God's Call

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

~ Truthful Grace

Planning for Three Generations

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

~ Gloria Steinem

“Start unknown, finish unforgettable.” Misty Copeland

Misty Copeland quotes

“Start unknown, finish unforgettable.”

― Misty Copeland

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

― Misty Copeland

“It's time to write our own story.”

― Misty Copeland

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

― Misty Copeland

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

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

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

― Misty Copeland

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

God's Answers to Your Prayers

 God's Answers to Your Prayers:

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

The Blessed Limp

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

My Dear Shepherds,

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

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

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

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

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

. . .

Pastor Lee Eclov

Always abounding in the work of the Lord

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

~ 1 Corinthians 15:57-58 ESV/NET

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

~ Philippians 3:13b-15 KJV

Affliction and Pruning

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

—Bishop Hall

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

Snowdrops, by Louise Glück

Snowdrops 

Poem by Louise Glück 

Do you know what I was, how I lived? 

You know 

what despair is; then 

winter should have meaning for you. 

I did not expect to survive, 

earth suppressing me. I didn't expect 

to waken again, to feel 

in damp earth my body 

able to respond again, remembering 

after so long how to open again 

in the cold light 

of earliest spring-- 

afraid, yes, but among you again 

crying yes risk joy 

in the raw wind of the new world. 

from The Wild Iris by Louise Glück 

Ecco, 1993

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

quote:

Pandemic living 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

~ Elizabeth Huff, June 8, 2011

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

“In his will is our peace.”

 “In his will is our peace.”

― Dante, The Divine Comedy

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

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

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

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

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

Happy Grandparent's Day

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

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

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

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

God still exercises a sovereign choice

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

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

hell on earth

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

~ Truthful Grace

a good reason

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

~ Truthful Grace

“Every checkbook is a theological document."

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

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

“Our budget is a moral document"

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

~ Rev. Jim Wallis of Sojourners

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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