“…I’m not entirely sure what it means to be immersed in the Holy Spirit. Is that the sort of thing one can ever really be sure about? Probably not. But my best guess after 28 years on this earth is that it has something to do with being able to find joy and beauty and goodness in the world. AKA, delight…”

Three members offered gratitude reflections from their lives this past year.

“…Jesus knew that who he was and the things he had done were the far greater testimony than all the logical arguments he might have tried to make. And I believe that here in our passage for today, he’s calling his listeners–and us–to a way of life that cannot be contradicted, a life of peace, justice, mercy, righteousness, and endurance in the face of all that would tear those things down. That is our greatest witness, our deepest wisdom…”

What Jesus might be asking his listeners to do is to let go of our ways of defining life that are helplessly intertwined with the reality of death, and to entrust ourselves to a reality which exists without any reference to death at all.  Is this even possible?  The Divine is sheer aliveness, thriving outside our own small experience of death, holding everything in being and a continual Source of life leading to life.  “To God, all of them are alive.”