To be truly Christian...

'To be truly Christian means to see Christ everywhere, to know Him as all in all.

I don't mean to water down my Christianity into a vague kind of universalism, with Buddha and Mohammed all being more or less equal to Jesus--not at all! But neither do I want to tell God (or my friends) where he can and cannot be seen! We human beings far too often tend to codify God, to fell that we know where He is and where He is not, and this arrogance leads to such things as the Spanish Inquisition, the Salem Witch Burnings, and has the result of further fragmenting an already broken Christendom.

Unamuno might be describing the artist as well as the Christian as he writes, "Those who believe they believe in God, but without passion in the heart, without anguish of mind, without uncertainty, without doubt, and even at times without despair, believe only in the idea of God, and not in God himself." ' -- Madeleine L'Engle, Walking on Water

It is interesting that the ultimate event in Christianity, the death, burial and resurrection of Christ, is referred to as his 'passion'. This from the Catholic Encyclopedia:

The sufferings of Our Lord, which culminated in His death upon the cross, seem to have been conceived of as one inseparable whole from a very early period. Even in the Acts of the Apostles (i, 3) St. Luke speaks of those to whom Christ "shewed himself alive after his passion"

How is your 'passion'? What moves you to tears? To shouts of joy, or indignation? What 'causes' would you be willing to die for? Are you willing to pick up your cross this week and follow Christ?