Quotes about Existence

And he will bring justice to the nations. He will not quarrel, nor scream at people. You will not be able to hear his voice above the chatter of the street. In bringing discernment of what is good and right to the point where it actually governs human existence, he will not use even the violence it takes to finish breaking a stick that is already cracked or smother a smoking wick. (Matt. 12:18—21, quoted from Isa. 42:1—4)

He comes where we are, and he brings us the life we hunger for. An early report reads, "Life was in him, life that made sense of human existence" (John 1:4). To be the light of life, and to deliver God's life to women and men where they are and as they are, is the secret of the enduring relevance of Jesus. Suddenly they are flying right-side up, in a world that makes sense.

The ease, lightness, and power of his Way we rarely enjoy, much less see, as the pervasive and enduring quality of our street-level human existence.

We can be sure that heaven in the sense of our afterlife is just our future in this universe. There is not another universe besides this one. God created the heavens and the earth. That's it. And much of the difficulty in having a believable picture of heaven and hell today comes from the centuries-long tendency to "locate" them in "another reality" outside the created universe.

Life in general can carry on within limits even though some of its specific needs are not adequately met. A plant or animal without the appropriate food, light, or space may lead a weakened and deformed existence, but one that is still a life. Human life is not what it could be, though it is still here, still going on. But the question is, what is human life being cut off from to leave it in such a sad and depleted condition?

Let us now be perfectly clear. Your life is not something from which you can stand aside and consider what it would have been like had you had a different one. There is no "you" apart from your actual life. You are not separate from your life, and in that life you must find the goodness of God. Otherwise, you will not believe that he has done well by you, and you will not truly be at peace with him.

The Trinity is the model of life as it is intended to be in human existence, the basis for Christian community.

Bodily habits are the primary form in which human evil exists in practical life.

We see the reality of Jesus risen, his actual existence now as a person who is present among his people. We find him in his ecclesia, his sometimes motley but always glorious crew of called-out ones.

it is good that you are alive: your life is good, it is good that you are who you are, and it is good that you do the work you do.

Evolution itself is an "order" that requires explanation if any order does, and it presupposes, as we have just seen, a vast scale of order and existence within which alone it can occur. Whether evolution occurs with regard to plant and animal species (which was Darwin's concern), that has no serious implications at all, taken by itself, for the existence of God.

So the kingdom of the heavens, from the practical point of view in which we all must live, is simply our experience of Jesus' continual interaction with us in history and throughout the days, hours, and moments of our earthly existence.