"No. This is what's important."

And every day, the world will drag you by the hand, yelling, "This is important! And this is important! And this is important! You need to worry about this! And this! And this!"

And each day, it's up to you to yank your hand back, put it on your heart and say, "No. This is what's important."

~ Iain Thomas

"A person filled with joy preaches without preaching."

"A person filled with joy preaches without preaching."
~ Mother Teresa

Jesus the Hero

These quotes are from One Jesus, Many Christs by Gregory J. Riley. According to the Library Journal, "Riley explicates the notion of Jesus as hero on the basis of literary analogies drawn from the role of other heroes in different stories of (mainly Greek) antiquity. This well-argued work is richly illustrated with literary connections between biblical and Greek portrayals of heroic traits."  http://www.amazon.com/One-Jesus-Many-Christs-Christianity/dp/0800632427

quotes:
"The universe had a dark side. Fate, the jealousy of the gods, and the devil and the dark powers all conspired against the innocent and brought them to ruin. Those who were in such difficulties could be seen as having in some way been especially notable.... Job after the exile, one may recall, 'deserved' the loss of his children, wife, property and health because he caught the attention of God and the devil as the most righteous man of his generation."
One Jesus, Many Christs by Gregory J. Riley, page 29

"Jesus died a death that defined his life.... If he had not been killed like one of the heroes, it would only have meant that he was not worthy of that status, that he was not a son of God, that he was not valuable enough to draw down on himself the jealousies of the gods or fate or the wrath of the powers and their religious authorities. The fact of his unjust death not only proved the real value of his life, it authenticated his right to complete the creedal journey to ascend into heaven and someday stand as judge."
One Jesus, Many Christs by Gregory J. Riley, page 91

Personally, I think God is who God is, regardless of what we understand or think about what God should be. :-)

Exodus 3:14a  ^ESV  God said to Moses, I AM Who I AM.

"Give me hypocrites over cynics any time"

"Give me hypocrites over cynics any time. At least they aspire to something."

~ Giles Fraser

Kenji Goto - "Judgment lies with God"

Slain Japanese hostage's old tweet embraced by social media
AP 1:34 p.m. EST February 2, 2015
TOKYO (AP) — Social media users have embraced a 4-year-old tweet by Kenji Goto as a poignant memorial to the slain freelance journalist.
On his Twitter account, 47-year-old Goto was reporting live from Syria. One tweet has captured imaginations, seeming to sum up the character of the journalist who was beheaded by Islamic State extremists after a months-long hostage ordeal.
The tweet gone viral is from Sept. 7, 2010:
"Closing my eyes and holding still. It's the end if I get mad or scream. It's close to a prayer. Hate is not for humans. Judgment lies with God. That's what I learned from my Arabic brothers and sisters."

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2015/02/02/japanese-hostage-old-tweet-goes-viral-kenji-goto/22751005/

"Mario Cuomo was the keynote speaker for our better angels.”

At Funeral for Mario Cuomo, Praise for a Leader’s Role as a Humanist

By JAMES BARRON    JAN. 6, 2015

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/07/nyregion/mario-cuomo-funeral.html?emc=edit_th_20150107&nl=todaysheadlines&nlid=14249205&_r=0

 

quotes:

In the end there were the words, and the words were the son’s, and the words were about his father, former Gov. Mario M. Cuomo.

“At his core, at his best, he was a philosopher, and he was a poet, and he was an advocate, and he was a crusader,” Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo said at his father’s funeral service on Tuesday. “Mario Cuomo was the keynote speaker for our better angels.”

In a eulogy that touched on Mario Cuomo’s thoughts about how to deliver a speech — don’t extemporize, use a prepared text — as well as his love of the French Jesuit philosopher Pierre Teilhard de Chardin and his all-out style on the basketball court well into middle age, Andrew Cuomo said that his father was more of a “humanist” than a politician. To his father, he said, “politics were more of a personal belief system: It was who he was, not what he did.”

...

“They say your father never leaves you — if you listen carefully, you will hear his voice,” Mr. Cuomo said. “I believe that’s true. But one doesn’t need to listen that carefully or be his son to know what Mario Cuomo would say today — that it’s time for this city to come together, it’s time to stop the negative energy and move forward.”

He added, “And that’s just what we will do. I promise you that, Pop.”

 

Mario Cuomo, 82, died on New Year’s Day. In the pews at the Church of St. Ignatius Loyola on Park Avenue were hundreds of elected officials and government leaders, past and present, among them former President Bill Clinton and former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton; Mayor Bill de Blasio and his wife, Chirlane McCray; former Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg; and Loretta E. Lynch, the United States attorney in Brooklyn who is President Obama’s nominee to replace Eric H. Holder Jr. as attorney general.

...

“What came across to me was Mario Cuomo was unafraid,” Anthony M. Masiello, a former State Senator and former mayor of Buffalo, said after the service. “He was unafraid to lead, unafraid to govern, unafraid to be contrary. When people were going right, he was going left. When people were talking about what they had, he was talking about people who didn’t have. He was unafraid to define it as he saw it.”

etc.

Unobstructed

"If the eye is unobstructed, it results in sight;
if the ear is unobstructed, the result is hearing;
if the mind is unobstructed, the result is wisdom;
and if the heart is unobstructed, the result is love." 
     
~ Anthony De Mello, from his book, Awareness 

we are spiritual beings having a human experience

“We are not human beings having a spiritual experience;

we are spiritual beings having a human experience.”

~ Pierre Teilhard de Chardin

Movies: a machine that generates empathy

Roger Ebert said movies are “like a machine that generates empathy.”

God can draw a straight line with a crooked stick

"God can strike a straight stroke by a crooked stick."
~ Thomas Watson, English Puritan

"God can draw a straight line with a crooked stick."
~ Martin Luther, German Reformer

"God uses crooked sticks to draw straight lines."
~ Ignatius Loyola, Founder of the Jesuit Order

"God writes straight with crooked lines."
~ Spanish/Portuguese proverb

quotes researched by Virginia Huguenot, librarian

"Who is a hero? He who turns his enemy into a friend.”

“Who is a hero? He who turns his enemy into a friend.” 
~ The Talmud, Avot deRabbi Natan 23

Spirituality

SPIRITUALITY

Spirituality is "the progressive unlearning of the strange ideas about God you've been taught..."
~ Rabbi Kaplan

"We are not human beings having a spiritual experience;
we are spiritual beings having a temporary human experience."
~ Christian philosopher Teilhard de Chardin

"You were born to walk with God...
So why would you walk alone?"
~ Dr. Steve McSwain

Confront the Major Anxiety

 "All of the great leaders have had one characteristic in common: it was the willingness to confront unequivocally the major anxiety of their people in their time. This, and not much else, is the essence of leadership."
~ John Kenneth Galbraith

Peculiar traits of rich people

Peculiar traits of rich people

Morgan Housel, The Motley Fool 8 a.m. EDT April 19, 2014
http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/personalfinance/2014/04/19/peculiar-traits-of-rich-people/7871695/

They are (mostly pleasant) sociopaths

But sociopaths can disregard emotional events that cause normal people to worry and panic.  ...
My lack of empathy means I don't get caught up in other people's panic. It gives me a unique perspective. And in the financial world, being able to think opposite the pack is all you need.

Napoleon's definition of a military genius was "The man who can do the average thing when all those around him are going crazy."

They care about time periods most can't comprehend

Long-term investing is the only sane choice. But it's unnatural. ... 
"If you look carefully," Bill Bonner writes in his book Family Fortunes, "almost all Old Money secrets can be traced to a single source: a longer-term outlook."

They don't give a damn what you think of them

Dilbert creator Scott Adams once wrote: "One of the best pieces of advice I've ever heard goes something like this: If you want success, figure out the price, then pay it. It sounds trivial and obvious, but if you unpack the idea it has extraordinary power."

The price of being rich is really simple: You must live below your means. ...
A lot of them are after control over their time, which comes from having a wide gap between what they can afford to buy and what they actually buy.

Having the emotional backbone to drive an uglier car than you can afford, live in a smaller house you can afford, eat out less often than you can afford, and wear cheaper clothes than you can afford is rare. In my experience, less than 10% of people can do it in a meaningful way. It's the cost of being rich, and most people have no desire to pay the price.
"A miser grows rich by seeming poor," poet William Shenstone wrote. "An extravagant man grows poor by seeming rich." I don't think it's any more complicated than that.

“My life got reduced down to the 2 most important things, and we're so fortunate, I'm so fortunate”

SURVIVOR STORY: Mom holds baby during WA landslide
http://fox44.com/news/survivor-story-mom-holds-baby-during-wa-landslide

SEATTLE (CNN) — We’re hearing for the first time from the mother who held onto her son as last month's landslide in Washington State wiped out her home and her whole community.
Ask Amanda Skorjanc how she's doing, it's one question she'll never take lightly.
“I thought I wasn't going to make it, so I'm feeling good,” Skorjanc told CNN affiliate KING-TV.
Good, despite crushing injuries. Her legs, in casts. Her arms in a sling. Her bloodshot eye. But they can only tell part of the story. On March 22nd, Amanda and Duke were home. Her partner, Ty, Duke's dad, had just left for the hardware store.
“And then I looked out our front door, it was like a movie, houses were exploding. And the next thing I see is our neighbor's chimney coming into the front door. And I turned and held Duke and I did not let him go,” Amanda said.
Duke and Amanda would literally ride out the slide. It would carry them 600 feet before the earth beneath them would finally stop moving. Baby Duke was still in her arms.
“He was dirty and a little blue and I thought I was losing him so I would give him little...rubs, and I would pat on his chest and I would say stay with me bud, and I would ask God to not take him in front of me,”
Amanda heard someone screaming, a passerby, is anybody out there, the voice called.
“I was just the right guy there at the right time,” Cody Wesson explained.
Cody was the first to hear Amanda and Duke.
“As soon as I heard that voice I knew that he was going to be OK,” she said.
Cody took Duke from her arms and rescuers took out a chain saw to free Amanda from the debris, including the couch and recliner she credits for cushioning their ride.
“I know that God was with us because as it was going I cried out to him, I said please save us,” Amanda said.
Baby Duke is now recovering at Seattle Children's Hospital. He is best medicine for his mom.
“He's my motivation. Every time I get an update on him, it motivates me even more, to do my physical therapy no matter how much it hurts,” Amanda said.
Surrounded by cards and letters from around the world, as much as this family has lost, they know they still have what matters most.
“My life got reduced down to the 2 most important things, and we're so fortunate, I'm so fortunate,” said Ty Suddarth, who is Amanda’s partner and Duke’s father.
“We will pay it forward for the rest of our life,” Amanda explained.

Four things that make you stupid: sex, envy, a love of power, and wealth

"Just as L.B.J. observed that the two things that make politicians more stupid than anything else are sex and envy, W. [Bush] said that he was not surprised by how Putin evolved because the three things that can change someone are 'a love of power, wealth and sex.'"

http://mobile.nytimes.com/2014/02/19/opinion/dowd-history-get-me-rewrite.html?nl=todaysheadlines&emc=edit_th_20140219&_r=0&referrer=

Three Irrational Beliefs

Leadership Journal

http://www.christianitytoday.com/le/2011/summer/irrationalbeliefs.html

Three Irrational Beliefs ...  that I constantly have to fight

David Slagle

September 26, 2011

...

Albert Ellis (1913-2007) was a psychologist, a devout atheist, and until late in life, openly hostile toward all things religious. His views on human sexuality were antithetical to the teachings of Scripture. For those reasons (and because he's dead) he would not be on the short list of speakers at most pastors retreats, but he does offer some wisdom and sanity for weary Christian leaders.

Ellis is most widely known for his Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy, so named because it is directed at irrationality. Ellis theorized that much of our inner turmoil is caused by our tendency to embrace irrational beliefs, which leads to stress, low self-worth, frustration, conflict, anger, avoidance, procrastination, diminished productivity, and difficulty in relating to others.

He identified three irrational core beliefs that cause the most trouble:

#1: "I absolutely MUST, at all times, perform outstandingly well and win the approval of significant others. If I fail in these important—and sacred—respects, that is awful and I am a bad, incompetent, unworthy person, who will probably always fail and deserves to suffer."

#2: "Other people with whom I relate absolutely MUST, under practically all conditions, treat me nicely, considerately, and fairly. Otherwise, it is terrible and they are rotten, bad, unworthy people who will always treat me badly and should be severely punished for acting so abominably to me."

#3: "The conditions under which I live absolutely MUST, at practically all times, be favorable, safe, hassle-free, and quickly and easily enjoyable. If they are not, it's awful and horrible and I can't ever enjoy myself at all. My life is hardly worth living."

…

David Slagle is pastor of Veritas Church in Decatur, Georgia.

 

Copyright © 2012 by the author or Christianity Today International/Leadership Journal.

Fear of the Cross

"You can't be afraid to do something just because there is a cross involved."

~ Truthful Grace

Make a new ending

"Nobody can go back and start a new beginning,
but anyone can start today and make a new ending."
~ Maria Robinson

Existence without God

If it were somehow possible that God could be removed from the universe and I were left alone in it, I don't think my cells would be able to function.  All the energy in my body comes from God.  I would be like a cell phone with a dead battery.

~ Truthful Grace