I began to wonder if anyone still believed Jesus meant thos things He said. I thought if we just stopped and asked 'what if He really meant it?' it could turn the world upside down. It is a shame christians have become so normal.

Mother Teresa offers us that brilliant glimpse of hope that lies in little things: "We can do not great things, only small things with great love. It is not how much you do but how much love you put into doing it." Above our front door, we have hung a sign that says, "Today . . . small things with great love (or don't open the door).

I had become a "believer," but I had no idea what it means to be a follower. People had taught me what Christians believe, but no one had told me how Christians live.

Being in proximity makes a difference. Relationships make issues real and complicated and personal. Relationships move us from ideology to compassion. We can't love our neighbor if we don't know them. And once we are proximate, love requires us to take action, to stand up for life in tangible ways.

Imagine what would happen if the prayer movement and social justice movement converged, and we had Christians who prayed like they depend on God and lived like God depended on them? Hallelujah.

Cyril lived in the fourth century. His gift to the church was his refusal to separate good doctrine from good living, insisting that orthodoxy (right belief) and orthopraxis (right living) must be married.

But if you ask the average person how Christians live, they are struck silent.

Lord, help us stand up both to the demons that hide behind ungodly laws, and the false religion that props up injustice. Make us into a people who shine out your love so that the world might know another way is possible. Amen.

The matter is quite simple. The Bible is very easy to understand. But we Christians are a bunch of scheming swindlers. We pretend to be unable to understand it because we know very well that the minute we understand, we are obliged to act accordingly.

Second-century Christian thinker Athenagoras wrote, "Our life does not consist in making up beautiful phrases but in performing beautiful deeds.

Most good things have been said far too many times and just need to be lived. Ironically

ordinary radicals are committed to doing small things with great love.