A summer season is fun, but it is not sustainable – not for wasps, not for humans, either.
We are built for variety, and paradoxically even those activities we most love can drain us if it is all we do. We are not robots, machines, productive automatons, and to treat ourselves or others in this way is dangerous and wrong. We are human, and we need the all the seasons.
The Holy Spirit is like the wind – invisible and hard to predict… You can’t schedule God in the same way you can’t schedule joy
What if our hearts still dream big, when we are forced to live small? How much do you sacrifice of yourself to achieve your dream?
The best way I know to combat racism is to start where I can – by listening to the stories and wisdom of people who’ve experienced racism and xenophobia.
The pattern? Fear; anger; scapegoat; propaganda; law change; violence. The scapegoats? Disabled, LGBT, BAME or elderly people. Anyone who is seen as ‘other’. This same pattern seems to occur in other countries in other times, during an economic depression.
I want to say it loudly: the claim that you will always feel God’s peace during suffering is a myth. No matter how mature a Christian you are, sometimes you suffer and God feels desperately absent. Sometimes there’s an explanation in hindsight. Sometimes there’s a lesson learned from it. But sometimes there’s just silence and mystery.
I’m in two places, talking about two of my favourite things. I’m at the Mudroom talking about how to find your calling, and at 30 Seconds or Less sharing the whole book of Ruth, and the good news of Ruth – in two 30-second-long videos. Such fun!
It is a natural response to want to creep back into the safety of our tribes, to draw lines about what makes us ‘us’, and them ‘them’, but it is not the way of love. Love crosses boundaries and borders; it dares to stare people in the eye and love them for their personhood, their humanity.
God is love, through and through – daring, defiant, powerful love. God calls us to love others in the way that God alone loves: seeing them truly, loving them entirely.
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Tanya Marlow blogs on the Bible, suffering and the messy edges of life [read more]