The Universal Christ

humans (16:15)? Paul affirms that he has done this very thing when he says, “Never let yourself drift away from the hope promise ...

Story, we all retreat into private individualism for a bit of sanity and safety. Perhaps the primary example of our lack of atte ...

A Paradigm Shift In scientific and cultural thinking, the term “paradigm shift” describes a major switch in one’s assumptions or ...

“There is only Christ. He is everything and he is in everything.” (Colossians 3:11) “All fullness is found in him, through him a ...

A Fully Participatory Universe I cannot help but think that future generations will label the first two thousand years of Christ ...

mystery which for endless ages has been kept secret” (Romans 16:25–27). And a well-kept secret it still remains for most Christi ...

Great Love and Great Suffering You might wonder how, exactly, primitive peoples and pre-Christian civilizations could’ve had acc ...

else. This is what we saw in Caryll Houselander’s experience on the train, and in Jesus when he pointed to divinity in “the leas ...

quiet word or smile, a meal shared with someone we care for, where we are suddenly enlivened by a force larger than the two of u ...

4 Original Goodness Earth’s crammed with heaven, And every common bush afire with God; But only he who sees takes off his shoes. ...

in all directions. “Is it by your wisdom,” God asks, “that the hawk soars, and spreads its wings to the south?” The obvious answ ...

The Great Chain of Being St. Bonaventure (1221–1274) taught that to work up to loving God, start by loving the very humblest and ...

if we can only learn to see it with humility and love. That takes contemplative practice, stopping our busy and superficial mind ...

Original Goodness, Not Original Sin The true and essential work of all religion is to help us recognize and recover the divine i ...

would also call it “original blessing” or “original innocence” (“unwoundedness”).*2 Whatever you call it, the “image of God” is ...

In one way, the doctrine of “original sin” was good and helpful in that it taught us not to be surprised at the frailty and woun ...

To begin climbing out of the hole of original sin, we must start with a positive and generous cosmic vision. Generosity tends to ...

Holding on to a Positive Vision Brain studies have shown that we may be hardwired to focus on problems at the expense of a posit ...

control.” Many of us just call it “contemplation.” So how do we first see and then practice this “Original Goodness”? Paul again ...

In the practical order, we find our Original Goodness when we can discover and own these three attitudes or virtues deeply plant ...