After each instance of creation, God looks and sees the good made visible.
After each instance of creation, God looks and sees the good made visible.
The beautiful things we create are an attempt to replicate the goodness we’ve found in God’s beautiful world.
We don’t need fresh knowledge, we need to practice what we know.
As we work with spiritual practices of abstinence, Christ teaches us how to pursue the beautiful without being pained by it.
The ironic thing about magnanimous people is that their lives are worthy of recognition but they don’t seek it.
In the wilderness there is grace, grace to heal, preserve, even transform.
Christ remains the source and summation of the beautiful. And we only participate in it because He overflows with it.
That’s what it means to be God, to be so great that your power and humility don’t contradict.
When the Christ life gets a hold of us and starts unwinding envy, we begin doing something odd, we enjoy regarding one another more important than ourselves (Philippians 2:3).
As we pursue purgation we notice something new, something that quite possibly wasn’t there before, something drawing us to, “the mysterious vitality of trees, the silent magic of the forest.”
When we begin the crucified life (mortification) we send out a signal somewhere in the Universe. The devil goes to battle with those in obedience.
Gluttony is the sinful pattern of using food or drink to fill some vacancy in our soul.
If we keep stepping forward–not perfectly, but persistently–we can overcome.
Pain and suffering not only reveal to us the unseen layers of our brokenness, but it can be one of the important ways virtue is tested.
Our world and our lives have an infinite range of possibilities for becoming.
Vainglory is what our desire for recognition and approval looks like in a disordered state.
Acquiring the virtues is about growing into the kind of person who can love like God loves. It's about becoming an artisan of love.
Can we listen to that dull ache in our lower back or those grey cloudy thoughts that keep circling around our mind.
Pride is the shape of a wilting soul, and the breeding-ground of all the other vices that erode the image of God inside of us.
God will use every possible method to break our self-will and reclaim us and remake us.
