Living In The Space of Creative Love: An Excerpt and A Poem

Patrick Hendry on Unsplash

 “Why Christianity Is Uncomfortable”

Excerpt by Ilia Delio, August 6, 2025 (online at Center for Christogenesis)

“I have come to cast fire upon the earth and how I wish it were ablaze already,” Jesus proclaimed (Luke 12:49). 

Fire speaks of purification, destruction, melding, forging. If fire symbolizes Jesus’s primary mission, then Christianity should exist in the tension between creative transformation and purification—welcoming the refining fire that consumes whatever obstructs love while building communities of profound compassion. This tension reveals something fundamental about Christian faith: it extends far beyond comfort or maintaining the status quo, encompassing instead the active process of transformation. Fire does not leave things unchanged. It either purifies precious metals, making them stronger and more beautiful, or it consumes what cannot withstand its heat.

Living in this space of creative love means Christians must constantly discern what needs to be preserved and what needs to be released. Old prejudices, systems of oppression, and hardened hearts might need the destructive aspect of fire’s work. Meanwhile, justice, mercy, and compassion can emerge stronger through fire’s refining process. Authentic Christianity is neither static nor safe—it is the ongoing work of allowing the divine fire to shape both individuals and communities into something closer to the vision of a new earth and a new heaven, even when that transformation requires letting go of what we thought we needed to keep.

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Christianity began as a movement, but today evolution invites us to see that Christianity is movement—happening, becoming, still unfinished because it journeys toward eschatological fulfillment, what Teilhard called Omega. Christianity means being born again repeatedly; it is about ongoing transformation. Its main task is not doctrine, moral rightness, or belief in one true God. God is true wherever love exists, and love is deeply personal, expressed uniquely by each person. Christianity concerns the personal call of God and our response to that call: “I have called you by name and you are mine” (Isaiah 43:1).

Each person is called to inner transformation, to continually renew our minds and hearts, to constantly strive to see the world and one another with new eyes. To be a Christian is to fall in love over and over, living through the failures of love, enduring in love, suffering in love, and trusting that love will prevail through every storm, darkness, and destruction. The Christian sees life as one long act of death and resurrection strengthened by God’s unconditional love. 

Christ did not offer doctrine but a journey, where we continually learn to transform our human lives—our way of being human, including all relationships to ourselves, others, nature, society, and God. Jesus’s teaching is an ongoing learning and listening process, inviting us to realize that life is unstable, unpredictable, spontaneous, and creative. The antithesis to the message of Jesus is absolutism, fundamentalism, and moral righteousness. Jesus’s message is simple: let go, let God, and trust the Spirit within. 

The Christian message has never been more necessary than it is today. We are invited to create the world from the inside to the outside, to create the world in love. How do we know if Christianity is fulfilling its mission? I think nature can provide a lesson, for a tree does nothing more than be a tree, and in being a tree, it gives glory to God. Similarly, we must constantly ask if Christianity is deepening our humanity by firing up our hearts for a greater love. If love for another humanizes us, then Christianity will succeed when we become fully human—ultrahuman. Then we will no longer have to talk about religion or God, for God will be all in all. 

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The Moment With No Name

A Poem by Kai T. Murano from her book, Mindful Moments (2025)

There are times when something has ended, but you can’t quite say what you feel. It’s not sadness. Not relief. Not anger. Not clarity either.

Just an in-between sort of stillness—like reading the last line of a book that meant something to you. You close the cover, but the feeling doesn’t resolve. You just sit there, not quite ready to stand up again.

Or like after a long conversation you didn’t want to end, when the last word has been spoken, and silence returns, but something still lingers in the air.

These moments don’t come with names. They don’t announce themselves as grief or joy or closure. They’re quieter than that. Slower. A little more slippery.

You might try to explain it. To a friend. To yourself. You might say, “I’m fine. I think.” Or “I don’t know what I’m feeling, exactly.”

And that’s true. You don’t. Because you’re not supposed to—not yet.

You’re in the pause between what was and whatever’s next. You haven’t moved on. But you haven’t stayed behind, either.

You’re just there.

There’s no handbook for this. No formula for how long it lasts. No certainty about what it means. Only breath. Only space.

Sometimes the hardest partis not rushing to define it. Not forcing the moment into meaning just so it feels manageable.

Let it be unnamed. Let it be uncertain. Let it be quiet.

If you can stay with it—not solve it, not frame it, just stay—you might start to feel the shape of something shifting underneath. Not a conclusion. Not a solution.

Just the presence of something honest that doesn’t need to be categorized to be real.

And maybe that’s what this is: not a moment that needs a name, but a moment that needs a little more time.