When we can see the image of God where we don't want to see the image of God, then we see with eyes not our own.
Interpretation
Seeing divinity in unexpected places expands our perspective and empathy.
This quote suggests that true understanding and connection with the divine can be found in the most unlikely situations or people, challenging our biases and preconceived notions. When we learn to perceive the divine presence in all aspects of life, including those we initially reject, we open ourselves to a wider, more compassionate view of the world that transcends our personal limitations.
In practice
This quote can be used in a sermon to encourage people to find God in all aspects of life.
My scientist friends have come up with things like 'principles of uncertainty' and dark holes. They're willing to live inside imagined hypotheses and theories. But many religious folks insist on answers that are always true. We love closure, resolution and clarity, while thinking that we are people of 'faith'! How strange that the very word 'faith' has come to mean its exact opposite.
The gift of darkness draws you to know God’s presence beyond what thought, imagination, or sensory feeling can comprehend.
I cannot illustrate huge differences between male and female spiritualities except in their starting points, style and fascinations along the way. This is significant, however, and has huge pastoral implications: men must be challenged in the world of doing; women must be challenged in the world of relating.
Much of the Christian religion has largely become “holding on” instead of letting go. But God, it seems to me, does the holding on (to us!), and we must learn the letting go (of everything else).
We do not think ourselves into new ways of living, we live ourselves into new ways of thinking.
I've had the good fortune of teaching and preaching across much of the globe, while also struggling to make sense of my experience in my own tiny world.
Now don't think that awakening is the end. Awakening is the end of seeking, the end of the seeker, but it is the beginning of a life lived from your true nature.
He was a great thundering paradox of a man.
War's Legitimate Object Is More Perfect Peace.
Tradition is the living faith of dead people to which we must add our chapter while we have the gift of life. Traditionalism is the dead faith of living people who fear that if anything changes, the whole enterprise will crumble.
Whereever you are, you are one with the clouds and one with the sun and the stars you see. You are one with everything. That is more true than I can say, and more true than you can hear.
Wherever we see the Word of God purely preached and heard, there a church of God exists, even if it swarms with many faults.
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