“Like many biblical terms we see in scripture, the word “holy” and the call to be holy have often been co-opted by various tribes and adjusted to suit their particular agendas. In my experience, and perhaps this is true for you, too, the call to be holy has been a call to conform. Preachers…then prescribe for us all of the changes we need to make in our lives so that we’ll conform to the image and likeness of their particular brand of Christianity. “Holy living,” then, becomes a call to conform to the beliefs and practices of a particular group or tribe as evidence that we are truly walking with God.Although we are called to be imitators of Christ, and to conform to his image and likeness, we must remember that his image and likeness do not conform to any of the various paradigms we like to use to box God in. Holy living, then, becomes conformity with Christ, but radical nonconformity with all those Christian tribes or labels that try to neatly create a limited space where God supposedly lives and works.”

“At the age of four, you were an artist. And at seven, you were a poet.”

“Yes, Kālāmas, it is proper that your have doubt, that you have perplexity, for a doubt has arisen in a matter which is doubtful. Now, look you Kālāmas, do not be led by reports, or traditions, or hearsay. Be not led by the authority of religious texts, not by the delight in speculative opinions, nor by seeming possibilities, not by the idea: ‘this is our teacher’. But, O Kālāmas, when you know for yourself that certain things are unwholesome, and wrong, and bad, then give them up… And when you know for yourself that certain things are wholesome and good, then accept them and follow them.”

“A truly good person will speak truth, act with truth, and stand for Truth. A truly good person is not afraid to think from their heart; therefore, allowing nonconformist decisions, viewpoints, and perspectives to lead their life. By following their heart, they stand with their conscience, and only with God.”

“It’s in the morning, for most of us. It’s that time, those few seconds when we’re coming out of sleep but we’re not really awake yet. For those few seconds we’re something more primitive than what we are about to become. We have just slept the sleep of our most distant ancestors, and something of them and their world still clings to us. For those few moments we are unformed, uncivilized. We are not the people we know as ourselves, but creatures more in tune with a tree than a keyboard. We are untitled, unnamed, natural, suspended between was and will be, the tadpole before the frog, the worm before the butterfly. We are for a few brief moments, anything and everything we could be. And then…and then — ah — we open our eyes and the day is before us and … we become ourselves.”