“The kind of spirituality Jesus calls us to is less about withdrawal, protection, safety, and preserving our lives as we know them, and more about risk, vulnerability, and even mutual dependence. On this path, we make progress not by practicing ‘shelter in place’ but by being able to touch what frightens us in the world. We make progress by removing the protective walls, the clear boundaries dividing the world into good and bad, and engaging with it, struggling with it, and in the process, discovering new levels of God’s expansiveness.
“On this path, we are asked to let go of what prompts us to reject people even before considering their experience and, instead, touch what is foreign to us. We touch what is foreign to us so that we may risk being changed by it, because we know there is no transformation without change. This is what conversion — a lifelong process — is all about. As my friend Fr. Michael Holleran once said to me, if you have not changed your mind on any of the big issues you believe in, most likely you have not been following the guidance of the Holy Spirit in your life. Most likely you have not been open enough to people to hear what God may be whispering to you through them. The lesson that Jesus is teaching seems to be that simple.”
