A Pilgrim’s Notebook: Seeking Christ Beyond the Walls

Seeking Christ Beyond the Walls

Here is a collection of quotes, notes, and personal reflections I have collected over the last several years, reorganized into a cohesive, structured journal of Bible study and spiritual reflections.

The material has been grouped into seven thematic movements that capture my journey as a seeking, Christ-centered, open-hearted Christian.

A Pilgrim’s Notebook: Seeking Christ Beyond the Walls

I. On Being a Seeker: Faith as a Journey

"I am a seeker, my faith is a journey, a 'pilgrimage' of seeking a deeper understanding of God."

• On Divine Understanding:

  "I am a seeker. God is not going to punish me for trying to figure it all out!"

  — Howard Schreiber

• The In-Between Space:

  "I may be too liberal for the Christians and too Christian for the liberals."

• Curiosity Over Certainty:

  "People need to be more curious in their faith... Over time, I begin to wonder whether the heart of spiritual life might be far simpler than the systems we have built around it."

• Reframing Theology:

  "Theology is a misnomer because it isn’t the study of God. It’s the study of observations we made about the world, which led us to ideas about God."

II. The Core of My Faith: Christ in Everything

"I believe the Christ story, I am a follower of Christ, I see Christ in everything, I guess that makes me a Christian. I believe in the Trinity (God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit)."

• The Mystery of the Incarnation:

  "The concept of an all-mighty, all-powerful God sending His Son to earth to be with us—to be one of us, even, for just a little while so we would understand. He could talk to us in our own language—we wouldn’t be afraid of God; we would understand God, and He could tell us what we needed to do to save ourselves."

• The Universal Christ:

  "Rohr sees the Christ everywhere, and not just in people. He reminds us that the first incarnation of God is in Creation itself, and he tells us that 'God loves things by becoming them.'"

  — Fr. Richard Rohr (from the dedication of The Universal Christ to his dog, Venus)

• The Noise That Covers Love:

  "You know what’s wrong with Christianity? It’s like learning that someone truly beautiful and wonderful has fallen in love with you—but all of your mutual friends keep busy telling you how you must act or behave or what you must do in order to be 'worthy' of that love. All their advice, instructions, demands, etc. create such a din that it’s easy to forget that this was all about love to begin with."

  — Carl McColman

III. The Upside-Down Kingdom & Fresh Eyes on Scripture

"Reading the Bible with Fresh Eyes means approaching Scripture in a way that allows for new insights and deeper understanding, rather than letting familiar passages become stale."

• The Kingdom Within & Among Us:

  "The Kingdom of God is an upside-down kingdom. Or perhaps it's a right-side-up kingdom in an upside-down world. The greatest among us are those who serve... where the first are last and the last first." (Reflections on Luke 17:21)

• The Parables as Music:

  "Jesus's stories (parables) are like music being played on different instruments in different keys. Even though they are presented differently, they ultimately harmonize to create a richer and fuller understanding of His teachings."

  — Dr. Amy-Jill Levine

• Understanding How Scripture Came to Be:

  "The Bible didn’t fall out of heaven all at once. Instead, it is a product of thousands of years of oral traditions, unknown numbers of writers, documents, editors, languages, biblical redactors, meticulous curation, arranging, and editing spread out over centuries... written between 3,000 and 2,000 years ago."

  — Bp. John Shelby Spong

• The Song of the Prophets:

  "All the Prophets were singing from the same songbook, but they sang different parts. The Song: 'You have broken your promise to God. Repent now or face judgment. But after the judgment, God will ultimately restore and save you through the Messiah.'"

IV. Beyond Tribalism: God Among the Nations

"All religions have their own way of connecting to God... Who said God is limited to Christians? That would be a puny God I don’t believe in. Mine can create universes by going 'Let there be light.'"

• Pointing to the Mystery:

  "God is not a Christian, God is not a Jew, or a Muslim, or a Hindu, or a Buddhist. All of those are human systems that human beings have created to try to help us walk into the mystery of God. I honor my tradition, I walk through my tradition, but I don't think my tradition defines God; I think it only points me to God."

  — Bp. John Shelby Spong

• Outgrowing Superiority:

  "I stopped needing other religions to be wrong to be right. Be the best version of your own faith."

  (In the spirit of Mother Teresa: "Be the best Hindu you can be, be the best Muslim you can be. etc.")

• The Common Thread of Grace (The Golden Rule):

  "The Golden Rule is arguably the most consistent moral thread in human history. Whether it’s 'Do unto others' (Jesus), 'Hurt not others in ways that you yourself would find hurtful' (Buddhism), or 'No one of you is a believer until he desires for his brother that which he desires for himself' (Islam), the core frequency is the same."

• Paul and the Universal Light:

  "If the Apostle Paul had lived in the internet age, he likely would have seen deep similarities in the teachings of Buddha, Lao Tzu, or the Dalai Lama... not as rivals to the gospel, but faint reflections of the same divine Light already moving through all things... The Cross is the place where love and human suffering meet to reveal the hidden unity behind all wisdom traditions."

  — Howard Schreiber

• On the Urgency of Loving Others:

  "If the gospel isn't good news for everybody, then it isn't good news for anybody."

  — Rob Bell

V. Rethinking Heaven, Hell, and Eternity

"Eternity, by definition, never starts or stops. We’re in eternity right now." — Richard Rohr

• Heaven on Earth:

  "Not down there or up there—it has always been about heaven and earth becoming one. There are no logical answers if all you’re concerned about is the afterlife. Focus on finding Heaven on Earth. Following the path of Love: love yourself and love your neighbor as yourself. 'Heaven' and 'Hell' are here, every minute, depending on our choices."

  — Fr. Richard Rohr

• Grace vs. Mercy:

  "Grace is getting what you don’t deserve; mercy is not getting what you do deserve."

• Radical Inclusivity at the Table:

  "Our conventional interpretations make it seem as though Jesus said, 'Forget everything you’ve seen in me, the way I’ve accepted prostitutes and tax collectors and welcomed outsiders. Believe instead that God will reject everyone except people who share doctrinal viewpoints.' It makes me want to cry, or groan, or scream."

  — Brian McLaren

• Confronting Our Convictions:

  "How much do you have to hate somebody to believe everlasting life is possible and not tell them? If I believed beyond a shadow of a doubt that a truck was bearing down on you, I would crawl over broken glass on my naked knees to tell you."

  — Penn Jillette (A reminder of the weight of true belief)

VI. Suffering, Redemption, and Renewal

"Don’t judge me by my past. I don’t live there anymore." — Zig Ziglar

• Why Does God Allow Suffering?

  "Nothing forces a person to confront their true self like suffering. Suffering causes our focus to turn inward... Most of the suffering in our world is artificial, and we have the resources to solve problems like world hunger, war, and famine. Maybe instead of asking why God allows these things to happen, we should ask ourselves why we allow suffering to continue?"

  — Keith Giles (Jesus Untangled)

• Love as the Ultimate Agent:

  "Love wastefully."

  "Not all of us can do great things. But we can do small things with great love."

  — Mother Teresa

• The River of Unity:

  "'Eventually, all things merge into one, and a river runs through it.' That closing line from Norman Maclean’s A River Runs Through It suggests that even the most complex or painful parts of life eventually smooth out into a single, unified story."

VII. Humility, Ego, and Inner Struggle

"For I know that good itself does not dwell in me, that is, in my sinful nature. For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out." — Romans 7:18

• The Trap of Self-Righteousness:

  "In many ways, we have lost the true sense of the holiness of God and that has caused pride to grow and fester among us. Everyone seems to start out with the assumption that their opinion of a situation or of God is right, rather than recognizing that all of us have an incomplete, flawed knowledge of God. Without humility, we will never have unity."

  — Francis Chan

• The Ego vs. The Spirit:

"The ego is always at war with the Spirit of God. It says what is only good for 'me' and forgets what is good for us."

• There are no others: The quote is attributed to the Advaita Vedanta master Ramana Maharshi:

Questioner: "How are we to treat others?"

Ramana Maharshi: "There are no others."

It encapsulates non-duality (Advaita)—the belief that individual separation is an illusion and all existence is one unified consciousness. At the level of ultimate reality, there is no "other" to treat.