Joan Chittister once wrote, “If you want to know where God is, find the space in your heart that is open to all humankind.” I sit with that line because it won’t let me settle for a faith that stays safe or polite. It keeps asking me hard questions. It reminds me that when my heart tightens, when I decide who is worth my care and who is not, God can feel distant not because God has withdrawn, but because I have. God does not show up in exclusion or indifference. God shows up when I choose, again and again, to keep my heart open, especially toward those the world is quick to ignore or judge.
I know how difficult that is right now. I feel the pull to look away from injustice, to grow numb, to accept systems simply because they are familiar. But an open heart won’t allow that kind of surrender for long. When we let ourselves truly see one another, injustice becomes personal. Faces replace headlines. Stories disrupt our assumptions. Social justice stops being a slogan and becomes a matter of integrity, a commitment to stand with those who are pushed aside and to refuse a world where some lives are treated as less worthy than others.
Scripture names it plainly: “Beloved, let us love one another, because love is from God; everyone who loves is born of God and knows God” (1 John 4:7, NRSV). Knowing God is not proven by how certain we sound, but by how open we remain. Each time we choose compassion over fear and inclusion over convenience, we discover that God has been present all along, living in the part of us that still believes every person belongs.
Prayer: Spirit of love, keep my heart open when it would rather close.