"In Hebrew, the word mashber [crisis in English] refers [also] to the place where the woman sits to give birth, the place where new life is born, and that in my opinion is what is happening to us - mashber, rather than shever [rupture]. There will be a birth here of a new identity..."
Yohanan Ben-Yaakov
quoted in
More Jewish, less Israeli by Yair Sheleg
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/615342.html
Tuesday, August 23, 2005
Monday, August 15, 2005
Zest, Joy, One Can Only Be Delighted
startribune.com
Pope hopes trip will bring spiritual renewal for Europe
Frances D'emilio
Associated Press
Published August 15, 2005
VATICAN CITY -- Pope Benedict voiced hope that his upcoming trip to his native Germany for a youth gathering will spur a new European wave of faith to counter what he described as a spiritual "fatigue" on the continent.
In the interview with Vatican Radio's German edition that was broadcast Sunday, the pope also said, "Providence wanted my first trip abroad to take me to Germany."
Benedict will fly to Cologne on Thursday to begin a four-day visit for World Youth Day, a Catholic jamboree of rallies and religious services with young people. His predecessor, Polish-born John Paul II, had announced the choice of Cologne for the event, which is held every couple of years in a different part of the world and draws hundreds of thousands of participants.
He said the goal of the event was "a wave of new faith among young people, especially the youth in Germany and Europe."
In Germany, "many Christian things occur, but there is also a great fatigue, and we are so concerned with structural questions that the zest and the joy of faith are missing," the pontiff said.
"If this zest, this joy, to know Christ would come alive again and give the church in Germany and Europe a new dynamic, then I think the aim ... would be achieved."
Vatican Radio provided an English translation of the 15-minute interview, which was conducted in Castel Gandolfo, the pope's summer palace in the Alban Hills outside of Rome.
Benedict voiced hope that Cologne would spur the "old continent" to look beyond the "missed opportunities in European history" to "rediscover the truth, purity and greatness which gives us our future." He did not say what he believed Europe had done wrong.
During the trip to Germany, Benedict will meet with Muslim and Jewish groups, and he will visit a Cologne synagogue wrecked in the 1938 Kristallnacht pogrom and rebuilt in the 1950s.
Of the German pilgrimage, the 78-year-old Benedict said: "I would not have dared to have initiated it. But if the Almighty God decides to do something like that to you, then one can only be delighted."
© Copyright 2005 Star Tribune. All rights reserved.
http://www.startribune.com/stories
/484/5559989.html
Pope hopes trip will bring spiritual renewal for Europe
Frances D'emilio
Associated Press
Published August 15, 2005
VATICAN CITY -- Pope Benedict voiced hope that his upcoming trip to his native Germany for a youth gathering will spur a new European wave of faith to counter what he described as a spiritual "fatigue" on the continent.
In the interview with Vatican Radio's German edition that was broadcast Sunday, the pope also said, "Providence wanted my first trip abroad to take me to Germany."
Benedict will fly to Cologne on Thursday to begin a four-day visit for World Youth Day, a Catholic jamboree of rallies and religious services with young people. His predecessor, Polish-born John Paul II, had announced the choice of Cologne for the event, which is held every couple of years in a different part of the world and draws hundreds of thousands of participants.
He said the goal of the event was "a wave of new faith among young people, especially the youth in Germany and Europe."
In Germany, "many Christian things occur, but there is also a great fatigue, and we are so concerned with structural questions that the zest and the joy of faith are missing," the pontiff said.
"If this zest, this joy, to know Christ would come alive again and give the church in Germany and Europe a new dynamic, then I think the aim ... would be achieved."
Vatican Radio provided an English translation of the 15-minute interview, which was conducted in Castel Gandolfo, the pope's summer palace in the Alban Hills outside of Rome.
Benedict voiced hope that Cologne would spur the "old continent" to look beyond the "missed opportunities in European history" to "rediscover the truth, purity and greatness which gives us our future." He did not say what he believed Europe had done wrong.
During the trip to Germany, Benedict will meet with Muslim and Jewish groups, and he will visit a Cologne synagogue wrecked in the 1938 Kristallnacht pogrom and rebuilt in the 1950s.
Of the German pilgrimage, the 78-year-old Benedict said: "I would not have dared to have initiated it. But if the Almighty God decides to do something like that to you, then one can only be delighted."
© Copyright 2005 Star Tribune. All rights reserved.
http://www.startribune.com/stories
/484/5559989.html
Saturday, August 13, 2005
Native American Religions
Native American Religions
Tales of the North American Indians by Stith Thompson [1929]
The classic cross-cultural Native American folklore study.
Walam Olum excerpt from The Lenâpé and Their Legends, by Samuel G. Brinton. Brinton's Library of Aboriginal Literature number V. Phildelphia [1885]. This is one of the only indigenous pre-contact written texts available from North America. Long controversial as to its authenticity, but a key document nevertheless. With pictographs, Delaware and English translation.
The Soul of the Indian by Charles Eastman [1911]
Indian Why Stories by Frank Linderman [1915]
Old Indian Legends by Zitkala-Sa [1901]
Myths and Legends of the Sioux by Marie L. McLaughlin [1916]
http://www.public-domain-content.com/books
/native_american/
Tales of the North American Indians by Stith Thompson [1929]
The classic cross-cultural Native American folklore study.
Walam Olum excerpt from The Lenâpé and Their Legends, by Samuel G. Brinton. Brinton's Library of Aboriginal Literature number V. Phildelphia [1885]. This is one of the only indigenous pre-contact written texts available from North America. Long controversial as to its authenticity, but a key document nevertheless. With pictographs, Delaware and English translation.
The Soul of the Indian by Charles Eastman [1911]
Indian Why Stories by Frank Linderman [1915]
Old Indian Legends by Zitkala-Sa [1901]
Myths and Legends of the Sioux by Marie L. McLaughlin [1916]
http://www.public-domain-content.com/books
/native_american/
neither heaven has created nor hell seen any that can daunt or intimidate me
Don Quixote:
"neither heaven has created nor hell seen any that can daunt or intimidate me . . ."
Part I: Chapter 46
Don Quixote -- by Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
http://www.public-domain-content.com/books
/Don_Quixote/DonQuixoteI46_1.shtml
"Hell has not seen, nor heaven created, the one who can prevail against me!"
--Peter O'Toole as Don Quixote de la Mancha in MAN OF LA MANCHA (1972)
"'Life as it is.' I have lived for over forty years and I've seen 'life as it is'. Pain. Misery. Cruelty beyond belief. I've heard all the voices of God's noblest creature -- moans from bundles of filth in the street. I've been a soldier and a slave. I've seen my comrades fall in battle or die more slowly under the lash in Africa. I've held them at the last moment. These were men who saw 'life as it is,' but they died despairing. No glory. No bray of last words. Only their eyes, filled with confusion, questioning, 'Why?' I do not think they were asking why they were dying, but why they had ever lived. When life itself seems lunatic, who knows where madness lies? Perhaps to be too practical is madness. To surrender dreams, this may be madness. To seek treasure where there is only trash. Too much sanity may be madness. But maddest of all -- to see life as it is, and not as it should be!"
--Peter O'Toole as Miguel de Cervantes in MAN OF LA MANCHA (1972)
www.reelclassics.com/Actors/O'Toole/otoole2.htm
"neither heaven has created nor hell seen any that can daunt or intimidate me . . ."
Part I: Chapter 46
Don Quixote -- by Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
http://www.public-domain-content.com/books
/Don_Quixote/DonQuixoteI46_1.shtml
"Hell has not seen, nor heaven created, the one who can prevail against me!"
--Peter O'Toole as Don Quixote de la Mancha in MAN OF LA MANCHA (1972)
"'Life as it is.' I have lived for over forty years and I've seen 'life as it is'. Pain. Misery. Cruelty beyond belief. I've heard all the voices of God's noblest creature -- moans from bundles of filth in the street. I've been a soldier and a slave. I've seen my comrades fall in battle or die more slowly under the lash in Africa. I've held them at the last moment. These were men who saw 'life as it is,' but they died despairing. No glory. No bray of last words. Only their eyes, filled with confusion, questioning, 'Why?' I do not think they were asking why they were dying, but why they had ever lived. When life itself seems lunatic, who knows where madness lies? Perhaps to be too practical is madness. To surrender dreams, this may be madness. To seek treasure where there is only trash. Too much sanity may be madness. But maddest of all -- to see life as it is, and not as it should be!"
--Peter O'Toole as Miguel de Cervantes in MAN OF LA MANCHA (1972)
www.reelclassics.com/Actors/O'Toole/otoole2.htm
Thursday, August 04, 2005
"sozo" - healed, restored, saved
"... the Greek word sozo, which is usually translated "saved," can also mean healed, restored, that sort of thing. So the conventional translation narrows the meaning of the word in a way that can create false expectations. I thought he should be aware that grace is not so poor a thing that it cannot present itself in any number of ways."
Gilead, p. 239-40, Marilynne Robinson, 2004
Gilead, p. 239-40, Marilynne Robinson, 2004
There is no justice in love -- it outlasts your grievances
the prodigal son leaves his dying father:
"Jack is leaving. Glory was so upset with him that she came to talk to me about it. She has sent out the alarm to the brothers and sisters, that they must all desist from their humanitarian labors and come home. She believes old Boughton can't be long for this world. "How could he possibly leave now!" she says. That's a fair question, I suppose, but I think I know the answer to it. The house will fill up with those estimable people and their husbands and wives and their pretty children. How could he be there in the midst of it all with that sad and splendid treasure in his heart?--I also have a wife and a child.
"I can tell you this, that if I'd married some rosy dame and she had given me ten children and they had each given me ten grandchildren, I'd leave them all, on Christmas Eve, on the coldest night of the world, and walk a thousand miles just for the sight of your face, your mother's face. And if I never found you, my comfort would be in that hope, my lonely and singular hope, which could not exist in the whole of Creation except in my heart and in the heart of the Lord. That is just a way of saying I could never thank God sufficiently for the splendor He has hidden from the world--your mother excepted, of course--and revealed to me in your sweetly ordinary face. Those kind Boughton brothers and sisters would be ashamed of the wealth of their lives beside the seeming poverty of Jack's life, and he would utterly and bitterly prefer what he had lost to everything they had. That is not a tolerable state of mind to be in, as I am well aware.
"And old Boughton, if he could stand up out of his chair, out of his decrepitude and crankiness and sorrow and limitation, would abandon all those handsome children of his, mild and confident as they are, and follow after that one son whom he has never known, whom he has favored as one does a wound, and he would protect him as a father cannot, defend him with a strength he does not have, sustain him with a bounty beyond any resource he could ever dream of having. If Boughton could be himself, he would utterly pardon every transgression, past, present, and to come, whether or not it was a transgression in fact or his to pardon. He would be that extravagant. That is a thing I would love to see.
"As I have told you, I myself was the good son, so to speak, the one who never left his father's house--even when his father did, a fact which surely puts my credentials beyond all challenge. I am one of those righteous for whom the rejoicing in heaven will be comparatively restrained. And that's all right. There is no justice in love, no proportion in it, and there need not be, because in any specific instance it is only a glimpse or parable of an embracing, incomprehensible reality. It makes no sense all all because it is the eternal breaking in on the temporal. So how could it subordinate itself to cause or consequence?
"It is worth living long enough to outlast whatever sense of grievance you may acquire. Another reason why you must be careful of your health.
Gilead, p. 237-8, Marilynne Robinson
"Jack is leaving. Glory was so upset with him that she came to talk to me about it. She has sent out the alarm to the brothers and sisters, that they must all desist from their humanitarian labors and come home. She believes old Boughton can't be long for this world. "How could he possibly leave now!" she says. That's a fair question, I suppose, but I think I know the answer to it. The house will fill up with those estimable people and their husbands and wives and their pretty children. How could he be there in the midst of it all with that sad and splendid treasure in his heart?--I also have a wife and a child.
"I can tell you this, that if I'd married some rosy dame and she had given me ten children and they had each given me ten grandchildren, I'd leave them all, on Christmas Eve, on the coldest night of the world, and walk a thousand miles just for the sight of your face, your mother's face. And if I never found you, my comfort would be in that hope, my lonely and singular hope, which could not exist in the whole of Creation except in my heart and in the heart of the Lord. That is just a way of saying I could never thank God sufficiently for the splendor He has hidden from the world--your mother excepted, of course--and revealed to me in your sweetly ordinary face. Those kind Boughton brothers and sisters would be ashamed of the wealth of their lives beside the seeming poverty of Jack's life, and he would utterly and bitterly prefer what he had lost to everything they had. That is not a tolerable state of mind to be in, as I am well aware.
"And old Boughton, if he could stand up out of his chair, out of his decrepitude and crankiness and sorrow and limitation, would abandon all those handsome children of his, mild and confident as they are, and follow after that one son whom he has never known, whom he has favored as one does a wound, and he would protect him as a father cannot, defend him with a strength he does not have, sustain him with a bounty beyond any resource he could ever dream of having. If Boughton could be himself, he would utterly pardon every transgression, past, present, and to come, whether or not it was a transgression in fact or his to pardon. He would be that extravagant. That is a thing I would love to see.
"As I have told you, I myself was the good son, so to speak, the one who never left his father's house--even when his father did, a fact which surely puts my credentials beyond all challenge. I am one of those righteous for whom the rejoicing in heaven will be comparatively restrained. And that's all right. There is no justice in love, no proportion in it, and there need not be, because in any specific instance it is only a glimpse or parable of an embracing, incomprehensible reality. It makes no sense all all because it is the eternal breaking in on the temporal. So how could it subordinate itself to cause or consequence?
"It is worth living long enough to outlast whatever sense of grievance you may acquire. Another reason why you must be careful of your health.
Gilead, p. 237-8, Marilynne Robinson
"Can I Live" video, Nick Cannon
"Can I Live" video, Nick Cannon:
http://www.nickcannonmusic.com/
Story of his 17-year-old unwed mother's decision not to abort him.
http://www.nickcannonmusic.com/
Story of his 17-year-old unwed mother's decision not to abort him.
Marriage is the True Test of Character
"Tenderness and stubbornness make for a good marriage, and marriage is the true test of character--to make a good life with your best critic. You have many critics, but your spouse is by far the best informed of all of them."
~ Garrison Keillor, radio host of A Prairie Home Companion
(Tribune Media Services)
~ Garrison Keillor, radio host of A Prairie Home Companion
(Tribune Media Services)
Wednesday, July 06, 2005
Yesterday and Tomorrow
Yesterday and Tomorrow
There are two days in every week about
which we should not worry,
two days which should be kept free
from fear and apprehension.
One of these days is Yesterday with all
its mistakes and cares,
its faults and blunders, its aches and pains.
Yesterday has passed forever
beyond our control.
All the money in the world cannot
bring back Yesterday.
We cannot undo a single act we performed;
we cannot erase a single word we said.
Yesterday is gone forever.
The other day we should not worry
about is Tomorrow-
with all its possible
adversities, its burdens,
its large promise and its poor performance;
Tomorrow is also beyond
our immediate control.
Tomorrow's sun will rise,
either in splendor or behind a mask
of clouds, but it will rise.
Until it does, we have no stake in Tomorrow,
for it is yet to be born.
This leaves only one day, Today.
Any person can fight the battle of just one day.
It is when you and I add the burdens
of those two awful eternity's
Yesterday and Tomorrow that we break down.
It is not the experience of Today
that drives a person mad,
it is the remorse or bitterness of something
which happened Yesterday and the dread of what
Tomorrow may bring.
Let us, therefore, Live but one day at a time.
~~ Author Unknown
Yesterday is history.
Tomorrow's a mystery.
Today is a gift; that's why they call it the Present.
~~ Author Unknown
There are two days in every week about
which we should not worry,
two days which should be kept free
from fear and apprehension.
One of these days is Yesterday with all
its mistakes and cares,
its faults and blunders, its aches and pains.
Yesterday has passed forever
beyond our control.
All the money in the world cannot
bring back Yesterday.
We cannot undo a single act we performed;
we cannot erase a single word we said.
Yesterday is gone forever.
The other day we should not worry
about is Tomorrow-
with all its possible
adversities, its burdens,
its large promise and its poor performance;
Tomorrow is also beyond
our immediate control.
Tomorrow's sun will rise,
either in splendor or behind a mask
of clouds, but it will rise.
Until it does, we have no stake in Tomorrow,
for it is yet to be born.
This leaves only one day, Today.
Any person can fight the battle of just one day.
It is when you and I add the burdens
of those two awful eternity's
Yesterday and Tomorrow that we break down.
It is not the experience of Today
that drives a person mad,
it is the remorse or bitterness of something
which happened Yesterday and the dread of what
Tomorrow may bring.
Let us, therefore, Live but one day at a time.
~~ Author Unknown
Yesterday is history.
Tomorrow's a mystery.
Today is a gift; that's why they call it the Present.
~~ Author Unknown
Your Best Friend
Dr. Norman Peale writes of how he met Henry Ford:
"I met the legendary Henry Ford only once. It was when I was a newspaper reporter in Detroit in 1921. Coming out of the Detroit railroad station, I saw a man standing beside a car and I recognized him as Henry Ford. He was looking at a piece of paper that he held in his hand. In the front seat of the car was a woman I recognized as Mrs. Ford.
"I walked over and said, 'Mr. Ford, I may never have this opportunity again and I admire you so much. I would just like to shake your hand.' He extended his hand and asked what I did. I told him I worked on a newspaper.
"He then asked me a seemingly irrelevant question. 'Who is your best friend?' Without waiting for my answer, he tore off a ragged piece from the paper he was holding and wrote with a pencil, 'Your best friend is the person who brings out the best that is within you,' and signed it 'Henry Ford.'"
~~ Dr. Norman Vincent Peale, This Incredible Century
"I met the legendary Henry Ford only once. It was when I was a newspaper reporter in Detroit in 1921. Coming out of the Detroit railroad station, I saw a man standing beside a car and I recognized him as Henry Ford. He was looking at a piece of paper that he held in his hand. In the front seat of the car was a woman I recognized as Mrs. Ford.
"I walked over and said, 'Mr. Ford, I may never have this opportunity again and I admire you so much. I would just like to shake your hand.' He extended his hand and asked what I did. I told him I worked on a newspaper.
"He then asked me a seemingly irrelevant question. 'Who is your best friend?' Without waiting for my answer, he tore off a ragged piece from the paper he was holding and wrote with a pencil, 'Your best friend is the person who brings out the best that is within you,' and signed it 'Henry Ford.'"
~~ Dr. Norman Vincent Peale, This Incredible Century
Spiritual Friendship
"Spiritual friendship is the union of hearts and minds, united in one purpose. There is joy in doing this; in the love, spirit and energy."
Dr. Kathleen Brown, director of formation for ministry at the Washington Theological Union, Washington, D.C.
from a seminar: Companions on the Journey: The Gift of Spiritual Friendship, at Newman Theological College
http://www.wcr.ab.ca/news/2005/
0704/cousins070405.shtml
Dr. Kathleen Brown, director of formation for ministry at the Washington Theological Union, Washington, D.C.
from a seminar: Companions on the Journey: The Gift of Spiritual Friendship, at Newman Theological College
http://www.wcr.ab.ca/news/2005/
0704/cousins070405.shtml
Tuesday, July 05, 2005
Late Ripeness, Czeslaw Milosz
Late Ripeness
Czeslaw Milosz
Not soon, as late as the approach of my ninetieth year,
I felt a door opening in me and I entered
the clarity of early morning.
One after another my former lives were departing,
like ships, together with their sorrow.
And the countries, cities, gardens, the bays of seas
assigned to my brush came closer,
ready now to be described better than they were before.
I was not separated from people,
grief and pity joined us.
We forget - I kept saying - that we are all children of the King.
For where we come from there is no division
into Yes and No, into is, was, and will be.
We were miserable, we used no more than a hundredth part
of the gift we received for our long journey.
Moments from yesterday and from centuries ago -
a sword blow, the painting of eyelashes before a mirror
of polished metal, a lethal musket shot, a caravel
staving its hull against a reef - they dwell in us,
waiting for a fulfillment.
I knew, always, that I would be a worker in the vineyard,
as are all men and women living at the same time,
whether they are aware of it or not.
Czeslaw Milosz: New and Collected Poems (1931-2001)
Czeslaw Milosz
Not soon, as late as the approach of my ninetieth year,
I felt a door opening in me and I entered
the clarity of early morning.
One after another my former lives were departing,
like ships, together with their sorrow.
And the countries, cities, gardens, the bays of seas
assigned to my brush came closer,
ready now to be described better than they were before.
I was not separated from people,
grief and pity joined us.
We forget - I kept saying - that we are all children of the King.
For where we come from there is no division
into Yes and No, into is, was, and will be.
We were miserable, we used no more than a hundredth part
of the gift we received for our long journey.
Moments from yesterday and from centuries ago -
a sword blow, the painting of eyelashes before a mirror
of polished metal, a lethal musket shot, a caravel
staving its hull against a reef - they dwell in us,
waiting for a fulfillment.
I knew, always, that I would be a worker in the vineyard,
as are all men and women living at the same time,
whether they are aware of it or not.
Czeslaw Milosz: New and Collected Poems (1931-2001)
Real Wealth
"The real measure of our wealth is how much we would
be worth if we lost all our money."
from Jan
be worth if we lost all our money."
from Jan
Monday, July 04, 2005
"outsiders, not full members of the political community"
New York Times Editorial
July 2, 2005
O'Connor Held Balance of Power
By LINDA GREENHOUSE
WASHINGTON, July 1 - The O'Connor Court.
The phrase has been used so many times over so many years to describe the Supreme Court that it is nearly a cliché. Yet the simple words capture an equally simple truth: to find out where the court is on almost any given issue, look for Justice Sandra Day O'Connor.
If you are a lawyer with a case at the court, pitch your arguments to her. If your issue is affirmative action, or religion, or federalism, or redistricting, or abortion, or constitutional due process in any of its many manifestations, you can assume that the fate of that issue is in her hands. Don't bother with doctrinaire assertions and bright-line rules. Be meticulously prepared on the facts, and be ready to show how the law relates to those facts and how, together, they make sense.
. . .
Until the pair of Ten Commandments decisions this week, which found her in dissent from the ruling that upheld a Ten Commandments monument on the grounds of the Texas Capitol, she had occupied a central position on the role of religion in public life.
Beginning with her earliest years on the court, Justice O'Connor adopted her own test for evaluating whether government policy amounted to an unconstitutional establishment of religion. Instead of a three-part test that the court used, she asked whether the government policy under review conveyed to nonadherents the message that they were "outsiders, not full members of the political community."
This led her to vote to prohibit public prayer at high school graduations and football games, but to insist on equal access for student religious publications and clubs. In 2002, she voted with the 5-to-4 majority that upheld the use of publicly financed tuition vouchers at religious schools. In her opinion this week concurring with the 5-to-4 majority that declared framed copies of the Ten Commandments hanging in Kentucky courthouses to be unconstitutional, she said the Constitution's religion clauses "protect adherents of all religions, as well as those who believe in no religion at all."
. . .
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/07/02/politics/
politicsspecial1/02oconnor.html?th&emc=th
July 2, 2005
O'Connor Held Balance of Power
By LINDA GREENHOUSE
WASHINGTON, July 1 - The O'Connor Court.
The phrase has been used so many times over so many years to describe the Supreme Court that it is nearly a cliché. Yet the simple words capture an equally simple truth: to find out where the court is on almost any given issue, look for Justice Sandra Day O'Connor.
If you are a lawyer with a case at the court, pitch your arguments to her. If your issue is affirmative action, or religion, or federalism, or redistricting, or abortion, or constitutional due process in any of its many manifestations, you can assume that the fate of that issue is in her hands. Don't bother with doctrinaire assertions and bright-line rules. Be meticulously prepared on the facts, and be ready to show how the law relates to those facts and how, together, they make sense.
. . .
Until the pair of Ten Commandments decisions this week, which found her in dissent from the ruling that upheld a Ten Commandments monument on the grounds of the Texas Capitol, she had occupied a central position on the role of religion in public life.
Beginning with her earliest years on the court, Justice O'Connor adopted her own test for evaluating whether government policy amounted to an unconstitutional establishment of religion. Instead of a three-part test that the court used, she asked whether the government policy under review conveyed to nonadherents the message that they were "outsiders, not full members of the political community."
This led her to vote to prohibit public prayer at high school graduations and football games, but to insist on equal access for student religious publications and clubs. In 2002, she voted with the 5-to-4 majority that upheld the use of publicly financed tuition vouchers at religious schools. In her opinion this week concurring with the 5-to-4 majority that declared framed copies of the Ten Commandments hanging in Kentucky courthouses to be unconstitutional, she said the Constitution's religion clauses "protect adherents of all religions, as well as those who believe in no religion at all."
. . .
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/07/02/politics/
politicsspecial1/02oconnor.html?th&emc=th
Saturday, July 02, 2005
Humility
"Humble people don't think less of themselves . . .
they just think about themselves less."
-- Norman Vincent Peale
they just think about themselves less."
-- Norman Vincent Peale
Sharpening the Ax
from http://www.eteamrevolution.net/devotions/been-chopping-too-hard
One man challenged another to an all-day wood chopping contest.
The challenger worked very hard, stopping only for a brief lunch break. The other man had a leisurely lunch and took several breaks during the day. At the end of the day, the challenger was surprised and annoyed to find that the other fellow had chopped substantially more wood than he had.
"I don't get it," he said. "Every time I checked, you were taking a rest, yet you chopped more wood than I did."
"But you didn't notice," said the winning woodsman, "that I was sharpening my ax when I sat down to rest."
(Source unknown)
Perhaps you have been swinging your axe a little too long, and you need a rest. Not just any rest, but one with a purpose. In order to accomplish this, you will need to do five things:
Get alone. I mean really alone. No cell phone, no pager, as remote as possible.
Bring a Bible. Focus on a few select passages of Scripture like the Psalms or the Gospels.
Pray. Not the standard ‘bless this food/help me I’ve got a test’ type prayer, but the ‘pouring out your heart’ before God type. Act like you’re talking to your best friend in the whole world, because you are.
Listen. When was the last time you just sat in silence and listened for God? My thought is, if Jesus needed to do it- you think we might need it too?
Worship. Praising God is a sure-fire way to get the blade razor-sharp, because it brings us to the place where we remember that God is God and we are not.
One man challenged another to an all-day wood chopping contest.
The challenger worked very hard, stopping only for a brief lunch break. The other man had a leisurely lunch and took several breaks during the day. At the end of the day, the challenger was surprised and annoyed to find that the other fellow had chopped substantially more wood than he had.
"I don't get it," he said. "Every time I checked, you were taking a rest, yet you chopped more wood than I did."
"But you didn't notice," said the winning woodsman, "that I was sharpening my ax when I sat down to rest."
(Source unknown)
Perhaps you have been swinging your axe a little too long, and you need a rest. Not just any rest, but one with a purpose. In order to accomplish this, you will need to do five things:
Get alone. I mean really alone. No cell phone, no pager, as remote as possible.
Bring a Bible. Focus on a few select passages of Scripture like the Psalms or the Gospels.
Pray. Not the standard ‘bless this food/help me I’ve got a test’ type prayer, but the ‘pouring out your heart’ before God type. Act like you’re talking to your best friend in the whole world, because you are.
Listen. When was the last time you just sat in silence and listened for God? My thought is, if Jesus needed to do it- you think we might need it too?
Worship. Praising God is a sure-fire way to get the blade razor-sharp, because it brings us to the place where we remember that God is God and we are not.
The Discipline of Simplicity
from Richard Foster, Celebration of Discipline
Richard Foster divides discipline into three parts:
Inward, Outward, and Corporate discipline.
He places simplicity under the category of the Outward Disciplines:
First, buy things for their usefulness rather than their status
Second, reject anything that is producing an addiction in you.
Third, develop a habit of giving things away.
Fourth, refuse to be propagandized by the custodians of modern gadgetry.
Fifth, learn to enjoy things without owning them.
Sixth, develop a deeper appreciation for the creation.
Seventh, look at a healthy skepticism at all "buy now, pay later" schemes.
Eighth, obey Jesus' instructions about plain, honest speech.
Ninth, reject anything that will breed the oppression of others.
Tenth, shun whatever would distract you from your main goal:
"Seek first the kingdom of God."
Richard Foster divides discipline into three parts:
Inward, Outward, and Corporate discipline.
He places simplicity under the category of the Outward Disciplines:
First, buy things for their usefulness rather than their status
Second, reject anything that is producing an addiction in you.
Third, develop a habit of giving things away.
Fourth, refuse to be propagandized by the custodians of modern gadgetry.
Fifth, learn to enjoy things without owning them.
Sixth, develop a deeper appreciation for the creation.
Seventh, look at a healthy skepticism at all "buy now, pay later" schemes.
Eighth, obey Jesus' instructions about plain, honest speech.
Ninth, reject anything that will breed the oppression of others.
Tenth, shun whatever would distract you from your main goal:
"Seek first the kingdom of God."
Kind People in a Bad Mood
from Scott H. Bowerman, Dancing With God:
The theologian Leonard Sweet underwent what he describes as a "deconversion" when he was nineteen. He writes,
"What ignited my deconversion was the church’s funereal spirit, its fussy, buttoned-upness. Christians’ stay-at-home-and-pickle-in-their-own-juices personalities, their vinegary countenances, drained me emotionally, incapacitated me intellectually, and shut me down spiritually. The best I could say was this: by and large, Christians were kind people in a bad mood."
The theologian Leonard Sweet underwent what he describes as a "deconversion" when he was nineteen. He writes,
"What ignited my deconversion was the church’s funereal spirit, its fussy, buttoned-upness. Christians’ stay-at-home-and-pickle-in-their-own-juices personalities, their vinegary countenances, drained me emotionally, incapacitated me intellectually, and shut me down spiritually. The best I could say was this: by and large, Christians were kind people in a bad mood."
Be Charitable Towards One Another’s Lunacies
In Mark Twain’s characteristic sarcastic wit he called for civility and charity between those who differ in their religious and political perspectives:
All My Adversaries Are Insane
"When I, a thoughtful and unbiased Presbyterian, examine the Koran, I know that beyond any question every Mohammedan is insane; not in all things, but in religious matters. When a thoughtful and unbiased Mohammedan examines the Westminster Catechism, he knows that beyond any question I am spiritually insane. I cannot prove to him that he is insane, because you never can prove anything to a lunatic-—for that is part of his insanity and the evidence of it. He cannot prove to me that I am insane, for my mind has the same defect that afflicts his.
"All Democrats are insane, but not one of them knows it; none but the Republicans and the Mugwumps know it. All the Republicans are insane, but only the Democrats and Mugwumps can perceive it. The rule is perfect: in all matters of opinion our adversaries are insane. When I look around me, I am often troubled to see how many people are mad...This should move us to be charitable towards one another’s lunacies."
-- Mark Twain, What Is Man?: and Other Philosophical Writings
(Works of Mark Twain, Vol 19)
Samuel Langhorne CLEMENS, 1835-1910
"I, like all other human beings, expose to the world only my trimmed and perfumed and carefully barbered public opinions and conceal carefully, cautiously, wisely, my private ones."
-- Mark Twain in Eruption
All My Adversaries Are Insane
"When I, a thoughtful and unbiased Presbyterian, examine the Koran, I know that beyond any question every Mohammedan is insane; not in all things, but in religious matters. When a thoughtful and unbiased Mohammedan examines the Westminster Catechism, he knows that beyond any question I am spiritually insane. I cannot prove to him that he is insane, because you never can prove anything to a lunatic-—for that is part of his insanity and the evidence of it. He cannot prove to me that I am insane, for my mind has the same defect that afflicts his.
"All Democrats are insane, but not one of them knows it; none but the Republicans and the Mugwumps know it. All the Republicans are insane, but only the Democrats and Mugwumps can perceive it. The rule is perfect: in all matters of opinion our adversaries are insane. When I look around me, I am often troubled to see how many people are mad...This should move us to be charitable towards one another’s lunacies."
-- Mark Twain, What Is Man?: and Other Philosophical Writings
(Works of Mark Twain, Vol 19)
Samuel Langhorne CLEMENS, 1835-1910
"I, like all other human beings, expose to the world only my trimmed and perfumed and carefully barbered public opinions and conceal carefully, cautiously, wisely, my private ones."
-- Mark Twain in Eruption
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