2 Cor 5:11-21; John 21:15-19

"As there can be no above without a below, no before without an after, so there can be no...history of salvation between God and humanity without its reflection and repetition in a history between one person and another. [But this] can take place only as those who are loved by God and love Him in return enjoy and make use of the freedom to love one another. If it is ever the case that they seem to be missing God’s love and their own love for God...the root of the trouble may be quite simply that they are not ready to make use of this freedom, and are not engaged in this confirmation of God’s love and their own love for Him." -- Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics IV.2

Ephesians 4:14-25; John 14:1-12

Christian faith isn't a general religious awareness. Nor is it the ability to believe several unlikely propositions. It is certainly not a kind of gullibility which would put us out of touch with any genuine reality. It is the faith which hears the story of Jesus, including the announcement that he is the world's true Lord, and responds from the heart with a surge of grateful love that says: "Yes. Jesus is Lord. He died for my sins. God raised him from the dead. This is the center of everything." - N.T. Wright, Simply Christian

Ephesians 1:15-23; Mark 16:1-8

Mark 11:1-11

"I do not know You God because I am in the way." - Flannery O'Connor, A Prayer Journal

Genesis 11:1-9; John 1:1–14

In the silence surrounding his death, Jesus became the best possible companion for those whose prayers are not answered, who would give anything just to hear God call them by name. Him too. - Barbara Brown Taylor, When God Is Silent

Genesis 6:11-22

There are no sacred and unsacred places; there are only sacred and desecrated places. - Wendell Berry

Genesis 4:1-16

When you lament in good faith, opening yourself to God honestly and fully - no matter what you have to say - then you are beginning to clear the way for praise. You are straining toward the time when God will turn your tears into laughter. When you lament, you are asking God to create the conditions in which it will become possible for you to offer praise - conditions, it turns out, that are mainly within your own heart. - Ellen Davis, Getting Involved With God

Genesis 4:1-16

When you lament in good faith, opening yourself to God honestly and fully - no matter what you have to say - then you are beginning to clear the way for praise. You are straining toward the time when God will turn your tears into laughter. When you lament, you are asking God to create the conditions in which it will become possible for you to offer praise - conditions, it turns out, that are mainly within your own heart. - Ellen Davis, Getting Involved With God

Genesis 3:1-7

Be attentive to yourself, that is, observe yourself carefully from every side. Let the eye of your soul be sleepless to guard yourself. You walk in the midst of snares. Hidden traps have been set by the enemy in many places. Therefore, observe everything, "that you may be saved like a gazelle from traps and like a bird from snares" (Proverbs 6:5). - St. Basil of Caesarea, On the Human Condition

Ruth 4:13-22

The great narrative, to which Christians are called to be faithful, begins at the beginning of all things and ends at the end of all things, and within the arc of it civilizations blossom and flourish, wither and perish. This would seem a great extravagance, all the beautiful children of earth lying down in a final darkness. But no, there is that wondrous love to assure us that the world is more precious than we can possibly imagine. - Marilynne Robinson, "Wondrous Love" in When I Was a Child I Read Books