Pastrix: The Cranky, Beautiful Faith of a Sinner & Saint

by Nadia Bolz-Weber

This community will disappoint them. It’s a matter of when, not if. We will let them down or I’ll say something stupid and hurt their feelings.

it’s hard keeping so many contradictions together by yourself.

This desire to learn what the faith is from those who have lived it in the face of being told they are not welcome or worthy is far more than “inclusion.”

I mean, let’s face it, “nothing” is God’s favorite material to work with.

I tried to muster up the interest and stamina it takes to greet each person with the honor he or she deserves.

doesn’t require the right feelings of niceness

This is the ambiguity of our fragile, messy human existence. I long for black and white, I really do, but that’s not how I experience the world.

And every time I go looking for God amidst sorrow, I always find Jesus at the cross. In death and resurrection.

A God who suffers, not only for us, but with us.

I need to believe that God does not initiate suffering; God transforms it.

Identity. It’s always God’s first move.

Our identity has nothing to do with how we are perceived by others.

join me in picturing evil and darkness not as powerful and unstoppable but as desperate and vulnerable.

“Faith is what someone knows to be true, whether they believe it or not.”

The kingdom of heaven starts out small and then gets big.

as if he needed to be cleaned up for Easter visitors so he looked more impressive and so no one would be offended by the truth. But then what we all end up with is a perverted idea of what resurrection looks like.

The greatest spiritual practice is just showing up.

This is my spiritual community, where messy, beautiful people come as they are to gather around a story and a table