Many think Jesus came to earth so you and I can have a special kind of spiritual experience and then go merrily along, as long as we pray and read our Bibles and develop intimacy with the unseen God but ignore the others-oriented life of justice and love and peace that Jesus embodied.

God is love so all God does is loving.

Angels will frequently - even when they're comforting us with good news - touch the awe of God's eternal presence and drive us to our knees before our God of glory.

God's idea of redemption is community-shaped.

I've never spoken with an angel, though one time I felt the awesome weight and glory of God's presence in an angel in my bedroom as I kneeled in prayer. I kept my eyes closed, good Baptist that I was at the time, so I never knew if it was an angel. (I now am reasonably confident it was.)

Prayer is the way to die to our own wishes and surrender everything to God.

To walk into the Jefferson memorial is to be in a temple of the pure idolatry of reason