Sublime

When good gifts are lost, the Giver remains—and the Giver is the ultimate source of joy to begin with, the reality to which sacramental reality points.

Eros is impossible, Yannaras believes, outside of personhood, because Eros recognizes that we have our very being only in and through relationship.

Look: the question is not whether we should bring God into our work or not. We certainly should and must: as MacDonald says “All that is not God is death.” The question is whether we should simply (a.) Bring Him in in the dedication of our work to Him, in the integrity, diligence, and humility with which we do it or also (b.) Make His professed and

Like a child you must meet a living world through relationship as gift. As Bonhoeffer says in his own exploration of this text, Jesus belongs (is attached) to children. You must be a person bound to others to enter this kingdom. This is a kingdom of resonance, not resources (and the alienation that resource obsession will inevitably produce).

I walk around the church, wondering whether Bach ever felt discouraged. However brilliant he was, his fellow parishioners probably took him for granted. Week in and week out, Bach wrote anyway, his way of glorifying God. Sometimes it was a joy. Sometimes it probably felt like a sacrifice.

To be in his presence is not only to be challenged and comforted; it is to celebrate at table.

God’s desire for us is that we should live in him. He sends among us the Way to himself. That shows what, in his heart of hearts, God is really like—indeed, what reality is really like. In its deepest nature and meaning our universe is a community of boundless and totally competent love.

special “revelations” aside, theology should be derived from common Christian experience.

action by personifying acceptance and friendship. It is the pastor’s task, Henry believed, to run at the speed of intimacy—and this was very different from pastors before him.