Living Loved

12/18/2025

I will light Candles this Christmas;
Candles of joy despite all sadness,
Candles of hope where despair keeps watch,
Candles of courage for fears ever present,
Candles of peace for tempest-tossed days,
Candles of grace to ease heavy burdens,
Candles of love to inspire all my living,
Candles that will burn all the year long.

— Howard Thurman

02/19/2025

02/21/2023

I am in such a weird place spiritually.

Suspended indefinitely between two extremes.

Certainty and doubt. Religion and rejection of it all.

In the tension between tidy beliefs of childhood and the untamed wilderness before me.

Yet God hovers.

I have so many questions and bitterness. I am angry and disillusioned. I hate the devils disguised inside American Christianity, claiming love while spitting violent plumes of hate.

There is too much to reconcile.

Yet God chases.

There are so many triggers. I see Bible verses posted and I recoil a little. To what agenda are they attached?

Church is another. What pretty face do they slap on for a Sunday service? What ugliness is hidden underneath and behind closed doors and screamed silently, in between the lines? What abuse is perpetuated in shrouds of good godliness?

Yet, God calls my name.

I realize now that God exists outside of religion. In the voids left by imperfect people trying to fill voids of their own.

God sees me.
God is here.
God is inside.

And when I strip it all away and see myself and the world through the lens of God, that God cannot be separated from anything or anyone I touch,

All is beautiful again.

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