Even in calamity, God is near, inviting us to build and plant and live to heal the world.

God exhorts us to pray for all people – including our leaders – so that all people may live free.

Constancy is a quality of God: "Jesus is the same yesterday, today, and forever." We are called to live our lives consistently with God's steadfast love.

Over the breadth of Scripture, humanity encounters God, not only in the bright light of day, but when the shadows fall, and the world becomes still. At night, God keeps close, and we will not be left alone.

Jesus rejects the world’s separations and the “politics of disgust,” and insists that we welcome everyone to the table of community and shared power.

During “ordinary time” we walk with Jesus through the ordinary days of his life, just as he walks with us through the ordinary days of ours. Jesus invites us to see things as they are, to let go of attachments that hold us back, and to embrace the way of the cross that leads to life.

In his healing hands, Jesus sets the whole world free. In the work of our hands, God’s handiwork can come to life, as well.

Hebrews 11 invites us to imagine the journey of the faithful down through the generations, and to imagine the better world the Spirit empowers us to create together.

Revelation invites us to say Amen to God’s sovereignty in Jesus Christ, creating a new heaven and new earth, right now and forever. Amen – so be it in me, so be it in us. Come, Jesus, Come. Let today be the day.

In the apocalyptic imagination, God gives us a wild and lively vision of a world to inhabit now. The old order of things has come to an end. Behold God’s new heaven and new earth. Live it now.

Power-over wants us to stay quiet and lukewarm. That's how power stays in power. In the complexity of life, God is near, encouraging and empowering us to stand where we know we ought to stand.

At the midpoint of the year, we pause to refresh and reset, returning to the 7 spiritual practices that ground us in the new thing God is doing in every new day.

The wild hope of our imagination finds its sure footing in Jesus Christ, the one who enters into the deep suffering of the world and is sovereign from there.

God’s healing imagination comes to life in our collaboration and cooperation – inviting us to an economy of mutuality and a politics of compassion and freedom.

Beyond the caves and fear of domination, God empowers us to imagine and create a world better, brighter, and more beautiful than the struggle and suffering we are experiencing now.

God is willing to re-order the world to welcome everyone who is far from home.

Photo credit: Engin Akyurt, used with permission via Unsplash Our first reading from the Scriptures today comes from the 14th chapter of...

We are baptized into counter-cultural community shaped by the values we experience in the life, death, and Resurrection of Jesus Christ.

In bewildering times, empowered by the Spirit, “what we can do” is the steady work that flows out of our baptism.

In baptism, we enact what has always been true: God loves and welcomes everyone.