Love is always revealing Loves self, hoping we will notice.... Words of Love written, not in "be better than everyone, or, be right in doctrine", but so that "your joy may be compete"... Joy in allowing Love, allowing our one'ness, our communion with each other to be complete..... It's never been about "power over" or "control".... Live and God has always been about Love....

Good News of Great Joy: God is Love....Jesus always sent his followers out to heal, to love, to invite.... Folks stuck in the story of the "God of Fear" push back.... We must stay rooted in Love...

Good News of Great joy: God is Love!.... May we begin to notice what has always been true: We are all God's Beloved and God is now and always and everywhere hoping to love us into loving...

Allowing ourselves to unlearn the narrative that we have to have enemies, or that God is somehow wrathful and angry, as we prepare our hearts to meet the God that we actually have: Love, Mercy, Tender, Present, Inviting, "Salve" on our wounds....

How beautiful and how terrible those moments are that break us open to new ways of seeing. "Terrible" because it often hurts to realize what we once thought was true is not, AND beyond beautiful, because we can finally leave unhelpful Traditions behind and live into the vastness of love...

Mary meets the depths of God's love, not because she got a million likes, a raise at work, had 15 babies, and wore modest clothing, but simply because she was alive! In her lowliness, in her humility, God could be seen and known, because that is where the heart of God is.... from here she preaches the marrow of the Gospel before Jesus is even born...

My friends, our definition of Love is so important... the stories of the Prophet's in Scripture are stories of folks shifting from an idea of "violence and wrath" in love towards realizing that Love is not abusive.... and neither is God... if there is abuse in your idea of love, there will be abuse in your idea of God and permission for you, then, to be abusive.... and that is not okay... we must change.... there is never abuse in love...

The God that we have is Love. Love invites newness... Love invites us to unlearn all we thought we knew ... Love is that perplexing Hope when we think all is barren...

God does not control all the things... God loves life into being... God hopes to love us into loving..... God is the eternal invitation into out centre to give new life to enter eternal and ever inclusive Love..... Even in the times of Herod (of evil and hatred being lived out) LOVE is still stirring... stirring in the hearts of people, hoping they will begin to notice and then be moved to awe, to inspiration, to LOVE.....

"Do not be afraid..." ... For centuries a God of "wrath and hatred" has been taught, but the miracle in scripture is when THE BIG REVEAL moments happen and the Truth is finally noticed: God is not out there somewhere hating on us, threatening us (this is the image the power hungry ego created, allowing for us to kill each other "in the name of God)... the story of Jesus "saves us" by showing us that God does not want us to hate and kill each other, God longs to love us into loving each other!.. The story of non-violent Jesus is a story that "saves us" from thinking we need to kill each other here and now, not an evacuation plan for later!