The Word We Study Has To Be

Sin And Forgiveness And Falling And Getting Back Up And Losing The Pearl Of Great Price In The Couch Cushions But Then Finding It Again, And Again, And Again? Those Are The Stumbling Steps To Becoming Real, The Only Script That's Really Worth Following In This World Or The One That's Coming.

Rome Is Burning, Jesus Says. Drop Your Fiddle, Change Your Life And Come To Me. Let Go Of The Good Days That Never Were - A Regimented Church You Never Attended, Traditional Virtues You Never Practiced, Legalistic Obedience You Never Honored, And A Sterile Orthodoxy You Never Accepted. The Old Era Is Done. The Decisive Inbreak Of God Has Happened.

The Anything-goes Passiveness Of The Religious And Political Left Is Matched By The Preachy Moralism Of The Religious And Political Right. The Person Who Uncritically Embraces Any Party Line Is Guilty Of An Idolatrous Surrender Of Her Core Identity As Abba's Child. Neither Liberal Fairy Dust Nor Conservative Hardball Addresses Our Ragged Human Dignity.

If In Our Hearts We Really Don't Believe That God Loves Us As We Are, If We Are Still Tainted By The Lie That We Can Do Something To Make God Love Us More, We Are Rejecting The Message Of The Cross.

Grace Abounds In Contemporary Movies, Books, Novels, Films And Music. If God Is Not In The Whirlwind, He May Be In A Woody Allen Film, Or A Bruce Springsteen Concert. Most People Understand Imagery And Symbol Better Than Doctrine And Dogma. Images Touch Hearts And Awaken Imaginations. One Theologian Suggested That Springsteen's 'tunnel Of Love' Album, In Which He Symbolically Sings Of Sin, Death, Despair And Redemption, Is More Important For Catholics Than The Pope's Last Visit When He Spoke Of Morality Only In Doctrinal Propositions.