On this episode, I’m inviting you to slow down with me and think about something I believe we need now more than ever, and that is the power of beauty. Not surface beauty and not decoration, but the kind of beauty that grows out of a life grounded in love. I’ve come to believe that lesser values than love easily devolve into BS, and I’m just not willing to live that way anymore.

We’re living in a moment shaped by division, anger, and a whole lot of finger pointing, and I don’t think rage is going to lead us anywhere worth going. Instead, I want to challenge you to join me in what I’m calling a beauty movement. A movement away from the ugly that’s getting done to death and toward the everyday practice of choosing love again and again.

That means learning to live humanely with each other even when it’s hard. It means forgiving more than feels reasonable. It means resisting the pull to divide the world into us and them. And it may even mean letting ourselves grieve the condition of our times instead of trying to shout our way out of them.

I truly believe the most beautiful thing we can do is love the people we meet today. Be present. Be kind. Let beauty shape your steps and your words and your choices. So let’s get up and go do something beautiful together, because oh baby ugly is getting done to death.

In this episode I ask a simple question: are you going to live for love, or are you going to die by hate?

I grew up in a church tradition where people were often asked to decide whether they were going to heaven or hell if they died that night. I understand the intention behind that question, but after more than fifty years of pastoral ministry, I’ve come to believe there’s a better question to ask: how are you going to live today?

When Jesus taught us to pray, he didn’t teach us to pray about escaping earth and going somewhere else someday. He taught us to pray, “Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” That means heaven is something we begin living now by choosing love.

In this conversation I invite you to consider changing your address today if your life has been shaped by resentment, division, or hate. Because when we live by love, we really live. When we live by hate, something inside us starts dying.

If you want a different destination, then change your address today. Choose love. Choose heaven on earth.

In this episode I return to the foundation of everything I am trying to do here each week. Love creates value where there might not otherwise be value. The way you choose to love shapes the quality of your life and the lives of the people around you. Nobody can love the way you love, so the question becomes what you will do with that gift.

I talk about three essential principles that guide this whole journey. Love creates value. Each of us has a unique fingerprint of love to offer the world. And the human condition itself is hardwired to love and to be loved. When we live into those truths we begin to see how love strengthens us emotionally, spiritually, and even physically.

I also reflect on Mother Teresa’s powerful insight that there is more hunger for love in this world than there is for food. That is not sentimental language. That is a challenge to how we live right now in our homes, our relationships, and even in our nation. Love is not agreement or weakness. Love is the work that keeps us alive.

So today I am inviting you again to lean into love on purpose. Do not wait for a better time or a better mood. Tell someone you love them. Choose kindness. Choose presence. Choose the holy habit of love and watch what begins to change around you.