The Road Is Too Rough - Olga J. Weiss

The Road Is Too Rough
(Poetry on the rejection and isolation Christ must have felt.)

The road is too rough," I said,
"Dear Lord, there are stones that hurt me so."
And He said, "Dear child, I understand,
I walked it long ago."

"But there's a cool green path," I said;
"Let me walk there for a time."
"No child," He gently answered me,
"The green path does not climb."

"My burden," I said, "Is far too great,
How can I bear it so?"
"My child," He said, "I remember the weight;
I carried My cross, you know."

But I said, "I wish there were friends with me
Who would make my way their own."
"Oh, yes," He said, "Gethsemane
Was hard to bear alone."

And so I climb the stony path,
Content at last to know
That where my Master had not gone,
I would not need to go.

And strangely then I found new friends,
The burden grew less sore;
And I remember--long ago
He went that way before.

Olga J. Weiss

What Jesus will be is a mother hen who defends her chicks

The well-known preacher Barbara Brown Taylor says,
"Jesus won’t be king of the jungle in this or any other story. What he will be is a mother hen, who stands between the chicks and those who mean to do them harm. She has no fangs, no claws, no rippling muscles. All she has is her willingness to shield her babies with her own body. If the fox wants them, he will have to kill her first."
Jesus came to be a suffering servant and live a life of self-sacrifice. And he calls us to that life as well.
Mickey Anders, The Fox and the Hen

"Do not corner something you know is meaner than you."

"I learned some invaluable lessons in Nashville that apply to both farming and show business:
Do not corner something you know is meaner than you;
keep skunks of all kinds at a distance;
if you forgive your enemies, it messes up their heads."
~ Willie Nelson

Willie Nelson, Turk Pipkin (2006). “The Tao of Willie: A Guide to the Happiness in Your Heart”, p.53, Penguin
http://www.azquotes.com/author/10736-Willie_Nelson

"Show 'em what you can do."

"I suppose I could have sat back and pitied myself. For a time I wondered if I'd ever be able to go on to a stage and perform again. After a couple of weeks I began to feel I could fight my way back to health if I put my mind to it. I thought to myself: 'Pity never did anybody any good. Go on. Patsy, show 'em what you can do.'"
~ Patsy Cline
http://www.azquotes.com/author/2994-Patsy_Cline

"I'm not going to limit myself just because . . ."

"I'm not going to limit myself just because people won't accept the fact that I can do something else."
~ Dolly Parton
http://www.azquotes.com/author/11357-Dolly_Parton

"if you're feeling low, don't despair."

"If you're feeling low, don't despair. The sun has a sinking spell every night, but it comes back up every morning."
~ Dolly Parton
http://www.azquotes.com/author/11357-Dolly_Parton

"I look at their eyes and their smile and seek out the good first"

"When I meet someone, I look at their eyes and their smile and seek out the good first - it's easy to find when you're looking for it. You let a person shine with their own light and try to connect it to yours. As soon as I say hello, I go right to that light and I don't care who you are! I know we're all pieces of the same thing - I go for that common light because I know it's in all of us."
~ Dolly Parton
http://www.azquotes.com/author/11357-Dolly_Parton

Nelson Mandela, “with freedom comes responsibilities”

Nelson Mandela ended his extraordinary autobiography, entitled “Long Walk to Freedom,” with these words:

“I have walked that long road to freedom. I have tried not to falter; I have made missteps along the way. But I have discovered the secret that after climbing a great hill, one only finds that there are many more hills to climb.
I have taken a moment here to rest, to steal a view of the glorious vista that surrounds me, to look back on the distance I have come. But I can rest only for a moment, for with freedom comes responsibilities, and I dare not linger, for my long walk is not yet ended.”

so long as you show up

Steel Magnolias was not a great movie, but it had one magnificent line.
"God don't care which church you go to, so long as you show up."

www.facebook.com/E.C.M.churchhumor/

Did Jesus really have to die on the Cross?

Anselm's answer to someone wondering if Jesus really had to die on the Cross:

"You have not yet fully reflected on what a heavy weight your sin is."

"My iniquities have gone over my head"; they surround me,
"and like a heavy burden" weigh me down (Ps 38:5).
Free me, unburden me, and do not let "the abyss" of them "close its mouth over me" (Ps 69:16).

another translation:
Anselm: "You have not as yet estimated the great burden of sin."
https://www.ewtn.com/library/CHRIST/CURDEUS.HTM
CHAPTER XXI

Howard Thurman quotes

from https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Howard_Thurman  as of 3/1/2018

"Jesus rejected hatred because he saw that hatred meant death to the mind, death to the spirit, and death to communion with his Father. He affirmed life; and hatred was the great denial."
Jesus and the Disinherited (1949), p. 88

"The movement of the Spirit of God in the hearts of men and women often calls them to act against the spirit of their times or causes them to anticipate a spirit which is yet in the making. In a moment of dedication they are given wisdom and courage to dare a deed that challenges and to kindle a hope that inspires."
Footprints of a Dream : The Story of the Church for the Fellowship of All Peoples (1959), p. 7

"Prayer is a form of communication between God and man and man and God….
I am always impressed by the fact that it is recorded that the only thing that the disciples asked Jesus to teach them how to do was to pray."
Disciplines of the Spirit (1977)

The Work of Christmas, Howard Thurman

"The Work of Christmas"
Howard Thurman

When the song of the angels is stilled,
When the star in the sky is gone,
When the kings and princes are home,
When the shepherds are back with their flock,
The work of Christmas begins:
To find the lost,
To heal the broken,
To feed the hungry,
To release the prisoner,
To rebuild the nations,
To bring peace among people,
To make music in the heart.

Howard Thurman. "The Work of Christmas" in The Mood of Christmas & Other Celebrations. 1985
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Howard_Thurman

Same Kind of Different as Me - movie

Same Kind of Different as Me - movie, 2018
quote:
Mr. Ron, I was captive in the devil's prison. That was easy for Miss Debbie to see. But I got to tell you: Many folks had seen me behind the bars in that prison for more than thirty years, and they just walked on by. Kept their keys in their pocket and left me locked up.
Now I ain't tryin to run them other folks down, 'cause I was not a nice fella-dangerous-and prob'ly just as happy to stay in prison.
But Miss Debbie was different--she seen me behind them bars and reached way down in her pocket and pulled out the keys God gave her and used one to unlock the prison door and set me free.
Denver Moore, Same Kind of Different as Me

Encouragement from Jane Seymour's Mother: Keep an Open Heart

In 1972, Seymour revealed a bigshot producer, who asked her to visit his home to watch a screen test for a role, allegedly assaulted her. Seymour claimed he put his hand on her leg “in the wrong place,” prompting her to do “the British cross the leg, move down the couch routine,” all while convincing herself he would stop. However, the producer allegedly pressed on. The star, who described herself as being terrified and shaken, asked him to call her a cab.
“He put me in a car and said, ‘If anyone knows you ever came here, if you ever tell anyone, ever, I’ll guarantee you never work again anywhere on the planet,’” she recalled. “And he had that power. I got in the cab and cried, terrified…
The only reason I’ve ever told that story is that women should have a choice… I was put in a situation where I couldn’t show what I could do. And I’m a person who, when something bad happens, I get over it and move forward.”
However, Seymour did have a tough time coping with the incident. The actress said she quit acting and went back to England. “I got fat,” she explained. “I baked bread and ate a whole loaf every morning and did needlepoint. I decided I wasn’t going to do this anymore. I wasn’t prepared to do what had to be done.”
However, when Seymour was given the chance to appear on stage for “A Doll’s House,” she took the chance – and the rest is history.
“People say, ‘You’re like a phoenix.’ No, I just had a strong role model in my mother,” she said. “Everyone will have challenges. Your natural instinct is to close up your heart and let it eat you up. Do something to help someone else. It will heal you. You’ll be like a magnet when you do that. Light to firefly.”
http://www.foxnews.com/entertainment/2018/02/21/jane-seymour-poses-for-playboy-recalls-how-almost-quit-acting-after-being-sexually-harassed.html

“My one purpose in life . . . "

“My one purpose in life is to help people find a personal relationship with God, which I believe comes from knowing Christ.”
~ Rev. Billy Graham (1918-2018)

Rev. Billy Graham's Ability to Inspire People to Follow Jesus

Rev. Billy Graham's Ability to Inspire People to Follow Jesus
quote (my emphasis added):
[Graham biographer] William Martin observed that the forces gathered and unleashed at the Berlin, Lausanne, and Amsterdam meetings [international meetings initiated by Graham] constitute a third worldwide ecumenical movement, every bit as important as the World Council of Churches and the Roman Catholic Church. The amazing thing about the evangelical movement is that it is sustained not by a single organizational entity, but by multiple parachurch organizations, independent of each other but dreaming a common dream. Graham’s genius was his ability to inspire people not to follow him, but to strike out on their own, following Jesus by proclaiming the gospel in their own way; and then to call them together, to inspire and equip thousands more to do the same thing. We may never see his like again.

quoted from:
How a Humble Evangelist Changed Christianity As We Know It
Churches were divided. Leadership was concentrated in the denominations. Believers eschewed cultural influence. Liberal modernism was on the move. Then God made Billy Graham.
Michael S. Hamilton
http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2018/billy-graham/how-humble-evangelist-billy-graham-changed-christianity.html

Good, better, best. Never let it rest. . . .

Good, better, best.
Never let it rest.
'Til your good is better
and your better is best.

~ St. Jerome
www.brainyquote.com/quotes/st_jerome_389605

Inside every cynical person, there is a disappointed idealist

"Inside every cynical person, there is a disappointed idealist."
~ George Carlin
www.brainyquote.com/quotes/george_carlin_383122

Synesthesia

quote from a book review:
"Red Sparrow's unique ability to discern the nature of people by seeing their emotions in colors (through synesthesia).[2]"

[2] "'Red Sparrow', a fantastic new spy thriller by former CIA operative Jason Matthews". The Washington Post. October 14, 2013. Retrieved February 27, 2017.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Sparrow_(book)


Synesthesia is a perceptual phenomenon in which stimulation of one sensory or cognitive pathway leads to automatic, involuntary experiences in a second sensory or cognitive pathway.[3][4][5][6] People who report a lifelong history of such experiences are known as synesthetes. In one common form of synesthesia, known as grapheme-color synesthesia or color-graphemic synesthesia, letters or numbers are perceived as inherently colored.[7][8] In spatial-sequence, or number form synesthesia, numbers, months of the year, or days of the week elicit precise locations in space (for example, 1980 may be "farther away" than 1990), or may appear as a three-dimensional map (clockwise or counterclockwise).[9][10] Synesthetic associations can occur in any combination and any number of senses or cognitive pathways.[11]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synesthesia


‘Red Sparrow,’ a fantastic new spy thriller by former CIA operative Jason Matthews
quote from a book review:
Unbeknown to most, Dominika is gifted with a form of synesthesia that enables her to see emotions as colors — a condition that aids her immensely as she assesses the motives of both friend and foe. Several of her own comrades in the service, for example, are suffused with “the familiar yellow of treachery and betrayal.” One character’s evil manifests itself as “parabolas of black . . . like bat wings.”
Dominika is ultimately targeted against Nate, of course, as a means of discovering the identity of the mole within her own ranks. His aura is deep purple, “warm and honest and safe,” but he has his own designs on this comely young agent.
“Red Sparrow” may sound like some hodgepodge of the fantastic (seeing emotions?) and the prurient (“an Upper Volga Kama Sutra”) amid a series of spy vs. spy shenanigans. But the novel is far more grounded. . . .

https://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/books/red-sparrow-a-fantastic-new-spy-thriller-by-former-cia-operative-jason-matthews/2013/10/15/3f7f9672-cc50-11e2-8845-d970ccb04497_story.html

Bill Gates Memorized the Sermon on the Mount

Bill Gates in Confirmation Class
The Gates family attended the University Congregational Church, where the Reverend Dale Turner was pastor. Each year Turner promised to buy dinner at Seattle’s 606-foot-tall Space Needle restaurant for all those in the confirmation class who memorized the Sermon on the Mount.
Although 31 others stuttered and stammered their way through chapters 5, 6, and 7 of the Book of Matthew, Turner was astounded when Bill learned the passages on a family car trip to the coast and then delivered a flawless recitation.

“I needed only to go to his home that day to know that he was something special. I couldn’t imagine how an 11-year-old boy could have a mind like that. And my subsequent questioning of him revealed a deep understanding of the passage,” Turner said.

Turner conceded that Gates probably didn’t learn the verses for their spiritual value, but because he loved a challenge.
p. 3-4, Bill Gates Speaks, by Janet Lowe, 1998

Bill Gates in High School
Like all teenagers, Gates and his friends looked for ways to seize power from their teachers:

“The greatest scam we discovered was that by getting the job doing high school scheduling, we could decide exactly what boys and girls were in our classes, and that was an incredible reward. It really motivated us to learn how to write interesting software.”

During the summer Gates and Allen earned approximately $5,000 in computer time by programming class schedules.
p. 12, Bill Gates Speaks, by Janet Lowe, 1998