I was honored to speak to my fellow Oblates at St. John’s Annual Oblate Retreat about how we can show up as Benedictines in movements for justice.
July 15, 2018. 8:45am.
Oblates in Movements for Justice
Each time I visit the Abbey I make it part of my practice to read through the Rule in its entirety. I like to read the Rule straight through because I feel that I get a sense of Benedict’s totalizing instruction; the way in which our Father Benedict sees the life of faith as a way of being in the world. This way is uncommon in many of our spiritual communities, certainly in my own faith community. We still live in very compartmentalized and dualistic contexts, and often aspects of our life are placed in neat little boxes. We have our family life, our faith life, our political life. We are constantly adjusting to these different contexts, and often showing up in very different ways based on where we happen to be. This compartmentalization is a constant temptation, and I have found it to be one of the most noxious and persistent issues I face. But Benedict challenges us to live authentically as followers of Christ in all contexts, in all areas of our life, and as Oblates we have committed to this authentic and all-encompassing obedience.
I’ve been struck by this call especially in the last number of years as I studied Social Transformation and Leadership at United Theological Seminary, and as I found my faith community drawn into larger social Movements for justice, especially focused on issues of immigration and racial justice. I came late to the church, but when I did I knew immediately that this life of faith meant that I had been called with my brothers and sisters to be God’s hands in the world. To seek justice, to care for the sick, to pray for a world without hatred and violence, and to share God’s love with a hurting world. I knew that I had been called to serve, but it wasn’t until my faith community got involved in the sanctuary movement that I really understood the larger implications of our role as bearers of God’s justice-making love. Our church is part of a larger network of faith communities across Minnesota who have declared our spaces as centers of holy sanctuary for immigrants facing deportation proceedings. But what became clear very quickly was the relatively small impact, at least immediately, that this action had. There are around 100,000 undocumented immigrants in the state of MN, and if our plan was to safeguard them all in our buildings that would require each faith community in the network to host about 4,000 people. It was clear that for us to truly ensure the safety and protection of our vulnerable neighbors we needed to be engaged in larger movements that were systematically challenging dominant and oppressive narratives and institutions. As a Lutheran I frequently have my brother Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s words ringing in my ears; “We are not simply to bandage the wounds of victims beneath the wheels of injustice, we are to drive a spoke into the wheel itself.”[1]
As a Benedictine I turn to our sister Oblate Dorothy Day who wrote:
Whenever I groan within myself and think how hard it is to keep writing about love in these times of tension and strife, which may at any moment become for us all a time of terror, I think to myself, “What else is the world interested in?” What else do we all want, each one of us, except to love and be loved, in our families, in our work, in all our relationships? God is love. Love casts out fear. Even the most ardent revolutionist, seeking to change the world, to overturn the tables of the money changers, is trying to make a world where it is easier for people to love, to stand in that relationship to each other. We want with all our hearts to love, to be loved. And not just in the family but to look upon all as our mothers, sisters, brothers, children. It is when we love the most intensely and most humanly that we can recognize how tepid is our love for others. The keenness and intensity of love brings with it suffering, of course, but joy too, because it is a foretaste of heaven.[2]
Love is our mission and is the very air we breathe. It is what we have been baptized into and is what we have vowed to obey as Oblates of St. Benedict. It is the call I felt urging my community on as we committed to stand with our immigrant neighbors. And it is in the Rule of St Benedict that I found a guidebook for this journey.
So, over the last couple of years, I found myself asking, what is it as a Benedictine Oblate that I bring to movements for social change? What is it about our unique vows that makes us vital and effective hands in service of God’s trustworthy and justice-making love? How does prayer, humility, hospitality, stability, and conversion contribute to movements for social change?
It might be helpful to start by identifying what we mean by social movements. Movements are not the same thing as issue organizing, or political campaigns, or charity, though these might be parts of a larger movement’s vision. Social movements have a few identifying marks[3]:
- Social movements are defined by longterm, collective, intentional action focused on aspirational social and cultural change (or preventing cultural change) These are not simply reactions to a single policy or law but are reactions to dominant public narratives.
- e. The criminalization of immigrants, the belief that there are not enough resources for all people to live healthy and safe lives, or the idea that we are in constant competition for limited resources. You know it’s a dominant narrative if the civic and social institutions are able to enforce it.
- This means that social movements tap into, not only external, but internal needs. They foster a sense of belonging and purpose, they aspire to help individuals and communities realize their full potential.
- Social movements hold outsider status, which means that they are not able to use the normal means of power. In many ways the laws, courts, political structures, even religious structures, are unable to be used to accomplish the transformation they seek.
- Social movements also tend to get broader as they progress, building broader coalitions and expanding their narrative scope.
- It is helpful to think of the movement of social movements as a wave on a lake. The power of these movements begins to build before the wave actually crests the surface. There is a rumbling below the surface, a building of power, a broadening of coalitions and vision, a bureaucratization, and a wind down. These movements have sometimes been said to operate in 20-40 cycles.
Some of the historical movements in the US that we might be familiar with are:
- The Farm Workers movement
- Women’s Suffrage and Women’s Rights movements
- The Labor movements of the 1930s
- The Abolitionist movement in the 1800s
- The Civil Rights movement in the 1960s
Our current moment is occupied by:
- The Sanctuary and Immigrant Rights movements
- The MeToo & Times Up movements
- Black Lives Matter
- The Environmental & Eco-Justice Movement
Now the question also has to be asked, are we as people of faith truly called to participate in social movements? Are we in fact committed to social change, or are we simply called to serve as best we can in the contexts we happen to find ourselves in? If we are committed to social change, is it through these movements that we find God’s justice-making love expressed in hopeful and loving ways? This is a frequent point of tension in communities of faith. Is the church becoming too political? Are we forsaking the Gospel for partisan fights?
Obviously, I’m someone who is convinced that as people of faith in this historical moment, we are in fact called to be agents of social change that looks and operates like Jesus. In my church’s baptismal liturgy (the ELCA), the parents and sponsors are entrusted with certain responsibilities; to bring their children to the word of God and the Holy supper, teach them the Lord’s prayer, the Creed, and the Ten Commandments, place in their hands the holy scriptures and nurture them in faith and prayer SO THAT they may learn to trust God, proclaim Christ, care for others, and work for justice and peace. This participation in challenging the dominant public narrative is built into our very baptismal vocation.
More broadly, Christianity is a what might be called a prophetic faith tradition, along with Judaism and Islam. Miroslav Volf, at Yale Divinity School, defines prophetic traditions in opposition to mystical faith traditions, saying; “Prophetic religions aim to transform the world in God’s name rather than to flee from the world into God’s arms as do mystical religions”[4]. Now this isn’t a denunciation of mysticism, simply a distinction between faith traditions that seek to enact social change, and those who understand the primary function of religious life as a removal or an escape from the world. For Volf this prophetic edge to the Christian faith is expressed in scripture in the ascent and return narratives like the one about Moses ascending Sinai and returning with the tables of the law. In the prophetic writings of Isaiah, Jeremiah, Amos, and others, the prophet ascends to God, but returns to the people. And in the Gospels Jesus’ ascent of the Mount of Transfiguration and his return to a ministry of healing and reconciliation, and ultimately death on a cross. In each of these narratives we see the way in which our intimacy with God, the ascent up the mountain, is then expressed in a creative turn, and a return to human communities. We come back down the mountain to live our lives grounded in the love of God. In this way Volf mirrors Benedict’s understanding of the life of faith as a way of life. He says, “…if faith only heals and energizes, then it is merely a crutch to use at will, not a way of life. But the Christian faith, as a prophetic religion, is either a way of life or a parody of itself. Put starkly and with echoes of the Epistle of James, an idle faith is no Christian faith at all”[5].
Throughout Scripture we encounter stories of God’s people being seduced by systemic power and turning from God. The world at the time of Noah had become some corrupt, and so enmeshed in structural evil, that God saw no other option than to destroy it in the flood. In 1 Samuel we read about Eli’s two sons who were abusing their position as priests to steal from the people. And throughout the Gospels the Roman occupation, the stagnant religious leadership, and the complete disregard for the poor and the sick among the people, set the stage for Jesus’ ministry of neighbor love. The narrative of systemic evil is everywhere in scripture, but the good news is we also encounter stories of God calling the people back and promising their redemption and reconciliation, not only as individuals but as social and cultural communities. So, in Isaiah chapter 61 God says:
“For I the Lord love justice, I hate robbery and wrongdoing; I will faithfully give them (Israel) their recompense, and I will make an everlasting covenant with them. Their descendants shall be known among the peoples; all who see them shall acknowledge that they are a people whom the Lord has blessed.”[6]
And from Amos chapter 9
“The time is surely coming, says the Lord, when the one who plows shall overtake the one who reaps, and the treader of the grapes the one who sows the seed; the mountains shall drip sweet wine, and all the hills shall flow with it.I will restore the fortunes of my people Israel, and they shall rebuild the ruined cities and inhabit them…”[7]
This overflowing and dare I say, lavish justice is a consistent and powerful promise from God to the people of Israel, and it is this overwhelming, and radical jubilee liberation that Jesus announced in the Gospel of Luke,
“When he came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up, he went to the synagogue on the sabbath day as was his custom. He stood up to read, and the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was given to him. He unrolled the scroll and found the place where it was written: The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor. And he rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant, and sat down. The eyes of all in the synagogue were fixed on him. Then he began to say to them, “Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.”[8]
This section of Isaiah that Jesus reads is referring back to Levitical law, and the Jubilee. The Jubilee was to take place every 50 years and was a time when slaves and prisoners would be set free, debts forgiven, and property redistributed. From Leviticus chapter 25 “And you shall hallow the fiftieth year and you shall proclaim liberty throughout the land to all its inhabitants.”[9] This was a movement for social change worked in to the very rhythms of Israel’s life. Now there isn’t any evidence that the Jubilee year actually ever happened, and nonetheless, in Luke Jesus proclaims its fulfillment in him. Jesus has fulfilled the prophet’s words, and we have been called to live in the world, grounded in Christ and God’s justice-making love, practicing jubilee and trusting in God’s redeeming and reconciling word. We have been called to share God’s love with the world, and I believe that means that many of us will find that work in communities committed to movements for social change grounded in God’s love. Like Dorothy Day said, “What else is the world interested in?”.
So, how do we as Oblates of St. Benedict, as bearers of God’s justice-making love, show up in these communities? How do we carry our spirituality, our tradition, and our practices into the work of social change? There are, I think a number of ways that Benedictines can powerfully show up and contribute to these diverse and complex movements.
Listening
The Rule opens with the word “Listen”, and throughout the Rule Benedict instructs his monks to practice radical listening. If there is one thing currently missing from our national conversations it is a willingness to listen. In a culture seeped in violent competition, we have learned to compete even in our conversation. We listen only to respond, and even then, spend most of our time preparing our perfectly witty retort in order to score points. This kills movements and perpetuates systems of oppression by isolating individuals and communities and promoting a rigid and impotent certainty. To challenge dominant public narratives movements must be open and committed to listening to the stories of the people. Benedict understood listening as a fundamental principle of living in community. He counseled the Abbot to call together the entire community and to listen to the brothers’ advice when making decisions. Only after pondering this advice was the abbot to decide.[10] This illustrates the way in which Benedictine spirituality is one of openness, and a willingness to be changed in community. This is one of the most powerful contributions we as Benedictines can bring into movements for social change. We can model, as best as we can, a posture of true openness and an eagerness to listen to one another. We can stand in our truth, and yet hold it loosely enough to be changed by one another. This facilitates the broadening of movements, the building of strong and dynamic coalitions, and powerful public narratives able to combat the dominant oppressive narratives. It allows us to encounter one another as friends, rather than as competitors and adversaries. It ensures that our models for movements are grounded in the stories of those who are most directly impacted, and in the real and immediate needs of our neighbor, not simply what we’ve heard on TV or read in a book.
Now Benedict challenges us not only to listen to one another, but to listen in prayer and sacred reading. He reminds us in the prologue that Scripture is the voice of Christ and that daily we are to listen, to obey, and to follow. Prayer and sacred reading are the foundations of Benedictine daily life, and it is out of this foundation, centered in the practice of deep and radical listening, that we act. This was how Dorothy Day was able to remain steadfast, resilient, and grounded in all of her work with the Catholic Workers Movement and her activism. Jim Forester, a friend and colleague of Dorothy Day said of her
…Dorothy Day taught me that justice begins on our knees. I have never known anyone, not even in monasteries, who was more of a praying person than Dorothy Day…If you find the life of Dorothy Day inspiring, if you want to understand what gave her direction and courage and strength to persevere, her deep attentiveness to others, consider her spiritual and sacramental life.[11]
The balance between prayer and work, ora et labora, in Benedictine spirituality is a gift to movements for social change. Like any community attempting to accomplish a goal it can be tempting to set aside those things that seem to not be directly accomplishing that goal. And we can begin to lose sight of the larger Kingdom vision by focusing intensely on a single issue or task to exclusion. However, Benedict understands that everything we do is in God, and that our deepened awareness of God’s presence and activity in our work ensures that our movements are sustainable and resilient and effective. Movements and those inside them are often quick to burnout, to lose momentum, and to settle for institutionalized stagnation. We get lost in the how, and we forget the why, and most importantly the who. This is when movements begin to splinter and to crumble. But our commitment to listening to God in personal and communal prayer builds a powerful foundation from which we work.
Humility
Related to this principle of listening is the Benedictine value of humility. In Chapter 7 of the Rule Benedict lays out the steps of humility for his monks saying, “If we want to reach the highest summit of humility, if we desire to attain speedily that exaltation in heaven to which we climb by the humility of this present life, then by our ascending actions we must set up that ladder on which Jacob in a dream saw angels descending and ascending. Without doubt, this descent and ascent can signify only that we descend by exaltation and ascend by humility.”
This conversation about humility seems to me to be about where we find our center. We are living in a culture that values the individual above all, and I think in a lot of ways we’ve internalized that, and often this comes out sideways in community. And it comes out sideways when we find our center in our own subjectivity, and our own self-interest. Now we all have to be aware of our self-interest, especially in any kind of community organizing, there’s no pretending that it doesn’t play a role, but Benedict challenges us to find our center in Christ. In fact, he works through his twelve steps of humility adding layers to the fundamental truth that Christ’s call demands total response in Joan Chittister’s words[12].
Benedict reminds us to keep up our awareness of God’s presence throughout the entirety of our lives. Benedict says, “…let him recall that he is always seen by God in heaven, that his actions everywhere are in God’s sight and reported by angels at every hour.”[13] We start to slip in this regard when we think of God as distant or removed from the realities of the world, which is an all too common belief. God spoke to Jeremiah saying, “Am I a God nearby, and not a God far off?”[14] In our movements this means that we cannot start to believe the lie that we are somehow willing the world into transformation through sheer force. Or that God is somehow disinterested with the flourishing of his creation. We live, and move, and have our being in God and our movements and our participation in them are driven not by our greatness or our innate goodness, but through the power of the Spirit working in us. Our movements are not God, we are not God, the justice we seek is not God. Staying awake to this truth is the first step of humility and is a gift that we as Benedictines can bring to movements for justice.
Esther DeWall in her book “Living with Contradiction”, says:
Humility is facing the truth. It is useful to remind myself that the word itself comes from humus, earth, and in the end simply means that I allow myself to be earthed in the truth that lets God be God, and myself his creature. If I hold on to this it helps prevent me from putting myself at the centre, and instead allows me to put God and other people at the centre. For if I want to return to God I must reverse the destructive journey of Adam and Eve which began with that subtle temptation to be as gods. It is this which has brought about the divided self, the self in disobedience to God.[15]
This has been one of the more challenging aspects of movement work for me. I find myself constantly fighting that pressure to solve it all, or to grab the reins and force the work in the direction I’m most comfortable with or that I’m most convinced will work. It’s in those moments where the chaotic scrambling of my own self-importance takes over that I find myself incapable of listening to my neighbor and closed off from the peace that comes with God’s gentle direction.
The second step of humility follows from the first. Benedict says the second step is loving not our own will, but the will of Christ who sent us. This step is closely linked to value of listening we already mentioned. It is in our prayer, and in community with one another that we carefully discern God’s will for us. In the context of social movements this also means that often we will need to push through our comfort zones and to participate in ways that are uncomfortable. We might be willing to participate initially in very specific ways, but our commitment to one another and to listening for God’s voice in scripture and prayer, might reveal that we are being called to participate differently. In my community we committed to speaking up and advocating for our immigrant neighbors in the face of criminalization and hate, but we didn’t expect initially that we would be called to become a Sanctuary congregation. And yet, after thoughtful discernment, a lot of uncertainty, and a commitment to our neighbors and to one another, we declared our space to be one of holy sanctuary. We can pray that God will give us courage to engage in the ways that are needed, not simply in the ways we are comfortable with, trusting that God, through our neighbors and those who knock on our doors, will show us the way.
Central to Benedictine humility is the understanding that it comes not as something we receive as a onetime deposit, but as a journey of trial and error. Part of our commitment to humility in movements for justice must be a willingness to make mistakes, to learn from our errors, and to pick ourselves back up and try again. Often, we want to be sure that we have all the information, all the right language, all the possibilities covered before we engage in this work. But this becomes a way for us to escape responsibility and to avoid the real work of building relationships. There is no one foolproof way to challenge our dominant narratives, and so all we can do is step out in faith, committed to one another and to sharing God’s justice-making love, and have enough humility to learn.
Humility also helps to build a sense of resilience, which is what Benedict advocates for in his discussion of the fourth step of humility. He challenges us “in obedience under difficult, unfavorable, or even unjust conditions” to “quietly embrace suffering and endure it without weakening or seeking escape.”[16] Movements are notorious for chewing people up, and a lot of that stems from the false idea that it’s all up to us. We think if we take even a second off from being the most connected and passionate advocate that the entire effort for social change will come screeching to a halt. Humility reminds us that it is God’s work in us, and that we have one another to carry and support the movements and communities we have committed to.
As Oblates we are no different that any one else. We are struggling with the same temptation towards self-importance as the next person. And at this moment in history self-importance seems like a pre-requisite for engaging in the public square. However, we can carry Benedict’s instruction into our movement communities, and we can commit to one another that we will keep God’s will central to our engagement, and that we will seek to have the courage and the humility to engage where and when we are needed. We can remember the words of the prophet Micah, “What does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?”[17] Ultimately, humility is about our awareness in relationships. It’s remaining present to our relationship with God and one another, and it’s about staying grounded in the world as it is, with a vision towards the world as it should be. This is one of the ways that we can contribute to the sustainability and the resilience of movements, and one of the ways we can share God’s justice-making love with one another.
Hospitality
When we begin to practice the kind of humility that Benedict instructs, we find ourselves also able to participate in true hospitality. Benedict reminds us in the chapter on the reception of guests that “All guests who present themselves are to be welcomed as Christ”[18]. This only becomes possible when we greet each person with true humility. What does it look like when we welcome someone as Christ? I think we find ourselves setting aside our own agendas and giving our guest our full attention. We listen. We truly listen, not only so that we can gather information, but we listen out of love for our guest. We listen because they are Beloved and we want to listen to everything they have to say.
Joan Chittister has argued that Hospitality is the missing value of the 20th century, and I might extend that into the 21st[19]. More and more we live in a culture that is concerned with the preservation of our property and our consumption of things. We have criminalized those who are searching for better lives, or who may need monetary or government assistance. Immigrants and refugees are seen as threats and worse instead of family members in need.
Benedictine hospitality is more than simply opening the door, or offering coffee and bars, it’s about an openness to the other that meets our neighbors needs and gives of our abundance. Chittister says of this historical moment, “We have to learn how to take people in again or the poverty and the political hatred and the decimation of people and turning of our own lives into icy islands will never end. We must learn in this century again to open our minds and open our hearts and open our lives and open our talents and open our hands to other. That is the hospitality for which the Rule of Benedict calls.”[20]
Furthermore, she has suggested that our doorstep has grown much bigger in the 20th and 21st centuries. The more and more connected we are across our state, country, and globe, the more we need to be acutely aware of our impact on our neighbor, both near and far. Not only do we need to care for the neighbor who lives next door, but we need to be concerned for those knocking at our doorstep who live many miles away. An understanding of systems and the dominant public narratives that prop them up means that, in sister Joan’s words, our hospitality “says that the problem is mine, not someone else’s. It is my door and my heart upon which these people are knocking for attention.”
Hospitality is the way in which we step out of ourselves and build relationship with one another. It is the way we begin to demolish the fantasy barriers that have kept us apart for so long. When we start to transcend those things that keep us apart, we find ourselves suddenly aware of how much we need one another, in our movements for justice, in our worship and prayer, and in our daily humdrum. In hospitality we learn to give and to receive in relationship with one another, grounded in God’s all encompassing, justice-making love. A poem by Jan Richardson captures the heart of Benedictine hospitality well:
And the Table Will Be Wide[21]
And the table
will be wide.
And the welcome
will be wide.
And the arms
will open wide
to gather us in.
And our hearts
will open wide
to receive.
And we will come
as children who trust
there is enough.
And we will come
unhindered and free.
And our aching
will be met
with bread.
And our sorrow
will be met
with wine.
And we will open our hands
to the feast
without shame.
And we will turn
toward each other
without fear.
And we will give up
our appetite
for despair.
And we will taste
and know
of delight.
And we will become bread
for a hungering world.
And we will become drink
for those who thirst.
And the blessed
will become the blessing.
And everywhere
will be the feast.
– Jan Richardson
And everywhere will be the feast. There again is that all encompassing way laid out by Benedict in the Rule. When we bring our capacity for hospitality as part of our whole selves, into the work of justice, we begin to find welcome, belonging, and love throughout our communities and spilling out into most miniscule tasks, and the most basic of life’s joys. It is through hospitality, grounded in God’s justice-making love, that we are able to build sustainable and transformational movements that look like Christ.
As people of faith, as followers of Jesus, we have been called to be God’s hands in the world. Sharing and spreading God’s justice-making love to our neighbor both near and far. We have been baptized into a daily dying and rising, and this daily living with all its foibles and quirks, with all its work and rest, all our pursuits for justice and reconciliation, is the Christian life. Thomas Merton argued that our action must be interested in all the details of daily human living, “Christian social action is first of all action that discovers religion in politics, religion in work, religion in social programs for better wages, Social Security, etc., not at all to win the worker for the church, but because God became human, because every human is potentially Christ, because Christ is our brother, and because we have no right to let our brother live in want, or in degradation, or in any form of squalor whether physical or spiritual.”[22] To be interested in the details of just daily living means that we must be aware of the impact of our dominant public narratives and the systems and structures that those narratives prop up. It is the work of social movements and people of faith to challenge those narratives, and to reform or erase those structures, so that we can get a foretaste of God’s loving justice.
As Oblates of St Benedict we have the opportunity, and the sheer delight, to bring our spiritual tradition and our Father’s guidance into the social movement arena. To model a true and eager openness, and to listen to one another as if Christ was the one speaking. We can deepen our awareness of God’s all enveloping love and presence and keep the will of our Creator at the center of our commitment to social action. And we can practice true hospitality that destroys the false barriers that keep us apart and ensures that “everywhere will be the feast”. When I talk to friends about being an Oblate, there are usually some jokes, many of them totally justified based on my personality, about me quitting my job, leaving the world behind, and going to live in a hermitage somewhere for the rest of my days. My wife, I think, always has a little question in her head when I come to St John’s about whether or not I’ll come back. But what I have found is that Benedictine spirituality has pushed me ever deeper into real community with the world around me, and into a commitment to challenge those dominant public narratives that harm my neighbors. Benedict’s Rule is not about closing ourselves off from a world that is hurting, but rather assumes that we’ll be present right there in the thick of it. Carefully and thoughtfully doing our work, with a vision towards the world as it should be, and a prayer on our lips. Thanks be to God.
[1] Bonhoeffer, Dietrich. “The Church and the Jewish Question”.
[2] Dorothy Day. “The Reckless Way of Love: Notes on Following Jesus”. Plough Publishing.
[3] Zemsky, Beth. (2016).Notes from Kaleo Express Event “Examining this Moment Through Movement Eyes”
[4] Volf, Miroslav. “A Public Faith”. Brazos Press. 7
[5] Volf, 16.
[6] Isaiah 61:8-9
[7] Amos 9:13-14
[8] Luke 4:16-21
[9] Leviticus 25:10
[10] RB 1980.
[11] Kulzer, Linda and Roberta Bondi. “Benedict in the World”. Liturgical Press.
[12] Chittister, Joan. “Wisdom Distilled From the Daily”.
[13] RB 1980. 33
[14] Jeremiah 23:23
[15] DeWall, Esther. “Living with Contradiction”. Morehouse Publishing. Loc 822.
[16] RB 1980. 35
[17] Micah 6:8
[18] RB 1980. 73
[19] Chittister, Joan. “Wisdom Distilled from the Daily”. Harper Collins.
[20] Chittister, 126.
[21] Richardson, Jan. http://paintedprayerbook.com/2012/09/30/and-the-table-will-be-wide/
[22] Merton, Thomas. “Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander”.
