It’s amazing how quickly a spirituality of subtraction becomes evident to people. I believe we’re in the process of recognizing our shadow side, our addiction to addition.

No monotheistic Jewish girl at that time could ever have been prepared for the Incarnation. God is perfectly transcendent and beyond everything. And if she believed the rabbis’ teaching that God comes in words, in the Torah and in the Commandments, then nothing prepared her for believing that God could become flesh and body. The Incarnation had nothing to do with theology. It was rather about vulnerability, about letting go, about emptiness, about self-surrender –and none of that is in the head.

The painful mystery of things, the injustice of it all, the mixed blessing, just is. Nothing is gained by accusing or avoiding, except a false sense of control.