We might hope to change the world through better, bigger programs to stop global warming, but global warming will not end unless people become less greedy and less wasteful, gaining a fresh vision of what it means to love our global neighbor.

We can also cling to the treasures of our faith and get rid of the things that are cluttering that. It is a time we are seeing some trending away from the things that were cluttering our faith.

You can't really learn God's hope like you learn the logic of an argument or the details of a story. It's more like learning to belly laugh. You catch hope from someone who has it down in their gut.

I moved to Philadelphia to go to school at Eastern partly because I wanted to study the Bible and I also went to study sociology. I like how Karl Barth said we have to read the Bible in one hand and the newspaper in the other so that our faith doesn't just become a ticket into heaven and a license to ignore the world around us.

I wondered if there were other restless people asking the question with me: What if Jesus meant the stuff he said?.

We're remembering each other's heroes, too. We are learning each other's songs. We are reminding ourselves that we are a global family praying together. We're all trying to live in the light of the history that shines through the biblical narrative.

If those of us who believe in God do not believe God's grace is big enough to save the whole world... well, we should at least pray that it is.