Embodying Forgiveness

"Forgiveness is not so much a word spoken, an action performed, or a feeling felt as it is an embodied way of life in an ever-deepening friendship with the triune God and with others. As such, a Christian account of forgiveness ought not to simply or even primarily be focused on an absolution of guilt; rather, it ought to be focused on the reconciliation of brokenness, the restoration of communion—with God, with one another, and with the whole Creation. Indeed, because of the pervasiveness of sin and evil, Christian forgiveness must be at once an expression of commitment to a way of life, the cruciform life of holiness in which we seek to "unlearn" sin and learn the ways of God, and a means of seeking reconciliation in the midst of particular sins, specific instances of brokenness."

~ Gregory Jones, former dean of Duke Divinity School, Embodying Forgiveness

Listening

"The first service one owes to others in community involves listening to them. Just as our love for God begins with listening to God's Word, the beginning of love for other Christians is learning to listen to them …. Christians who can no longer listen to one another will soon no longer be listening to God either; they will always be talking even in the presence of God. The death of the spiritual life starts here, and in the end there is nothing left but empty spiritual chatter and clerical condescension which chokes on pious words."

~ Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Life Together

Forgiving Love

"Forgiving love is a possibility only for those who know that they are not good, who feel themselves in need of divine mercy, who live in a dimension deeper and higher than that of moral idealism, feel themselves as well as their fellow men convicted of sin by a holy God and know that the differences between the good man and the bad man are insignificant in his sight."

~ Reinhold Niebuhr, An Interpretation of Christian Ethics

Peace

"Peace is both the absence of war and the creation of positive social conditions which minimize destructive conflicts and promote human well-being."

~ author unknown

Dostoyevsky Quotes

Dostoyevsky Quotes:

“Love a man, even in his sin, for that love is a likeness of the divine love, and is the summit of love on earth”

“If God does not exist, then everything is permitted”

“What is hell? I maintain that it is the suffering of being unable to love”

“The soul is healed by being with children”

Joy and Hope

http://www.ptsem.edu/PUBLICATIONS/inspire/12.2/interactive3.php

Following is my experience seeing God’s presence in worship bringing joy in another culture—that of Alzheimer’s patients. Residents with Alzheimer’s can take great joy in singing their old favorite hymns and saying the 23rd Psalm and the Lord’s Prayer. These beloved words bring reassurance, comfort, and hope. As chaplain at Spring Mill Presbyterian Village, I’ve learned that the earliest memories are among the last to be forgotten at the end of life. It is very important to teach children the Word of God that can sustain them during challenging times in their future.

Also, God’s presence in worship brings joy and hope to us. Although we come from diverse backgrounds, cities, and denominations, we are accepted and united by the one God who creates, redeems, and sustains us. Jesus invites all of us to the Lord’s Supper together.

B. Gail Simons (M.Div., 2005)
Lafayette Hill, Pennsylvania

Vows and Convictions

George W. Bush, Decision Points, 2010
conclusion:

“Decades from now, I hope people will view me as a president who recognized the central challenge of our time and kept my vow to keep the country safe; who pursued my convictions without wavering but changed course when necessary; who trusted individuals to make choices in their lives; and who used America’s influence to advance freedom.”

two kinds of religion

Campaign Dogma 2010: Religion and Politics = God and Country
David Gibson
Religion Reporter
http://www.politicsdaily.com/2010/10/30/campaign-dogma-
2010-religion-and-politics-god-and-country/

One of Minnesota's many notable and quotable politicians, the late Sen. Eugene McCarthy, once said that in Washington only two kinds of religion are permitted: strong beliefs vaguely expressed, or vague beliefs strongly expressed.

The Best Treatment for Loneliness

Dr. Karl Menninger, the famous American psychiatrist, once gave a lecture on mental health & was answering questions from the audience.
One man asked, "What would you advise a person to do if that person felt a nervous breakdown coming on?" Everyone there expected him to answer, "Consult a psychiatrist."
To their astonishment he replied: Leave your house, go across the railroad tracks, find someone who is in need, and do something to help that person.

I am of the Divine Whole

Rumi, a Persian poet:

I am neither a Muslim nor a Hindu
I am not Christian, Zoroastrian, nor Jew
I am neither of the West nor the East
Not of the ocean, nor an earthly beast
I am neither a natural wonder
Nor from the stars yonder
My place is the no-place
My image is without face
Neither of body nor the soul
I am of the Divine Whole.
I eliminated duality with joyous laughter
Saw the unity of here and the hereafter
Unity is what I sing, unity is what I speak
Unity is what I know, unity is what I seek

smile 'cause it happened

"Don't cry 'cause it is over - smile 'cause it happened."

~ Dr. Theodor Seuss Geisel

"I am a Christian by choice," Obama began ...

Obama questioned on abortion, why he is a Christian
From Suzanne Malveaux, CNN White House Correspondent
September 28, 2010 3:06 p.m. EDT
Albuquerque, New Mexico (CNN)
http://www.cnn.com/2010/POLITICS/09/28/
obama.tough.question/index.html?hpt=T2

An event billed as a discussion on the economy turned personal Tuesday when a woman asked President Barack Obama about his Christian faith and views on abortion.

The question came at a town hall-style meeting in the yard of an Albuquerque home as part of Obama's public outreach to explain his policies and campaign for Democrats in the November congressional elections.

With a recent survey showing that only a third of Americans can correctly identify Obama as a Christian, the president gave a personal account of his conversion as an adult and how his public service is part of his faith.

"I am a Christian by choice," Obama began, standing beneath a blazing sun, when asked why he is a Christian.

"I came to my Christian faith later in life, and it was because the precepts of Jesus Christ spoke to me in terms of the kind of life that I would want to lead," Obama said. "Being my brothers' and sisters' keeper. Treating others as they would treat me. And I think also understanding that, you know, that Jesus Christ dying for my sins spoke to the humility that we all have to have as human beings."

Humans are "sinful" and "flawed" beings that make mistakes and "achieve salvation through the grace of God," the president continued, adding that we also can "see God in other people and do our best to help them find their, you know, their own grace."

"So that's what I strive to do," Obama said. "That's what I pray to do everyday. I think my public service is part of that effort to express my Christian faith."

At the same time, Obama emphasized his belief that freedom of religion is "part of the bedrock strength" of the United States.

"This is a country that is still predominantly Christian, but we have Jews, Muslims, Hindus, atheists, agnostics, Buddhists" and others, he said, adding that "their own path to grace is one that we have to revere and respect as much as our own, and that is part of what makes this country what it is."

etc.

Telling what you are not going to do

"I remember from [Wharton MBA] strategy class that the heart of strategy is being able to tell what you're not going to do. Telling what you're going to do is easy but telling what you are not going to do--like when you're going to say no to your customer--is much harder."

~ Denis Benchimol Minev, WG'03
Wharton Magazine, Summer 2010, p. 30

No Barriers

There are no constraints on the human mind, no walls around the human spirit, no barriers to our progress except those we ourselves erect.

~ Ronald Reagan

The Christian Ideal

“The Christian ideal has not been tried and found wanting;
it has been found difficult and left untried!”

~ G. K. Chesterton

How to distinguish...

How to distinguish...

A man is flying in a hot air balloon and realizes he is lost. He reduces height and spots a man down below. He lowers the balloon further and shouts:
"Excuse me, can you help me? I promised my friend I would meet him half an hour ago, but I don't know where I am."

The man below says:
"Yes. You are in a hot air balloon, hovering approximately 30 feet above this field. You are between 40 and 42 degrees N. latitude, and between 58 and 60 degrees W. longitude."

"You must be an engineer" says the balloonist.

"I am" replies the man. "How did you know?"

"Well" says the balloonist, "everything you have told me is technically correct, but I have no idea what to make of your information, and the fact is I am still lost."

The man below says "You must be a manager."

"I am" replies the balloonist, "but how did you know?"

"Well", says the man, "you don't know where you are, or where you are going. You have made a promise which you have no idea how to keep, and you expect me to solve your problem. The fact is you are in the exact same position you were in before we met, but now it is somehow my fault."

~ Author Unknown

Laughing is healthy...

Laughing is healthy...

Question: What is the difference between an optimist and a pessimist?
Answer: The difference is that the optimist learns English while the pessimist learns Chinese.

"Both optimists and pessimists contribute to our society. The optimist invents the airplane, and the pessimist the parachute."
Gil Stern

"Always borrow money from a pessimist; he doesn't expect to be paid back"

"The average pencil is seven inches long, with just a half-inch eraser - in case you thought optimism is dead."
Robert Brault

Marriage Is When A Man And Woman Become As One; The Trouble Starts When They Try To Decide Which One.

A man died and went to heaven. St. Peter took him on a tour. He saw a high wall over in the distance and asked what it was for. St. Peter said, "We keep all the Christians over there. They think they're the only ones here.

"Debating with someone on the Internet is like mudwrestling with a pig. You get filthy and the pig loves it."

"Somewhere at the edge of the bell curve is the girl for me."

"I think, therefore I am single."
Liz Winston

"If I had any nerves, I'd have a nervous breakdown."
Eugene O'Neill

"It is not denial. I'm very selective about the reality I accept."

http://my.opera.com/Optimism/forums/topic.dml?id=289697

The Potter and the Clay

The Potter and the Clay

There was a couple who used to go to England to shop in a beautiful antique store. This trip was to celebrate their wedding anniversary. They both liked antiques and pottery, and especially teacups.
Spotting an exceptional cup, they asked, “May we see that? We've never seen a cup quite so beautiful.”
As the lady handed it to them, suddenly the teacup spoke; this is the story the teacup told.

“You don't understand!” it said. “I have not always been a teacup.
There was a time when I was just a lump of red clay. My master took me, and rolled me, pounded and patted me, over and over, and I yelled out, “Don't do that! I don't like it, let me alone!” But he only smiled and gently said, “Not yet!”
Then, WHAM! I was placed on a spinning wheel and suddenly I was spun around and around and around. “Stop it! I'm getting so dizzy I'm going to be sick!” I screamed, but the master only nodded and said quietly, “Not yet.”
He spun me and poked and prodded and bent me out of shape to suit himself and then... then he put me in the oven. I never felt such heat. I yelled and knocked and pounded at the door. “Help, get me out of here!” I could see him through the opening and I could read his lips as he shook his head from side to side, “Not yet.”
When I thought I couldn't bear it another minute, the door opened. He carefully took me out and put me on the shelf, and I began to cool. Oh, that felt so good… “Ah, this is much better”, I thought.
But after I cooled, he picked me up and brushed and painted me all over. The fumes were horrible. I thought I would gag. “Oh, please! Stop it, Stop it!” I cried. He only shook his head and said: “Not yet!”
Then suddenly he put me back into the oven. Only it was not like the first one. This was twice as hot and I just knew I would suffocate. I begged. I pleaded. I screamed. I cried. I was convinced I would never make it. I was ready to give up.
Just then the door opened, and he took me out, and again placed me on the shelf, where I cooled and waited… and waited… wondering what's he going to do to me next?
An hour later he handed me a mirror and said: “Look at yourself!” And I did. I said: “That's not me; that couldn't be me. It's beautiful. I'm beautiful!”
Quietly he spoke. “I want you to remember.”
Then he said: “I know it hurt to be rolled and pounded and patted, but had I just left you alone, you'd have dried up. I know it made you dizzy to spin around on the wheel, but if I had stopped, you would have crumbled. I know it hurt and it was hot and disagreeable in the oven, but if I hadn't put you there, you would have cracked. I know the fumes were bad when I brushed and painted you all over, but if I hadn't done that, you never would have hardened. You would not have had any colour in your life. If I hadn't put you back in that second oven, you wouldn't have survived for long because the hardness would not have held. Now you are a finished product. Now you are what I had in mind when I first began with you.”

~ Author Unknown

Stress Management

Stress Management
A lecturer, when explaining stress management to an audience, raised a glass of water and asked: "How heavy is this glass of water?”
Answers called out ranged from 20g to 500g.
The lecturer replied: "The absolute weight doesn't matter. It depends on how long you try to hold it.”
”If I hold it for a minute, that's not a problem. If I hold it for an hour, I'll have an ache in my right arm. If I hold it for a day, you'll have to call an ambulance.”
”In each case, it's the same weight, but the longer I hold it, the heavier it becomes."
He continued: “And that's the way it is with stress management.”
“If we carry our burdens all the time, sooner or later, as the burden becomes increasingly heavy, we won't be able to carry on.”
”As with the glass of water, you have to put it down for a while and rest before holding it again. When we're refreshed, we can carry on with the burden.”
”So, before you return home tonight, put the burden of work down. Don't carry it home. You can pick it up tomorrow. Whatever burdens you're carrying now, let them down for a moment if you can.”
”Relax; pick them up later after you've rested. Life is short. Enjoy it!”

~ Author Unknown

The Water Pot

The Water Pot

A water bearer had two large pots; each hung on each end of a pole that he carried across his shoulders. One of the pots had a crack in it, and while the other pot was perfect and always delivered a full portion of water at the end of the long walk from the stream to the master’s house, the cracked pot arrived only half full.

For a full two years they went on daily, with the bearer delivering only one and a half pots full of water to his master’s house. Of course, the perfect pot was proud of its accomplishments, perfect to the end for which it was made. But the poor cracked pot was ashamed of its own imperfection and miserable that it was able to accomplish only half of what it had been made to do.

After two years of what is perceived to be a bitter failure, it spoke to the water bearer one day by the stream. “I am ashamed of myself and I want to apologize to you”. “Why?” asked the bearer. “What are you ashamed of?” “I have been able these past two years to deliver only half my load because this crack in my side causes water to leak out all the way back to your master’s house. Because of my flaws, you have to do all this work and you don’t get full value from your efforts,” the pot said.

The water bearer felt sorry for the old cracked pot and asked it to notice the beautiful flowers along the path. Indeed, as they went up the hill, the old cracked pot noticed the sun warming the beautiful wild flowers on the side of the path, and this cheered it up some.

But at the end of the trail, it still felt bad because it had leaked out half its load, and so again it apologized to the bearer for its failure.

The bearer said to the pot, “Did you notice that there were flowers only on your side of the path, but none on the other pots side? That’s because I have always known about your flaw and took advantage of it. I planted flower seeds on your side of the path and every day while we walked back from the stream, you’ve watered them. For two years, I have been able to pick these beautiful flowers to decorate my master’s table. Without being the way you are, he would not have this beauty to grace his house.

Each of us has our own unique flaws. We’re all cracked pots. But if we allow it, our flaws can be used to grace other people’s lives.

~ Author Unknown

The Professor's Jar

The Professor's Jar
A professor stood before his philosophy class and had some items in front of him when the class began; he wordlessly picked up a very large and empty mayonnaise jar and proceeded to fill it with golf balls. He then asked the students if the jar was full. They agreed that it was.

The professor then picked up a box of pebbles and poured them into the jar, and shook the jar lightly. The pebbles rolled into the open areas between the golf balls. He then asked the students again if the jar was full. They agreed that it was.

The professor next picked up a box of sand and poured it into the jar. Of course, the sand filled up everything else. He asked once more if the jar was full. The students responded with an unanimous "yes."

The professor then produced two cups of coffee from under the table and poured the entire contents into the jar effectively filling the empty space between the sand. The students laughed.

"Now," said the professor as the laughter subsided, "I want you to recognize that this jar represents your life.

The golf balls are the important things... God, your family, your children, your health, your friends and your favourite passions... and if everything else was lost and only they remained, your life would still be full. The pebbles are the other things that matter... like your job, your house and your car. The sand is everything else... the small stuff.
"Now, if you put the sand into the jar first," he continued, "there is no room for the pebbles or the golf balls. The same goes for life.

If you spend all your time and energy on the small stuff you will never have room for the things that are important to you. "Pay attention to the things that are critical to your happiness. Play with your children. Spend time with your parents. Visit with grandparents. Take time to get medical checkups. Take your spouse out to dinner. Play another 18. There will always be time to clean the house and fix the disposal. Take care of the golf balls first - the things that really matter. Set your priorities. The rest is just sand."

One of the students raised her hand and inquired what the coffee represented. The professor smiled and said, "I'm glad you asked." The coffee just shows you that no matter how full your life may seem, there's always room for a couple of cups of coffee with a friend."

~ Author Unknown

The Horse and the Donkey

The Horse and the Donkey
Once upon a time . . . an old carter kept a horse and a donkey in the same stable. He was equally fond of both his animals, but as he used the horse to pull his trap, he gave it better food and more attention than he did the donkey. However, the donkey, knowing he was not so precious as his stablemate, ate straw instead of corn and hay, without complaining. Even when both animals carried sacks to market, the donkey's was the heavier load, for the carter did not want to overwork his noble horse, though he had no such feelings about the donkey.
As time went by, the horse grew more handsome and robust, while the donkey became thin and weak. One day, on their way to market, the donkey was carrying his usual heavy load, while the horse had only two lightweight sacks tied to the saddle.
"I can't go much further!" moaned the donkey. "I'm much weaker today! I can hardly stand and unless I can get rid of some of this weight, I won't be able to go on. Couldn't you take some of my load?"
When the horse heard this, he looked the donkey up and down in disdain, for he considered himself much superior, and said: "Our master gave you the heavy load, because he knows that donkeys are beasts of burden. Their loads ought to be heavier than those of noble horses!"
So the wretched donkey stumbled on. But after a short distance, he stopped again, bleary-eyed, his tongue hanging out.
"Please, please listen! If you don't help me, I'll never reach market alive." But without even a glance, the horse haughtily replied: "Rubbish! Come on, you'll manage this time too!" But this time, after a few tottering steps, the donkey dropped dead to the ground.
The donkey's master, who had lingered to pick mushrooms, ran up when he saw the animal fall.
"Poor thing!" he said. "He served me well for so many years. His load must have been too heavy." Then he turned to the horse: "Come here! You'll have to carry your companion's load too now!" And he hoisted the donkey's sacks onto the horse's back.
"I'd have done better to help the donkey when he was alive," said the horse to himself. "A little more weight wouldn't have done me any harm. Now, I'm frightened of collapsing myself under a double load!" But feeling sorry too late did nothing to lighten his load.
~ Author Unknown

Good luck, bad luck. Who knows?

Good luck, bad luck. Who knows?
A farmer's horse ran away one day and all the villagers came to him saying, Oh what bad luck you've had! Your horse that you need to do your work is gone!
The farmer shrugged his shoulders and said: "Good luck, bad luck. Who knows?"
Several days later, the farmer's horse returned, followed by a herd of wild horses!
Oh what good luck you have, cried the same villagers! Not only has your horse returned, he has brought you many horses!
The farmer again shrugged his shoulders and said: "Good luck, bad luck. Who knows?"
One day not long after, the farmer's son was trying to break one of the wild horses. He was thrown off the horse and broke his leg.
Oh what bad luck you have! Cried the villagers. Now your son has a broken leg. Who will help you?
The farmer shrugged his shoulders and said: "Good luck, bad luck. Who knows?"
Not long after, as the son was recuperating, an army came through the village and took all the young males to fight in a war in another region. They did not take the farmer's son because of his broken leg.
Oh what good luck you have! The villagers cried once again. Your son has been spared being taken off to war because of his broken leg!
The farmer shrugged his shoulders and said: "Good luck, bad luck. Who knows?"
~ Author Unknown

We have to surprise them with restraint and generosity

Op-Ed Columnist
Surprise, Surprise, Surprise
By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN
Published: August 21, 2010
New York Times
quote:

I just saw the movie “Invictus” — the story of how Nelson Mandela, in his first term as president of South Africa, enlists the country’s famed rugby team, the Springboks, on a mission to win the 1995 Rugby World Cup and, through that, to start the healing of that apartheid-torn land. The almost all-white Springboks had been a symbol of white domination, and blacks routinely rooted against them. When the post-apartheid, black-led South African sports committee moved to change the team’s name and colors, President Mandela stopped them. He explained that part of making whites feel at home in a black-led South Africa was not uprooting all their cherished symbols. “That is selfish thinking,” Mandela, played by Morgan Freeman, says in the movie. “It does not serve the nation.” Then speaking of South Africa’s whites, Mandela adds, “We have to surprise them with restraint and generosity.”

Locked in a Room With Open Doors

Theology Today - Vol. 31, No. 4 - January 1975
http://theologytoday.ptsem.edu/jan1975/
v31-4-bookreview9.htm

book review:

Locked in a Room With Open Doors
By Ernest T. Campbell
Waco, Texas, Word Books, 1974. 180 pp. $5.95.

The title of the book is one of the twenty sermons compiled by the distinguished minister of the Riverside Church in New York City who addresses one of the most cosmopolitan audiences in America. His theme indicates that people can still be prisoners within when all the doors without have been opened. No reduction of constraint on the outside of life can guarantee freedom within the individual. The volume will be inspirational to laypeople seeking to develop a confident Christian conviction. Professional leaders will enjoy analyzing what one of the best known preachers in the United States has to say in a turbulent period when preaching is discounted.

In the sweep of a year's messages, Campbell applies the gospel to the amplitude of crucial situations. The subjects range over fear, rejection, the paradoxes of conscience, the problem of evil that will not play dead, racial tension, God, the blight and plight of the churches, reconciliation, charismatics, and the cities' jungles. In the warp of abrasive social questions he weaves the hopes and promises of Christ's renewal and the prospect that we shall overcome. He says, "God has the means to win and God means to win. We are called to nothing less than participation in 'The Invincible Kingdom of God.' "

Campbell's sermons prod and probe. They draw blood. They drag the pew-sitter into the street fight. He has to take sides. These messages command a healthy response because they have depth. Their substance is involved with the feelings of people about issues they talk about every place but in the church. The preacher's common sense and Christian witness are sound. He opens his facts, reasons, and observations like a street-corner merchant so the reader can handle the merchandise and see if it is phony. All the time this dialogue is going on there are reliefs of tension by little whimsies and autobiographical materials that make these messages personal.

Those of us who have long admired Ernest Campbell know that he is skillful with words and sentences. He knows how to write a punch line. "Trying to help history along is about as futile as rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic!" "Some people never feel tall enough unless they have other people under them." "Our estrangement from each other is the clearest indication of our fallenness." "Woe to the man too ambitious for his resources!"

All the striking phrases are not from the preacher alone. His references and allusions are wide and responsible. He knows Jurgen Moltmann as well as Eric Hoffer and Karl Menninger besides Vonnegut, Novak, Marney, and Glasser. The Riverside preacher knows what is going on in the minds of thinkers and the readers, as well as in the Daily News. And the man in his pew knows what is going on in his preacher's heart.

Campbell's sermons would be hard to preach in some small church under the sway of main contributors. He tells what is good about the movements, and he points out the hollow soft spots in the old positions, without gloating over either. His messages pull back the curtains to show all the wires that hold truth together, and he shows some of the patching tapes where it has been torn.

No one could preach these sermons without the validity of his own participation in the struggle. When Campbell talks about prison reform, the words show his natural feelings after having talked with thirty men at Sing Sing. His messages reveal a personal conviction of faith in Jesus Christ and the courage of involvement in social action that suggests "follow me and see for yourself." His words are more daring as an evangelical man of social action than are those of some who stand only on one side or the other. But the price for holding the two together is obviously high as well as rewarding.

These messages suggested that one also peruse again a volume by Harry E. Fosdick and one by Robert J. McCracken, both of whom preceded Ernest Campbell. One is struck by the, fact that this generation of listeners is more media-oriented, fad-fashioned, slogan-centered, issue-oriented, and illiterate as to great Christian words and principles. No wonder the preacher has to earn the right to be heard and to work harder to have something lasting to say.

All three men speak to the needs of their generations with insight from the Scripture's universals. They preach to the moral and the social consciousness as well as to the center of each personality. Each of these great preachers senses the need to have a vision and a version of the Eternal which will appeal to the present but will outlast our governance by the latest opinion poll, especially when it can reverse itself while life's struggle remains as it was.

Bryant M. Kirkland
The Fifth Avenue Presbyterian Church
New York, New York

The LORD loves the alien

Exodus 23:9:
"Do not oppress an alien; you yourselves know how it feels to be aliens, because you were aliens in Egypt."

Leviticus 19:33-34:
"When an alien lives with you in your land, do not mistreat him. The alien living with you must be treated as one of your native-born. Love him as yourself, for you were aliens in Egypt. I am the LORD your God."

Deuteronomy (10:19):
[The LORD] defends the cause of the fatherless and the widow, and loves the alien, giving him food and clothing. And you are to love those who are aliens, for you yourselves were aliens in Egypt.

Yes, but I am

quote from Eboo Patel, "The Faith Divide," Washington Post
http://newsweek.washingtonpost.com/onfaith/eboo_patel/
2010/08/my_evangelical_heroes.html#more

One of my favorite faith stories is about an American Christian minister stationed in Europe during World War II. His congregation sends him money so that he can come home for Christmas, and he uses that money to help a group of European Jews flee from Hitler's death camps to safety.
One of his congregants writes him an angry letter, scolds him for not using the money for its intended purpose, and ends with the exasperated line: "The people you saved weren't even Christian."
"Yes," wrote back the minister, "but I am."

A winner is always part of the solution

Coach Traub, performance consultant:
http://www.coachtraub.com/inspirational_stories.html

A winner is always part of the solution;
a loser is always part of the problem.
A winner always has a program or response;
a loser always has an excuse or explanation.
A winner always says “Let me help you,”
a loser always says “That is not my job.”
A winner sees an answer in every problem;
a loser sees a problem in every answer.
A winner exclaims “It may be difficult, but it is possible;”
a loser cries “It may be possible, but it’s much too difficult.”
A winner makes a commitment;
a loser makes promises.

1. What is the difference between negative competition and healthy competition? How could you promote healthy competition at your place of work?
   
2. In your next business negotiation, how might you create an environment where both you and the other party “win”?
   
3. Are you “winning battles but losing the war”? Where do your priorities fit in when it comes to winning?
   
4. What could you do to affirm the winning qualities in other people?

Olympic champion Jesse Owens once put it like this: ‘There is something that can happen to every athlete, every human being - it’s the instinct to slack off, to give in to the pain, to give less than your best . . . the instinct to hope to win through luck or your opponents not doing their best, instead of going to the limit and past your limit, where victory is always to be found. Defeating those negative instincts that are out to defeat us is the difference between winning and losing, and we face that battle every day of our lives.”

Who is a hero?

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

~ The Talmud

a little radical and exciting

http://www.usatoday.com/news/religion/
2010-08-11-teenchurch10_ST_N.htm?csp=34news

Chris Palmer, youth pastor at Ironbridge Baptist Church in Chester, Va., says its youth group enrollment slid from 125 teens in 2008 to 35 last winter.
He pulled participation back up to 70 this year by letting teens know "real church, centered on Jesus Christ, is hard work," Palmer says. "This involves the Marine Corps of Christianity. Once we communicate that, we see kids say, 'Hey, I want to be involved in something that's a little radical and exciting.' "

how to read troubling biblical passages

quote from The Reason for God
by Tim Keller,
founding pastor of Redeemer Presbyterian Church in New York City

a recommendation for how to approach sections of the Bible that seem confusing:d

Many people run from any consideration of the Bible once they find such a biblical passage. I counsel them instead to slow down and try out several different perspectives on the issues that trouble them. That way they can continue to read, learn, and profit from the Bible even as they continue to wrestle with some of its concepts. One possibility I urge them to consider is that the passage that bothers them might not teach what it appears to them to be teaching. Many of the texts people find offensive can be cleared up with a decent commentary that puts the issue into historical context.

equally loved, sinful, and redeemed

"We are all equal in the eyes of God: equally loved, sinful, and redeemed."

~ author unknown

Does God need a religion?

"I know that religion needs a God, but, does God need a religion?"

Posted by: nigelhawes999 | August 3, 2010 11:40 AM
http://newsweek.washingtonpost.com/onfaith/panelists/
susan_k_smith/2010/08/in_the_name_of_christ.html

Confusing Vows and Vowels

My nine-year-old nephew, Phillip, was a ringbearer in my wedding. At the wedding rehearsal, the singer asked when she should begin singing.
The pastor answered, "After the vows."
She asked: "What are the vows? I'll need a cue."
Phillip compounded the confusion as he explained: "The vowels are A-E-I-O-U. There is no Q!"

~Amy Rosa, Flint, MI. Christian Reader, "Lite Fare."

Founding Fathers on Religion

“The Account of The Declaration”
Thomas Jefferson notes regarding the birth of the Declaration of Independence
www.ushistory.org/declaration/account/index.htm

“With the help therefore of Rushworth (a popular book, John Rushworth’s “Historical Collections”) whom we rummaged over for revolutionary precedents & forms of the Puritans of that day, preserved by him, we cooked up a resolution, somewhat modernizing their phrases...”
Note: dictionary definition of Puritan:
“A member of a group of English Protestants who in the 16th and 17th centuries advocated simplification of the deeds and ceremonies of the Church of England and strict religious discipline.”

The Founding Fathers called “for a day of fasting, humiliation and prayer” and further in that same paragraph Jefferson states, “ To give greater emphasis to our proposition, we agreed to wait the next morning on Mr. Nicholas, whose grave & religious character was more in unison with the tone of our resolution and to solicit him to move it.”

George Washington’s Farewell Address
http://www.gwpapers.virginia.edu/documents/farewell/transcript.html#p20

"Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, Religion and morality are indispensable supports. In vain would that man claim the tribute of Patriotism, who should labour to subvert these great Pillars of human happiness, these firmest props of the duties of Men & citizens. The mere Politican, equally with the pious man ought to respect & to cherish them. A volume could not trace all their connections with private & public felicity. Let it simply be asked where is the security for property, for reputation, for life, if the sense of religious obligation desert the Oaths, which are the instruments of investigation in Courts of Justice? And let us with caution indulge the supposition, that morality can be maintained without religion. Whatever may be conceded to the influence of refined education on minds of peculiar structure--reason & experience both forbid us to expect that National morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principle.

'Tis substantially true, that virtue or morality is a necessary spring of popular government. The rule indeed extends with more or less force to every species of Free Government. Who that is a sincere friend to it, can look with indifference upon attempts to shake the foundation of the fabric."

Declaration of Independence:

“the Laws of Nature’s God”
“We hold these truths to be self evident, that all men are created equal that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness”

moralistic therapeutic deism

from Thin Places, by Amy Julia Becker
on Faith, Family, and Disability
http://blog.beliefnet.com/thinplaces/

Patheos ran an interview with Kenda Cressey Dean, author of the new book Almost Christian: about the religious/spiritual views of American teenagers. It's a fascinating, if sobering, interview. Here's an example:

You refer to this "moralistic therapeutic deism" quite a bit in your book. Can you unpack this term for us?

That's the name the NSYR came up with to describe the "belief system" of the majority of teens surveyed. The shorthand of moralistic therapeutic deism is that religion helps you feel good and do good, but God pretty much stays out of the way. Now, you can call on God if you need God to solve a problem, but God's track record on solving problems is pretty bad. So the primary God-images that the kids had were either as the "cosmic therapist" or the "divine butler." The therapist serves as the one who helps you feel good about yourself; the guidance counselor image comes to mind here when working with teenagers. The divine butler is somebody who comes when called upon but otherwise stays away. Those images were identified in the study as being dominant among teenagers. And that was very true with the teens I talked to as well. They believe that:

A God exists who created and orders the world and watches over human life on earth.
God wants people to be good, nice, and fair to each other, as taught in the Bible and most world religions.
The central goal of life is to be happy and to feel good about oneself.
God does not need to be involved in my life except when I need God to resolve a problem.
Good people go to Heaven when they die.

Read more: http://blog.beliefnet.com/thinplaces/#ixzz0sODdDVDL

aware of the needs of others

"Your heart is so much more than a vessel for romance. It has been described as the king, with the mind as the king's adviser. When faced with a decision, the king may ask his advisers for advice, may even send him out into the world to gather information, but ultimately it is the king that makes the final decision. Even though the advisers do not always agree with the king's decision, the king is invariably right, because the king's view not only sees the bigger picture but is also aware of the needs of others."

Ed and Deb Shapiro, authors of Be The Change, How Meditation Can Transform You and the World

the purpose of life

“The purpose of life is not to be happy. It is to be useful, to be honorable, to be compassionate, to have it make some difference that you have lived and lived well.”

~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

when character is lost

“When wealth is lost, nothing is lost;
when health is lost, something is lost;
when character is lost, all is lost.”

~ Billy Graham

being able to remake ourselves

“As human beings, our greatness lies not so much in being able to remake the world - that is the myth of the atomic age - as in being able to remake ourselves.”

~ Mohandas (Mahatma) Ghandi

You do not have a fire hot enough

"But he said to them, 'You do not have a fire hot enough to make me play the coward.'"

~ 4 Maccabees 10:14 NRSV

Always Be Prepared

Quote:

The greatest going-over-the-side I ever heard of (and this is not by way of recommendation) happened at Wheaton College about 40 years ago.

Wheaton's president, V. Raymond Edman, a godly man, was speaking in chapel one Friday morning. He had just finished telling about the time he had carefully rehearsed for an audience with the then-emperor of Ethiopia. His application for the students, whom he felt had slipped into a spirit of irreverence in their worship, was simple: you must always be prepared to respectfully conduct yourself in the presence of the King of Kings.

Having made his point, Dr. Edman suddenly slumped to the floor and died. Having spoken of entering the presence of the King, he did it himself. He left, apparently, at the moment of God's choosing, whom, we trust, watches over our leave-decisions, too.

~ Gordon Macdonald

violence and methodical, sophisticated and civilized coldness

Israel's Holocaust museum grapples with Holocaust diminishment
CNN's Izzy Lemberg sent this report on a major Holocaust conference in Jerusalem:

Yad Vashem, Israel’s main museum and research facility for preserving the memory of the Holocaust–including concentration camps like Auschwitz, above–devoted much of its annual conference on Monday to grappling with the challenges of Holocaust denial and diminishment. . . .

Alain Finkielkraut, a prominent French philosopher, keynoted the event, arguing that “Post-Nazi Europe knows that neither culture nor progress is a safeguard against ferocity."

"It knows that modernity does not necessarily overcome cruelty," he said of Europe, "and that the most egregious evil is produced by a combination of unleashed violence and methodical, sophisticated and civilized coldness."

http://religion.blogs.cnn.com/2010/06/15/israels-holocaust-museum-grapples-with-holocaust-diminishment/?hpt=Sbin

'positive-sentiment override'

http://news.bbc.co.uk/today/hi/today/newsid_8745000/8745287.stm
quote, underline added:

Married couples can find it easier to widen each others' worlds and reap the benefits of shared meaning and memories.

They're also shored-up by the respect society offers those who trouble to state, publicly, their relationship's importance. And if the obstacle race works out, at the end, if they're lucky, they approach the finish with somebody to remind them where they left their spare teeth.

But magic only works if you believe in it, if you don't simply work at marriage, but play at and relish it. Studies find that the more optimistic your expectations, the greater your demands, the more marriage will give you.

Magic only works if you believe in it, if you don't simply work at marriage, but play at and relish it.

If you seek the best, keep noticing each other, complain well but criticise less, and don't let leisure slide. (Although husbands tend to enjoy more free time, according to latest research, wives' pleasures have greater impact on whether a union is happy.)

Try a psychological trick called 'positive-sentiment override'. If your beloved snaps at you, don't snap back or take it personally. No, they're having a bad day.

With care, luck and selective attention, the ball and chain can weigh lighter than ever.

Catherine Blyth, author of The Art of Marriage (John Murray, £12.99). www.catherineblyth.com

If Men Were to Rewrite the Rules

Rule # 1 - Anything we said six or eight months ago is inadmissible in an argument.
All comments become null and void after seven days.

Rule # 2 - If we say something that can be interpreted in two ways, and one of the ways makes you sad or angry, we meant the other way.

Rule # 3 - It is in neither your best interest or ours to make us take those stupid Cosmo quizzes together.

Rule # 4 - You can either ask us to do something OR tell us how you want it done - not both.

Rule # 5 - Whenever possible, please say whatever you have to say during commercials or time-outs.

Rule # 6 - Christopher Columbus didn't need directions and neither do we.

Rule # 7 - When we're turning the wheel and the car is nosing onto the off ramp, you saying "Is this is our exit?" is not necessary.

Hacking at the branches of evil

"There are a thousand hacking at the branches of evil to one who is striking at the root, and it may be that he who bestows the largest amount of time and money on the needy is doing the most by his mode of life to produce that misery which he strives in vain to relieve."

~ Henry David Thoreau

Lives of quiet desperation

"Most men lead lives of quiet desperation
and go to the grave with the song still in them."

~ Henry David Thoreau

Wisdom of Dad

· "Be nice to everyone, because everyone has a hard time."
· "I think the perfect business would be one where you didn't have to deal with people."
· "If you keep your eyes on the sky you will starve."
· "Just let people keep talking, they will usually tell on themselves."
· "People will only change when they have had a significant emotional experience, but even then the change is not always permanent."
· "Poop don't run uphill."
· "Sometimes all you can do is all you can do, and well that's all you can do!"
· "Sometimes you just get tired of Cheeseburgers!"

http://theologyshock.blogspot.com/2007/05/
do-you-want-to-be-healed.html

Isolation and False Fronts

June, 2010 (Web-only) Christianity Today
www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2010/juneweb-only/32-51.0.html

Learning from the Gores about the Grace of Separation
Why separating can be pro-family.

Earlier this week, Al and Tipper Gore announced to a small circle of close friends via e-mail—and thus to the world—that they are separating after 40 years of a seemingly very happy and successful marriage. . . .

By separating, the couple is making a bold statement. Whether they realize it or not, the announcement of separation does not necessarily say the couple is giving up (that is what divorce would mean). Separation at least leaves room for the possibility of restoration and reconciliation. The couple can enter their time of separation intending to air out the anger and hurt that has built up, then commit to entering individual counseling to work through their problems. . . .

There is another important reason why separation can be a gift to a marriage: It lets the cat out of the bag and gets our community involved. That truth—that one marriage can affect another—is why we are talking about the Gores. It is an important gauge of how much we value marriage when even hardened political reporters are mourning the Gores' news and expressing collective romanticism and hopefulness about what marriage should mean. Even The Washington Post lamented passionately this week, "Please Al and Tipper, don't do this. For our sakes—don't!"

And here we find one of Satan's most potent tools in killing marriages: isolation and false fronts. All of that is smashed to pieces when a couple announces they are seeking separation before divorce. It gives our friends time and space to get into our business. This is profoundly healthy and should come as no surprise—after all, our Trinitarian God is inherently about community, accountability, and investing in one another, while Satan is all about loneliness, abandonment, and shame. Separation can be an opportunity to bring godly counsel and support into the marriage, as it serves to bring the relational infection out into the healing light.

~ Glenn T. Stanton, Director of Family Formation Studies at Focus on the Family and the author of Why Marriage Matters and My Crazy, Imperfect Christian Family (both NavPress).

The utmost compassion for sinners

"No one is of the Spirit of Christ but he that has the utmost compassion for sinners. Nor is there any greater sign of your own perfection than you find yourself all love and compassion toward them that are very weak and defective. And on the other hand, you have never less reason to be pleased with yourself than when you find yourself most angry and offended at the behavior of others."

~ William Law, an eighteenth-century Anglican

Understanding the evil in your own heart

"The person who understands the evil in his own heart is the only person who is useful, fruitful and solid in his beliefs and obedience. Others only delude themselves and thus upset families, churches and all other relationships. In their self-pride and judgment of others, they show great inconsistency."

~ John Owen, one of the great Puritan scholars

Eight Simple Tips To Avoid Late Night Snacking

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/darya-pino/
weight-loss-tips-8-simple_b_566418.html

1. Eat a satisfying dinner

2. Eat fruit

3. Drink herbal tea

4. Brush your teeth

5. Drink some water
Sparkling water flavored with a little citrus or cucumber is particularly effective at distracting your mouth from the desire to keep chewing.

6. Call a friend

7. Get moving

8. Play video games

Darya is a scientist, foodie and advocate of local, seasonal foods.

"Self-expansion" and a happy marriage

New York Times
May 10, 2010, 5:07 pm
The Science of a Happy Marriage
By TARA PARKER-POPE
http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/
05/10/tracking-the-science-of-commitment/
quote:

it may not be feelings of love or loyalty that keep couples together. Instead, scientists speculate that your level of commitment may depend on how much a partner enhances your life and broadens your horizons — a concept that Arthur Aron, a psychologist and relationship researcher at Stony Brook University, calls “self-expansion.”

To measure this quality, couples are asked a series of questions: How much does your partner provide a source of exciting experiences? How much has knowing your partner made you a better person? How much do you see your partner as a way to expand your own capabilities?

The Stony Brook researchers conducted experiments using activities that stimulated self-expansion. Some couples were given mundane tasks, while others took part in a silly exercise in which they were tied together and asked to crawl on mats, pushing a foam cylinder with their heads. The study was rigged so the couples failed the time limit on the first two tries, but just barely made it on the third, resulting in much celebration.

Couples were given relationship tests before and after the experiment. Those who had taken part in the challenging activity posted greater increases in love and relationship satisfaction than those who had not experienced victory together.

Now the researchers are embarking on a series of studies to measure how self-expansion influences a relationship. They theorize that couples who explore new places and try new things will tap into feelings of self-expansion, lifting their level of commitment.

“We enter relationships because the other person becomes part of ourselves, and that expands us,” Dr. Aron said. “That’s why people who fall in love stay up all night talking and it feels really exciting. We think couples can get some of that back by doing challenging and exciting things together.”

Tara Parker-Pope’s new book is “For Better: The Science of a Good Marriage.”

When food becomes your hugs, your kisses

Geneen Roth, Women Food and God

"You can tell where you've given up or how you've given up when food becomes your hugs, your kisses, your best friends and your biggest relationship."

"I give a set of seven eating guidelines in the book. They are very easy. Kids intuitively follow them:
* Eat when you're hungry.
* Eat what your body really wants.
* Pay attention to your food.
* Stop when you've had enough.
Kids follow those automatically. As soon as we start using food for reasons besides hunger, we stop listening to our bodies."

www.cnn.com/2010/LIVING/05/04/
women.food.god.geneen.roth/index.html?hpt=Sbin

The “Christianity and” Syndrome

The “Christianity and” Syndrome

C.S. Lewis once said that the same thing happens in Christianity; it’s what you add to it that ruins it. In fact, C.S. Lewis called it the “Christianity and Syndrome;” where we link our faith to some other cause to which we are partial and say “this is the center of our faith.”

And so we hear from our pulpits that the main focus for us must be Christianity and Marxism, or Christianity and Capitalism, or Christianity and Social Action, or Christianity and Gun Control, or Christianity and the Republican Platform, or Christianity and the Pro-life Movement or Christianity and the Twelve Step program or Christianity and Homosexual Rights movement or anything else you might want to insert there.

And the fact is, that as soon as you add an “And” to Christianity you have lost your focus. A Christian worldview speaks to all of those important issues; but every one of them is peripheral to who we are. We are not Christians AND something else; we are Christians, and we let our faith guide us in all other decisions of life.

Gregory T. Riether

I believe like a child that suffering will be healed

Dostoevsky, in Brothers Karamazov:

“I believe like a child that suffering will be healed and made up for, that all the humiliating absurdity of human contradictions will vanish like a pitiful mirage, like the despicable fabrication of the impotent and infinitely small Euclidean mind of man, that in the world’s finale, at the moment of eternal harmony, something so precious will come to pass that it will suffice for all hearts, for the comforting of all resentments, of the atonement of all the crimes of humanity, of all the blood that they’ve shed; and it will make it not only possible to forgive but to justify what has happened.”

Military chaplain doesn't limit his mission to church

First published in print: Saturday, May 1, 2010

Maj. Jake Marvel: Chaplain of the New York Air National Guard's 109th Airlift Wing.

As the highest ranking chaplain at Stratton Air Force Base in Glenville, Marvel conducts spiritual programs for airmen. He has deployed in support of military missions. He has prayed and counseled Army National Guardsmen after Hurricane Katrina and military personnel injured in the war in Iraq at a U.S. base in Germany. He has also accompanied the 109th Airlift Wing on trips to Antarctica and Greenland.

How do you serve military members with different religious backgrounds?

"I find beauty in the different faiths. It's not my job to convert folks to my faith. My job is to let people experience the depths of their own faiths and become aware of that in their lives. I work to enable them to have the courage to become the people God has created them to be."

-- Dennis Yusko

Read more: http://www.timesunion.com/AspStories/story.asp?storyID=926976&category=REGION#ixzz0mjmkx1Bl

The Love that made the worlds

The Problem of Pain
Chapter 3
C.S. Lewis

When Christianity says that God loves man, it means that God LOVES man: not that He has some “disinterested,” because really indifferent concern for our welfare, but that, in awful and surprising truth, we are the objects of His love. You asked for a loving God: you have one. The great spirit you so lightly invoked, the “lord of terrible aspect,” is present: not a senile benevolence that drowsily wishes you to be happy in your own way, not the cold philanthropy of a conscientious magistrate, nor the care of a host who feels responsible for the comfort of his guests, but the consuming fire Himself, the Love that made the worlds, persistent as the artist’s love for his work and despotic as a man’s love for a dog, jealous, inexorable, exacting as love between the sexes.

when you're economically empowered

Rescuing girls from sex slavery
By Ebonne Ruffins, CNN
April 30, 2010 5:30 p.m. EDT

Kathmandu, Nepal (CNN) -- Geeta was 9 when she began wearing makeup, staying up until 2 a.m. and having sex with as many as 60 men a day.

"I used to be really sad and frustrated with what was happening in my life," she said. . . .

It was not until Geeta was 14 that a police officer rescued her and brought her to a safe house compound run by Anuradha Koirala. The 61-year-old woman and her group, Maiti Nepal, have been fighting for more than 16 years to rescue and rehabilitate thousands of Nepal's sex trafficking victims. . . .

By the early 1990s, an increasing demand for help and persistent cases of violence against women compelled Koirala to do more. Maiti Nepal was her brainchild for giving voice, legal defense and rehabilitation to victims of sex trafficking.

Roughly translated, Maiti means "Mother's Home." The group has facilities throughout Nepal and India, but most of the rehabilitation work takes place at its main campus in Kathmandu, Nepal.

Koirala said girls from the brothels arrive empty-handed, sick, in many cases pregnant or with small children, and "psychologically broken."

"When the girl first comes to Maiti Nepal, we never, never ask them a question. We just let them [be] for as long as they need. We let them play, dance, walk, talk to a friend," Koirala said. "They are afraid at first, but eventually they will talk to us on their own." . . .

The group's ultimate goal is to help girls become economically independent and reintegrated into society.

"We try to give them whatever work they want to do, whatever training they want to do, because when you're economically empowered, people forget everything. People even forget [she is] HIV-positive or was trafficked," Koirala said.

http://www.cnn.com/2010/LIVING/04/29/
cnnheroes.koirala.nepal/

Hammer

When the only tool you have is a hammer,
every problem looks like a nail.

~ Unknown

The Most Important Job in the World

Quote:
Tony Campolo adapted by James Moore, Collected Sermons, www.Sermons.com

Dr. Tony Campolo is a well-known and highly-respected, inspirational speaker. Over the last several years, Tony Campolo has spent much of his time traveling around the world on speaking tours.
Meanwhile, his wife, Peggy, has chosen to stay home and give herself and all that she has to the "Bringing Up" of their two children, Bart and Lisa. On those rare occasions when Peggy does travel with Tony, she finds herself engaged in conversations with some of the most accomplished, impressive, influential, sophisticated people in the world.
After one such trip, Peggy told Tony that sometimes as she visits with these powerful people… she finds herself feeling intimidated and sometimes even questioning her own self-worth. Tony said to her: "Well, honey, why don't you come up with something you could say when you meet people that will let them know that you strongly value what you do and you feel that it is dramatically, urgent and crucial and important.
Well, not long after that, Tony and Peggy Campolo were at a party… when a woman said to Peggy in a rather condescending tone, "Well, my dear, what do you do?" Tony Campolo heard his wife say:
"I am nurturing two Homo Sapiens into the dominant values of the Judaeo-Christian tradition in order that they might become instruments for the transformation of the social order into the kind of eschatological utopia God envisioned from the beginning of time."
And the other woman said:
"O, my, I'm just a lawyer."
I like that story because it reminds us that there are a lot of important jobs in the world today but not one of them is more important than the job of being a mother.

I just helped him cry

Author and lecturer Leo Buscaglia once talked about a contest he was asked to judge. The purpose of the contest was to find the most caring child.

The winner was a four year old child whose next door neighbor was an elderly gentleman who had recently lost his wife. Upon seeing the man cry, the little boy went into the old gentleman's yard, climbed onto his lap, and just sat there.
When his Mother asked what he had said to the neighbor, the little boy said, "Nothing, I just helped him cry."

~ Author Unknown

It is always better to act than to grieve

"It is always better to act than to grieve."

~ Beowulf

Enough Already!

quotes from Peter Walsh's Enough Already!

A lot of clutter is a lack of acceptance that a moment has passed.

The cycle problem:
If you put a load of clothes in the wash, and halfway through you turn the machine off and leave it for a few days, you will come back to a mound of smelly laundry. You have to finish the cycle. When you have a bowl of cereal, does the box go back in the cupboard? When you bring in the mail, do you immediately open and sort it? At night, do your clothes go in the hamper or on the floor? We have a choice: to be mindful and complete the cycle, or to end up with a stinky load of washing in the metaphorical machine. Inside we're all 8-year-olds expecting someone to pick up after us. Those days are gone.

The Ground Rules

1. Everything you own should have value, either because it's functional or beautiful or you just love it. Remember the question of what you'd grab if your house were on fire; that's your baseline for determining an object's worth.

2. Every item needs a place where it "lives." Setting things down on the coffee table or kitchen counter creates piles and confusion. My clients mock me when I say, "Where do your keys live? They live in a bowl or on a hook by the front door"—but you never lose anything when you put it where it lives.

3. Focus on one thing at a time. Multitasking is supposed to help you get more things done quickly, but when you try to do 19 things at once, everything ends up incomplete. You're trying to simplify your life, so simplify your approach to getting organized.

Catalogs: You can log on to Catalogchoice.org, a free service that will stop these unwanted mailings from being sent to you.

Formals: DonateMyDress.org provides formal wear to girls who can't afford prom or special occasion dresses.

The Inherited Items and Mementos:
Your home is not a museum. ... You're not living her life, and you're not a bad person for giving inherited items away. ... Donate it, document what it's worth, and take it off your taxes. Or give it to another family member who would really like it. Or sell it on eBay. ... Rule of thumb: If it serves no purpose, let it go.

The Car:
What should be in the car: registration, insurance certificate, owner's manual, maps and/or GPS, extra pair of sunglasses in case of glare, small folding umbrella, headset for your cell phone (preferably you're not talking while driving, but if you are, please be hands-free), envelope with supermarket and drive-through restaurant coupons and any gift certificates you've received (it's pointless for them to be in the drawer at home).
What should be in the trunk: tool kit, flashlight, working spare tire. In winter, add ice scraper, bag of kitty litter (for traction in snow), a small blanket.

Email: If you're constantly responding to e-mail, you're being pulled away from the things that you need or want to do. Try checking it hourly.

The (Shudder) Basement or Garage:

Where do you start? First, get rid of unsalvageables.

Once you've gotten rid of the garbage, start grouping similar items.

When everything has been sorted, prune: Is this important enough to save? Is it useful? Discard what isn't.

Next, containerize what's left. ... I'm all about clear plastic storage. ... Get rolling shelves that can be moved to one side of the room and perhaps even covered with drapes.

At the end of this project, you'll have accomplished three goals: There will be less stuff, what's left will be in order, and everything will be in containers that work with your space. Being organized isn't about getting rid of everything you own or trying to become a different person; it's about living the way you want to live, but better. There are enough things in the world that you can't control—but you can bring some order into your home and your life.

Graduation Memories, PTS

I recall Diogenes Allen at our 1988 baccalaureate service. Many parents and relatives were there when he unpacked a passage from Mark’s gospel. Said Dr. Allen, “I looked at several commentaries regarding this passage and found this comment, ‘several unrelated sayings from Q.’ Well, perhaps Mark knows how to relate the sayings of Jesus better than any exegete.”
The bravado of that statement, of course, was lost on many family members who looked at one another, wondering, “What in the world is Q?”
Scott Kinder-Pyle (M.Div., 1988)
Spokane, Washington

Tom Gillespie, at my commencement in 1986, said “...and remember that the Bible is not a map, it’s a compass.” I’ve always remembered that, and I’ve quoted it frequently over the years. It’s one of the most concise and useful bits of theology I’ve ever heard.
David Preisendanz (M.Div., 1986)
Willow Grove, Pennsylvania

http://www3.ptsem.edu/inSpireContent.aspx?id=3409&

Humiliation

Nelson Mandela:

Sometimes a leader has to criticize those with whom he works—it cannot be avoided. I like a leader who can, while pointing out a mistake, bring up the good things the other person has done. If you do that, then the person sees that you have a complete picture of him. There is nobody more dangerous than one who has been humiliated, even when you humiliate him rightly. ...

If you are humble, you are no threat to anybody. Some behave in a way that dominates others. That's a mistake. If you want the cooperation of humans around you, you must make them feel they are important—and you do that by being genuine and humble. You know that other people have qualities that may be better than your own. Let them express them. ...

We must teach people that when they've been wronged, they must talk to their enemies and resolve their differences for the sake of peace.

www.oprah.com/world/Oprah-Interviews-Nelson-Mandela/

Elliott Smith's idea of Heaven

Asked once by New Musical Express what his idea of heaven was, Elliott Smith replied,
"George Jones would be singing all the time. It would be like New York in reverse. People would be nice to each other for no reason at all. And it would smell good."

New York in Reverse
Elliott Smith's idea of heaven was modest, like everything else about the songwriter.
By Alex Abramovich
Posted Wednesday, October 22, 2003, at 4:08 PM PT
http://slate.msn.com/id/2090203/

Three Desires of Husbands

"We husbands have three desires in life: food, sex, and … we can't think of the third thing."

~ Phil Callaway,
author of I Used to Have Answers, Now I Have Kids (Harvest House)

You are never too old

http://www.bluefishtv.com/Store/
Downloadable_Video_Illustrations/1739/Never_Too_Late

quote:

Noah was five-hundred when he began building the ark.
Abram was middle-aged when God called him out of Ur to begin a new nation.
Sarah was ninety-nine when she gave birth to Isaac.
Moses was eighty when God told him to rescue the nation Israel from Pharaoh.
Caleb was forty years old when he spied on the Canaanites.
Daniel was eighty-six when he was thrown into the lion's den.
Jesus was thirty when he began his ministry.

It's never too late to follow God's call.

"I really needed to swim out to the wave"

quotes from Raquel Welch, April 2010:

Today, Raquel says she has a great relationship with her kids, but it took work. "I just started out realizing that I really needed to swim out to the wave. I needed to take a lot more initiative and just keep letting them know that I wanted to be there in their lives with them, that I had something I could offer to them," she says. "Little by little, the disappointment or the lack of confidence they had in me melted away."
http://www.oprah.com/oprahshow/Sex-Symbol-Raquel-Welch-on-Aging/6

Marilyn [Monroe] oozed "availability," which was how we young girls felt hormonally, though we had to put a lid on it. What troubled me back then was the fact that as hypnotic as Marilyn was to watch, she gave the impression of someone who could be easily taken advantage of and who couldn't fight back . . . like my mother. For that reason, I didn't want to be like her at all. She was an accident waiting to happen. Later, I saw that there were some men who could be protective. That was reassuring, but then they might end up taking ownership of you. Being a girl was like walking a tightrope.
http://www.oprah.com/oprahshow/Excerpt-Raquel-Welchs-Raquel-Beyond-the-Cleavage/10

Jaime Escalante Math Program

Jaime Escalante Math Program
This article was first published in the Journal of Negro Education in 1990.

www.thefutureschannel.com/jaime_escalante/
jaime_escalante_math_program.php

"Yes, the barriers disadvantaged or minority students face are substantial, but it is the very possibility of their remaining trapped by them for an entire lifetime which requires that such students be urged to succeed in their academic studies. It may be their only way out. If students have not been taught that they are the “victims” of their environment and that they must, therefore, adjust to it, then teachers can gain their full willingness – and strength – to overcome whatever obstacles they face.
...
"Admittedly, there are those extremely rare children with such severe problems that they are unable to become successful students; but given admiration, discipline and encouragement, even “impossible” children will sometimes surprise everyone and “miraculously” begin to perform at higher levels.
...
"A teacher is a teacher when he or she identifies a student’s strengths and activates the student’s potential to learn.
...
"The key, for the teacher as well as for the student, is hard work. Hard work makes the future. When hard work is combined with love, humor and a recognition of the ganas – the desire to learn, the ability to sacrifice, the wish to get ahead – that burns in our young people, the stereotypes and the barriers begin to crumble."

A Wise Man

"A fool thinks himself to be wise,
but a wise man knows himself to be a fool."

~ William Shakespeare

The 80% Rule

http://health.msn.com/fitness/womens-fitness/articlepage.aspx?cp-documentid=100254483>1=31050

"Most guys avoid anything that even smacks of perfectionism," and that applies to dieting, too, says Prevention adviser Pamela Peeke, M.D., an assistant clinical professor of medicine at the University of Maryland School of Medicine. "When women start a diet, they go from zero to 100—they become 'perfect' overnight, which is a hallmark of failure.
That's why I developed the 80 percent rule: Hit your weight-loss goals 80 percent every single day you can. One day, it'll be 120 percent because it happens to be a great day. Other days, you'll hit 50 percent or even 20 percent when you're dealing with PMS. Just make sure it averages out to 80 percent."

John Steinbeck's Of Mice and Men, quotes

"Guys like us, that work on ranches, are the loneliest guys in the world. They got no family. They don't belong no place....With us it ain't like that. We got a future. We got somebody to talk to that gives a damn about us."
~ Chapter 1, pp. 13-14

"A guy goes nuts if he ain't got nobody. Don't make no difference who the guy is, long's he's with you. I tell ya," he cried, "I tell ya a guy gets too lonely an' he gets sick."

~ John Steinbeck (Of Mice and Men)

Einstein on Christianity and Judaism

Christianity and Judaism
If one purges the Judaism of the Prophets and Christianity as Jesus taught it of all subsequent additions, especially those of the priests, one is left with a teaching which is capable of curing all the social ills of humanity.
It is the duty of every man of good will to strive steadfastly in his own little world to make this teaching of pure humanity a living force, so far as he can. If he makes an honest attempt in this direction without being crushed and trampled under foot by his contemporaries, he may consider himself and the community to which he belongs lucky.

~ From Einstein's book The World as I See It (Philosophical Library, New York, 1949) pp. 111-112

Os Guinness, The Call

“In the decades I have followed Jesus, second only to the joy of knowing him has been a sorrow at the condition of those of us today who name ourselves his followers. If so many of us profess to live by the gospel yet are so pathetically marginal to the life of our societies and so nondescript and inconsequential in our individual lives, is there something wrong with the gospel, or does the problem lie with us?”

"Years ago that question prompted me to a search through other times and places to look for instances in which the truths of the gospel were neither platitudinous nor impotent but fresh, compelling, explosive, and consequential. Along with the truth of the cross of Christ, the truth of calling has been as influential on individuals and societies as any truth in history--and will be again, when rediscovered."

"Do you want to know a truth that in the momentous challenges of our modern world will be at once a quest to inspire you, an anchor to hold you fast, a rich fare to nourish you, and a relationship you will prize above all others? Listen to Jesus of Nazareth; answer his call."

~ Os Guinness, The Call: Finding and Fulfilling the Central Purpose of Your Life, Thomas Nelson: Nashville, TN, 1998, p. 59

Life does not have to be perfect to be wonderful

"Life does not have to be perfect to be wonderful."

~ Author unknown

Jesus Loves Me Too Much to Let Me Stay That Way

"Jesus Christ Loves Me Just The Way I Am,
But Too Much To Let Me Stay That Way."

~ Author unknown

get what you always got

"If you always do what you always did,
you'll always get what you always got!"

"One day at a time,
no guilt,
and move on."

Dotti
www.dwlz.com

a TULIP of communication

Quoted from PreachingNow email list:

In a recent interview on the website Breakfast With Fred, Steve Brown (speaker for KeyLife, a prof at Reformed Seminary, and a Preaching Magazine senior consulting editor) explained that, "In my classes at the seminary, I teach a TULIP of communication. The TULIP presupposes the authority of Scripture, understanding doctrine, knowing how to exegete a text. The principles are as follows . . .

T = Therapeutic. " The communicator must, by necessity, speak to problems with solutions. Like a surgeon, the words may heal or hurt to heal . . . but if there is no healing, then there is no real communication."

U = Unconventional. "The greatest sin for a communicator is the sin of boring the audience . . . Don't say it the way everybody else has said it. Don't say the expected. Don't fit into anybody else's mold."

L = Lucid. "I tell students that a good measurement of their communication skills is this question: If your listeners wanted to take notes, could they? . . . The content my be only one point made by a story . . . but that one point should be clear . . . clear enough so that it would be written down and put into practice."

I = Illustrated. "Stories are very, very important in modern communication. Learn where to find them, how to use them and then use them often . . . "

P = Passionate. "If you don't care, nobody else will. If you aren't excited about what you are going to say, nobody else will be excited. So, if your "hot buttons" are not pushed, don't try to communicate it to anybody else." (To read the entire interview, click here.)

Preaching

"Preaching should break a hard heart, and heal a broken heart."

Pastor John Newton,
ex drunken slave trader,
author of "AMAZING GRACE."

self-discipline and awareness of consequences are critical

The Dalai Lama had not heard of Tiger Woods before. After hearing the facts, he agreed that a return to Buddhism would be helpful, saying that self-discipline and awareness of consequences were critical.

Os Guinness on the Civility of William Wilberforce

Os Guinness on William Wilberforce
Posted by Tim Challies
In Author Interviews

There are scores of lessons we can learn from Wilberforce, but take just one: his civility. As a follower of the way of Jesus, he loved his enemies and always refused to demonize them. At one time he was the most vilified man in the world, but while he never minced words in speaking about the evils of slavery, he was always gracious, generous, modest, funny, witty, and genuinely loving toward his enemies. When one of his worst enemies died, he at once saw to it anonymously that his widow was cared for adequately. Compare this with the religious right's demonizing of its foes. The latter is not so much uncivil as unChristian.

http://www.discerningreader.com/blog/2008/02/
author-interview-os-guinness

book review of The Call, Os Guinness

The Call: Finding and Fulfilling the Central Purpose of Your Life
Os Guinness

Amazon book review
By Michael Taylor (Indian Trail NC)

I personally thought some of Guinness' better points were:

1. Be devoted to Jesus instead of your service to Jesus.


2. Be inner-directed by God rather than other-directed by the opinions of
   others (what God thinks matters most!).


3. God calls us to a life of faith.


4. Deliberately spend time in solitude with God.


5. Glorify God in the ordinary things of life.


6. A sense of calling keeps us focused when modern-day life threatens to tear us apart.


7. Taking God's call seriously means we will pay the price of being abused and
   treated as fools by those who do not understand.

All in all, an excellent read!

http://www.amazon.com/Call-Finding-Fulfilling-Central-Purpose/
dp/0849944376/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1267217114&sr=8-1

Know where you are going

"If you don't know where you are going, every road will get you nowhere."

~ Henry Kissinger

Joy exist in us

"Joy doesn't exist in the world, it exists in us."

~ Benjamin Franklin

geniuses learn from other people's mistakes

“Most people never learn anything at all,
very smart people learn from their own mistakes,
and the geniuses learn from other people's mistakes.”

~ Brazilian adage

The eternal human needs

The eternal human needs:
love, safety, meaning, health, forgiveness, inspiration, liberation, renewal, etc.

~ Rabbi Brad Hirschfield

To get something you never had ...

"To get something you never had,
you have to do something you never did."

~ Author Unknown

Prayer - Mary Oliver

Praying
Mary Oliver

It doesn’t have to be
the blue iris, it could be
weeds in a vacant lot, or a few
small stones; just
pay attention, then patch

a few words together and don’t try
to make them elaborate, this isn’t
a contest but the doorway

into thanks, and a silence in which
another voice may speak.



The Summer Day
Mary Oliver

Who made the world?
Who made the swan, and the black bear?
Who made the grasshopper?
This grasshopper, I mean-
the one who has flung herself out of the grass,
the one who is eating sugar out of my hand,
who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down-
who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes.
Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face.
Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away.
I don’t know exactly what a prayer is.
I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down
into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass,
how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,
which is what I have been doing all day.
Tell me, what else should I have done?
Doesn’t everything die at last, and too soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?

Quiet Angels

"I believe that friends are quiet angels
who lift us to our feet
when our wings
have trouble remembering how to fly."

~ Author Unknown

"Forgotten is Forgiven"

The News From Lake Woebegone, Garrison Keillor
"Forgotten is Forgiven"
Prairie Home Companion Feb. 13, 2010

(paraphrase)

After I heard that 1 Cor. 13 love chapter in the Lutheran church, I was moved by it to visit my cousin Barbara. We had not spoken for five years. I brought a peace offering with me -- a couple of loaves of home-baked banana bread, and a quart of Bailey's Irish Creme.

I knocked on her door. I had the banana bread in my hand.
You've gotta bake a peace offering yourself.

She said "This is good."
And so peace was made.
This is how we do this in Lake Woebegon, you see.

This goes against psychology, which tells you that you should talk through these things.
But we believe that if you talk through your problems, you find new ones, and you dig the hole deeper, and you open up a whole fresh can of worms.

And so the way we solve problems is just to look at them and deny that they ever existed. This is how you do it in Lake Woebegon.

The secret of a good marriage is the same as being in a lifeboat for a month.
No sudden moves, allow the other person a lot of room, keep all disastrous thoughts to yourself, and don't try to talk through your problems.
Just try to have more fun -- that's the way you rescue a marriage.

Dorothea's Defenses of Others

"I feel convinced that his conduct has not been guilty; I believe that people are almost always better than their neighbors think they are,"

Dorothea says this in defense of Lydgate, who, let's face it - looked pretty guilty. It is in line with another of her best quotes, when she is defending Will Ladislaw:

"..people may really have in them some vocation which is not quite plain to themselves, may they not? They may seem weak and idle because they are growing. We should be very patient with each other, I think."

http://www.funtrivia.com/en/subtopics/
Middlemarch-Quotes---Who-Said-It-176081.html

“I will learn what everything costs”

following quoted from:
The Cost of Everything, or Why Everyone Should Read George Elliot's Middlemarch

the Finale of Middlemarch:
"The effect of her being on those around her was incalculably diffusive: for the growing good of the world is partly dependent on unhistoric acts; and that things are not no ill with you and me as they might have been, is half owing to the number who lived faithfully a hidden life, and rest in unvisited tombs."
— George Eliot (final lines - Middlemarch)

What Eliot reminds us is that there is a largely invisible web of people, events, and conditions that sustains us, and that for every Wordsworth, there are many more “mute, inglorious Miltons” who “rest in unvisited tombs.”
...
No character in Middlemarch, no matter how “minor,” is inconsequential.
...
The whole web of society—from Sir James Chettam, and Mr. Brooke, to Bulstrode and the Vincys, to Raffles and the Dagley family of tenant farmers—are interdependent. And that is to say nothing of that great web of history. One individual cannot extract himself from this web, nor one class, nor one race, nation, or epoch, any more than the novelist herself can stand outside of the enormously complex web of history and declare “here, this is how it happened—this is how Rome was founded.”
...
All our actions will have far-ranging, unimaginable, and probably unintended consequences. We must try, therefore, to learn, even if imperfectly, what everything costs.
...
Dorothea’s voice, as she made this childlike picture of what she would do, might have been almost taken as a proof that she could do it effectively. The searching tenderness of her woman’s tones seemed made for a defence against ready accusers. Lydgate did not stay to think that she was Quixotic; he gave himself up, for the first time in his life, to the exquisite sense of leaning entirely on a generous sympathy, without any check of proud reserve. And he told her everything, from the time when, under the pressure of his difficulties, he unwillingy made his first application to Bulstrode; gradually, in the relief of speaking, getting into a more thorough utterance of what had gone on in his mind—entering fully into the fact that his treatment of the patient was opposed to the dominant practice, into his doubts at the last, his ideal of medical duty, and his uneasy consciousness that the acceptance of the money had made some difference in his private inclination and professional behavior, though not in his fulfillment of any publicly recognized obligation…
As Lydgate rode away, he thought, “This young creature has a heart large enough for the Virgin Mary. She evidently thinks nothing of her own fortune, and would pledge away half her income at once, as if she wanted nothing for herself but a chair to sit in from which she can look down with those clear eyes at the poor mortals who pray to her. She seems to have what I never saw in any woman before—a fountain of friendship towards men—a man can make a friend of her. Casaubon must have raised some heroic hallucination in her. I wonder if she could have any other sort of passion for a man? Ladislaw? --there was certainly an unusual feeling between them. And Casaubon must have had some notion of it. Well--her love might help a man more than her money." Dorothea on her side had immediately formed a plan of relieving Lydgate from his obligations to Bulstrode, which she felt for sure was a part, though small, of the galling pressure he had to bear. (763,768-69)
...
Ultimately, Dorothea fails to restore Lydgate’s reputation or improve his marriage. She never knows what a precious gift she has given. This is what true charity is: the left hand does not know what the right hand is doing. But the realist novelist does.
...
So that, every semester, and sometimes twice a semester, when I get to Dorothea’s declaration “I will learn what everything costs,” I have to fight back the tears. And it’s not just exhaustion-induced emotion, as it may have been when you marathon readers got there. It strikes me as just about the most romantic—or better, loving—thing one person can say to another. It says that whatever reality throws in our path, whatever constraints, whatever uncertainties, whatever obstacles, I will assume the costs, and do whatever I can to be loyal, decent, and loving towards you. So much better than Will’s earlier declaration to Dorothea “you are a poem!”
...
We readers of Middlemarch, “the home epic,” know that “the growing good of the world is half owning to those who lived a hidden life, and rest in unvisited tombs.”

"the effect of her being on those around her was incalculable"

"But the effect of her being on those around her was incalculably diffusive: for the growing good of the world is partly dependent on unhistoric acts; and that things are not no ill with you and me as they might have been, is half owing to the number who lived faithfully a hidden life, and rest in unvisited tombs."

— George Eliot (final lines - Middlemarch)

Christopher Hitchens Gets it Exactly Right

quote from Dr. Ray Pritchard:
http://www.christianity.com/blogs/pritchard/11625690/

During a recent trip to Portland, Oregon, noted atheist Christopher Hitchens laid down some seriously good theology. Most people recognize Hitchens as the author of the bestselling book God is Not Great: Why Religion Poisons Everything. Since the book's publication in 2007, Hitchens has toured the country debating a series of religious leaders, including some well-known evangelical thinkers. In Portland he was interviewed by Unitarian minister Marilyn Sewell. The entire transcript of the interview has been posted online. The following exchange took place near the start of the interview:

Sewell: The religion you cite in your book is generally the fundamentalist faith of various kinds. I'm a liberal Christian, and I don't take the stories from the scripture literally. I don't believe in the doctrine of atonement (that Jesus died for our sins, for example). Do you make and distinction between fundamentalist faith and liberal religion?

Hitchens: I would say that if you don't believe that Jesus of Nazareth was the Christ and Messiah, and that he rose again from the dead and by his sacrifice our sins are forgiven, you're really not in any meaningful sense a Christian.

Sewell wanted no part of that discussion so her next words are, "Let me go someplace else."
This little snippet demonstrates an important point about religious "God-talk." You can call yourself anything you like, but if you don't believe that Jesus is the Son of God who died on the cross for our sins and then rose from the dead, you are not "in any meaningful sense" a Christian.

Talk about nailing it.
In one of the delicious ironies of our time, an outspoken atheist grasps the central tenet of Christianity better than many Christians do. What you believe about Jesus Christ really does make a difference.

His True Self

"When he came here, he began to be his true self."

~ David L., at a SM memorial service 1/31/2010

John was like a burning and shining lamp

"John was like a burning and shining lamp."

~ John 5:35a, NLT

35 John was like a burning and shining lamp, and you were excited for a while about his message.
36 But I have a greater witness than John—my teachings and my miracles. The Father gave me these works to accomplish, and they prove that he sent me.
37 And the Father who sent me has testified about me himself. You have never heard his voice or seen him face to face,
38 and you do not have his message in your hearts, because you do not believe me—the one he sent to you.

~ John 5:35-38, NLT

Fear of the Cross

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

~ Truthful Grace

Peace at the bottom

Thematic Summary of Little Dorrit by Charles Dickens
http://www.articlemyriad.com/summary_little_dorrit.htm

The doctor, too, seems to feel at home as if among family or a community when in the prison. He comments to Mr. Dorrit in one of the important quotes from "Little Dorrit" by Dickens that all he wants is “A little more elbow room,” and he expounds upon the benefits of their incarceration and the prison environment: “We are quiet here; we don’t get badgered here… It’s freedom, sir, it’s freedom!....Elsewhere, people are restless, worried, hurried about, anxious respecting one thing, anxious respecting another. Nothing of the kind here, sir” (Dickens 78-79).
Quite paradoxically, the doctor concludes by proclaiming, “[W]e have got to the bottom, we can’t fall, and what have we found? Peace” (Dickens 78-79).
Mr. Dorrit recognizes that he actually agrees with the doctor, acknowledging that while he was “[c]rushed at first by his imprisonment, he had soon found a dull relief in it” (Dickens 79).