Spacious and Gracious...

Have you ever been in the presence of someone who makes you feel that you’ve come home? 

If our global community, slowly emerging from the depths of the pandemic, has learned anything, it’s that we are simply not meant to be in isolation. Human beings are meant to connect, are built to connect: with one another, with the earth that’s been given to us as our home, with God. 

In fact, it’s God who gives us this pattern of connectedness; as Christians we believe in a God who lives in intimate connection as Trinity, as a Center of both radical stillness and vibrant loving action. And that Reality lives within each of us. So, when spiritual writers talk about a “God-shaped hole” within, it’s precisely that longing for connection, for intimacy, for the spacious and gracious love that pulsates continually from God. Jesus has incarnated this love and taken it to its utmost length through the Mystery of his death and rising.

And now the same call is ours. Baptized into the life of our Triune God, summoned to discipleship by Jesus, gifted with our unique talents and abilities, we are tasked each day with the same lovely mission of spaciousness and graciousness: to love others radically, to let them feel our unconditional acceptance and concern, to be the kind of Godlike presence that says to others, without first asking questions, without checking their spiritual credentials: Relax; you are home.

It’s the welcome that God gives to each of us unconditionally.  It must have been the welcome that Jesus offered,  that attracted people to him.  And it's the welcome that we’re now asked to extend unconditionally…no exceptions.

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