We're taught to forgive others. Additionally, those who are hurt are taught not just to forgive, but to seek reconciliation with those who did the hurting.

In God's continual efforts to teach us to live well, God seems like a perennial optimist, never giving up on us.

We're all connected in each others' lives. God allows the bad within us to grow together with the good - otherwise we'd all be harmed if God destroyed all the bad at once.

Our expectations of God often go unmet. At the same time, prophecy is also often fulfilled, albeit in a different way that we might have expected.

On the Road to Emmaus, two of Jesus' disciples encountered the risen Jesus. Did Jesus also encounter himself in them? How do we encounter the risen Jesus in others still today?

The world is not what we wish it was, nor what we wish we had made it to be. There is hope. God has not given up on the world, nor on us. When we turn away, we can always get back on the right path with God.

Tradegy is all around us. Our faith leads us to respond in love, helping where we can, via prayer and action, without despair. God is with us in tradegy (and joy).

There is enough anxiety in the world without chastising ourselves and enough of a rat race without adding more to our plates. Take some time this Lent to rest in God.

In the Transfiguration, there is a dual revelation of Jesus and God and as a human example of how to live. His words, his life, his death, and his resurrection all help us create tabernacles in our hearts for God to dwell.

Be whole by having a heart of love, peace, and faith. Pray for those whom you love and for your enemies, and God will partner with you to make you whole.