Without Exposure To Potential Failure, There Is

To Ignore, Repress, Or Dismiss Our Feelings Is To Fail To Listen To The Stirrings Of The Spirit Within Our Emotional Life. Jesus Listened. In John's Gospel We Are Told That Jesus Was Moved With The Deepest Emotions (11:33)... The Gospel Portrait Of The Beloved Child Of Abba Is That Of A Man Exquisitely Attuned To His Emotions And Uninhibited In Expressing Them. The Son Of Man Did Not Scorn Of Reject Feelings As Fickle And Unreliable. They Were Sensitive Antennae To Which He Listened Carefully And Through Which He Perceived The Will Of His Father For Congruent Speech And Action.

For Ragamuffins, God's Name Is Mercy. We See Our Darkness As A Prized Possession Because It Drives Us Into The Heart Of God. Without Mercy Our Darkness Would Plunge Us Into Despair - For Some, Self-destruction. Time Alone With God Reveals The Unfathomable Depths Of The Poverty Of The Spirit. We Are So Poor That Even Our Poverty Is Not Our Own: It Belongs To The Mysterium Tremendum Of A Loving God.

Creation Discloses A Power That Baffles Our Minds And Beggars Our Speech. We Are Enamored And Enchanted By God's Power. We Stutter And Stammer About God's Holiness. We Tremble Before God's Majesty... And Yet, We Grow Squeamish And Skittish Before God's Love.

How Glorious The Splendor Of A Human Heart That Trusts That It Is Loved!

The Outstretched Arms Of Jesus Exclude No One, Not The Drunk In The Doorway, The Panhandler On The Street, Gays And Lesbians In Their Isolation, The Most Selfish And Ungrateful In Their Cocoons, The Most Unjust Of Employers And The Most Overweening Of Snobs. The Love Of Christ Embraces All Without Exception.