I was taken aback by the question. No one has ever asked me that before. Certainly not a student – certainly not right in the middle of class.

I realized that I teach here as though I were in a monastery. As though my purpose to teach here was received from heaven itself. Here I can sing, in the presence of angels, a song of His love for each of my students and for every human being.

“Jesus led them out into that boat, Maddie,” I tell her. “He wanted them to experience that storm. It seemed like he was sleeping in the midst of it; but really he was waiting for them at a deeper level. . . “

An ember from God’s throne is a material element that is on the way but has not yet been transmuted into flame. It is, we might say, both matter and fire; or, we might further say, it is both matter and spirit.

Today, I saw the open gateway to that Temple. I saw the door cracked open. I saw a glimpse into what God sees and yearns for and waits for. The place in the human heart where the Word of God enters.

If the telos of marriage is eternal, should it surprise us that those who will fulfill it occupy God’s thought and attention before time came to be?

Today, I tell the kids, we are going to do Theology Lab; we are going to DO Theology. We are going to take Scripture, put it into practice and see what kind of reaction results.

“That is why you are here,” I say to the kids. “To learn to become a tabernacle, on earth, of the Holy Trinity. And thus to participate in divine life.”

I’ve seen some amazing things in my life. But I have yet to see an ailing back and an aging chair providentially lead to a breakthrough in human and racial understanding. Today, I did.

We may not wish to hear it, but as there is no athletic excellence without suffering, so there is no Theosis, no transformation of the soul into Christ’s image, without the mystery of the Cross.