"The best welfare program is a job."

"The best welfare program is a job."

~ Ronald Reagan

"Whenever you have truth it must be given with love"

 "Whenever you have truth it must be given with love, or the message and the messenger will be rejected."

~ Mahatma Gandhi,
Indian Political Leader (1869-1948)

Trust, but verify.

"Trust, but verify."

~ Ronald Reagan

Truth is incontrovertible

 https://winstonchurchill.org/resources/quotes/truth-is-incontrovertible/

‘United wishes and good will cannot overcome brute facts,’ Churchill wrote in his War Memoirs. ‘Truth is incontrovertible. Panic may resent it. Ignorance may deride it. Malice may distort it. But there it is.’

~ Winston Churchill, Former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom 1940-1945 during the Second World War, and again 1951-1955

“The cross is steady while the world turns”

 “The cross is steady while the world turns.”

~ motto since the Middle Ages of the Carthusian monks who make Chartreuse at the Grande Chartreuse monastery in the French Alps

According to legend, in 1605, the order’s monastery near Paris acquired an alchemist’s historical manuscript for a superbly concocted medicinal tonic of about 130 herbs and crops: the “Elixir of Long Life.”

The monks studied and slowly refined the recipe till by 1764 that they had a potent (138-proof) Elixir Végétal. In 1840, they formulated a milder, 55 p.c alcohol model, Green Chartreuse, and a sweeter, 40 p.c Yellow Chartreuse, which have become cocktail components The Elixir continues to be offered medicinally for illnesses akin to indigestion, sore throat and nausea.

"You can't hold a man down without staying down with him."

"You can't hold a man down without staying down with him."

~ Booker T. Washington

Before brains the universe was free of pain and anxiety.

"Prior to the advent of brain, there was no color and no sound in the universe, nor was there any flavor or aroma and probably little sense and no feeling or emotion. Before brains the universe was also free of pain and anxiety."

—Roger Sperry, "Changing Priorities," Annual Review of Neuroscience 4 (1981): 1-15.

Observe

 "You observe a lot by watching."

~ Yogi Berra

"gratitude is what makes optimism sustainable"

Michael J. Fox reveals scariest moment of risky surgery in 'No Time Like the Future'

Charles Trepany, USA TODAY, Nov. 17, 2020
https://www.usatoday.com/story/entertainment/books/2020/11/17/michael-j-fox-spinal-surgery-no-time-like-future/6191909002/  accessed Nov. 21, 2020

quotes from Trepany's interview with Michael J. Fox about his new book 'No Time Like the Future':

"I was lying on the floor in my kitchen with a shattered arm waiting for the ambulance to show up," Fox tells USA TODAY. "I kind of went, 'What an idiot. All this time you've been telling everybody to be optimistic, chin-up, and you're miserable now. There's nothing but pain and regret. There's no way to put a shine on this.'" . . .

"That was a real breakthrough moment for me, because I realized that I've been selling that optimism to people for so long," he continues. "I believe it's true to my core, but it struck me that at that point I questioned it, and I questioned it really severely. And so the rest of the book is this journey through finding my way back with gratitude. And I think gratitude is what makes optimism sustainable." . . .

Despite the dark situations in his book, Fox never loses his sense of humor, something the actor says he and his wife have used to cope with challenges throughout their marriage.

"We deal with what's funny in the situation at first," Fox says. "We laugh about it and then we deal with it. But always humor. Humor is the filter for everything."

Through his recovery, falling and then needing to recover again, Fox says he realized the importance of being realistic while still optimistic. In fact, the actor says acknowledging bleak realities is the first step to improving your state of mind.

"I think the first thing you have to do is accept if you're faced with a difficult situation," he says. "And once I do that, that doesn't mean I can't ever change it. I can change it, but I have to accept it for what it is first, before I can change it. And I have to be real about it. And once I do that, then it opens all doors." . . .

After all, as Fox learned after his fall, "life gets better the more you decide to take it easy on yourself."

"Just give yourself a break, and, by that token, give the people in your life a break," he adds. "Give your neighbor a break. Give the person who bags your groceries a break. Just give everybody a break. Give them the benefit of the doubt and move on."

That's where the fun is.

 "I try to learn from the past, but I plan for the future by focusing exclusively on the present. That's where the fun is."

~ Donald Trump

https://quotes.thefamouspeople.com/donald-trump-3378.php

it is quiet then, and words come from their hiding hearts

quote:

Here are the words of Jeeney Ray,(8) a spastic girl who is an orphan and who has had few experiences of intimacy in her life time. Then along comes an adult who cares:

I study him well and receive the kindred of one to another. . . . I reach as far into his eyes as I can to understand the fullness of what he says and the way he looks me over; puzzled back in thinking is how he is, and grinning and frowning, then going way down to pierce darkness. . . . It is when thinking is coming from the other person into yourself and touching the same thinking as the other person; it is quiet then, and words come from their hiding hearts.

8. Iris Domfield, Jeeney Ray (New York: The Viking Press, 1962), pp. 44, 50.

quoted in:

The Intimate Marriage by Howard J. and Charlotte H. Clinebell, Chapter 8: Developing Parent-Child Intimacy, https://www.religion-online.org/book-chapter/chapter-8-developing-parent-child-intimacy/ as of 11/7/2020. 

 

Fired Hillsong Church pastor Carl Lentz: "I did not do an adequate job of . . . refilling my own soul"

Fired Hillsong Church pastor Carl Lentz: I cheated on my wife

By Hannah Frishberg  November 5, 2020 

https://nypost.com/2020/11/05/fired-hillsong-pastor-carl-lentz-i-cheated-on-my-wife/

quote:

A day after it was revealed that celebrity pastor Carl Lentz was fired from star-studded Hillsong for “leadership issues and breaches of trust,” the specifics of his “moral failures” have come to light: Lentz cheated on his wife.

“I was unfaithful in my marriage, the most important relationship in my life and held accountable for that,” Lentz wrote of his affair to his 680,000 followers in an Instagram post of his family Thursday, which had already accrued over 43,000 likes as of this writing.

Instagram Post quoted, my underlines added:

carllentz

Our time at HillsongNYC has come to an end. This is a hard ending to what has been the most amazing, impacting and special chapter of our lives. Leading this church has been an honor in every sense of the word and it is impossible to articulate how much we have loved and will always love the amazing people in this church. 

When you accept the calling of being a pastor, you must live in such a way that it honors the mandate. That it honors the church, and that it honors God. When that does not happen, a change needs to be made and has been made in this case to ensure that standard is upheld. 

Laura and I and our amazing children have given all that we have to serve and build this church and over the years I did not do an adequate job of protecting my own spirit, refilling my own soul and reaching out for the readily available help that is available. When you lead out of an empty place, you make choices that have real and painful consequences. I was unfaithful in my marriage, the most important relationship in my life and held accountable for that. This failure is on me, and me alone and I take full responsibility for my actions. 

I now begin a journey of rebuilding trust with my wife, Laura and my children and taking real time to work on and heal my own life and seek out the help that I need. I am deeply sorry for breaking the trust of many people who we have loved serving and understand that this news can be very hard and confusing for people to hear and process. I would have liked to say this with my voice, to you, in person because you are owed that. But that opportunity I will not have. So to those people, I pray you can forgive me and that over time I can live a life where trust is earned again. 

To our pastors Brian and Bobbie, thank you for allowing us to lead, allowing us to thrive and giving us room to have a voice that you have never stifled or tried to silence. Thank you for your grace and kindness especially in this season, as you have done so much to protect and love us through this. 

We, the Lentz family, don’t know what this next chapter will look like, but we will walk into it together very hopeful and grateful for the grace of God.

To get anywhere in life . . .

"My view is that to get anywhere in life you have to be anti-social.
 Otherwise you'll end up being devoured."

~ Sir Sean Connery, who exemplified James Bond

God's Call

"Once I gave you power,
all that you could be.
Live into that grace
and follow me."

~ Truthful Grace

Planning for Three Generations

“Rich People plan for three generations.
Poor people plan for Saturday night.” 

~ Gloria Steinem

“Start unknown, finish unforgettable.” Misty Copeland

Misty Copeland quotes

“Start unknown, finish unforgettable.”

― Misty Copeland

“[He] said don't let them take you over. Walk into the room knowing you are the best. Shoulders back, chin up. Their attitudes will totally change.”

― Misty Copeland

“It's time to write our own story.”

― Misty Copeland

“I may not be there yet, but I am closer than I was yesterday”

― Misty Copeland

“Decide what you want. Declare it to the world. See yourself winning. And remember that if you are persistent as well as patient, you can get whatever you seek.”

― Misty Copeland, Ballerina Body: Dancing and Eating Your Way to a Leaner, Stronger, and More Graceful You

“Know that you can start late, look different, be uncertain and still succeed.”

― Misty Copeland

https://www.goodreads.com/author/quotes/7155409.Misty_Copeland  as of 10/21/2020

God's Answers to Your Prayers

 God's Answers to Your Prayers:

• Yes
• Not Yet
• I have something better in mind

The Blessed Limp

 quote, email from Preaching Today of Christianity Today, 10/21/2020

My Dear Shepherds,

Ever since I staggered through a sermon early in my career on Jacob wrestling with the man/angel/God in Genesis 32:22-32, I’ve been drawn to this mysterious, profound story. One of the vexing puzzles was this: The whole struggle came down to Jacob weeping and begging, “I will not let you go until you bless me,” so I’d expect to hear a blessing, but it seems like we never do.

This is not a one-off story. It is archetypal, repeated in the lives of all those blessed by God. In the upside-down world of his grace, God surrenders his blessing only to those whom he defeats. . . .

God will do what he must to bring us to our knees before him. This happens to every believer, perhaps not because of sin, but always to bless us. C. S. Lewis wrote, “We are not necessarily doubting that God will do the best for us; we are wondering how painful the best will turn out to be.”

Every Christian biography, written, told, or only held silently in our hearts—every single one—has a chapter telling the story of the blessed limp. In his autobiography, Love Hunger, my friend and classmate, David Kyle Foster, wrote how after an amazing saving by Christ and a superb theological education, he could find no place to minister. He writes,

One night, I poured out my heart to God, telling Him that I could not take it anymore. Since He had placed this powerful call on my life, He needed to give it an outlet or just take me home. My heart was weighed down with heaviness, as if an elephant were sitting on it. I cried out, “Lord, I’m literally dying inside.” In His still, small voice, He gently replied, “That’s what’s supposed to be happening.” As soon as He said it, I knew that it was not only true—it was wonderfully true. As if I were looking in a mirror for the first time, I saw that I was full of myself—my ardor, my training, my need to be affirmed. Yes, I needed to die. Otherwise, my service for the Kingdom would be polluted with self rather than being a selfless overflowing of my love for Him.

. . .

Pastor Lee Eclov

Always abounding in the work of the Lord

Thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.
Therefore, my beloved brothers and sisters, be steadfast, immovable,
always abounding in the work of the Lord,
knowing that in the Lord your labor is not in vain. 

~ 1 Corinthians 15:57-58 ESV/NET

This one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before, I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus. 
Let us therefore, as many as be perfect, be thus minded: and if in any thing ye be otherwise minded, God shall reveal even this unto you.

~ Philippians 3:13b-15 KJV

Affliction and Pruning

 The most generous vine, if not pruned, runs out into many superfluous stems and grows at last weak and fruitless: so doth the best man if he be not cut short in his desires, and pruned with afflictions.

—Bishop Hall

A Dictionary of Thoughts, Affliction, Rev. Dr. Tryon Edwards, p. 11.

Snowdrops, by Louise Glück

Snowdrops 

Poem by Louise Glück 

Do you know what I was, how I lived? 

You know 

what despair is; then 

winter should have meaning for you. 

I did not expect to survive, 

earth suppressing me. I didn't expect 

to waken again, to feel 

in damp earth my body 

able to respond again, remembering 

after so long how to open again 

in the cold light 

of earliest spring-- 

afraid, yes, but among you again 

crying yes risk joy 

in the raw wind of the new world. 

from The Wild Iris by Louise Glück 

Ecco, 1993

take care of the people around us by nourishing them — Ina Garten

quote:

Pandemic living 

Garten also spends time taking care of herself with yoga via Zoom, walking, working in the garden and taking long drives to the beach with her husband, Jeffrey, in their Mini Cooper. They also have socially distanced cocktail parties in their yard with friends, who bring their own snacks and drinks. 

"That was the thing I missed the most, seeing my friends," she says. "And being able to see them from 6 feet apart—it didn't really matter that it's 6 feet away. It's not that far." 

Garten wants everyone to remember that during these stressful times many people are facing additional serious issues, such as illness, loss of their jobs or struggling to feed their families. 

"I think if we can take care of ourselves and the people around us by feeding them well, and giving them things that feel comforting, I think we'll all be so much better off. Just nourishing people—not just feeding them dinner, but kind of nourishing them psychologically—I think it's a really wonderful thing," Garten says.  "And I've always said, cooking for people is the best gift you can give them. And it just shows that you love them and you care about them. And so, I think it's particularly important. It's always important, but it's particularly important now."

"Modern Contessa" by Christina Guerrero, Costco Connection, October 2020, p. 40-41

“In matters of style, swim with the current; in matters of principle, stand like a rock.”

 “In matters of style, swim with the current; in matters of principle, stand like a rock.”

“If you would have a happy family life, remember two things – in matters of principle, stand like a rock; in matters of taste, swim with the current.”

"In matters of principle, stand like a rock; in matters of taste, swim with the current. Give up money, give up fame, give up science, give up earth itself and all it contains, rather than do an immoral act. And never suppose that in any situation, or under any circumstances, it is best for you to do a dishonorable thing. Whenever you are to do a thing, though it can never be known but to yourself, ask yourself how you would act were all the world looking at you, and act accordingly."

~ attributed to President Thomas Jefferson (April 13, 1743 - July 4, 1826)

https://www.monticello.org/site/research-and-collections/matters-style-swim-currentspurious-quotation

Comments: It is clear that the quotation came into use at least as early as the 19th century, although when it was used, it was not attributed to a particular author and was often referred to as an “old adage.” It is not clear where the phrase originated from, but there is no proof that Jefferson ever uttered these words. It appears that the phrase became connected to Jefferson around 1973, and from then on, it is almost always attributed to him when quoted - usually in the context of homemaking or education.

~ Elizabeth Huff, June 8, 2011

https://www.monticello.org/site/research-and-collections/matters-style-swim-currentspurious-quotation

“In his will is our peace.”

 “In his will is our peace.”

― Dante, The Divine Comedy

Durante degli Alighieri (c. 30 May 1265 – 13 September 1321) better known as Dante, was an Italian Florentine poet. His greatest work, The Divine Comedy (Divina Commedia), is considered as one of the greatest literary statements produced in Europe in the medieval period, and is the basis of the modern Italian language.

"Happy leaders don’t leave friendship up to chance. . ."

 "Happy leaders don’t leave friendship up to chance," writes Arthur C. Brooks in The Atlantic.
"It can indeed be lonely at the top. But loneliness is not a necessary condition of success, any more than unpaid taxes are a condition of making a lot of money. It is just a cost one must face honestly, and manage."

https://www.theatlantic.com/family/archive/2020/08/how-make-friends-lonely-boss-workaholic/615709/

ARTHUR C. BROOKS is a contributing writer at The Atlantic, a professor of the practice of public leadership at the Harvard Kennedy School, a senior fellow at the Harvard Business School, and host of the podcast The Art of Happiness With Arthur Brooks.

Happy Grandparent's Day

 "The old are the precious gem in the center of the household."
~ Chinese Proverb 

"If nothing is going well, call your grandmother."
~ Italian Proverb 

"Grandchildren are the crown of the aged,
and the glory of children is their fathers."
~ Proverbs 17:6 

"Grandchildren are a grandparent's link to the future.
Grandparents are the child's link to the past."
~ Unknown 

God still exercises a sovereign choice

 “Some men cannot endure to hear the doctrine of election — I suppose they like to choose their own wives; but they are not willing that Christ should select his bride, the Church. Everybody is to have a free will except God. But let them know that God still exercises a sovereign choice among the sons of men. Jesus said to his disciples, ‘Ye have not chosen me, but I have chosen you.’ Blessed be his name, the truth still stands.”

~ Charles Spurgeon, Complete Works, vol.44, Sermon No.2590, “Hearing, Seeking, Finding.”

hell on earth

 Hell on earth is when God lets us have our own way.

~ Truthful Grace

a good reason

 Jesus gives me a good reason to do the right thing
whether people deserve it or not.

~ Truthful Grace

“Every checkbook is a theological document."

“Every checkbook is a theological document. It tells you where your treasure is—and thus where your heart is.”

~ Brian Kluth, president of the Christian Stewardship Association (CSA)

“Our budget is a moral document"

“Our budget is a moral document and it is either going to reflect the best of who we are or the worst”.  

~ Rev. Jim Wallis of Sojourners

“Obey the laws, wear the gauze. Protect your jaws from septic paws.”

Masks were common in some Western cities during the 1918 flu pandemic and mandatory in San Francisco. There was even a jingle:
“Obey the laws, wear the gauze.
Protect your jaws from septic paws.”

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/29/health/coronavirus-future-america.html

"the way to overcome these tensions is to entrust oneself to the Holy Spirit"

Cardinal Scola calls out Pope Francis’ critics: ‘The pope is the pope’
Gerard O’Connell
July 21, 2020
https://www.americamagazine.org/faith/2020/07/21/cardinal-scola-calls-out-pope-francis-critics-pope-pope

selected quotes:
Cardinal Angelo Scola, the runner-up in the last papal conclave, has twice in recent weeks come out strongly against those, especially within the church, who frequently and increasingly attack Pope Francis. “It’s a very strong sign of contradiction and denotes a certain weakening of the people of God, above all of the intellectual class,” he said. “It is a profoundly wrong attitude because it forgets that ‘the pope is the pope.’”
“It is not by affinity of temperament, of culture, of sensibility, or for friendship, or because one shares or does not share his affirmations that one acknowledges the meaning of the pope in the church,” the cardinal said in an interview published on the Archdiocese of Milan’s website on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of his priestly ordination on July 18.
“[The pope] is the ultimate, radical and formal guarantor—certainly, through a synodal exercise of the Petrine ministry—of the unity of the church,” the cardinal, theologian and former rector of the Pontifical Lateran University stated. . . .

Both in the interview and in a new introduction to the second edition of his autobiography, Ho scommesso sulla libertà (“I Bet on Freedom”), written with the Italian journalist Luigi Geninazzi and released on June 13, the Italian cardinal emphasized that one has “to learn the Pope” (“imparare il papa”), an expression he said he got from St. John Paul II.
“It means to have the humility and the patience to empathize with his personal history, the way he expresses his faith, addresses us, and makes choices of leadership and governance,” Cardinal Scola said. He added that this is “even more necessary in relation to a Latin-American pope, who has a mentality and a different kind of approach than we Europeans.” He recalled that “something similar also happened with John Paul II.”
Cardinal Scola declared, “I truly consider admirable and moving the extraordinary capacity of Pope Francis to make himself close to everyone, and especially to the excluded, to those who are subjected to ‘the throw-away culture’ as he so often reminds [us] in his keenness to communicate the Gospel to the world.” . . .

In the introduction to his autobiography, the 78-year-old cardinal, who enjoyed a very close relationship with John Paul II and Benedict XVI, wrote, “Pope Francis seeks to shake up consciences by calling into question consolidated habits and customs in the church, each time raising the bar, so to speak.”
“This can cause some bewilderment and upset,” he said, “but the ever harder and more insolent attacks against his person, especially those that come from within the church, are wrong.” . . .

Concluding his strong critique of attacks against Pope Francis, the cardinal went on to express concern over “the polemics and divisions that are becoming ever more bitter, also at the expense of truth and of charity.” But, he stated, “I do not see the risk of a schism; I fear instead a journey backward” to “the postconciliar debate between conservatives and progressives” over the legacy of Vatican II.
He sees the return of this in “the re-emergence in agitated tones” of “the sterile contraposition” between “the guardians of Tradition rigidly understood” and “the proponents of what is intended to be the adaptation of practice and doctrine to worldly demands.” But like Pope Francis, Cardinal Scola believes the way to overcome these tensions is to entrust oneself to the Holy Spirit, “who does not allow himself to be harnessed by the logic of the opposing camps.”   (emphasis mine)

He that cannot forgive others

"He that cannot forgive others, breaks the bridge over which he himself must pass if he would ever reach heaven; for every one has need to be forgiven."—Herbert
The New Dictionary of Thoughts: A Cyclopedia of Quotations, Rev. Tryon Edwards, 1908, 2012

Attributed to George Herbert, British poet, 1593-1633, https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/george_herbert_397815

“He who cannot forgive breaks the bridge over which he himself must pass.”

 Attributed to George Herbert, British poet, 1593-1633,
https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/214213-he-who-cannot-forgive-breaks-the-bridge-over-which-he

"He that cannot forgive others breaks the bridge over which he must pass himself, for every man hath need to be forgiven." —Edward, Lord Herbert of Cherbury, 1583-1648

Sidney Lee (ed.) The Autobiography of Edward, Lord Herbert of Cherbury, revised edition (London: Routledge, 1906). P. 34
Edward Herbert, 1st Baron Herbert of Cherbury (1583–1648) was a British soldier, diplomat, historian, poet, autobiographer and metaphysician, sometimes called "the father of deism". 
The poet George Herbert was his brother.
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Edward_Herbert,_1st_Baron_Herbert_of_Cherbury

the prudent wife

"The modest virgin, the prudent wife; or the careful matron are much more serviceable in life than petticotted philosophers, blustering heroines, or virago queens. She who makes her husband and her children happy, who reclaims the one from vice, and trains up the other to virtue, is a much greater character than ladies described in romance, whose whole occupation is to murder mankind with shafts from their quiver or their eyes."

~ Oliver Goldsmith

Oliver Goldsmith (10 November 1728 – 4 April 1774) was an Irish novelist, playwright and poet, who is best known for his novel The Vicar of Wakefield (1766), his pastoral poem The Deserted Village (1770), and his plays The Good-Natur'd Man (1768) and She Stoops to Conquer (1771, first performed in 1773). He is thought to have written the classic children's tale The History of Little Goody Two-Shoes (1765).

rejoice if God found a use for your efforts

"I don't know Who -- or what -- put the question, I don't know when it was put. I don't even remember answering. But at some moment I did answer Yes to Someone --or Something --and from that hour I was certain that existence is meaningful and that, therefore, my life, in self-surrender, had a goal."

"In our era, the road to holiness necessarily passes through the world of action."

“We act in faith—and miracles occur.”

“Your own efforts ‘did not bring it to pass,’ only God—but rejoice if God found a use for your efforts in his work. Rejoice if you feel that what you did was 'necessary,' but remember, even so, that you were simply the instrument by means of which He added one tiny grain to the Universe He has created for His own purposes."
(written Christmas Eve, 1956, Markings)

~ Dag Hammarskjöld, 1905 - 1961,
Swedish economist and diplomat,
second Secretary-General of the United Nations

Can't we just . . .

"Do we have to know who's gay and who's straight? Can't we just love everybody and judge them by the car they drive?"

~ Ellen Degeneres

Hold onto each other

"The best thing to hold onto in life is each other."

~ Audrey Hepburn

Love recognizes no barriers

"Love recognizes no barriers. It jumps hurdles, leaps fences, penetrates walls to arrive at its destination full of hope."

~ Maya Angelou

Only love can drive out hate

"Darkness cannot drive out darkness, only light can do that.
Hate cannot drive out hate, only love can do that."

~ Martin Luther King Jr.

"Love is an endless act of forgiveness."

quotes from Google on love and forgiveness:

"Love is an act of endless forgiveness, a tender look which becomes a habit."
~ Peter Ustinov, English actor, 1921-2004

"Love is an endless act of forgiveness. Forgiveness is me giving up my right to hurt you for hurting me."
~ Beyoncé

"Love is an act of endless forgiveness. Forgiveness is me giving up my right to hurt you for hurting me. Forgiveness is the Final Act of Love."
~ Beyoncé, 2014

"Love is an endless act of forgiveness."
~ Jan Karon

"Love is an act of endless forgiveness."
~ Jan Karon, Somewhere Safe with Somebody Good, 2015

(may be in chronological order)

In Tragedy, Robert Kennedy Quoted Aeschylus

https://bigthink.com/Think-See-Feel/in-tragedy-kennedy-quoted-aeschylus
In Tragedy, Kennedy Quoted Aeschylus
Lea Carpenter
11 January, 2011
On the night Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated, Robert F. Kennedy had to give a speech. In a world before blogs, Kennedy was in the awkward, yet history-making position of having to break news to his audience; this was the first the Indiana crowd had heard of King’s death. The speech is exceptional, even when considered within the canon of Kennedy’s often classic, and often literary, brilliance.
What was extraordinary was how frankly, and calmly, Kennedy addressed the anger and hate that underlies irrational acts. He told what had happened, and he went right into calm. He was not angry, or even emotional. The audience followed this lead.
RFK was in a position to empathize. In one of the most memorable moments in the speech, he connects to his audience by reminding them that his brother was also killed—“by a white man.” Implicit in this is another irrationality—the irrationality of generalizations, whether about race, or religion, or any other pat demographic stat. He urged understanding.
And then he referenced something—some words—that had helped him.
Kennedy said:
"My favorite poet was Aeschylus. He once wrote,
'And even in our sleep,
pain which cannot forget
falls drop by drop upon the heart,
until in our own despair,
against our will,
comes wisdom
through the awful grace of God.'

What we need in the United States is not division. what we need in the United States is not hatred. What we need in the United States is not violence and lawlessness, but love and wisdom and compassion toward one another, a feeling of justice to those who still suffer in our country, whether they be white or whether they be black."

We are not hearing a lot about Aeschylus today. Aeschylus knew tragedy. “Wisdom through the awful grace of God” is an amazing line, one that not only subverts an idea, but also an emotion.

Kennedy only spoke briefly, but by the end of his talk the crowd was cheering. Also famously, Indianapolis was peaceful that night, while all around the country there were fires in the streets.

Kennedy pointed out that moments like these are times for us to look inward and ask “what kind of nation we are.” This is one of those moments. We will watch how many in positions of power and visibility adopt a position of peace.

Lea Carpenter was a Founding Editor of Francis Ford Coppola’s literary magazine, Zoetrope. She graduated from Princeton and has an MBA from Harvard. Her Harvard University Commencement Address, “Auden and The Little Things,” was about the need for poetry in our lives. She lives in New York with her husband and son where she produces programming for the New York Public Library. She formerly wrote the Think, See, Feel blog for BigThink.
© Copyright 2007-2019 BigThink.com

accept it and realize it and deal with it

'From worst to first': These states have tamed coronavirus, even after reopening. Here's how they're doing it, and why they can't let up
By Holly Yan, CNN
Wed July 15, 2020
quote:
On March 20, as Covid-19 was spiraling out of control in New York, Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced all employees of nonessential businesses must stay home. It was one of the earliest shutdown mandates in the country.
"If someone is unhappy, if somebody wants to blame someone, or complain about someone, blame me. There is no one else who is responsible for this decision," Cuomo said that day. "This is not life as usual. And accept it and realize it and deal with it."

https://www.cnn.com/2020/07/15/health/coronavirus-under-control-states/index.html  (emphasis mine)

Arguing

"Never argue with an idiot.
He will drag you down to his level and beat you with experience."

~ Mark Twain

Bob Dylan's view of Gospel music

quoted from:
Bob Dylan Has a Lot on His Mind
In a rare interview, the Nobel Prize winner discusses mortality, drawing inspiration from the past, and his new album, “Rough and Rowdy Ways.”
By Douglas Brinkley  June 12, 2020
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/12/arts/music/bob-dylan-rough-and-rowdy-ways.html

Why didn’t more people pay attention to Little Richard’s gospel music?
Probably because gospel music is the music of good news and in these days there just isn’t any. Good news in today’s world is like a fugitive, treated like a hoodlum and put on the run. Castigated. All we see is good-for-nothing news. And we have to thank the media industry for that. It stirs people up. Gossip and dirty laundry. Dark news that depresses and horrifies you.
On the other hand, gospel news is exemplary. It can give you courage. You can pace your life accordingly, or try to, anyway. And you can do it with honor and principles. There are theories of truth in gospel but to most people it’s unimportant. Their lives are lived out too fast. Too many bad influences. Sex and politics and murder is the way to go if you want to get people’s attention. It excites us, that’s our problem.
Little Richard was a great gospel singer. But I think he was looked at as an outsider or an interloper in the gospel world. They didn’t accept him there. And of course the rock ’n’ roll world wanted to keep him singing “Good Golly, Miss Molly.” So his gospel music wasn’t accepted in either world. I think the same thing happened to Sister Rosetta Tharpe. I can’t imagine either of them being bothered too much about it. Both are what we used to call people of high character. Genuine, plenty talented and who knew themselves, weren’t swayed by anything from the outside. Little Richard, I know was like that.

Tiger's Work Ethic

"People don't understand that when I grew up, I was never the most talented. I was never the biggest. I was never the fastest. I certainly was never the strongest. The only thing I had was my work ethic, and that's been what has gotten me this far."

~ Tiger Woods

Weeping creates a river . . .

"Tears are a river that take you somewhere. Weeping creates a river around the little boat carrying your soul-life. Tears can lift that little boat off rocks, off dry ground, carrying it downriver to someplace new, someplace better."

~ Clarissa Pinkola Estés. Women Who Run with the Wolves: Myths and Stories of the Wild Woman Archetype. New York: Ballantine Books, 1992, 374.

Churchill quote

Winston Churchill reportedly said: "If you are not a liberal when you are young, you don't have a heart; and if you are not conservative when you are old, you don't have a brain."

judged "by the content of their character" - Martin Luther King, Jr.

I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.

Love is the only force capable of transforming an enemy into a friend.

I have decided to stick with love. Hate is too great a burden to bear.

~ Martin Luther King, Jr.

mutual justice, mutual love, mutual respect, mutual trust, mutual peace, and mutual prosperity

May God's grace and truth help bring
mutual justice,
mutual love,
mutual respect,
mutual trust,
mutual peace, and
mutual prosperity
to all people.

~ Truthful Grace

lift others on the warm currents of upward spirals of good

“Find an 'extra' person to be kind towards today. It only takes a few words.”

"When you choose to accentuate the positive, it lifts others on the warm currents of the upward spirals of good that you create."

~ Leslie Robison, Mastery Coaching & Consulting

"people will never forget how you made them feel"

“I've learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.”

~ Maya Angelou, American poet, singer, memoirist, and civil rights activist

Pope Francis statements on the environment

Here are seven of the pope’s strongest statements on the environment:

“God always forgives, we men forgive sometimes, but nature never forgives. If you give her a slap, she will give you one. I believe that we have exploited nature too much.”
—Press conference, flight from Sri Lanka to the Philippines, January 15, 2015

“As stewards of God’s creation, we are called to make the earth a beautiful garden for the human family. When we destroy our forests, ravage our soil and pollute our seas, we betray that noble calling.”
—Speech, Manila, Philippines, January 18, 2015

“A Christian who doesn’t safeguard creation, who doesn’t make it flourish, is a Christian who isn’t concerned with God’s work, that work born of God’s love for us.”
—Meditation, Vatican City, February 9, 2015

“May the relationship between man and nature not be driven by greed, to manipulate and exploit, but may the divine harmony between beings and creation be conserved in the logic of respect and care.”
—General audience, Vatican City, April 22, 2015

“The earth, our home, is beginning to look more and more like an immense pile of filth. In many parts of the planet, the elderly lament that once beautiful landscapes are now covered with rubbish.”
—Papal encyclical, Vatican City, May 24, 2015

"We received this world as an inheritance from past generations, but also as a loan from future generations, to whom we will have to return it!”
—Remarks, meeting with political, business and community leaders, Quito, Ecuador, July 7, 2015

“Our common home is being pillaged, laid waste and harmed with impunity. Cowardice in defending it is a grave sin.”
—Speech, Santa Cruz, Bolivia, July 9, 2015

from: Nature Never Forgives: 7 of Pope Francis's Greenest Quotes
https://www.nationalgeographic.com/news/2015/09/120150920-pope-francis-environment-climate-quotes.html   Published 9/20/2015,  Accessed 5/5/2020

Strife is better than loneliness.

Strife is better than loneliness.
~ Irish Proverb

three things we absolutely need to know

There are only three things we absolutely need to know: what to believe, how to live, and what to pray for. 
The Apostles Creed answers the first question,
the Ten Commandments the second, and
the Lord’s Prayer answers the third. 
(attributed to Thomas Aquinas)

http://www.ignatiusinsight.com/features/pkreeft_ptofitall_nov04.asp
The Living Christ Is the Point of It All
Peter Kreeft
The point of Christianity cannot be contained in words because the point of Christianity is the living Christ. He is not an ancient ideal but a real person here and now, ready to barge in and transform our lives. Being a Christian is more like having your soul possessed by a spirit than having your mind clothed with new beliefs. It is more like being well-possessed than well-dressed. It is like being haunted by the Holy Spirit. We are haunted temples.
The love of God is the answer not only to (1) the quest for the supreme value–the summurn bonum–and to (2) the quest for the supreme reality-the fundamental principle of the cosmos-but it is also (3) the answer to a third quest, the quest for life's deepest meaning and purpose.
Kant said there were ultimately only three important questions:
(1) What can I know? (2) What should I do? (3) What may I hope?
What I can know is truth, truth about being. Since the ultimate nature of being is love–either in God or in some creature that reflects God–God's love is the answer to Kant's first question.
Love is also the fundamental value. It is the answer to Kant's second question, "What should I do?" On the two commandments to love God and neighbor "depend all the law and the prophets" (Mt 22:40).
Finally, love also gives my life meaning and purpose. It gives me a goal or a hope to shoot for. Hopelessness means purposelessness. Since the ultimate purpose of my life is to learn to love, love is also my hope.
What to Believe, How to Live, and What to Pray For
Thomas Aquinas said that there are only three things we absolutely need to know, and they correspond nicely with Kant's three questions:
what to believe, how to live, and what to pray for.
Aquinas then says that the Creed answers the first question, the Commandments answer the second, and the Lord's Prayer answers the third. Therefore if we fully understand just these three things, the Creed, the Commandments, and the Lord's Prayer, we will know everything needful. What do these three things have to do with love?
On close inspection, each article of the Creed, each of the Commandments, and each petition of the Lord's Prayer is a form of love. They can be rightly understood only relative to that center.
. . .

the happy and unhappy

Writing in a letter to his brother in 1940, Lewis said:
“I begin to suspect that the world is divided not only into the happy and unhappy, but into those who like happiness and those who, odd as it seems, really don’t."

http://www.cslewis.org/resources/studyguides/Study%20Guide%20-%20The%20Great%20Divorce.pdf

Mother Teresa's Tips to Help You Become More Humble

"It’s the understanding that everything comes from God and that God is everything."

Mother Teresa called humility the mother of all virtues.  She said: “If you are humble nothing will touch you, neither praise nor disgrace, because you know what you are. If you are blamed you will not be discouraged. If they call you a saint you will not put yourself on a pedestal.”

"Do not protect yourself behind your own dignity."

The world does not value or understand the power of humility but we do, because it was what Jesus used to save us.  “Just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life a ransom for many.” (Matthew 20:28)

National Catholic Register BLOGS |  SEP. 5, 2019
Mother Teresa's 15 Tips to Help You Become More Humble
https://www.ncregister.com/blog/armstrong/mother-teresas-15-tips-to-help-you-become-more-humble

“Everything will be okay in the end. If it's not okay, it's not the end.”

“No fim, tudo dá certo. Se não deu, ainda não chegou ao fim.”
The translation follows:
“In the end, everything will be ok. If it’s not ok, it’s not yet the end.”
~ Fernando Sabino, Brazilian writer writing in Portuguese
No fim dá certo (Portuguese) Paperback – 1 Jan 1998
by Fernando Tavares Sabino (Author)
https://jeremiahstanghini.com/2013/01/23/in-the-end-everything-will-be-ok-if-its-not-ok-its-not-yet-the-end/

---------------------

“Everything will be okay in the end. If it's not okay, it's not the end.”

Michael Calder, just a Scotsman who thinks and reads a lot.
Answered Nov 20, 2015
Although made popular by John Lennon, and believed to have descended from an old Indian proverb, its first contemporary use was by Fernando Sabino, a Portuguese author.

J.M. Schomburg, Bringing it as close as possible to reality.
Answered Oct 19, 2015
It's attributed everywhere to John Lennon, but it may be from an old Indian proverb. Lennon was a student of Maharishi Mahesh Yogi.

Yahoo Answers
https://www.quora.com/Who-is-the-original-source-of-the-quote-Everything-will-be-okay-in-the-end-If-its-not-okay-its-not-the-end

what makes you come alive

"Do not ask yourself what the world needs. Ask yourself what makes you come alive, and then go do that. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive."
~ Howard Thurman, 1899-1981

https://www.britannica.com/biography/Howard-Thurman
American Baptist preacher and theologian, the first African American dean of chapel at a traditionally white American university, and a founder of the first interracial interfaith congregation in the United States.
Thurman was the grandson of former slaves who stressed education as a means of overcoming racial discrimination. He graduated as valedictorian from Morehouse College, a predominantly black school, with a Bachelor of Arts in economics in 1923 and from Rochester Theological Seminary (now Colgate Rochester Crozer Divinity School) with a Bachelor of Divinity in 1926. He subsequently served as pastor of a Baptist church in Oberlin, Ohio, and pursued graduate course work in theology at Oberlin College.
In January 1929 Thurman resigned his pastorate in order to pursue a semester of directed graduate study at Haverford College. Studying with the Quaker theologian Rufus M. Jones, Thurman absorbed a deep sense of the need to cultivate one’s interior life—i.e., one’s personal relationship with God. That fall Thurman returned to Morehouse as a professor. In 1932 he became dean of Rankin Chapel at the prestigious and primarily black Howard University.
A meeting in 1934 with Mohandas K. Gandhi instilled within Thurman an appreciation for the value of nonviolent resistance in combating racial inequality. He subsequently wed nonviolence and the appreciation he had gained from Jones for the inward personal relationship with God with a deeply religious sense of protest against institutionalized race-based segregation.
In 1944 he left Howard to help found the Church for the Fellowship of All Peoples (also known as Fellowship Church) in San Francisco, the first congregation in the United States that encouraged participation in its spiritual life regardless of religious or ethnic background. Thurman stayed there until 1953, when he assumed the deanship of Boston University’s Marsh Chapel. In his sermons and in his classes, he inspired Martin Luther King, Jr., and other students committed to social justice who would participate in the civil rights movement. He gained a broader following as a prolific author and the host of a popular Sunday morning television show.
Thurman retired from the university in 1965. He founded and directed the Howard Thurman Educational Trust, which provided funding for college students in need, and remained a prolific writer and a popular speaker until his death. Among his many books are Deep River (1945), Jesus and the Disinherited (1949), Meditations of the Heart (1953), The Creative Encounter (1954), The Inward Journey (1961), Disciplines of the Spirit (1963), and With Head and Heart: The Autobiography of Howard Thurman (1979).

Matt Stefon, "Howard Thurman", Encyclopaedia Britannica, Published 11-14-2019, https://www.britannica.com/biography/Howard-Thurman, Accessed 3-27-2020.

a perspective check from Anne Frank

from Facebook:
Kimberly Graham,  3/23/2020

Perspective Check...
Anne Frank and fam were in hiding for 761 days...no netflix, no internet, connection to the outside world, and she had to be QUIET for that long or she would have DIED...
She had to WAIT for food, entertainment and other provisions at the mercy of another person and couldn't order in to eat her favorite foods...
And we want to talk about how awful isolation and social distancing is for us?....
Guys...just hunker down. We have it SO good. Call a friend, take an online class, watch a show, write a book! There's no overall threat to our safety..we simply need to stay.home. so we don't spread a germ.
We can handle this... #stayathome

Julian of Norwich - the Maker, the Keeper, and the Lover

I saw that He is to us everything that is good and comfortable for us: He is our clothing that for love wrappeth us, claspeth us, and all encloseth us for tender love, that He may never leave us; being to us all-thing that is good, as to mine understanding.
Also in this He shewed me a little thing, the quantity of an hazel-nut, in the palm of my hand; and it was as round as a ball. I looked thereupon with eye of my understanding, and thought: What may this be?
And it was answered generally thus: It is all that is made. I marvelled how it might last, for methought it might suddenly have fallen to naught for little[ness]. And I was answered in my understanding: It lasteth, and ever shall [last] for that God loveth it.
And so All-thing hath the Being by the love of God.
In this Little Thing I saw three properties. The first is that God made it, the second is that God loveth it, the third, that God keepeth it. But what is to me verily the Maker, the Keeper, and the Lover,—I cannot tell; for till I am Substantially oned to Him, I may never have full rest nor very bliss: that is to say, till I be so fastened to Him, that there is right nought that is made betwixt my God and me.
~ Julian of Norwich, Revelations of Divine Love, Long Text 5

Julian of Norwich, Revelations of Divine Love

He showed me a little thing the size of a hazelnut, lying in the palm of my hand, and to my understanding it was as round as a ball. I looked at it and thought, ‘what may this be?’ and I was answered generally thus, ‘it is all that is made’.
I marvelled at how it might last, for I thought it might suddenly fall into nothing for its littleness and I was answered in my understanding ‘it lasts and ever shall, for God loves it’.
~ Julian of Norwich, Revelations of Divine Love

Traditional Prayer for the Answering of Prayer

Almighty God,
you have promised to hear the petitions of those who ask in your Son’s Name:
We beseech you mercifully to incline your ear to us who have now made our prayers and supplications to you;
and grant that those things which we have faithfully asked according to your will,
may effectually be obtained,
to the relief of our necessity, and to the setting forth of your glory;
through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

the joy and terror of being a parent

"Being a parent is the greatest combination of joy and terror one can experience."
~ David Letterman
10-17-2013 show, YouTube

Be in charge of how and when you heal

"We could spend our whole lives waiting for someone to apologize or take responsibility for how they hurt us before we decide to let go.
But the problem with that scenario is, we've made someone else in charge of how and when we heal.
If we truly want to break a cycle and heal, we have to forget about what the other person is or isn't doing, and focus entirely on our own process."
~ Rising Woman, Mindful Christianity

Samuel Rutherford Quotes

Samuel Rutherford Quotes
Scottish Theologian, 1600-1661
https://www.azquotes.com/author/12820-Samuel_Rutherford

Humility is a strange flower; it grows best in winter weather, and under storms of affliction.
~ Samuel Rutherford
Samuel Rutherford (1885). “Quaint Sermons of Samuel Rutherford: Hitherto Unpublished”

Believe God's love and power more than you believe your own feelings and experiences. Your rock is Christ, and it is not the rock that ebbs and flows but the sea.
~ Samuel Rutherford

They lose nothing who gain Christ.
~ Samuel Rutherford
Samuel Rutherford (1765). “Joshua redivivus, or Mr Rutherford's letters”, p.321

I urge you a nearer communion with Christ, and a growing communion. There are curtains to be opened in Christ that we have never seen before... Therefore dig deep, and sweat, and labor. Take pains for Him, and set aside as much time as you can in each day for Him.
~ Samuel Rutherford

In our fluctuations of feelings, it is well to remember that Jesus admits no change in His affections; your heart is not the compass Jesus saileth by.
~ Samuel Rutherford

I find it most true that the greatest temptation outside of hell is to live without temptations; if water stands, it rots; faith is the better for the sharp winter storm in its face and grace withers without adversity. The devil is but God's master fencer to teach us to handle our weapons.
~ Samuel Rutherford

I pray God that I may never find my will again. Oh, that Christ would subject my will to His, and trample it under His feet.
~ Samuel Rutherford
Samuel Rutherford (1863). “Letters of Samuel Rutherford: With a Sketch of His Life”, p.174

O my Lord Jesus Christ, if I could be in heaven without Thee, it would be hell; and if I could be in hell, and have Thee still, it would be heaven to me, for Thou are all the heaven I want.
~ Samuel Rutherford

The secret formula of the saints:
When I am in the cellar of affliction, I look for the Lord's choicest wines.
~ Samuel Rutherford

The great Master Gardener, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, in a wonderful providence, with his own hand, planted me here, where by his grace, in this part of his vineyard, I grow; and here I will abide till the great Master of the vineyard think fit to transplant me.
~ Samuel Rutherford
Samuel Rutherford (1867). “Letters of the Rev. Samuel Rutherford”, p.487

I have been benefited by praying for others; for by making an errand to God for them I have gotten something for myself.
~ Samuel Rutherford
Samuel Rutherford (1818). “Joshua redivivus, or, three hundred and fifty-two religious letters: to which is added a testimony to the convenanted work of Reformation between 1638 and 1649”, p.148

Praise God for the hammer, the file, and the furnace. The hammer molds us, the file sharpens us, and the fire tempers us.
~ Samuel Rutherford

Verily, we know not what an evil it is to indulge ourselves, and to make an idol of our will.
~ Samuel Rutherford
Samuel Rutherford (1845). “Religious Letters”, p.80

You will not get to steal quietly into heaven, into Christ's company, without a conflict and a cross. I find crosses to be Christ's carved work that he marks out for us and that with crosses he portraits us to his own image, cutting away pieces of our ill and corruption. Lord cut - Lord carve - Lord wound - Lord do anything that may perfect thy Father's image in us and make us ready for glory.
~ Samuel Rutherford

Be not cast down. If ye saw Him who is standing on the shore, holding out His arms to welcome you to land, ye would wade, not only through a sea of wrongs, but through hell itself to be with Him.
~ Samuel Rutherford
Samuel Rutherford (1863). “Letters of Samuel Rutherford: With a Sketch of His Life”, p.92

No pen, no words, no image can express to you the loveliness of my only, only Lord Jesus.
~ Samuel Rutherford
Samuel Rutherford (1867). “Letters of the Rev. Samuel Rutherford”, p.344

Show yourself a Christian by suffering without murmuring. In patience possess your soul - they lose nothing who gain Christ.
~ Samuel Rutherford
Samuel Rutherford (1867). “Letters of the Rev. Samuel Rutherford”, p.360

Howbeit your faith seeth but the black side of providence, yet it hath a better side, and God shall let you see it. ... “For we know that all things work together for good to them that love God,” ergo, shipwreck, losses, &c., work together for the good of them that love God: hence I infer, that losses, disappointments, ill tongues, loss of friends, houses, or country, are God's workmen, set on work to work out good to you, out of everything that befalleth you.
~ Samuel Rutherford
"Letters of the Rev. Samuel Rutherford".

Since He looked upon me my heart is not my own. He hath runaway to heaven with it.
~ Samuel Rutherford
Samuel Rutherford, Hamilton Smith (2008). “Extracts from the Letters of Samuel Rutherford”, p.83, Scripture Truth

Our little time of suffering is not worthy of our first night's welcome home to Heaven.
~ Samuel Rutherford
Samuel Rutherford (1818). “Joshua redivivus, or, three hundred and fifty-two religious letters: to which is added a testimony to the convenanted work of Reformation between 1638 and 1649”, p.124

My Lord Jesus has fully recompensed my sadness with his joys, my losses with his own presence. I find it a sweet and rich thing to exchange my sorrows with Christ's joys, my afflictions with that sweet peace I have with himself.
~ Samuel Rutherford
Samuel Rutherford (1824). “Joshua redivivus: or, three hundred and fifty two religious letters ... To which is added, the Author's testimony to the covenanted work of reformation, between 1638 and 1649 ... As also, a large preface and postscript ... by the Rev. Mr. McWard. The tenth edition”, p.40

After winter comes the summer. After night comes the dawn. And after every storm, there comes clear, open skies.
~ Samuel Rutherford

Christ chargeth me to believe His daylight at midnight.
~ Samuel Rutherford
Samuel Rutherford (1848). “Letters of ... Samuel Rutherford, whith biogr. notices of his correspondents, by J. Anderson, and a sketch of his life, &c., by A.A. Bonar”, p.543

My faith has no bed to sleep upon but omnipotence.
~ Samuel Rutherford

There is nothing that will make you a Christian indeed, but a taste of the sweetness of Christ.
~ Samuel Rutherford
Samuel Rutherford (1863). “Letters of Samuel Rutherford: With a Sketch of His Life”, p.259

the cellar of affliction

"When I am in the cellar of affliction, I look for the Lord's choicest wines."

~ Samuel Rutherford,
Scottish Theologian, 1600-1661

telling the truth is a revolutionary act

“In times of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act.”

~ Author unknown
(quote has been mistakenly attributed to George Orwell's novel 1984)

God Uses Everything

"When I understand that everything happening to me
is to make me more Christlike,
it resolves a great deal of anxiety."
~ A.W. Tozer

Matthew 5:3–4, Message paraphrase:
“You’re blessed when you’re at the end of your rope.
With less of you there is more of God and his rule.
You’re blessed when you feel you’ve lost what is most dear to you.
Only then can you be embraced by the One most dear to you.”
~ Eugene Peterson

“When we lose what is most dear to us on earth,
we value our heavenly Father’s embrace even more.”
~ Vaneetha Rendall Risner

from:
December 7, 2019
God Uses Everything
Why Our Suffering Is Never Wasted
by Vaneetha Rendall Risner
https://www.desiringgod.org/articles/god-uses-everything

a document containing enough dynamite . . .

“You Christians look after a document containing enough dynamite to blow all civilisation to pieces, turn the world upside down and bring peace to a battle-torn planet. But you treat it as though it is nothing more than a piece of literature.”
~ Mahatma Gandhi

If Christians would really live according to the teachings of Christ . . .

When the missionary E. Stanley Jones met with Gandhi he asked him,
“Mr. Gandhi, though you quote the words of Christ often, why is that you appear to so adamantly reject becoming his follower?”
Gandhi replied, “Oh, I don’t reject Christ. I love Christ. It’s just that so many of you Christians are so unlike Christ.”
“If Christians would really live according to the teachings of Christ, as found in the Bible, all of India would be Christian today,” he added.

from http://in.christiantoday.com/articledir/print.htm?id=2837