us. He epitomizes the love of which Paul wrote to the Corinthian ...

To cheat oneself out of love is the most terrible deception; it is an eternal loss for which there is no reparation, either in time or in eternity.

The invitation of love is not a proposal for self-improvement or any other kind of achievement. Love is beyond success and failure, doing well or doing poorly.... Love is a gift.

Communicating with people is often easier said than done. Take for instance this apocryphal story of the census taker who had to venture many miles down a country road to reach a cabin. As the man pul...

A true relationship is two unperfect people refusing to give up on each other.

Tolerance is a cheap, low-grade parody of love. Tolerance is not a great virtue to aspire to. Love is much tougher and harder.

True love is a lack of desire to check one’s smartphone in another’s presence.

We come to love not by finding a perfect person, but by learning to see an imperfect person perfectly.

Religion is like a knife: you can either use it to cut bread, or stick in someone’s back.

The Christian’s self-understanding is that she is precious before God—however much a sinner, however much a failure (or success) she may be by the standards of worldly comparisons—and that every other...

Sharan Merriam and Carolyn Clark, in their fine study Lifelines , effectively show that life is fundamentally about two things—our work and our relationships. And maturity is found in having the c...

To love means to open ourselves to suffering. Shall we shut our doors to love, then, and be “safe”?

We must develop and maintain the capacity to forgive. He who is devoid of the power to forgive is devoid of the power to love.

The final word is love.

Love seeketh not Itself to please, Nor for itself hath any care; But for another gives its ease, And builds a Heaven in Hell’s despair. So sung a little Clod of Clay, Trodden with the cattle’s feet; B...

Once, while on vacation, on our way to church, Terri and I got into a disagreement over something. When I felt I was losing, to make my point, I stopped the car and got out. We were on a country road....

Humility is freedom from the need to prove you are superior all the time, but egotism is a ravenous hunger in a small space—self-concerned, competitive, and distinction-hungry. Humility is infused wit...

Loving God, we confess today: We don’t even know what love truly is. We talk about love when we talk about favorite television shows and foods. We talk about love as if it happens to us. We describe l...

Love keeps no record of wrongs. We keep to-do lists so we don’t forget We check them twice We carry them in our pockets Holding on to the pain The disappointment The failure Re-viewing the wrong Poi...

Love alone makes heavy burdens light and bears in equal balance things pleasing and displeasing. Love bears a heavy burden and does not feel it, and love makes bitter things tasteful and sweet.

Love is hunting for bigger game than happiness. Love is a union of souls. When one member of a couple suffers from Alzheimer’s, the other doesn’t just go away. Instead, as Lewis puts it, love says, “B...

Some years ago, the syndicated newspaper columnist Sidney J. Harris shared an interesting anecdote from one of his friends. Each evening, this friend would stop at the same newsstand to buy a newspape...

In love . What does that even mean?  “Love” is a junk drawer we dump all sorts of ideas into, just because we don’t have anywhere else to put them.  I “love” God, and I “love” fish tacos. See ...

Most Holy Lord, we speak with eloquence, but have no love. We speak truth to power, pontificate, and smugly consider our knowledge superior to others, but display little to no charity. We give sacrifi...

Truth without love is brutality, and love without truth is hypocrisy.

Prayer of Adoration Father: You know us and love us from eternity. Jesus: You love us enough to die for us and be rise again to give us eternal life. Spirit: You pour out love to us every day, in...

Love may forgive all infirmities and love still in spite of them: but Love cannot cease to will their removal.

Beware you are not swallowed up in books! An ounce of love is worth a pound of knowledge.

Love takes up where knowledge leaves off.

In love. What does that even mean? “Love” is a junk drawer we dump all sorts of ideas into, just because we don’t have anywhere else to put them. I “love” God, and I “love” fish tacos. See the probl...