Spring Essays 2025

Rather than thinking about material things, such as window screens or movie screens, we can look at the kind of screen that involves the selection of people according to whatever criteria the screener has in mind. Just as screening sand through a mesh of the correct size keeps back all other materials that had been mixed with the sand, screening for people by some of their qualities separates out everyone else. The purpose of the process is exclusionary.

Does God screen us? For example, are we screened so that those who love others receive blessings and those who are selfish do not? Or does God sift us so that those who do good for others and maintain their own dignity pass through, and those who cause harm to others and to themselves remain behind? How we might answer the question depends upon our image of God. Those who are certain that they know how God behaves toward us can often find support in both Scriptures and in the traditions of the religious faith that is theirs. Others may not be as sure, and from the same Scriptures and religious traditions continue to ponder the mystery of God’s mercy and judgment without coming to an either/or conclusion.  

Thinking about how God behaves concerning us can lead to the amusing idea that we, who hardly know ourselves, and who certainly do not know everything about even the person who is closest to us, can make pronouncements about God’s intentions. However, no matter what we presently think God might or might not do about screening us, we can start any search into the mystery of God with the most secure certainty of God as Love. How sick a religious faith would be if it imagined God wavering between love and meanness the way we do.

When we make the move from our minds into our hearts when pondering God’s relationship with us, peacefulness becomes the criteria for judging whether a thought about God’s behavior enhances or disturbs the graceful, sensitive awareness of God’s guiding action in our spirit that gives us certainty. We might not receive answers to questions that are more from curiosity than a heartfelt need to know. We might find, for example, that our concern is not so much about whether God screens us, as to know with a soul-satisfying knowledge that God loves us.

While we can readily accept God as having the final say as to everyone’s destiny, we will likely become uncomfortable at the thought of God being exclusionary. If peace of heart is restored by dropping the whole idea of God as “screener,” that will settle our question without a direct answer being truly required or given to us.

In the United States, many universities and colleges offer a “Spring Break” to students, intended as a time of rest and recuperation from the rigors of intensive academic studies. The reality is often quite different, as when students engage in so many activities that they return to their studies more tired than when they left. However, there is wisdom in the ideal of taking an intentional pause amid even non-physical work, where the mind and emotions are especially involved.

If we have multiple responsibilities with work, family, and other commitments, we might find it difficult or nearly impossible to take a break of even a day or two, much less an entire week. Some are so occupied with events, activities, employment and memberships in various organizations that even the thought of taking a break does not occur. Yet, our human capacity for activity usually diminishes in efficiency as well as in any awareness of fulfilling our purpose in life if we do not require of ourselves whatever pauses, breaks, or changes each of us needs.

If we were to expect that life itself or other persons should provide the equivalent of a spring break for us, it is highly unlikely that the anticipated alterations in our ongoing activities would take place. Rather, we need to do for ourselves what no one else can do. That is, we are the only ones who can decide that we will take a needed break, even if the first is to ask God to show us the way forward. We can deliberately choose to begin doing whatever is possible in our present circumstances.

We and God are the only ones who know the real burdens we carry, and only God knows for certain the obligations that we have perhaps mistakenly taken upon ourselves with great good will but with an unrealistic estimate of our unique personal set of resources. We can always ask for discernment to better understand which belong and which do not.

Some of us are called by God, but also empowered, to carry on with a manner of life that no one else could possibly manage. The most important word is “we,” which means God and us. It is indeed a mysterious but real and loving way of life to lean on God to provide us with the inspirations and insights that will enable us to discover and utilize the kind of breaks, changes in thoughts, different ways of doing things that lighten our burdens and enable us to desist from irrelevant labors. God not only completely understands our present situation, but loves us as we are, including our unrecognized needs for God’s assistance.

 The word “Lent” originally meant the season of Spring, a time for new life and growth, especially in our spirits. The best spring break for us might be to reflect on our need for a specific kind of pause that will benefit everything we do. It only takes a moment to turn consciously to God, whose loving presence is always reliably available and uniquely supportive. No appointments are necessary, and such moments will often alter for the good whatever we are doing or thinking of doing at that moment.

Everyone can opt for a spring break like this and do so many times a day rather than only once a year.

A simple proposal or a simple answer to a question does not always turn out to be such in our experience. Some simple expressions are so profound that we can never fully comprehend all that is contained in them. If someone says, “Oh, it is a simple thing,” we might think that the subject is of little consequence. However, reflecting on our past experiences regarding “simple” will often reveal depths of meaning that we would not otherwise appreciate.

A simple act of kindness, such as giving an appropriate compliment or word of praise to someone, is a quite small deed, but we do not know or control its effects. Whatever we communicate might be received as the small gesture that we considered it to be, but, as we may recall from some occurrences in our own past, sometimes a simple act of kindness touched our minds and hearts so deeply and positively that is resonates with us now as we bring it to mind. Likewise, merely pointing out to another some quality or capability of theirs that seems obvious to us may occasion a moment of significant realization which that person had not acknowledged before. Such simple interchanges can have powerful consequences.

The most significant qualities of our lives are essentially simple: faith/trust, hope, and love. How we go about trusting God and others, and how we follow our beliefs is not simple, but there is nothing inherently complicated about them, for our minds and hearts are created such that from childhood through the present moment, these gifts have been available for instant use. We become more adept with applying them the more we exercise them, but they are not subject to entropy, and do not lose their power to affect us even if we do not employ them frequently.

There is no higher value in life than love. That is a simple truth, but the way we fashion our lives in consideration of love involves complex and deeply personal ongoing adjustments. None of us would say that it is a simple matter to live a life where love would always be our highest priority. Life itself seems to grow in complexity, presenting continuing challenges to us as we seek to find and enact love in all circumstances. In addition, the very word, love, takes on different meanings in various contexts. Yet, for all this, the movement in our minds and hearts towards love is simple. No other combination of thoughts and feelings resonate as fully with our spirits as does love.

Gratitude for these simple gifts is another example of that which is simple in essence. Everyone, at any time, can give thanks to God, and we can do likewise in many daily situations with others. How simple is that?

We probably do not think of ourselves in terms of greatness, yet we might have great desires and many interior movements in which we aspire to greatness without that word or concept ever entering our minds. We often hear and may even use the word “great” as merely an expression of approval, as in “That is great news.” Similarly, we may apply the word in that sense to persons, saying that someone is simply great, or that what someone does is great. But we likely reserve our idea of true greatness for very few persons with whom we have personal experience.

The value in taking as real that there are some aspects of greatness available to all of us, and may at times be consciously our own intent, is that we will continue to grow and develop those characteristics or qualities, for they are ultimately gifts of God, who alone is great in the fullest sense of the word. So, if we have, and treat as real, some great desires to be good and loving persons, we will likely receive from God consoling graces that are the equivalent of one of us saying to another, “That’s good! Keep it up.” The sign, then, that some interior movement within us tends to greatness is an additional interior movement of peace, joy, or true contentment that will usually accompany thoughts or actions associated with our leanings toward greatness.

One kind of greatness is ascribed to famous public figures, some of them saintly, some of them not. They are accorded this term because of their deeds, whether wholly selfless like a Mother Theresa, or of benefit to some people but not to others like victorious military leaders. Another kind of greatness is closer to our experience, but much less visible to large numbers of people. Unlike famous athletes or media stars, those who are great in generally hidden circumstances includes all who generously and freely give of themselves for the benefit of others. Whether in music or art, engineering or managing, or in any other way, they do so according to a formula for greatness accessible to all: reliance on God for direction.

With so many options, pushes and pulls vying for our attention, it is of excellent practical consequences that we “check with God” about the exercise of our limited supply of time and energy. We are each given a unique and significant place in the world, which we can best live out one day at a time by continually keeping the implicit question open as to what we will do. God has no pre-programmed instructions for us, but Love has a usually gentle but sometimes insistent way of guiding us when we open our minds and hearts to inspiration and to the confirming signs of peace and joy.

It is great life, even if we say it is hard, when we give of ourselves as Love calls us to love.

Lifting involves motion which is almost always upward and carries a positive connotation. It includes the common expression of giving “a lift” to someone, usually an invitation offered by the driver of a car. We have many practical uses for the word, as when we talk about lifting something off the floor or putting something on a lift to move it from one place to another. Often too, without the word forming in our minds, we decide to lift a burden that someone bears, whether of grief, worry, or a specific difficulty. We lift from, giving release. We do not lift anything onto someone.

How good it is when someone offers to lift even a small part of whatever might weigh on us, for even if we decline, we have already been lifted in spirit simply by receiving the offer, especially when we acknowledge the considerate intention of whoever proposed to act on our behalf. We thrive on such person-to-person movements because they enliven us. They also provide the basis of true human community.

We might have good reasons for turning down a specific offer, but when we respond with gratitude, we will also receive the lift to our spirits that was directed toward us. The gift of presence, one person attending to another, may at times seem trivial and not worth acknowledging. But we are not made to carry our problems and responsibilities by ourselves alone. Every kind intention of one person toward another enhances our lives when we accept them.

We are familiar with offering to others a lift of one kind or another, which we do because we see an opportunity to be helpful to someone, not for the sake of a grateful response. When the other person either accepts our offer, or thanks us for our good intentions, a mutual bond of human caring takes place. Imagine, then, what happens when we accept a lift from God. Not only do we receive needed assistance, but we are also affected by an experience of mutual presence: God with us. Gratitude is a natural response.

Sometimes we wisely ask for a lift of some kind from God and at other times we receive spontaneous offers from God. There is a significant difference between offers from our fellow humans and those that God inspires in our minds and hearts. No matter how good their intentions, no one knows for certain whether the lift that they propose truly matches a need of ours or accords with our mental and emotional dispositions at that moment. God’s love perceives unerringly not only whatever will be helpful to us but also the moment when we have the capacity to accept it. We always retain the freedom to turn the thought and feeling away, for nothing is demanded of us, but God will never stop offering them to us.

When God offers a lift, only good takes place when we accept.

Some words do well on their own. “Why?” implies that there is a context in which it makes sense even as a one-word question. However, we can only work rationally with “until” when it is placed with a condition, like “Until sunrise, the sky is dark.” We make good conscious use of “until” when we convey specific conditions that must be met before stated consequences will follow. But if we do not take care, we might put conditions on actions that do not require them, or assume that some significant relational interactions with others, including God, are conditional when they are not.

We would not want to be the sort of person who, until others first greet us, only then will we greet them. But without proper reflection, it is possible to hold others to unacknowledged conditions before we will act positively towards them. Much worse than that is when someone implicitly accepts the belief that we cannot be loved until we earn it by what we do or say.

God’s love for us does not entail “until” which is very good news for us. We are loved unconditionally, though many of us may secretly harbor a belief that we cannot be loved until after we have corrected all our faults or some wrongful behavior. Because so much of our lives are impacted by conditional transactions, we can unconsciously use the same mental attitude in our relations with others and with God as we do when acquiring merchandise: not receiving what we desire until we have paid for it. We all want and need to be respected and loved for who we are, but none of the small or significant loving interactions that are essential in life are the direct consequences of our earning, deserving, or otherwise meeting the kind of conditions that are related to “until.”

We do not like it when someone asks us for assistance of some kind and then acts as though they must give us something in return. For us, any expression of sincere gratitude would be welcome, but not required. In a similar way, it wholly inappropriate to make a request of God with a notion that until we do something to merit whatever we seek, we will not receive anything. Not that God could be disappointed or offended by our mistaken belief, but if we are fully sensitive to our manner of asking, we might become aware of thinking of God like a good friend who would say, “I am glad to do this for you, you owe me nothing.”

We are encouraged to ask for what we need, but it is wholly respectful of God to include some quiet listening before we conclude our request. In such a moment of peacefulness, we will likely receive the equivalent of “Thank you for trusting me. That is all that is required.”      

Although gathering specific pieces of music in a sequence is what we think of as a play list, “play” and “list” do not seem to belong together. If we were to organize play according to a list, we would be making a task out of something that is supposed to be more spontaneous and recreational. Even though humans can turn almost any form of play into a form of work, we know that child’s play is not that way. And all of us, especially those who are busiest and most occupied with responsibilities, need to play in a manner that is without obligations like following a list.

To be fair, some of us listen to favorite music on a play list and are thereby refreshed. So, not every use of a list is contrary to our ways of restoring mind, body, and spirit. However, the essence of play is to let go of “must,” “should,” and “ought,” because play is not some kind of listable undertaking. Rather, play is about the freedom for allowing gentle inspirations to guide us in whatever we might choose to do.

Sometimes we might pray as though we had a play list in our minds. The use of familiar words and written prayers can help us obtain a sense of co-presence with God. At other times, praying that same way might arise from an assumed sense of obligation, akin to “should,” or we might be limited to praying that way because we are not aware of any other option. Sometimes we need to bring play into the way we communicate with God, lest we lose our appreciation for the gracious loving presence that is so close to us.

We have no intention of turning the way we pray into a game, but we are free to be ourselves when we consciously engage with the One who loves us as we are. We might find joy, with an accompanying smile on our faces, when we admit some of the thoughts and behavior to God that we would be embarrassed to share with anyone else. In some ways, it might be a form of play when we call to mind many of the specific graces and blessings we have received, whether recently or in the past. Just as we can be playful with words when we converse with a good friend, we are free in God’s presence to put words and thoughts together without being concerned about proper grammar or logical sequence. Rather, we let our creative imaginations guide the way we express ourselves.

Playing is not the same as relaxing or resting, though these too belong as practices of being ourselves with God. When we play in prayer, as when we actively participate with anyone else, we focus on conversing, glad to be doing it. So, in prayer, we might, for example, engage in imaginative engagement with a Gospel story, and recognize it as joy-producing play.

Play and pray belong together.

Perhaps holy persons are those who are wholly committed to doing whatever they believe to be good for others according to their values. And a holy thing would be whatever is wholly dedicated for good purposes. We know of people, places, and things that are called “holy” by those who believe them to be wholly oriented towards goodness, God, or the benefit of people. Many believers all over the world call the entire week “Holy” that begins with Palm Sunday. We will likely increase and deepen our sense of whatever we find to be so wholly good as to be holy if we explore our own experiences regarding goodness. 

As individuals, few of us would think that we can determine who or what is holy. However, we are obliged by our own integrity of belief to acknowledge whether we are wholly convinced of what is named as holy even if very many people and even religious institutions call someone or something holy. No one can force us to love, because love is only possible when we are free to choose. The same is true for holiness. We can wholly consent to identifying persons or things as holy only when we have interior freedom to do so. Not surprisingly, love and holiness are mutually supporting spiritual realities.

So, before agreeing or reserving judgement about a church or other place of prayer, a book or altar table, an action or bodily posture, or a time or leader acknowledged by many as holy, we necessarily consult our inner “holiness detector.” Experiences of reverence, peaceful acceptance, or openness of our hearts to mystery beyond intellectual knowledge, all resonate with our sense for holiness. Any sense of imposition, power-seeking, or manipulation steers us away. If we find ourselves honestly uncertain, we avoid rushing to conclusions and may seek more information, for “faith seeks understanding.” At the same time, we know that reason is not the same as the gift of faith that God puts into our hearts.

None of us would say to others that we are holy, for good as we may be, we are never, even on our best days, wholly loving of God and others. However, the ultimate judge of holiness is God, who not only gives us free will, but guides, inspires and encourages us to aspire to goodness and love. God, in Scripture, calls those “holy” who seek to grow according to the gifts of grace that we receive, specifically adapted to each of us as unique persons.” There is no contradiction in God’s view of us as being holy even though we are only striving rather than wholly committed in every way to becoming someone for whom goodness and love are the definitions of our identity. We can do no more than we are enabled to do by the graces we receive.

This day, God lovingly gives us life, and loves us, knowing full well that we are not wholly holy. And that is good enough.

We can talk realistically about undying love only if we believe that love does not come to an end. God, who is Love, certainly does not come to an end. However, we can see the same endlessness of love in some of our own experiences including the death of a loved one. We do not stop loving at that moment even if we do not at first recognize the pain of loss as a sure indication of ongoing love. Over time, the pain might diminish, and we might become less and less aware of the continuance of our love. But that love is not just ours, for it also abides in the other person who did not just die and disappear but has been joined to God’s eternal love and continues to love us.

The Easter story supports our reflections upon the undying aspect of love when we let ourselves be present to the mysterious revelation of God’s love that alone make sense of the immeasurable injustice of Jesus’ suffering and death. There is no human logic that can support the concept of eternal love that transcends the absolute unfairness of what was done to the one who loved and still loves us all, but our own capacity to love undyingly literally arises with Jesus after his death by crucifixion. Only God could make this kind of victory from such an apparent defeat, but Love does not come to an end for God, and now, not for us either.

Even if our minds cannot comprehend the relationship with Jesus’ love and the removal of death as the barrier to our own capacity to love, we can appreciate our common practice of praying for those who have died. It is an act of loving kindness, even if we cannot see or sense any results while we are doing so. Although living people might express gratitude if we let them know that we pray for them and their concerns, we do not depend upon their positive feedback to validate our kind intentions. In a like manner, we do not depend upon perceived words from loved ones and revered holy ones who have died, to accept that they love us. When we pray for others, we are comfortable with such a manner of caring. As we accept that those who have passed through death to a fuller way of being present with God care for us, we can also rightly take comfort.

Although some careful reasoning may help us with our belief that love does not come to an end, the most effective learning is from the experience of taking time to prayerfully ponder, and let ourselves be present in, one or more of the Resurrection stories in the Gospels. Jesus himself will gladly illumine more brightly the gift of undying love that he gained for us when he rose from the dead. We can ask for this grace, and we will surely receive it.

We often experience joy when we give gifts to others, including the gift of presence when we choose to spend time with them. We also often experience joy when people give gifts to us, whether material goods or through other manifestations of their care for us. This is one aspect of joy which we likely consider ordinary. There is another joy, given directly by God, which is an infallible sign of God’s presence within and among us.

Only God can give us this gift directly, and God is also personally present in every experience of joy that occurs in any of us. We want others to receive joy, and we desire the same for ourselves. These impulses, like all movements of love, originate in God, who is Love. It is not as though God reserves joy as some kind of prerogative reserved for exclusive use, but all our common experiences of joy are consequences of God’s loving inspirations and guidance given to us.

We do not create ourselves. Love chooses to create each of us and to hold us in being in our present context of time, and to make eternal joy available for us by having become one of us. Christ died for us and rose for us. When we think about, reflect upon, and pray with beliefs like these, our joy affirms not just our acceptance of true concepts, but affirms us directly, because God reveals self within us. We find that in those moments when we become more than ordinarily aware of beliefs that support our real relationship with God, joy is a consequence. We do not cause it. Rather, it indicates how we are in direct contact with God.  

Such joy is not restricted to prayer experiences. Far from it, joy sometimes catches us when we are occupied with care for others even when it is physically and emotionally draining. And we might at times suffer in bodily pain or mental anguish while still trusting God and there too, be surprised by the closeness of God made manifest by joy. Any time when we are living according to our values and beliefs, no matter how little awareness of God we might have at those times, we are often surprised by joy. It is as though we had already given God a key to our home, and so God can come in unannounced, and cannot help but instigate a movement of joy upon entering.

Even when we send messages that wish joy to others, with barely a thought as to what we mean, God can make use of even the mere mention of the word to touch a recipient with a barely perceptible but still quite real sense of a loving presence. God is in that, and it is joy.

When people tell us their names, we treat those self-identifiers as of far more significance than their addresses, phone numbers, or even their present occupation. “Holy Spirit” is a personal name of God, frequently mentioned in connection with the procedure for selecting a new pope, but also a name we might be glad to hear in relation to many aspects of our daily lives. We are not talking about a kind of power, but about someone who both is and has infinite creative power: Love.

Right from the very notion of creation itself, of which Scripture has God saying, “It is good,” the Holy Spirit moved and moves in and through all that exists, for Love is creative. Nothing is, unless it, and we, are loved into being. It is wholly appropriate then, that we turn to the Holy Spirit when we desire the power of God’s creative love to guide us in any decision or action of our own or of anyone else whose decisions or actions are of importance to us. When we pray in this way, we participate in and with the Holy Spirit’s movements that affect us and all that concerns us.

We can treat anyone’s name with much or little respect, depending upon whatever relationship we have with each person. When we reflect on the names of any we know, and ponder our experiences of them, our hopes and concerns in relation to them, and the degree of our regard for them, we cannot help but grow closer as we note the spontaneous authentic movements of our hearts and minds. If we let ourselves consciously think about the manifestations of the Holy Spirit’s gifts and graces that we have received, consolation is a very likely consequence. It is hard to imagine, even theoretically, that anyone could engage in this exercise and discover that they do not wish to grow closer to God.

When we relate with family, friends, and all others, we have our experience in doing so and they have theirs. We take our understanding of their perspectives regarding us by what they say and do, including subtle tones of voice and non-verbal gestures. By these means, we come to trust others, having no guarantee or proof for our beliefs in other’s respect or care for us. Our experience of the Holy Spirit is similar in depending upon our belief, including our attention to the overt and subtle ways the Holy Spirit speaks and acts, but quite different in the way we hear God’s voice and perceive God’s actions concerning us. We only need to allow the name, “Holy Spirit” into consciousness, and observe what takes place within us, to experience directly the benefits of the gift of faith that already resides in us.

Even if we do not receive intellectual understanding about the Holy Spirit, our hearts will resonate with the transcendent truth that God is good to us and for us.

If you were in Rome, and suddenly met Pope Leo, do you know for certain what you would say? In most unplanned meetings with people, we manage to say something appropriate, depending in part on what we know of the other, but also depending upon our level of confidence and our perception of the other’s degree of friendliness or of formality. In some situations, we deem it appropriate to be the first to offer some kind of greeting and to identify ourselves. At other times, we prefer to let the other person take the lead. For some of us, these situations are quite uncomfortable, while others are delighted to meet new people. Reflecting on our own experiences will lead to gratitude rather than self-criticism if we look first to our meetings with God.

When we pray, some of us begin with a gesture of greeting, whether of a slight bow or just a lowering of our eyes. Others speak a ritual word or words to begin. Still others focus their attention on God, awaiting a sense of welcoming presence. In whatever ways we move from our occupations to a meeting with God, whether by an inspiration-invitation or by our planning, practice, or habit, we often begin with at least an implicit greeting that might be in words or simply a focus of our attention. No one has ever had an experience in which God expressed disapproval for how we began a prayer-encounter. Rather, we have more likely learned that, when we begin our prayer with a conscious greeting, it leads to an increased sense of immediacy of God with us. 

However, when we are already aware of, or simply believing that we are in the presence of God, we might spontaneously comment or ask for help in the silence of our minds without any kind of greeting as we begin to pray in this way. Gratitude is natural when we reflect on the no-risk guarantee of a positive reception when we turn our minds and hearts to God. Whether we offer greetings to God or do not, there is no cause for anxiety about how we might be perceived. Before a thought of praying even occurs to us, the Spirit of God is already with us, drawing us into whatever kind of contact for which we are ready at that specific moment.

Whenever we pray, we do not have to give our names or describe who we are. Rather, we find out who we are at our deepest level once we open ourselves freely to God’s loving attention to us. Any greeting we might employ will merely be a human way for us to begin, for God is always present loving us even when we are wholly unaware of it until the moment when we direct our thoughts, or find ourselves drawn, towards God.

One of the most familiar and pleasant greetings we can give to those whom we know is a warm smile. That also works with God.

On a day when things are turning out as we wish, we might say that life is good. When frustrations or painful memories oppress us, we might think that life is just one difficulty after another. Both are generalizations, based on the feelings of the moment. Life is surely much more than that.

We did not choose to be born, but each of us becomes responsible for how we live and for how we value life. The two are closely related, since the way we live very often depends upon what we believe about our life, and much of what we believe about life depends upon how we live. If we see life as a gift rather than an impersonal accident of nature, we tend to fully utilize mind, body, and heart in the way we live. And if we reflect with gratitude on what we receive and give in life, our belief in the goodness of life increases.

We also know what it is like when we feel blocked in our intentions and unappreciated for what we do and then wonder if life truly has meaning. Or, when we look too much at the miseries of life, we can almost literally lose heart and find that we have little energy for doing things that bring joy to us and to others.

The greatest perspective about life comes, paradoxically, when we think about what happens after life. That is, when we honestly accept that this life as we know it comes to an end and consider what we believe awaits us in an after-life, we are liable to include God in our reflections about this life, and to more fully appreciate that it does not really end with death. However, if we rarely think of our lives as being related to God, we might not be aware of who we are even in the present, much less who we are called to be after we have finished living in this temporary environment of restricted time and space.

We often perceive life as truly precious when it is threatened, whether because of something affecting our health or due to an external cause for concern. But the most profound experiences of valuing our lives, even if we might be severely limited physically, accompanies our awareness of God as choosing us to be who we are. This radical choice is for now and always, since love, of which God makes us capable, does not end any more than God who is love comes to an end. We are, through no deed of our own, participants in God’s eternal life. We can choose to ignore or even deny our origin and intended after-life, but just as we did not choose to be born, we cannot choose to opt out of living forever.

The radical choice that is ours is whether to love.