Corey Jones Blog

Jesus was portrayed simply as having the courage to be himself under any set of circumstances.  The Being of Jesus thus issues in enormous freedom. It delivers us from the need to impress, to win, or to protect ourselves.  It calls us only to be the self we are, the deepest self, the most real […]

Forget about self-confidence; it's useless.  Cultivate God-confidence. (The Message Bible, 356.) (You can substitute goddess or spirit or Higher Power or ancestors or Love or anything else-The point is to have confidence in something bigger than yourself that guides your life, even if it's just trust in your own intuition instead of your ego.)  Talking […]

God is the source of everything that is in every moment of time.  For this view, affirming that God is creator is not primarily a statement about origination in the remote past, rather, it is a statement about the present dependence of the universe upon God.  (72, Marcus Borg, Reading the Bible Again for the First […]

That means we will not compare ourselves with each other as if one of us were better and another worse.  We have far more interesting things to do with our lives.  Each one of us is an original."  (The Message Bible, 402) In the hospital, I overheard someone call another an “entitled Borderline,” and that […]

Produce fruit that shows you have changed your hearts and lives.  (Matthew 3:8) Last Tuesday, I spent the day in Macon taking a continuing education workshop on certified peer support ethics. The presenters kept reminding us of the Hippocratic oath, which begins with the famous phrase, “First, do no harm” and I kept wondering to myself, […]

They were so absorbed in their “God projects” that they didn’t notice God right in front of them, like a huge rock in the middle of the road. And so they stumbled into him and went sprawling.  (The Message Bible, 325) The two writings below feel very special, almost sacred, to me.  They helped me […]

“It’s exactly the same no matter what a person’s religious background may be, the same God for all of us, acting the same incredibly generous way to everyone who calls out for help.  Everyone who calls, ‘Help, God!’ Gets help. (The Message Bible)   Sunday night I went back to the church I grew up […]

“May the God of green hope fill you up with joy, fill you up with peace, so that our believing lives, filled with the life-giving energy of Holy Spirit, will brim over with hope! (336, The Message Bible)  Cause-and-effect assumes history marches forward, but history is not an army. It is a crab scuttling sideways, […]

“The story doesn’t end with Jesus. It continues in the lives of those who believe in him.  (The Message Bible, 240) How do you recognize a panic attack or being triggered?  How can one cope with hearing or seeing scary things?  I had an experience the other day that I felt compelled to write down […]

Everyone I meet - it matters little whether they’re mannered or rude, smart or simple-deepens my sense of  interdependence and obligation.  (The Message Bible, 307) 2017: this will always be the year of the Donald Trump election and so politically it is a terribly sad year for progessives.  Oh yes, it’s seen an increase in activism […]