We continue to share, with permission, guest writer Fr. Adam Bucko‘s powerful Substack essay,* which includes parts of my recent DM on “Why Meditate on Sainthood in a Time of ICE, Epstein Files, & the Rest?” Adam is the author of Let Your Heartbreak Be Your Guide: Lessons in Engaged Contemplation.
Howard Thurman understood both how fragile and how powerful is the truth that the human being is made in God’s image and likeness.
Writing and preaching in the shadow of segregation and racial terror, he said, “There is in every person an inward sea, and in that sea there is an island, and on that island there is an altar.” To spend time there, he said, is our “crucial link with the Eternal.”
Thurman was not describing a private refuge from history. He was speaking to people whose bodies and communities were under assault. He knew that when the world tries to define you as less than human, you must return again and again to that inward altar, where your dignity is anchored in God and not in the approval of the powerful.
But returning to the altar is not the end. It is the beginning.
James Cone makes this unmistakably clear. The image of God, he reminds us, is not a decorative doctrine. It is “the very humanity involved in the struggle against the forces of inhumanity.”…
That is why contemplation and resistance belong together. To touch the Eternal within us is to discover that we cannot remain neutral when that same divine imprint is denied in others.
This is where Matthew Fox speaks directly to our moment. “Because evil is so present in our news every day,” he writes in daily meditations, “we have to entertain its opposite, that is, news of the holy.” Turning toward holiness now is not avoidance. It is resistance to despair and numbness. It is a refusal to let cruelty have the last word.
Fox presses the point further: “Saints—and this is meant to be all of us—are those who have a conscience and are not afraid to speak up and walk their talk about values that matter.” He continues:
We see such courage and holiness playing out in the streets of Minneapolis these days by ordinary citizens, at least two of whom have been murdered and martyred by ICE, which is our government at work. Saints act on their moral outrage. They find solidarity and community with others who have not totally abandoned their consciences.
Holiness is not some kind of abstract perfection. It is conscience made public.
Reflecting on a lifetime of watching empires distort truth and power humiliate the vulnerable, Fox concludes plainly: “Today the number one sign of holiness is courage.” Not piety, but courage. The courage to interfere with injustice. The courage to name large-scale social lies. The courage to refuse dehumanization even when it is normalized. The courage not to abandon that place within us where the interconnectedness of all life is not an idea but a lived reality.
This courage comes from a heart made large. Our hearts are rendered large by the love of life and existence that we imbibe. They are enlarged through suffering and co-suffering with others. Thurman would say that time spent at the inward altar enlarges the heart. Cone would say that solidarity in struggle enlarges it. A big heart is a brave heart….
When entire communities are targeted and humiliated, to bear God’s likeness means defending the humanity of others as fiercely as we defend our own.
It is here, in this costly fidelity, that the image of God is honored. It is here that holiness becomes visible. It is here that hope takes flesh.
May our spiritual practice help us return to the altar within. And may it give us the courage to walk back into the world with a heart large enough to resist what diminishes life.
* Adam Bucko, “To Be Human is to Revolt Against Injustice,” in Contemplative Witness with Adam Bucko, February 13, 2026.
Banner Image: Impromptu altar memorializing ICE murder victim Renee Good, at a Minneapolis anti-ICE protest. Photo by Mary Plaster, with permission.
Queries for Contemplation
Do you agree with Adam that turning toward holiness now is not avoidance but resistance to despair and numbness? And a refusal to let cruelty have the last word?
Related Readings by Matthew Fox
Original Blessing: A Primer in Creation Spirituality
Creation Spirituality: Liberating Gifts for the Peoples of the Earth
One River, Many Wells: Wisdom Springing from Global Faiths
Creativity: Where the Divine and the Human Meet
The Coming of the Cosmic Christ: The Healing of Mother Earth and the Birth of a Global Renaissance
Christian Mystics: 365 Readings & Meditations
8 thoughts on “Adam Bucko on Holiness & The Image & Likeness of God, continued”
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Yes! Yes! Faith Hope Love Wisdom Truth Peace Justice Healing Transformation Strength Joy Compassion Loving-Diverse-Oneness… on Our personal and communal spiritual journeys with one another, with Our Beautiful Sacred Mother Earth/Her living creatures/Her graceful
abundance, and with All physical/nonphysical spiritual beings and dimensions of Our Living
Evolving Sacred Cosmos….
Yes. In the face of continued illegality and cruelty, people of faith must continue to stand up for our democratic ideals and the words enshrined in the Constitution. Since the “drawdown” of ICE numbers in Minneapolis, the situation there has nearly disappeared from the news. I queried Google to see if everyday people were still being detained, and found nothing. I don’t like using Chatgpt, but to find out, I used it just now. Here’s the summary I was given. “In summary: ❗ Yes — as of February 21, 2026, ICE still has a presence in Minneapolis and Minnesota, and immigration enforcement — including arrests — continues in a reduced but ongoing capacity. Federal officials have ended the large “surge” operation, but hundreds of ICE agents remain and are still involved in enforcement activities across the region.” If we follow the teachings of Jesus, holy people–prophets–must continue to resist illegal operations even when those cruel, unfounded actions disappear from the news.
Eric Dane of Gray’s Anatomy died yesterday. Last night listening to Netflix play his last words stayed with me as I read the DM this morning. Eric described death as likend to the lights going out. How surprised he must have been.
People of faith have no theoretical problem with loving their neighbors, especially if they’re in serious need. But if challenged to action, and they have no more urgent matter to handle, the demand of a faithful conscience is to lend a hand in some way. People of faith may immediately think of the parable of the Good Samaritan, and “Go and do likewise” (Jesus’s command) to a neighbor, even one who is markedly “different” in some way. I note that the Good Sam is not a trained medical practitioner, but he is ready to pay others (who were not Samaritans but local folks, Jesus’s fellow Jews) and promises to pay more for the victim’s additional care on his next trip. This position is a sign of a social consciousness that people of faith share. People who don’t have a religious faith that, for example, we are all kin, as God’s children may have a lively sense of universal fellowship or solidarity, by holding the Golden Rule as common sense. (This too is faith, if only humanistic.) If that victim were I, I’d be grateful to have my wounds treated by anyone, regardless of institutional affiliation or lack thereof.
That inner holiness is what gives the strength and courage to act for the good of all. It is the acting out of the great commandment to love God and neighbor. I do not see how anyone can see all of the cruelty and injustice that is growing every day without the inner resources of faith or grounding or whatever one calls it. It is easy to give up in the face of the daily horror. In Biblical language, I need to put on the armor of God in order to do what I am called to do, which for me at this point in my old age is usually writing and calling to protest the incessantly bad laws being passed.
HI,
We can’t forget the other people who ICE killed, all saints besides Renee and Alex
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2026/1/27/us-witnessed-many-ice-related-deaths-in-2026-here-are-their-stories
Thank you,
Thank you, Rita.