Morning devotional – Pieces of my past religious life are pealing away like old skin no longer pliable or able to sustain itself. I haven’t left physically, but have walked away emotionally and spiritually from the narrow, harsh, and hateful aspects that now occupy the conservative evangelical tradition of my upbringing.
I think our questions and struggles reveal what we love at our core. Shallow unquestioning acceptance, combined with a dislike or even hate toward those outside an accepted tradition, insults the richness and complexity of creation as well as our spiritual selves.
Now I’m attempting to recapture aspects of religious traditions that feed my spiritual life without the political and tribal baggage. I’m sometimes nourished by readings from The Value of Sparrows: Writings of a Christian Mystic. Reading this passage about friendship this morning spoke to me.
“Sit quietly during this season and prayerfully reflect on the friends who remind us of who we are, who challenge us to live into who we are called to be, and who accept us at every stage of the journey.”
Holy God, in Christ Jesus you call us friends. Equip us to be friends who offer sustenance to one another as we learn of covenantal love from our friendship with you. Amen.
Excerpt from The Value of Sparrows ADVENT REFLECTION: A Holy Friendship by Enuma Okoro
Kindly Curmudgeon 
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