Family Baggage
“…human beings never enter this world without baggage. The baggage is an inheritance, both cultural and biological that shapes the ground we walk on and the challenges we will inevitably confront. Fr. Alexander Schmemann is reported to have said that the spiritual life consists in “how we deal with what we’ve been dealt.” In some families, it seems that no matter how many times the deck is shuffled, the same hand (or close to it) appears. The Scriptures are rife with this ele
Judgment (and Grace)
“As the Gospel makes clear, with the statement do not judge Jesus had in mind making a judgment that caused one to cut oneself off from someone so that they ceased to be reached out to…Jesus himself did make judgments about where people stand,…but not in such a way that he ceased to continue to offer them God’s grace.” (NET Bible, Luke 6:37) “Long before Christ was born of Mary in Bethlehem of Judah, the Prophet Solomon contrasted two opposing ways of life: “the paths of upri