Reflection for October 21

The holy life is not lived in isolation, in sterile conditions of religious purity, where everyone agrees and everyone gets along. Conformity is the death of creativity. Instead it is lived in the noisy marketplace of ideas and opinions, amid the many smells and sounds of our common humanity, the exhilarating and frustrating reality of being alive in the midst of life. If our fingernails are not dirty then we probably have not been practicing our religion. If our faith has not entertained a question we probably have not been thinking. Welcome to the holy chaos of God (Bishop Steven Charleston).