by Bill Lynch / Some scripture does not ask to be read. It asks to be lived. Bill Lynch on the three imperatives of Micah 6:8 — and on how much harder one of them has been than the others.
Micah 6:9
O people, the Lord has told you what is good,
and this is what he requires of you:
to act justly, to love mercy,
and to walk humbly with your God.
Bill’s Reflection
I was a cradle Catholic who assumed the Old Testament had little to teach me. Then, in the late nineties, I found myself in a circle of parishioners who chose Micah 6:8 as our shared identity, and something opened in me. Do justly, love mercy, and walk humbly with your God. Fr. Greg Boyle says those words get tattooed on the heart. That is exactly how it has felt for me.
Justice came alive for me through Atticus Finch, and the particular moral clarity of watching To Kill a Mockingbird and feeling, for the first time, the weight of my own obligation. I have carried that ever since: a sense that my gifts are not only mine, that standing against injustice is part of what I am here for.
Mercy has been harder. I will not pretend that forgiveness has come easily for me. The ego holds on, and some wounds run deep. But I have been changed over the years by the mercy I have received from a God who, as the Prodigal Son makes clear, is already running toward us before we have finished our apology. Rembrandt painted that moment with a tenderness that undoes me every time I pray with it.
Walking humbly draws me to those people in my life and throughout history who live humbly. I like to envision the many threads of humble brothers and sisters coming together to create a tapestry of goodness embracing His plan.
Micah 6:8 is something I practice on my feet and in my prayer. As an avid walker and cyclist, I have learned to bring these words with me into my quiet reflection. Fr. Thomas Keating’s Active Prayer practice has taught me how. And in our Still Point community, those words are modeled by the people I sit with in silence and sacred sharing each week.
How the Word Works
Every major spiritual tradition has known that some words are meant to be carried, not just read. The Hindu mantra. The Buddhist nembutsu. The Jesus Prayer of the Eastern Christian tradition. Each rests on the same ancient understanding: that a phrase repeated with intention, synchronized with breath, gradually works its way beneath the level of our thinking and becomes a new orientation of the heart.
Bill has found in Micah’s three imperatives exactly this kind of carrying phrase. Short enough to hold. Deep enough to last a lifetime.
A Simple Practice
Choose one phrase from Micah 6:8 that speaks most directly to you: act justly, love mercy, or walk humbly with your God. In the quiet moments of your day — a walk, a commute, the settling before sleep — repeat it gently, without effort. Let it synchronize with your breath or your footsteps.
You are not trying to think about what it means. You are letting it find its way somewhere deeper than thinking. This is Fr. Thomas Keating’s Active Prayer practice.
Bill’s Bio
Bill Lynch arrived in Chicago in the early nineties during what he describes as a blessed season — Michael Jordan was at his peak and Cardinal Joseph Bernardin was shepherding the archdiocese with a grace that touched Bill deeply. His spiritual journey found its footing at Our Lady of Perpetual Help in Glenview, a parish that shaped him in ways he is still discovering. The founder of NHS Global Events, he built his company on the conviction that uncompromising service and the power of relationship are inseparable. He lives in Glenview with his wife Julie and is the father of three grown children and grandfather of one.
Poems, Parables & Proverbs was a Sunday email series shared with the Still Point community through the summer of 2026. Each week offered a text, a reflection from a member of our community, and a simple practice for the week ahead.