Month: September 2019

The God of those who can hope

Post author By dw
Post date September 22, 2019
No Comments on The God of those who can hope

Those who abandon everything in order to seek God know well that He is the God of the poor…the supreme expression of His justice is to forgive those whom no one else would ever have forgiven. That is why He is, above all, the God of those who can hope where there is no hope. The penitent thief who died with Christ was able to see God where the doctors of the law had just proved impossible Jesus’s claim to divinity.

— Thomas Merton, No Man Is an Island, Sentences on Hope

Perhaps,
in our darkest hour,
the difference between
hope and despair
is our willingness
to recognize
the God of love
hanging on the cross
beside ours.

Photo by Bobbie Wallace on Unsplash

Tags despair, forgiveness, hope, Jesus, justice, No Man is an Island, poor, Thomas Merton

Other Writings

The Face of a Stranger – by Pam Saldana

Post author By dw
Post date September 19, 2019
2 Comments on The Face of a Stranger – by Pam Saldana

I’m sharing a post, The Face of a Stranger, written by my blogging friend Pam Saldana. It’s not her typical topic: her blog is called All Things Thriller and she writes about a wide array of movies, books, and people typically near the edges. I love the way she tells a story, whether biographical or fictional, and I learn something new from every post she writes. This particular post about our westernized concept of who Jesus was and what he was like…well, I thought it fit in pretty well here…so I’m recommending it to you. Click here to read and enjoy!

@Pam – thanks so much for sharing your insight and gift for writing!

Tags All Things Thriller, blogging friend, Pamela Lowe Saldana, reblog, westernized Jesus

hope Other Writings Poetry

I cannot be humble

I cannot be humble unless I first know that I am good, and know that what is good in me is not my own, and know how easy it is for me to substitute an evil of my own choice for the good that is God’s gift to me.

— Thomas Merton, No Man Is an Island, Sentences on Hope

The point in my life
where I began to believe
I was better than you
was the point where I forgot
or no longer believed
that God made us both
to be his children.