If your church conveys that spirit of condescension or judgment, it's likely not a place where grace is on tap.

Forgiveness is the only way to break the cycle of blame-and pain-in a relationship...It does not settle all questions of blame and justice and fairness...But it does allow relationships to start over. In that way, said Solzhenitsyn, we differ from all animals. It is not our capacity to think that makes us different, but our capacity to repent, and to forgive.

The camera follows a young woman as she makes her way through the stands to an area set aside for repentance and conversion. But Jesus' stories imply that far more may be going on out there: beyond that stadium scene, in a place concealed from all camera lenses, a great party has erupted, a gigantic celebration in the unseen world.

We admit that we will never reach our ideal in this life, a distinctive the church claims that most other human institutions try to deny.

People want to go back to those old days, but it's probably not going to happen.

Doubt always coexists with faith, for in the presence of certainty who would need faith at all?

Prayer is - keeping company with God.