quotes from CHRISTIAN QUOTER

quotes below were copied from CHRISTIAN QUOTER
http://christianquoter.blogspot.com/2008/01/christianity-christiansquotingorguk.html

quoted page:

Sunday, January 27, 2008

Christianity - christiansquoting.org.uk

I don't understand Christianity, nor do I understand electricity, but I don't intend to sit in the dark until I do!

When we look at other Christians, let's not dwell on the burned-out stumps of their former life. Instead, let's celebrate and affirm the exciting new growth in their lives.

The Christian is not one who has gone all the way with Christ. None of us has. The Christian is one who has found the right road.
--Charles L. Allen (1913- )

The distinction between Christianity and all other systems of religion consists largely in this, that in these others men are found seeking after God, while Christianity is God seeking after men.
THOMAS ARNOLD

The evidence for Christian truth is not exhaustive, but it is sufficient. Too often, Christianity has not been tried and found wanting -- it has been found demanding, and not tried.
John Baillie (1886-1960)

We may not understand how the spirit works; but the effect of the spirit on the lives of men is there for all to see; and the only unanswerable argument for Christianity is a Christian life. No man can disregard a religion and a faith and a power which is able to make bad men good.
William Barclay (1907-1978), The Gospel of John (Vol.1)

Casual Christians Become Christian Casulties.
-- K. A. Barden

The essence of the Christian religion consists therein: that the creation of the Father, destroyed by sin, is again restored in the death of the Son of God and recreated by the grace of the Holy Spirit to a Kingdom of God.
--Herman Bavinck

See that your chief study be about heart, that there God's image may be planted, and his interest advanced, and the interest of the world and flesh subdued, and the love of every sin cast out, and the love of holiness succeed; and that you content not yourselves with seeming to do good in outward acts, when you are bad yourselves, and strangers to the great internal duties. The first and great work of a Christian is about his heart.
- RICHARD BAXTER

Christianity works while infidelity talks. She feeds the hungry, clothes the naked, visits and cheers the sick, and seeks the lost, while infidelity abuses her and babbles nonsense and profanity. "By their fruits ye shall know them."
-- Henry Ward Beecher

No civilization other than that which is Christian, is worth seeking or possessing.
-- Otto von Bismarck

Furthermore, [the unchristian environment] is the place where we find out whether the Christian's meditation has led him into the unreal, from which he awakens in terror when he returns to the workaday world, or whether it has led him into a real contact with God, from which he emerges strengthened and purified. Has it transported him for a moment into a spiritual ecstasy that vanishes when everyday life returns, or has it lodged the Word of God so securely and deeply in his heart that it holds and fortifies him, impelling him to active love, to obedience, to good works? Only the day can decide.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1906-1945), Life Together

Christianity helps us face the music even when we don't like the tune.
--Phillips Brooks

No true Christian is his own man.
JOHN CALVIN

The Christian must be consumed with the infinite beauty of holiness and the infinite damnability of sin.
Thomas Carlyle (1795-1881)

Christians neutralized into inactivity will be spectators of their country's free fall to collapse.
-- John W. Chalfant, _Abandonment Theology_, 1996

My worth to God in public is what I am in private.
--Oswald Chambers

The Christian ideal has not been tried and found wanting. It has been found difficult; and left untried.
G. K. Chesterton, What's Wrong With the World, pt. 1, ch. 5, 1910

Christianity has died many times and risen again; for it has a God who knew his way out of the grave. G. K. Chesterton

At least five times, . . . with the Arian and the Albigensian, with the Humanist sceptic, after Voltaire and after Darwin, the Faith has to all appearance gone to the dogs. In each of these five cases it was the dog that died.
--G K Chesterton, The Everlasting Man, Garden City, NY: Doubleday Image, 1925, p. 254}

There are those who hate Christianity and call their hatred an all-embracing love for all religions.
- G.K. Chesterton ILN, 1/13/06

These are the days when the Christian is expected to praise every creed except his own.
- G.K. Chesterton - ILN 8-11-28

As Christian feel the changing winds of political climate, the blasts against their values in the media, the exclusion of the Christian faith from educational institutions, they begin to sense the dangers of complacency and of pietistical world flight.
-- Edmund P. Clowney, The Christian and American Law. 1998

Let any of those who renounce Christianity write fairly down in a book all the absurdities they believe instead of it, and they will find it requires more faith to reject Christianity than to embrace it.
~ Charles Caleb Colton

Christophobia: the irrational fear of Christianity, and the moral system that it promotes. Usage: "You can't be serious! Anyone that thinks that way is just a 'Christophobe!' There's no point in considering what they say!"
--Clayton Cramer

This seems a cheerful world, Donatus, when I view it from this fair garden, under the shadow of these vines. But if I climbed some great mountain and looked out over the wide lands, you know very well what I would see--brigands on the high roads, pirates on the seas; in the amphitheaters men murdered to please applauding crowds; under all roofs misery and selfishness. It is really a bad world, Donatus, an incredibly bad world. Yet in the midst of it I have found a quiet and holy people. They have discovered a joy which is a thousand times better than any pleasures of this sinful life. They are despised and persecuted, but they care not. They have overcome the world. These people, Donatus, are the Christians -- and I am one of them.
- Cyprian (?-258), a letter

There is no leveler like Christianity, but it levels by lifting all who receive it to the lofty table-land of a true character andof undying hope both for this world and the next.
-- Jonathan Edwards

It seems to me to be the best proof of an evangelical disposition, that persons are not angry when reproached, and have a Christian charity for those that ill deserve it.
The Colloquies of Erasmus (1466?-1536)

I like your Christ, I do not like your Christians, Your Christians are so unlike your Christ.
-- Mahatma Gandhi

Men are tending to materialism. Houses, lands, and worldly goods attract their attention, and as a mirage lure them on to death. Christianity, on the other hand leads only the natural body to death, and for the spirit, it points out a house not built with hands, eternal in the heavens... Let me urge you to follow Him, not as the Nazarene, the Man of Galilee, the carpenter's son, but as the ever living spiritual person, full of love and compassion, who will stand by you in life and death and eternity.
- James A. Garfield, preaching before he became president of the USA.

What we have been told is how we men can be drawn into Christ - can become part of that wonderful present which the young Prince of the universe wants to offer to His Father that present which is Himself and therefore us in Him. It is the only thing we were made for. And there are strange, exciting hints in the Bible that when we are drawn in, a great many other things in Nature will begin to come right. The bad dream will be over: it will be morning.
C. S. Lewis (1898-1963), Mere Christianity [1952]

Jill transported to the land of Aslan is stranded in a strange forest because of pride and foolishness. She becomes extremely thirsty, finds a stream but a lion is there. The Lion bids her to come and drink. The voice was not like a man's but "deeper, wilder, and stronger" - a "sort of heavy golden voice".
"May I - could I - would you mind going away while I do?", said Jill. The Lion answered this only by a look and a very low growl. And as Jill gazed at its mountainous bulk, she realized that she might as well have asked the whole mountain to move aside for her convenience. The delicious rippling noise of the stream was driving her nearly frantic.
"Will you promise not to - do anything to me if you do come?", said Jill.
"I make no promise, " said the Lion. Jill was so thirsty now that, without noticing it, she had come a step nearer.
"Do you eat girls?", she said.
"I have swallowed up girls and boys, women and men, kings and emperors, cities and realms", said the Lion. It didn't say this as if it were boasting, nor as if it were sorry, nor as if it were angry. it just said it.
"I daren't come and drink", said Jill.
"Then you will die of thirst", said the Lion.
"Oh dear!", said Jill coming a step nearer.
"I suppose I must go and look for another stream then."
"There is no other stream", said the Lion.
C. S. LEWIS, Silver Chair

The whole being of any Christian is Faith and Love...Faith brings the man to God, love brings him to men. ... Martin Luther (1483-1546)

The Christian should be a conscience in his group. His presence must never be used to provide a Christian justification for evil. To stand as a co-belligerent and not an ally will be to rally the middle ground for a genuine Third Way without mediocre compromise. The Third Way will not be easy. It will be lonely. Sometimes the Christian must have the courage to stand with the establishment, speaking boldly to the radicals and pointing out the destructive and counter-productive nature of their violence. At other times, he will stand as a co-belligerent with the radicals in their outrage and just demands for redress. The Christian is a co-belligerent with either or both when either or both are right, but... fearless in his opposition to either or both when they are wrong.
Os Guinness, The Dust of Death [1973]

The Christian's life should put his minister's sermon in print.
- WILLIAM GURNALL

The only reason reason any one should believe Christianity is that it is true. Its truth rests on historical facts which do not change, truths which are open to tests norammly applied to other events or claims. It is not a matter of whether it sells or whether it works or whether it feels good or provides meaningful experiences. What Christianity teaches is the correct explanation of reality.
--DICK HALVERSON

That many Roman Catholics, past and present, are true Christians, is a palpable fact. It is a fact which no man can deny without committing a great sin. It is a sin against Christ not to acknowledge as true Christians those who bear his image, and whom He recognizes as his brethren. It is a sin also against ourselves. We are not born of God unless we love the children of God. If we hate and denounce those whom Christ loves as members of his own body, what are we? It is best to be found on the side of Christ, let what will happen. It is perfectly consistent, then, for a man to denounce the papacy as the man of sin, and yet rejoice in believing, and in openly acknowledging, that there are, and ever have been, many Romanists who are the true children of God.
-Charles Hodge , Systematic Theology:

To the frivolous Christianity is certainly not glad tidings, for it wishes first of all to make them serious.
--Kierkegaard, _Journal_, 1847

We are living "between the times" -- the time of Christ's resurrection and the new age of the Spirit, and the time of fulfillment in Christ. Life in the Spirit is a pledge, a "down-payment", on the final kingdom of shalom. In the meantime, we are to be signs of the kingdom which is, and which is coming.
David Kirk (1935- )

Reality, in fact, is always something you couldn't have guessed. That's one of the reasons I believe Christianity. It's a religion you couldn't have guessed.
-- C.S. Lewis--The Case for Christianity

I believe in Christianity as I believe that the Sun has risen: not only because I see it, but because by it I see everything else.
C. S. Lewis (1898-1963), "Is Theology Poetry?"

Christianity, if false, is of no importance, and if true, of infinite importance. The only thing it cannot be is moderately important.
CS Lewis

I didn't go to religion to make me happy. I always knew a bottle of port would do that. If you want a religion to make you feel really comfortable, I certainly don't recommend Christianity.
-- C. S. Lewis

It is the duty of every Christian to be Christ to his neighbor.
MARTIN LUTHER

The Christian cannot be satisfied so long as any human activity is either opposed to Christianity or out of connection with Christianity. Christianity must pervade not merely all nations but also all of human thought.
J. Gresham Machen

Jesus promised His disciples three things: that they would be entirely fearless, absurdly happy, and that they would get into trouble.
--W. Russell Maltby

Likewise, it's easy to see why the left fears Christians. People who worship political power, who want government to direct (and thus control) all things, who have effectively deified the state, cannot imagine anyone feeling otherwise. Like Tolkein's Sauron, the thought that anyone would choose to destroy the ring of power is beyond them. And because that power is today so pervasive, they not only covet it, but cannot permit it's falling into the hands of men with whom they disagree.
- Rod D. Martin, TOWARD A CHRISTIAN CULTURE July 2002

We who formerly delighted in fornication, but now embrace chastity alone; we who formerly used magical arts, dedicated ourselves to the good and unbegotten God, who valued above all things the acquisition of wealth and possessions, now bring what we have into common stock, and communicate to everyone in need; we who hated and destroyed one another, and on account of their different tribe, now since the coming of Christ, live familiarly with them, and pray for our enemies, and endeavour to persuade those who hate us unjustly, to the end that they may become partakers of the same joyful hope of a reward from God the ruler of all.
--Justin Martyr

Enough has... been said to show that the impoverished secularised versions of Christianity which are being urged upon us for our acceptance today rest not upon a serious application of the methods of scientific scholarship nor upon a serious intuitive appreciation of the Gospels as a whole in their natural context, but upon a radical distaste for the supernatural.
E. L. Mascall, The Secularisation of Christianity [1965]

The only way to keep a broken vessel full is to keep it always under the tap.
--Dwight L. Moody

There is one single fact, which we may oppose to all the wit and argument of infidelity, namely that no man ever repented of being a Christian on his deathbed.
~ Hannah More (1745-1833)

Marx and Freud are the two great destroyers of Christian civilization, the first replacing the gospel of love by the gospel of hate, the other undermining the essential concept of human responsibility.
--Malcom Muggeridge, My Life in Pictures, NY: William Morrow & Co., 1987, p. 94

One can find innumerable dumb things said and done by Christians in the name of Christianity, both in the past and at present--perhaps especially at present. The propensity to say and do dumb things, and even wicked things, is simply part of human nature. One can blame the Church or Christianity for such things only on the thoroughly unwarranted assumption that Christianity claims to have abolished human nature.
-- Richard John Neuhaus

The greatest artists, saints, philosophers and, until quite recent times, scientists, through the Christian centuries, . . . have all assumed that the New Testament promise of eternal life is valid, and that the great drama of the Incarnation which embodies it, is indeed the master-drama of our existence. To suppose that these distinguished believers were all credulous fools whose folly and credulity in holding such beliefs has now been finally exposed, would seem to me untenable; and anyway I'd rather be wrong with Dante and Shakespeare and Milton, with Augustine of Hippo and Francis of Assisi, with Dr Johnson, Blake and Dostoevsky than right with Voltaire, Rousseau, the Huxleys, Herbert Spencer, H.G. Wells and Bernard Shaw.
Malcom Muggeridge, Vintage Muggeridge, ed. Geoffrey Barlow, Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1985, pp. 32-33

I believe I am not mistaken in saying that Christianity is a demanding and serious religion. When it is delivered as easy and amusing, it is another kind of religion altogether.
--Neil Postman, Amusing Ourselves to Death

Few things are more striking than the change which has taken place during my own lifetime in the attitude of the intelligentsia towards the spokesmen of Christian opinion. When I was a child, bishops expressed doubts about the Resurrection, and were called courageous. When I was a girl, G. K. Chesterton professed belief in the Resurrection, and was called whimsical. When I was at college, thoughtful people expressed belief in the Resurrection "in a spiritual sense", and were called advanced; (any other kind of belief was called obsolete, and its professors were held to be simpleminded). When I was middle-aged, a number of lay persons, including some poets and writers of popular fiction, put forward rational arguments for the Resurrection, and were called courageous. Today, any lay apologist for Christianity... whose works are sold and read, is liable to be abused in no uncertain terms as a mountebank, a reactionary, a tool of the Inquisition, a spiritual snob, an intellectual bully, an escapist, an obstructionist, a psychopathic introvert, an insensitive extrovert, and an enemy of society. The charges are not always mutually compatible, but the common animus behind them is unmistakable, and its name is fear. Writers who attack these domineering Christians are called courageous.
--Dorothy L. Sayers (1893-1957)

Evangelism is a calling, but not the first calling. Building congregations is a calling, but not the first calling. A Christian's first call is to step from the line of Cain into the line of Abel, upon the basis of the shed blood of the Lamb of God -- to return to the first commandment to love God, to love the brotherhood, and then to love one's neighbor as himself.
--Schaeffer, Francis A., Genesis in Time and Space, The Complete Works of Francis A. Schaeffer, (Westchester, IL: Crossway Books) 1985.

The primary emphasis of biblical Christianity is the teaching that the infinite-personal God is the final reality, the Creator of all else, and that an individual can come openly to the holy God upon the basis of the finished work of Christ and that alone. Nothing needs to be added to Christ's finished work, and nothing *can* be added to Christ's finished work.
-- Francis Schaeffer, The Great Evangelical Disaster

Christianity is the easiest religion in the world, because it is the only religion in which God does everything; it is the hardest religion because it robs us completely of being autonomous.
- Francis Shaeffer--The God Who is There

The Gospel is not presented to mankind as an argument about religious principles. Nor is it offered as a philosophy of life. Christianity is a witness to certain facts -- to events that have happened, to hopes that have been fulfilled, to realities that have been experienced, to a Person who has lived and died and been raised from the dead to reign for ever.
Massey H. Shepherd, Jnr., Far and Near

Christianity might be a good thing if anyone ever tried it.
-- George Bernard Shaw

Modernized, the Easter message means that God recycles human garbage. He can turn prostitutes like Magdalene into disciples, broken reeds like Simon Peter into rocks, and political-minded Simon Zealots into martyrs for the faith. God is the God of the second chance.
-Fulton John Sheen (1895-1979), Those Mysterious Priests, [1974]

While sitting on the bank of a river one day, I picked up a solid round stone from the water and broke it open. It was perfectly dry in spite of the fact that it had been immersed in water for centuries. The same is true of many people in the Western world. For centuries they have been surrounded by Christianity; they live immersed in the waters of its benefits. And yet it has not penetrated their hearts; they do not love it. The fault is not in Christianity, but in men's hearts, which have been hardened by materialism and intellectualism.
--Sadhu Sundar Singh (1889-1929)

Obedience to Christ includes obedience to his commission to go into the world, to preach the good news, and to make disciples. But we cannot do this without taking account of the context in which people live their lives, or of the alter-natives to the gospel which they find attractive. Some of our evangelism has been very superficial on this account. We need to develop new strategies of evangelistic penetration that will take seriously the cultural bondage in which people are held and the need to soak ourselves in their culture in order to interpret the gospel to them from inside.
John R. W. Stott (1921- ), "Obeying Christ in a Changing World"

Christianity is not a system of philosophy, nor a ritual, nor a code of laws; it is the impartation of a divine vitality. Without the way there is not going, without the truth there is no knowing, without life there is no living.
MERRILL TENNEY on Jn 14:6

I think back to many discussions in my early life when we all agreed that if you try to take the fruits of Christianity without its roots, the fruits will wither. And they will not come again unless you nurture the roots. But we must not profess the Christian faith and go to church simply because we want social reforms and benefits or a better standard of behaviour - but because we accept the sanctity of life, the responsibility that comes with freedom and the supreme sacrifice of Christ expressed so well in the hymn: 'When I survey the wondrous Cross/ on which the Prince of Glory died/ My richest gain I count but loss/ and pour contempt on all my pride.'
--Margaret Thatcher, speech to the Church of Scotland General Assembly, 21.5.88

The true ground of most men's prejudice against the Christian doctrine is because they have no mind to obey it.
--John Tillotson (1630-1694)

A Christian is one who has bet his life that Christ was right.
-- David Elton Trueblood (1900-1994)

The best argument for Christianity is Christians: their joy, their certainty, their completeness. But the strongest argument against Christianity is also Christians -- when they are somber and joyless, when they are self-righteous and smug in complacent consecration, when they are narrow and repressive, then Christianity dies a thousand deaths.
--Sheldon Vanauken

If Christians want us to believe in a Redeemer, let them act redeemed.
--Voltaire

Oh, Christians, look to your steps! When you have prayed against sin, then watch against temptation. Such as are more excellent than others, God expects some singular thing from them. They should bring more glory to God and, by their exemplary piety, make proselytes to religion. Better fruit is expected from a vineyard than from a wild forest.
- THOMAS WATSON

Though we as Christians are like Christ, having the first fruits of the Spirit, yet we are unlike Him, having the remainders of the flesh.
THOMAS WATSON

If the marks of discipleship were merely an orthodox creed‚ excited feeling‚ denominational zeal‚ flaming partisanship, then there are many that "find the way." But if the true travellers are men of broken heart‚ poor in spirit‚ who mourn for sin‚ who know the music of the Shepherd's voice‚ who follow the Lamb‚ who delight in the throne of grace‚ and who love the place of the cross, then there are but ‚ few‚ with whom the true saints journey to heaven in fellowship and communion.
Octavius Winslow, Midnight Harmonies

Prayer of the Heart - John Baillie

Give me a stout heart to bear my own burdens.
Give me a willing heart to bear the burdens of others.
Give me a believing heart to cast all burdens upon Thee, O Lord.
~ John Baillie (1886-1960), A Diary of Private Prayer
Theologian and Church of Scotland minister

The evidence for Christian truth - John Baillie

"The evidence for Christian truth is not exhaustive, but it is sufficient. Too often, Christianity has not been tried and found wanting -- it has been found demanding, and not tried."

~ John Baillie (1886-1960), Theologian and Church of Scotland minister

Do We Have Soul Mates?

Crosswalk.com
Thursday, April 28, 2016
Crosswalk Singles
Do We Have Soul Mates?
by Eric Metaxas
quotes:

Once I wrote a tribute to C.S. Lewis’s “The Screwtape Letters” called “Screwtape Proposes a Divorce,” in which Wasphead, my invented senior devil, says the following to Gallstone, the junior devil: :
“That [soul mates] do not exist is to be kept TOP SECRET. … Let’s be blunt: these humans are scouring the globe for someone with whom a relationship will require absolutely no work or compromise. … Many adult humans who have long ago dismissed Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny as myths somehow persist in believing this person to exist.”

As J. R. R. Tolkien once wrote to his son, “No man, however truly he loved his betrothed and bride as a young man has lived faithful to her as a wife in mind and body without deliberate conscious exercise of the will, without self-denial.”

Conflict Can Be Constructive

Thomas a Kempis wrote centuries ago:
"It is good that we at times endure opposition and that we are evilly and untruly judged when our actions and intentions are good. Often such experiences promote humility and protect us from vainglory. For then we seek God's witness in the heart."

"Letting evil run its course is not a Christian option."

Out of This World
What this Lutheran learned when he visited the Amish.
By Uwe Siemon-Netto

http://www.ctlibrary.com/ct/2009/september/36.58.html

 

"Letting evil run its course is not a Christian option."

Advocating Christianity?

"What is worst of all is to advocate Christianity, not because it is true, but because it might be beneficial."
~ T.S. Eliot

Comment: 
Of course Christianity is beneficial.  It is both true and beneficial because God created us and God loves us.  God is a good parent and Christianity is an act of love.
~ Truthful Grace

Protestant Sacerdotalism

Protestant Sacerdotalism

Evangelical Protestantism has been one of the most dynamic of Christian movements. Evangelical Protestantism is also one of the most dysfunctional of Christian movements. Our dysfunctions are many, but not necessarily worse than those found in Catholicism or Orthodoxy. But they still deserve our attention. Take this one, which includes a cogent quote by the great theologian Thomas Torrance:

But what has happened in Protestant worship and ministry? Is it not too often the case that the whole life and worship of the congregation revolves around the personality of the minister? He is the one who is in the center; he offers the prayers of the congregation; he it is who mediates "truth" through his personality, and he it is who mediates between the people and God through conducting the worship entirely on his own. Nowhere is this more apparent than in the case of the popular minister where everything centers on him, and the whole life of the congregation is built around him. What is that but Protestant sacerdotalism...?

As with most critiques, it's not true in every respect, but it is true enough to give one pause.

~ from The Galli Report, Weekly Must-Reads from the Editor of Christianity Today, Friday, Feb. 26, 2016

"Not Christian" to build walls, not bridges

Pope Francis Suggests Donald Trump Is ‘Not Christian’

Jim Yardley, Feb. 18, 2016
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/19/world/americas/pope-francis-donald-trump-christian.html

Inserting himself into the Republican presidential race, Pope Francis on Wednesday suggested that Donald J. Trump “is not Christian” because of the harshness of his campaign promises to deport more immigrants and force Mexico to pay for a wall along the border.

“A person who thinks only about building walls, wherever they may be, and not building bridges, is not Christian,” Francis said when a reporter asked him about Mr. Trump on the papal airliner as he returned to Rome after his six-day visit to Mexico. . . .

Mr. Trump has staked out controversial positions on immigration, vowing to force Mexico to build a wall and also increase deportations. He has also made inflammatory comments accusing Mexican immigrants of being rapists and criminals.

Asked whether he would try to influence Catholics in how they vote in the presidential election, Francis said he “was not going to get involved in that” but then repeated his criticism of Mr. Trump, with a caveat.

“I say only that this man is not Christian if he has said things like that,” Francis said. “We must see if he said things in that way and in this I give the benefit of the doubt.”
. . .

"it was you and the people who love you who put you there"

Taylor Swift, accepting album of the year, calls out Kanye West

Less than a week after West drew backlash for his song Famous, in which he suggested that he made Swift famous by crashing the stage during her 2009 MTV Video Music Awards acceptance speech, the pop star indirectly responded to his diss. Accepting album of the year for her blockbuster 1989, Swift took a moment to address "the young women out there".

"There are going to be people along the way who will try to undercut your success, or take credit for your accomplishments or your fame," Swift said. "But if you just focus on the work and you don't let those people sidetrack you, someday, when you get where you're going, you'll look around and you will know that it was you and the people who love you who put you there, and that will be the greatest feeling in the world."

Our presence

"The most precious gift we can offer is our presence.

When mindfulness embraces those we love,

they will bloom like flowers.”

~ Thich Nhat Hahn

Expecting flowers to bloom

“If your heart is a volcano,
how shall you expect flowers to bloom?”

~ Khalil Gibran

"Joy" as a learning concept

Holappa, detecting my surprise, reiterated that the country’s early-childhood education program indeed places a heavy emphasis on “joy,” which along with play is explicitly written into the curriculum as a learning concept. "There's an old Finnish saying,” Holappa said. “Those things you learn without joy you will forget easily.”

The Joyful, Illiterate Kindergartners of Finland
Forget the Common Core, Finland’s youngsters are in charge of determining what happens in the classroom.
TIM WALKER  OCT 1, 2015
www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2015/10/the-joyful-illiterate-kindergartners-of-finland/408325/

Embrace it

"Many times the stress we feel is because we’ve been afforded tremendous opportunity.  So embrace it..."
~ Tracey Bianchi

"No. This is what's important."

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

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

~ Iain Thomas

"A person filled with joy preaches without preaching."

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

Jesus the Hero

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

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

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

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

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

"Give me hypocrites over cynics any time"

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

~ Giles Fraser

Kenji Goto - "Judgment lies with God"

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

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

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

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

By JAMES BARRON    JAN. 6, 2015

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

 

quotes:

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

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

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

...

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

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

 

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

...

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

etc.

Unobstructed

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

we are spiritual beings having a human experience

“We are not human beings having a spiritual experience;

we are spiritual beings having a human experience.”

~ Pierre Teilhard de Chardin

Movies: a machine that generates empathy

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

God can draw a straight line with a crooked stick

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

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

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

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

quotes researched by Virginia Huguenot, librarian

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

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

Spirituality

SPIRITUALITY

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

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

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

Confront the Major Anxiety

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

Peculiar traits of rich people

Peculiar traits of rich people

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

They are (mostly pleasant) sociopaths

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

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

They care about time periods most can't comprehend

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Three Irrational Beliefs

Leadership Journal

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

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

David Slagle

September 26, 2011

...

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

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

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

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

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

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

…

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

 

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

Fear of the Cross

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

~ Truthful Grace

Make a new ending

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

Existence without God

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

~ Truthful Grace

a true theology of tragedy

Image, Issue 61
imagejournal.org/page/journal/editorial-statements/the-tragic-sense-of-life

Gregory Wolfe

The Tragic Sense of Life

quote:

"The notion that Christianity is somehow alien to tragedy—that it is simply and straightforwardly “comic” because the resurrection makes for a happy ending—could not be more radically wrong. In his essay “Tragedy and Christian Faith,” Hans Urs von Balthasar singles out three essential elements of tragedy: that the good things of the world cannot sustain themselves and are lost; that this places us in a position of contradiction or alienation; and that this condition is bound up with an “opaque guilt,” in which individual moral responsibility cannot account for all suffering, leaving us subject to a mysterious “inherited curse.”

According to von Balthasar, Christ does not banish tragedy but carries it into the heart of God. Christ “fulfills the contradiction of existence...not by dissolving the contradiction but by bearing that affirmation of the human condition as it is through still deeper darknesses in finem, ‘to the end,’ as love....”

To go to the end means...not only entering total defeat, the total bankruptcy of all earthly power and every project of salvation, but to go to the end of the night of sin, in that descent into hell where the one who dies and the one who is dead come into an atemporal state of being lost, in which no more hope of an end is possible, nor even the possibility of looking back to a beginning. And this as the conclusion of a tragedy of earthly life that itself already stood under the law of contradiction: since God’s omnipotence wished and was able to make itself known ontologically in the Incarnation as powerlessness and unutterable limitation....

This may sound grandly theological, but I would argue that it has the most concrete and far-reaching consequences for the way we experience the world. If faith is to remain true to experience and not become a sentimentalized blindness, it must be permeated by the tragic sense of life. Unless we can believe that God has willingly submitted himself to the harsh necessities of the created order, then we will be helpless when those necessities lay us low. We can only lean in to these forces, and know that such a posture is not passivity but action of the profoundest sort. Passion is not passive.

My tutor was right to challenge my reading of King Lear, but is it possible to embrace the fullness of this tragedy and yet see in its darkness an echo of the divine self-emptying? I think so.

For von Balthasar the resurrection is not “in any way a fifth act with a happy ending” but a mysterious affirmation of a love that can bear tragedy to the end. That is why, in the forty days that followed it, Christ was not magically made whole but bore the marks of his passion, and would not rest until we placed our hands—and our hearts—inside them."

 

as accessed 10/26/13

Catholic without the revelation-but we need to experience grief, and we ought to grieve

Movie Review of The Counselor

www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2013/october-web-only/counselor.html

Alissa Wilkinson, Christianity Today's chief film critic

"It's vanity, in McCarthy's view, to think that we've got a new breed of evil today. It's the same old evil, only now it has bigger guns. And it still strikes at random. This is what The Counselor is about.

The story in a McCarthy tale is secondary to what the story is driving at, which is always the same two points. One, the world is older than it ever has been, and might be ending at any time; two, in the meantime, it's often a very bad place to live, full of random, senseless evil. There is no victory in a Cormac McCarthy novel. The best anyone can hope for is to survive the apocalypse, or hope his son will survive. McCarthy is not a religious man in the traditional sense of the word, but he was raised Catholic, and religion crops up in this film frequently as a topic of discussion. (I've read his worldview described as "Catholic without the revelation.")" ...

"But that hint of hope [in McCarthy's screenplay] is nowhere to be found in the film, nor a number of the original monologues, apparently removed to get the story to track better with viewers.
It's a shame, because there is still something very important at the heart of this film, and at the heart of all of McCarthy's work. This world is broken, broken beyond repair. Christians believe that after history's tragedies end, hope will be fulfilled—but our too-common mistake is to skip over the tragedy as fast as possible in our eagerness to get to the "redemption" part. (Gregory Wolfe writes of this beautifully in his Image editorial "The Tragic Sense of Life.") Anyone who has experienced genuine, senseless tragedy is familiar with the glib statements people make to smooth things over and keep on living.

But we need to experience grief, and we ought to grieve. We should to look around and spend time with the brokenness, feeling the difficulty of human embodiedness, allowing the sadness to take its time with us. This is not how things ought to be. Even Jesus wept, moments before raising Lazarus from the dead.

McCarthy's world holds little hope for redemption at all, but what he gets exactly right is that our existence seems senselessly tragic, and we're right to chafe. Near the film's end, we watch the Counselor gradually realize the full extent of the loss that evil is inflicting on him, and for a moment, we believe it's because of his wrongdoing. Certainly, the penalty outweighs the crime—the brutality is not excusable—but he still did a bad thing. He deserves to pay.

But then The Counselor becomes a McCarthy story, not a simple morality tale: he walks out into the street and right into the middle of a vigil that a number of the city's weeping residents are holding in memory of their own lost loved ones. He wanders through their midst with a look of wonder. It's Ellis's point in No Country: Whatcha got ain't nothin new. The Counselor is paying for his sins, but plenty of people lose their loved ones brutally without having engaged in illegal drug trafficking. Correlation does not imply causation. Evil is in us, but also bigger than us.

So that is why we need Cormac McCarthy alongside Victor Hugo and Shakespeare and Dickens: he reminds us (with a particularly American sensibility) that this world is broken and tragic and not fair, and that pushing past that fact too fast is an error we can't afford to make, for the good of our souls. Even if you believe in a final restoration, you need to feel why it's necessary.

Blessed, after all, are those who mourn." ...

"The film is rated R for "graphic violence, some grisly images, strong sexual content and language," which should surprise exactly nobody—but it's rough, even for McCarthy, and it would be difficult to recommend that most people see the movie."

as accessed 10/26/13

"This tension [between Christ and the church] takes us out of ourselves continuously."

quotes from Pope Francis:

“The Society of Jesus is an institution in tension,” the pope replied, “always fundamentally in tension. A Jesuit is a person who is not centered in himself. The Society itself also looks to a center outside itself; its center is Christ and his church. So if the Society centers itself in Christ and the church, it has two fundamental points of reference for its balance and for being able to live on the margins, on the frontier. If it looks too much in upon itself, it puts itself at the center as a very solid, very well ‘armed’ structure, but then it runs the risk of feeling safe and self-sufficient.

The Society must always have before itself the Deus semper maior, the always-greater God, and the pursuit of the ever greater glory of God, the church as true bride of Christ our Lord, Christ the king who conquers us and to whom we offer our whole person and all our hard work, even if we are clay pots, inadequate.

This tension takes us out of ourselves continuously. The tool that makes the Society of Jesus not centered in itself, really strong, is, then, the account of conscience, which is at the same time paternal and fraternal, because it helps the Society to fulfill its mission better.”

 

The pope is referring to the requirement in the Constitutions of the Society of Jesus that the Jesuit must “manifest his conscience,” that is, his inner spiritual situation, so that the superior can be more conscious and knowledgeable about sending a person on mission.

 

~ Pope Francis, Sept. 2013
http://www.americamagazine.org/pope-interview

Discernment - "I am always wary of ... the first thing that comes to my mind"

quotes from Pope Francis:

“Discernment is one of the things that worked inside St. Ignatius. For him it is an instrument of struggle in order to know the Lord and follow him more closely. I was always struck by a saying that describes the vision of Ignatius: non coerceri a maximo, sed contineri a minimo divinum est (“not to be limited by the greatest and yet to be contained in the tiniest—this is the divine”).
...
Thanks to magnanimity, we can always look at the horizon from the position where we are. That means being able to do the little things of every day with a big heart open to God and to others. That means being able to appreciate the small things inside large horizons, those of the kingdom of God.

“This motto,” the pope continues, “offers parameters to assume a correct position for discernment, in order to hear the things of God from God’s ‘point of view.’

...

Discernment is always done in the presence of the Lord, looking at the signs, listening to the things that happen, the feeling of the people, especially the poor. My choices, including those related to the day-to-day aspects of life, like the use of a modest car, are related to a spiritual discernment that responds to a need that arises from looking at things, at people and from reading the signs of the times. Discernment in the Lord guides me in my way of governing.

 

But I am always wary of decisions made hastily. I am always wary of the first decision, that is, the first thing that comes to my mind if I have to make a decision. This is usually the wrong thing. I have to wait and assess, looking deep into myself, taking the necessary time. The wisdom of discernment redeems the necessary ambiguity of life and helps us find the most appropriate means, which do not always coincide with what looks great and strong.”

~ Pope Francis, Sept. 2013
http://www.americamagazine.org/pope-interview

to venture into the darkness without losing the way

quote from Pope Francis:

"The church must warm the hearts of men and women. ...
"Thorough and adequate formation" is key, he said, because religious and lay Catholic communicators need to be able to venture into the darkness of indifference without losing their way; "to listen to (people's) dreams without being seduced; to share their disappointments without becoming despondent; to sympathize with those whose lives are falling apart without losing our own strength and identity," he said.

God is in every person’s life

"I have a dogmatic certainty: God is in every person’s life. God is in everyone’s life. Even if the life of a person has been a disaster, even if it is destroyed by vices, drugs or anything else—God is in this person’s life.
You can, you must try to seek God in every human life. Although the life of a person is a land full of thorns and weeds, there is always a space in which the good seed can grow.
You have to trust God."
~ Pope Francis, Sept. 2013
http://www.americamagazine.org/pope-interview

See everything; turn a blind eye to much; correct a little

“See everything; turn a blind eye to much; correct a little.”
~ Pope Francis, Sept. 2013

The audacity to question God: An interview with Greg Boyd

The audacity to question God: An interview with Greg Boyd
Jonathan Merritt, Sept 19, 2013
http://jonathanmerritt.religionnews.com/2013/09/19/audacity-question-god-interview-greg-boyd/

quoted excerpt:

Bestselling author Greg Boyd rejects the idea that faith is rooted in certainty and is the opposite of doubt.
Pastor Gregory Boyd (Ph.D., Princeton Theological Seminary) made a name for himself years ago when he penned the best-selling Gold Medallion Award-winner Letters from a Skeptic, a collection of letters with his agnostic father that address tough questions non-Christians people have about the faith. But Boyd quickly became a lightning rod of controversy when he became a proponent of “open theism”, a view claiming that the future is not pre-determined and therefore God knows the future as possibilities and not fact (for more, see his book God of the Possible).

In his newest book, Benefit of the Doubt: Breaking the Idol of Certainty, Boyd has returned to his roots in a way by urging people to wrestle with the big questions of faith. He claims that modern Christians have come to accept a false belief that faith is rooted in certainty. He says that faith is instead being willing to commit to living a certain way despite not being certain. Here, we discuss the benefit of embracing doubt and why he believes we need even to question God.
quoted excerpt:

JM: Can you share a little bit of the story you share in Benefit of the Doubt that taught you the importance of being honest with God?

GB: I became a Christian at the age of 17 in a strict holiness Pentecostal Church. I was able to quit taking drugs and a host of other sinful behaviors, except for one – a f pornography addiction that I’d developed over the four years leading up to my conversion. Since this church taught that a person lost their salvation with every sin, I found I was getting “saved” and “unsaved” several times a week–if not each day–for the first two years of my Christian walk.
One night, I walked out of this holiness church in despair, believing I was never going to be able to kick my pornography habit. Believing at this point that I was destined to hell, I became “uncorked” in the church parking lot while sharing my despair with a friend. Like a volcano erupting, I unleashed anger and frustration toward God not just over my two years of unsuccessful struggling with porn, but going all the way back to abuse I had suffered for years as a child at the hands of an unloving, psychologically tormented, step-mother.
After I had spewed out my seething rage, I flopped my Bible on the hood of my friend’s truck and began reading it sarcastically. It “happened” to flop open to Romans 8:1, which read, “There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus.” This opened the door for me to begin to realize, for the first time in my life, that God loved me for free, despite my sin. It ultimately resulted in me finding a motivation of love I had never known before, and it was this motivation that eventually broke the stronghold of pornography in my life and completely revolutionized my life as a disciple.
One of the main lessons I glean from this night is that it is only when we are completely honest with God that we are able to receive a true revelation of what God is really like. Only when we are uncompromisingly “real” before God can we allow God to be uncompromisingly “real” with us.

quoted excerpt:
JM: In Benefit of the Doubt, you advise people to believe in the Bible because they believe in Jesus, not the other way around. What do you mean by this, and why do you feel it is important?

GB: The number one reason young people today are abandoning the Christian faith and why other people can’t take the Christian faith seriously has to do with problems they have with the Bible. For example, as most freshmen taking a course in “The Bible as Literature” at a secular college learn, the historical accuracy of some biblical stories are questioned by many scholars, and it’s hard to deny that the Bible contains some apparent contradictions and some material that seems to fly in the face of modern science. In Benefit of the Doubt, I argue that if we structured our faith the way the earliest Christians did, these problems with the Bible would pose no threat to our confidence in Jesus being Lord and even to our confidence that the Bible is the inspired Word of God.
The earliest disciples didn’t believe in Jesus because their scripture (Old Testament) proved to them that he was the Son of God. They were rather convinced by Jesus’ claims, his unique life of love, his distinctive authority, his unprecedented miracles, his self-sacrificial death, and especially his resurrection. Once they believed in Jesus, they looked for him and found him in their scripture. But they never would have been convinced that Jesus was Lord had they started with scripture alone.
Unfortunately, most evangelicals today are taught to do the opposite. They base their faith in Jesus’ Lordship (as well as everything else) on their belief that the Bible is the inspired Word of God. This is “unfortunate” because this way of structuring our faith leverages everything on the perfection of this book, forcing the Bible to carry more weight than it was ever meant to carry. Every single problem people find with scripture now threatens to undermine their faith.
As I flesh out in my book, I eventually came to the conclusion that the things about Jesus that convinced the earliest disciples that he was Lord continue to be compelling enough to convince open-minded people today that Jesus is Lord, and they do not presuppose the view that the Bible is the inspired Word of God. Once I was persuaded on the basis of historical, philosophical and personal arguments that Jesus was Lord, I was motivated to also embrace the Bible as God’s Word, for (among other things) this was clearly Jesus’ own view and it’s very hard to confess Jesus to be one’s Lord while correcting his theology, especially on such a fundamental matter. But notice, my reasons for believing in Scripture are now based entirely on my faith in Jesus, which is why my faith need not be threatened any longer by any historical inaccuracies or contradictions or scientific inaccuracies I may find in it.
I’m convinced that if young people today would structure their faith this way, we’d see far fewer loosing their faith.

etc.

With my mother's death all settled happiness . . . disappeared from my life.

Clive Staples "C.S." Lewis

Perhaps the most significant event of his early life was the death of his mother when he was age nine. Lewis says in his autobiography Surprised by Joy, "With my mother's death all settled happiness . . . disappeared from my life. There was to be much fun, many pleasures, many stabs of joy; but no more of the old security. It was sea and islands now; the great continent had sunk like Atlantis."
 

Possibilities Unlimited

author unknown:
Two salespeople were sent to a faraway, primitive culture to sell shoes.
The first emailed back home, "Situation hopeless. No one here wears shoes."
The second emailed to the home office, "Possibilities unlimited. No one here wears shoes."

We must believe in free will. We have no choice.

"We must believe in free will. We have no choice."
~ Isaac Singer

Diana Nyad, age 64, first to finish 110 mile swim from Cuba to Florida without a shark cage

"FIND A WAY"

http://www.latimes.com/nation/nationnow/la-na-nn-diana-nyad-cuba-florida-remarks-20130902,0,1729111.story

In the end, emerging from the great big ocean wearing a blue swimming cap and goggles -- and having swum roughly 110 miles in 52 hours and 54 minutes -- Diana Nyad still had enough strength to walk ashore Monday.

Failing four times over the years, on her fifth and final attempt this weekend, the 64-year-old Nyad officially became the first swimmer to go the distance from Cuba to Florida without a shark cage.
Upon reaching shore at Smathers Beach in Key West, Fla., Nyad had three things to tell the mob of onlookers who had watched her achieve a lifelong dream.
“One is, we should never ever give up,” said a slightly dazed Nyad, whose slurred remarks were received with a roar by the crowd.
“Two is, you’re never too old to chase your dreams."
“Three is, it looks like a solitary sport, but it’s a team," Nyad concluded.

Two miles from the end of the swim Monday morning, Nyad stopped to address her [35-member] support crew.
"This is a lifelong dream of mine and I'm very very glad to be with you," she told her team, according to an update on her website. "Some on the team are the most intimate friends of my life and some of you I've just met. But I'll tell you something, you're a special group. You pulled through; you are pros and have a great heart. So let's get going so we can have a whopping party."

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-505263_162-57601044/diana-nyad-on-epic-swim-my-mantra-was-find-a-way/

Nyad said of her swim, "I'm so satisfied that we stuck with it. You can dream, you can be vital and you can be in your prime even. I may not look it right now but you catch me on a good day, I'm in my prime."

My mantra was "find a way."

http://espn.go.com/video/clip?id=9633304&categoryid=2378529
ESPN Sport Science: Nyad's Amazing Feat

Diana's swim was approximately:
53 hours
30,000 calories
153,000 strokes
equivalent of 10 marathons or swimming the English Channel 5 times

tempo è denaro

tempo è denaro - time is money

to hold two opposed ideas in the mind at the same time, and still retain the ability to function

In The Crack-Up, F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote, "The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in the mind at the same time, and still retain the ability to function."

Words of Wisdom: 8 Famous Quotes to Help You Embrace Fear and Achieve Success

Anthony Scaramucci

Managing Partner at SkyBridge Capital

http://www.linkedin.com/today/post/article/20130827143745-10667678-words-of-wisdom-8-famous-quotes-to-help-you-embrace-fear-and-achieve-success?trk=tod-home-art-list-large_0

quote:

When offering career advice to young professionals and entrepreneurs, the two things that always top my list are to find a mentor and to read voraciously. Throughout the course of my life, I have been blessed with multiple mentors -- mostly teachers, professors, bosses or colleagues. In addition, I have gathered useful advice from reading, and observing the actions of individuals who I identify as some of the world’s best leaders, both past and present. The following are 8 notable quotes from these “leaders” that have inspired me and helped to shape my principles as a business owner.

• “Develop success from failures. Discouragement and failure are two of the surest stepping stones to success.” – Dale Carnegie
• "There are only two ways to live life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is." – Albert Einstein
• "Do not look for approval except for the consciousness of doing your best." – Andrew Carnegie
• "The true measure of a person is how they treat someone who can do him absolutely no good." – Samuel Johnson
• "You've got to be very careful if you don't know where you are going because you might not get there." – Yogi Berra
• “Expect more than others think possible.” – Howard Schultz
• "If people aren't calling you crazy, you aren't thinking big enough." – Richard Branson
• “Never, never, never give up.” – Winston Churchill

simply remember that they love the (bleep) out of you

USA Today quote:
Ann Oldenburg, USA TODAY 5:05 p.m. EDT August 24, 2013
http://www.usatoday.com/story/life/people/2013/08/23/alec-baldwin-wife-hilaria-hospital-welcome-baby/2693559/

Alec Baldwin and his wife, Hilaria, welcomed a new daughter Friday....  [Aug. 23, 2013]
"We are overjoyed to announce the birth of our daughter Carmen Gabriela. She is absolutely perfect," Hilaria tweeted just before 5 p.m. on Friday.
...
Baldwin also has a 17-year-old daughter, Ireland, from his marriage to actress Kim Basinger. Big sister Ireland posted a very long, and very sweet, Tumblr message full of advice for little Carmen.

"Remember that your parents will always love you," it says. "As a kid, you forget that sometimes. When they are screaming about this and bickering about that. It hurts. Grown ups yell. I don't know why, but they do. No matter what your mom or Dad says or does, simply remember that they love the (bleep) out of you. NEVER forget it."

it's all over much too soon

"Life is full of misery, loneliness, and suffering - and it's all over much too soon."
~ Woody Allen

no difference in matters of religion?

“To hold…that there is no difference in matters of religion between forms that are unlike each other, and even contrary to each other, most clearly leads…to the rejection of all religion. ...
And this is the same thing as atheism, however it may differ from it in name.”
~ Pope Leo XIII, 1885

When people heal, they get well

"When people heal, they get well."
~ hospice patient

God always heals us

When I was the chaplain for an in-patient hospice unit, I had an interesting conversation with a visitor from a patient's church.  She said "God always answers prayers for healing.  Sometimes God takes our disease away from us, and sometimes God takes us away from our disease.  Either way, God always heals us."

This life is not the end of the story

quote from Rick Warren who is struggling with the recent death of his son:

“Not everything in this life has a happy ending. But this life is not the end of the story.”

Likeability and Capability, Respect and Support

://www.people.com/people/mobile/article/0,,20710201,00.html

The Voice Crowns Danielle Bradbery as Winner11:30PM EDT

 

The season also stood out for the camaraderie between the judges and the contestants, who showed respect and support for one another throughout the competition – despite the friendly bickering between Shelton and fellow coach Adam Levine.

For winner Bradbery, the Texas high schooler told PEOPLE Monday night she's thinking about the next step in her burgeoning career. "I feel like I could start off making a single. I could start off really small, but then eventually get bigger."

Regarding, Chamuel, coach Usher has made it clear he wants to stay in touch with the increasingly popular rocker, who wowed audiences with her fierce performances and humble, sweet demeanor.

"Every artist would hope to possess these two things: likeability and capability," Usher told her Monday after she performed a heartfelt version of "Why" by Annie Lennox. "To me, that represents a successful artist, and that is what you possess."

As for the The Swon Brothers, Zach told PEOPLE that Shelton's wife, Miranda Lambert, gave them a piece of advice that set their minds at ease, no matter the outcome. "She said she came in third on Nashville Star and look where she ended up. She's like 'Don't worry about winning. We are going to do great.' "

 

• With reporting by JESSICA HERNDON

 

too long a sacrifice can make a stone of the heart

Quotes from an address by Nelson Mandela to the Irish Dáil Éireann* in July 1990, just months after his release from prison in South Africa, thanking them for their support:
(bold added by blogger)

"The outstanding Irish poet, William Butler Yeats, has written that too long a sacrifice can make a stone of the heart. He spoke thus because he could feel within himself the pain of the suffering that Irish men and women of conscience had had to endure in centuries of struggle against an unrelenting tyranny.
"But then he also spoke of love, of the love of those whose warm hearts the oppressors sought to turn to stone, the love of their country and people, and, in the end the love of humanity itself.

"For three quarters of a century, under the leadership of the ANC, our own people have themselves confronted a racist tyranny which grew more stubborn with each passing day. It had to be our lot that even as we refused to take up arms to save lives, we still had to bury many martyrs who were shot down or tortured to death simply because they dared to cry freedom.

"The apartheid system has killed countless numbers, not only in our country but throughout Southern Africa. It has condemned to the gallows some of the best sons of our people. It has imprisoned some and driven others into exile. Even those whose only desire was to live, have had their lives cut short because apartheid means the systematic and conscious deprivation and impoverishment of the black millions.

"It could have been that our own hearts turned to stone. It could have been that we inscribed vengeance on our banners of battle and resolved to meet brutality with brutality. But we understood that oppression dehumanises the oppressor as it hurts the oppressed. We understood that to emulate the barbarity of the tyrant would also transform us into savages. We knew that we would sully and degrade our cause if we allowed that it should, at any stage, borrow anything from the practices of the oppressor. We had to refuse that our long sacrifice should make a stone of our hearts.

"We are in struggle because we value life and love all humanity. The liberated South Africa we envision is one in which all our people, both black and white, will be one to the other, brother and sister. We see being born a united South African nation of equal compatriots, enriched by the diversity of the colour and culture of the citizens who make up the whole."

http://www.irishtimes.com/news/politics/address-by-nelson-mandela-to-d%C3%A1il-%C3%A9ireann-1.1422034?page=2

*Note: Dáil Éireann is the lower house, but principal chamber, of the Oireachtas (Irish parliament).

God's grace is based upon what helps

"God wants all his children to enjoy the complete fullness of eternal life.
God's grace is not based upon what is fair, but rather what helps."
~ Author Unknown

Reese Witherspoon's Apology

Witherspoon apologized shortly after news of the arrests broke Sunday:

“I clearly had one drink too many and I am deeply embarrassed about the things I said,” she said in a statement.

“It was definitely a scary situation and I was frightened for my husband, but that is no excuse.

I was disrespectful to the officer who was just doing his job. The words I used that night definitely do not reflect who I am.

I have nothing but respect for the police and I’m very sorry for my behavior.”

 

http://www.accesshollywood.com/will-reese-witherspoons-ultra-clean-image-make-a-full-recovery-after-arrest_article_78422

Nihilism: profound alienation, grievance, sense of anger, desire for revenge, feelings of humiliation...

The New Zealand Herald
Unlikely religion motive behind attacks

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/world/news/article.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=10878802
5:30 AM Sunday Apr 21, 2013
quotes:

Tamerlan Tsarnaev, 26, and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, 19, appear to fit the biographical pattern of those involved in domestic terror plots, according to research by terrorism expert Brian Jenkins of Rand Corp - young, male, disaffected consumers of radical internet propaganda.

"These are individuals who were disenfranchised with their station in life and they decided to take action," said Rick "Ozzie" Nelson, former US counterterrorism official and a senior affiliate at the Centre for Strategic and International Studies, a think tank in Washington, D.C.

"The motivation for these two would have been very different from the people on 9/11," said Akbar Ahmed, an American University professor who recently published a book about tribal Islam. "It's not an act for a political point. It is an act of nihilism, and the frame is not Islam."
...
Their median age is 27. They have come from a cross-section of ethnic backgrounds. They typically show signs of profound alienation.

"Religious belief does not appear to be the key personal factor," Jenkins said. Participants have been motivated by "grievance, sense of anger, desire for revenge, feelings of humiliation, desire to demonstrate manhood, participation in an epic struggle, thirst for glory."

Your beliefs become your thoughts ...

“Your beliefs become your thoughts,
Your thoughts become your words,
Your words become your actions,
Your actions become your habits,
Your habits become your values,
Your values become your destiny.”

~ Mahatma Gandhi

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

Footprints on our Hearts

"Some people come into our lives and quietly go.
Others stay for awhile and leave footprints on our hearts and we are never the same."

Otto's

Down But Not Out

Michael Jordan, arguably the greatest NBA player of all time, credits his attitude about failure as a critical driver behind his enormous success:
“I have missed more than 9,000 shots in my career. I have lost almost 300 games. On 26 occasions I have been entrusted to take the game winning shot, and I missed. I have failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed.”

Rainer Maria Rilke’s Letters to a Young Poet

Rainer Maria Rilke’s Letters to a Young Poet:

“Have patience with everything that remains unsolved in your heart. Try to love the questions themselves, like locked rooms and like books written in a foreign language. Do not now look for the answers. They cannot now be given to you because you could not live them. It is a question of experiencing everything. At present you need to live the question. Perhaps you will gradually, without even noticing it, find yourself experiencing the answer, some distant day.”

Make 'em laugh or they'll kill you

If you want to tell people the truth, make 'em laugh.
Otherwise, they'll kill you.

~ Oscar Wilde

The Good-Morrow - John Donne

The Good-Morrow

I wonder, by my troth, what thou and I

Did, till we loved? Were we not weaned till then?

But sucked on country pleasures, childishly?

Or snorted we in the Seven Sleepers’ den?

’Twas so; but this, all pleasures fancies be.

If ever any beauty I did see,

Which I desired, and got, ’twas but a dream of thee.

And now good-morrow to our waking souls,

Which watch not one another out of fear;

For love, all love of other sights controls,

And makes one little room an everywhere.

Let sea-discoverers to new worlds have gone,

Let maps to other, worlds on worlds have shown,

Let us possess one world, each hath one, and is one.

My face in thine eye, thine in mine appears,

And true plain hearts do in the faces rest;

Where can we find two better hemispheres,

Without sharp north, without declining west?

Whatever dies, was not mixed equally;

If our two loves be one, or, thou and I

Love so alike, that none do slacken, none can die.

By John Donne 1572–1631

Source: The Norton Anthology of Poetry Third Edition (1983)

strength from the integrity that comes from keeping promises

Finding Your Spiritual Strength

By NORRIS BURKES

Published: Sunday, December 16, 2012 at 3:36 a.m.

quote: 

"But here's the rub in the story. Samson didn't really get his strength from his hair. I know that's what Miss Myrtle taught in Sunday school, but the truth is a little more complicated than that.

Samson was a part of a religious order that took a vow before God not to cut his hair. He didn't get his strength from his hair. He got his strength from the integrity that came to him from keeping his promises. When he lost the integrity, he lost the source of his real strength.

The story ends with God restoring Samson's strength, and in a suicidal burst of energy, he literally brought the house down on himself and his enemies — not your typical hero ending, but Samson died, in touch once again with the source of his real strength."

 

http://www.theledger.com/article/20121216/
COLUMNISTS0420/121219440?p=2&tc=pg

 

The dangers of a fatalistic, pessimistic perception of history

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/09/opinion/sunday/friedman-the-full-israeli-experience.html?nl=todaysheadlines&emc=edit_th_20121209

 

Op-Ed Columnist

The Full Israeli Experience

By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN

Published: December 8, 2012

The dangers of a fatalistic, pessimistic perception of history:

quote: 

Today, alas, not only is the Israeli peace camp dead, but the most effective Israeli “bastard for peace,” Defense Minister Ehud Barak, is retiring. As I sat with Barak in his office the other day, he shared with me his parting advice to Israel’s next and sure-to-be-far-right government.

Huge political forces, with deep roots, are now playing out around Israel, particularly the rise of political Islam, said Barak. “We have to learn to accept it and see both sides of it and try to make it better. I am worried about our tendency to adopt a fatalistic, pessimistic perception of history. Because, once you adopt it, you are relieved from the responsibility to see the better aspects and seize the opportunities” when they arise.

If Israel just assumes that it’s only a matter of time before the moderate Palestinian leaders in the West Bank fall and Hamas takes over, “why try anything?” added Barak. “And, therefore, you lose sight of the opportunities and the will to seize opportunities. ...
I know that you can’t say when leaders raise this kind of pessimism that it is all just invented. It is not all invented, and you would be stupid if you did not look [at it] with open eyes.
But it is a major risk that you will not notice that you become enslaved by this pessimism in a way that will paralyze you from understanding that you can shape it. The world is full of risks, but that doesn’t mean that you don’t have a responsibility to do something about it — within your limits and the limits of realism — and avoid self-fulfilling prophecies that are extremely dangerous here.”

 

Value of Churches to the Community

The study, commissioned by Partners for Sacred Places, a religion-related historical preservation group in Philadelphia, assigns a dollar value to factors including the effect on individuals, safety net ministries, tourism and education. The study's first phase found that the average congregation in Philadelphia returned $4.3 million to its community. Raw data collected in Chicago suggests similar results, said Tuomi Forrest, executive vice president of Partners.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/religion/ct-met-church-water-fee-reversal-20121207,0,2604304.story

Chicago's religious leaders fight water fee

By Manya A. Brachear, Chicago Tribune reporter, December 7, 2012

Living Blissfully with the Mystery

Henry Miller’s Reflections on Writing

“Understanding is not a piercing of the mystery, but an acceptance of it, a living blissfully with it, in it, through and by it.”

Religion Among the Ranks of the Long Gray Line

B.J. Garrison

USMA Class of 2002

Religion Among the Ranks of the Long Gray Line

Posted: 12/06/2012 11:16 am

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/bj-garrison/religion-among-the-ranks-of-the-long-gray-line_b_2250487.html

"Challenging Cadets, officers and NCOs to have meaningful discussions on all facets of Army life is one of the many reasons why the Academy exists. Rather than running away from the thought, we stress the need for critical thinking.

Is that hard to do in an atmosphere like West Point? Absolutely. But we revel in the difficult and solve the impossible. We members of the Long Gray Line have been taught to run to the problems and do what we can to help set things straight, and not run away cursing the ground of those who don't hold similar views as we retreat."

Evil from Conviction

"Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it from religious conviction."

-Blaise Pascal (Pensees, 1670)

"Jamais on ne fait le mal si pleinement et si gaiement que quand on le fait par conscience."

lit: Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it conscientiously.

Variant: Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it from religious conviction (trans. W.F. Trotter)

Blaise Pascal, Pensées (# 894 or 895, depending on differing editions).

http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Evil

Author

Profession: Philosopher

Nationality: French

Born: June 19, 1623

Died: August 19, 1662