Author: Michael Tino

Do you have any personal covenants with yourself? Are they major or minor? How do you restore covenant with yourself? -Katherine Hofmann (CLF)

What are the promises you have made to yourself?

“Covenantal promises are based not on certainties and specificities but on faithfulness to the love that calls each one of us out of our separateness to become a people.” -Victoria Weinsten

With whom have you connected deeply enough to become a people?

“A covenant is a living, breathing aspiration, made new every day. It can’t be enforced by consequences but it may be reinforced by forgiveness and by grace when we stumble, when we forget, when we mess up.” -Victoria Safford

How have you practiced forgiveness and grace in covenant?

“Being strong in covenant is not being certain of the destination toward which we are traveling or even the path that will take us there. Being strong in covenant is choosing to travel together despite all the uncertainties and maybe even because of them, unsure of where we are headed but knowing how much it matters that we are willing to move in directions we might not yet understand or predict.“-Mark Stringer

What are your experiences of being strong in your promise to travel together with someone?

“It is covenant that brings us out of isolation, out of selfish concerns, out of individualism, to join ourselves to something greater, to become a part of a community that is working to practice love, to dwell together in peace, to seek knowledge and wisdom together, to find better ways to live our lives and live in the world. This…is sacred, religious work.” -Susan Frederick-Gray

When and how have you chosen to join yourself to something greater than you?