To see Christ as God and man is probably no more difficult today than it has always been, even if today there seem to be more reasons to doubt. For you it may be a matter of not being able to accept what you call a suspension of the laws of the flesh and the physical, but for my part I think that when I know what the laws of the flesh and the physical really are, then I will know what God is. We know them as we see them, not as God sees them. For me it is the virgin birth, the Incarnation, the resurrection which are the true laws of the flesh and the physical. Death, decay, destruction are the suspension of these laws. I am always astonished at the emphasis the Church puts on the body. It is not the soul she says that will rise but the body, glorified. I have always thought that purity was the most mysterious of the virtues, but it occurs to me that it would have never entered the human consciousness to conceive of purity if we were not to look forward to a resurrection of the body, which will be flesh and spirit united in peace, in the way they were in Christ. The resurrection of Christ seems the high point of the law of nature.

This is what it means to be God’s creature—not to be a self-made, self-standing individual over against God, but to exist from God and through God. We are creatures precisely in that we live in God and God lives in us. We are sinful creatures when we fail to recognize this and live as if we were self-made, self-standing individuals. Being a new creature, redeemed from sin, is in this regard similar to being a creature as God originally created us to be. It’s to live in Christ and to have Christ live in us. United with Christ, we live in God and God lives in us.

When I think of the incredible, incomprehensible sweep of creation above me, I have the strange reaction of feeling fully alive. Rather than feeling lost and unimportant and meaningless, set against galaxies which go beyond the reach of the furthest telescopes, I feel that my life has meaning. Perhaps I should feel insignificant, but instead I feel a soaring in my heart that the God who could create all this—and out of nothing—can still count the hairs of my head.

Of course there are many of us who look unselfish and dutiful, simply because we can’t say no: We say yes to everything, and people are always using us. Everybody says, “Oh, you’re so selfless, so giving of yourself; you need to think more about taking care of yourself.” But think about those of us who don’t have boundaries and who let people walk all over us and use us and can’t say no—do you think we’re doing that out of love for other people? Of course not, we’re doing it out of need—we say yes to everything out of fear and cowardice. That’s far from glorifying others. To glorify others means to unconditionally serve them, not because we’re getting anything out of it, just because of our love and appreciation for who they truly are.

Union with Christ is union with all those to whom he gives himself. I cannot possess Christ just for myself; I can belong to him only in union with all those who have become, or who will become, his own. Communion draws me out of myself towards him and, thus, towards unity with all Christians.

To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything, and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you give your heart to no one, not even to an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements; lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket—safe, dark, motionless, airless—it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. The alternative to tragedy, or at least to the risk of tragedy, is damnation. The only place outside of Heaven where you can be perfectly safe from all the dangers and perturbations of love is Hell.

For me, to do theology is to write a love letter to the God in whom I believe, to the people to whom I belong, and to the Church of which I am a part. It is a love that recognizes perplexity, even disgust, but that above all brings deep joy.

Grace has a grand laughter in it.