Image: Jorge Bautista Dear Beloved Community,    This Sunday we’ll reflect on Mark 1:9–15 alongside Mary Oliver’s poem “Wild Geese.” In Mark’s gospel, Jesus begins not with a list of achievements, but with baptism, and a voice of belonging: “You are my beloved.” Before Jesus preaches or proves anything, God names him as loved. And then, surprisingly, the Spirit drives him into the wilderness, reminding us that hard seasons are not signs of failure, but places where truth is f

Image: Jorge Bautista Dear Beloved Community,  This Sunday’s gospel, coming from Matthew 5:13-20, holds a surprising kind of comfort: Jesus doesn’t tell us to become salt and light. He names what is already true. “You are the salt of the earth… You are the light of the world.” And here’s the good news: salt can’t actually lose its saltiness. You can crush it, dissolve it, scatter it—after everything, it’s still salt. In the same way, nothing can take away the God-given “flav