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Today’s Manna Morsel
From the desk of Wes Tracy, but from the minds and hearts of those
smarter, wiser, and more pious than he.
Never more than a one-minute read.
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October 2, 2011
Benediction
“May God bless you with discomfort at easy
answers, half truths, and superficial relationships, so that you may
live deep within your heart. May God bless you with anger at
injustice, oppression, and exploitation of people, so that you may
work for justice, freedom and peace. May God bless you with
tears to shed for those who suffer from pain, rejection, starvation,
and war, so that you may reach out your hand to comfort them and to
turn their pain into joy. And may God bless you with enough
foolishness to believe that you can make a difference in this world,
so that you can do what others claim cannot be done.” —Anonymous
October 1, 2011
“That is no country for old men . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . .
An aged man is but a paltry thing,
A tattered coat upon a stick, unless
Soul clap its hands and sing, and louder sing
For every tatter in its mortal dress.”
—William Butler Yeats, Sailing to Byzantium,
1925, Irish poet 1865-1939.
Premise of a recent film, “No Country for Old Men,” starring Tommie Lee Jones.
Premise of a recent film, “No Country for Old Men,” starring Tommie Lee Jones.
September 30, 2011
“Our ancient
Christian ancestors . . . teach us . . .how much we are in need of
silence. . . .a silence that is a kind of waiting and listening for
what God may tell us through . . . scripture, through our own
hearts.”
—Roberta Bondi, To Love as God Loves, 98.
September 27, 2011
“Us . . .
workaholics frantically throw ourselves into activity and work,
buzzing around . . . like the restless, hungry gnats we are. We
define ourselves in . . . our labors and the dust we manage to kick
up. Though always verging on exhaustion, we keep cranking out the
work so that others will admire us, like us, respect us and, most of
all, need us.”
— Allbert Haase, O. F. M., Coming Home to Your
Best Self., 45.
September 26, 2011
Let Me Lose Myself and Find it
Lord, in Thee
“Give over thine own willing; give
over thine own running; give over thine own desiring to know or to
be anything, and sink down to the seed which God sows in the heart,
and let that grow in thee, and act in thee, and thou shalt find by
sweet experience that the Lord knows that, and loves and owns that,
and will lead it to the inheritance of life.”
—
Isaac Penington (Wm. Penn’s father-in-law), cited in Friends
Journal, September, 2011, 20.
September 25, 2011
Walk the Walk:
“If our virtues
Did not go forth of us, 'twere all alike
As if we had them not.”
—Wm. Shakespeare, Measure for Measure, Act
1. Scene 1
September 24, 2011
Grace as Manna:
That pride, the sin of devils stood
Betwixt me and the light of God!
That hitherto I had defied,
And had rejected God—that grace
Would drop from his o’erbrimming love,
As manna on my wilderness”
— Selected Poems of Alfred Lord Tennyson, 37.
September 23, 2011
Thy Kingdom Come:
“For the Kingdom of God does not come in one dramatic
event sometime in the future. It is coming here and now in every act
of love, in every manifestation of truth, in every moment of joy, in
every experience of the holy.”
—Paul Tillich, quoted in Prayers for the Common
Good, ed., A. J. Lesher, 1998, Pilgrim Press. From John
Hay’s online newsletter, “Grace Between the Lines.”
September 22, 2011
Holy Communion
You renew the covenant with Christ.
You make the liturgy of St. Basil your pledge: “Of thy sacramental
feast this day, O Son of God, accept me as a partaker . . . . I will
not give thee a kiss like Judas.”
—Liturgy
of St. Basil,
cited by Evelyn Underhill, in
The Mystery of
Sacrifice.
73.
September 21, 2011
Devotional Reading: Then and Now?
“When he reads . . . yawns plenty and easily falls
into sleep. He rubs his eyes and stretches his arms. His eyes wander
from the book. He stares at the wall and then goes back to his
reading for a little. He then wastes his time hanging on to the end
of words, counts the pages . . . . Finally he just shuts it and uses
it for a pillow..”
—Evagrius, 4th century.
September 20, 2011
The Reason for the Light
Oh, the young, they can play and pretend that they’re
whole—
that the world needs no savior and time needs no
goal.
But we who’ve walked the darkness know that God is
always true.
He found me in the shadows, and He brought me home to
you.
— Joseph Bottum, The Second Spring:: Words into
Music, Music into Words, St. Augustine’s Press, 2011.
Cited in Books & Culture, Sept./October, 2011.
September 19, 2011
“Yahweh, you have given more joy to
my heart than others ever knew, for all their corn and wine. In
peace I lie down and fall asleep at once, since you alone, Yahweh,
make me rest secure.” (Psalm 4: 7-8, JB).
September 18, 2011
Spiritual Formation
Active faith that lives within,
Conquers hell and death, and sin,
Hallows whom it first made whole,
Forms the Saviour in the soul.
—Charles Wesley, “Let Us Plead for
Faith Alone,” 1740, United Methodist Hymnal 385
September 17, 2011
O Lord God,
Be Thou a bright flame before me,
Be Thou a guiding star above me,
Be Thou a smooth path below me,
Be Thou a kind shepherd behind me.
Today, tonight and forever.
Amen.
—A prayer of St. Columba, 6th century
September 16, 2011
What Can I Say?
“When we come to think about it, conversation between
[Adam and Eve] must have been difficult . . . because they had
nobody to talk about. If we exiled our neighbors permanently from
our discussions, we should soon be reduced to silence.”
— Agnes Repplier, “Ennui”
September 15, 2011
Oh, Lord “I am sure that there is in
me nothing that could attract the love of one as holy and as just as
You are. Yet You have declared Your love for me in Christ Jesus. If
nothing in me can win Your love, nothing in the universe can prevent
You from loving me. Your love is uncaused and undeserved. . . .
.Help me to believe the intensity, the eternity of the love that has
found me.”
—A. W. Tozer,
The Knowledge of the Holy
September 14, 2011
In the Bulb There Is a Flower
There’s a song in every silence,
seeking word and melody;
there’s a dawn in every darkness,
bringing hope to you and me..
From the past will come the future;
what it holds a mystery,
unrevealed until its season,
something God alone can see.
— “In the Bulb There Is a Flower,” verse 2 of the
song by Natalie Sleeth, 1986., The Worshiping Church, number
688.
September 13, 2011
Possibility
“If I were
to wish for something, I would wish not for wealth or power, but for
the passion of possibility, for the eye, eternally young, eternally
ardent, that sees possibility everywhere.”
—Soren
Kierkegaaard, "Either/Or"
September 12, 2011
Sloth--One of the 7 Deadly Sins
“Sloth is the party-pooper throwing cold water on
passion and desire. Slothful people toss in the towel, abandoning
their obligations toward God, others and self. Some . . . become
sluggish, indifferent, apathetic. . . . Sloth likes to sit on the
porch, bored to death, ogle the passersby and dribble forth inane, .
. . comments, all suggesting a weariness and dissatisfaction with
the world. . . . It is the spirit of the living dead. It is the
thick . . . fog that hangs around the false self.”
—Albert Haase, Coming Home to Your True Self,
p. 80.
September 11, 2011
Yes, But Not the Whole Story. Right?
“None of us can help the things life
has done to us. They are done before you realize it. And once
they’re done, they make you do other things until at last everything
comes between you and what you’d like to be, and you have lost your
true self.”
—Eugene O’Neill, “Long Day’s Journey
Into Night”
September 10, 2011
“Encouraging [spiritual] formation is an art, not a
science, and the result is always bound up in the mystery of grace .
. . .And to quote Norman Maclean in A River Runs Through It—
‘grace comes by art and art does not come easy.’”
—Christian Century, Sept. 6, 2011
September 9, 2011
What is our calling’s glorious hope,
But inward holiness?
For this to Jesus I look up,
I calmly wait for this.
I wait, till He shall touch me clean,
Shall life and power impart,
Give me the faith that casts out sin,
And purifies the heart.
— From A Collection of Hymns for the People Called
Methodists, Published in London, 1849, by the Wesleyan
Conference Office, 14 City Road, hymn no. 406., verses 1&2 of 6.
September 8, 2011
Let us wake
in the morning filled with your love and sing and be happy all our
days; make our future as happy as our past was sad
. . . .May
the sweetness of the Lord be on us!
—Psalm 90:14-15,17,
Jerusalem Bible
September 7, 2011
I shall know why, when time is over,
And I have ceased to wonder why;
Christ will explain each separate anguish
In the fair schoolroom of the sky.
He will tell me what Peter promised,
And I, for wonder at his woe,
I shall forget the drop of anguish
That scalds me now, that scalds me now.
—Emily Dickinson, Poem XXXIX
September 6, 2011
“ Ask ye what great thing I know,
that delights and stirs me so?
What the high reward I win?
Whose name I glory in?
Jesus Christ, the crucified.”
—Verse one of a hymn written in 1741 by pastor Johann C. Schwedler
September 5. 2011
Did “Old Shep” Go to Dog Heaven?
“ We don’t know about the animals;
they may have a covenant with God that we know nothing about.”
—Karl Barth, Swiss theologian, cited
in Christian Century, Sept. 6, 2011
September 4, 2011
For those who battle addictions:
“Even though you get the monkey off your back, the circus never
really leaves town.”
—Ann Lamott, Grace (Eventually), 252.
September 3, 2011
For Courage to Do Justice
Let me not be afraid to defend the weak
because of the anger of the strong,
Nor afraid to defend the poor
because of the anger of the rich.
Show me where love and hope and faith are needed,
and use me to bring them to those places. . . .Amen
—Alan Paton, South Africa
September 2, 2011
“O Lord, with your eyes you have searched me,
and while smiling have spoken my name”
—Cesareo Gabarain, “Lord, You Have Come to the Lakeshore.” Spanish:
“Tu Has Venido a la Orilla” Methodist hymnal, 344
September 1, 2011
Refrain from all extremes. Don’t start looking for
the face of Jesus in an enchilada. Don’t start thinking that some
cloud formation represents the Last Supper. God tells us not to be
foolish, but wise.”
——Charles R. Swindoll, Embraced by the Spirit,
94-95
August 31, 2011
“For myself, wounded wretch that I am,
by your saving power, God, lift me up.!”
Psalm 69:29
August 30, 2011
A Prayer for Holiness of Heart
In my heart, above all else,
let love and integrity envelope me
until my love is perfected and the last vestige
of my desiring is no longer in conflict with thy
Spirit.
Lord I want to be more holy in my heart. Amen.
—Howard Thurman, formerly chaplain at Howard and
Boston Universities.
August 29, 2011
New Love
John 13:34 I give you a new commandment,
that you love one another. Just as I have loved you.
Here Jesus is calling his disciples not only
to love others as they love themselves, but to love as he
--Jesus--loves them. That is what is new.”
—Jean Vanier, Drawn Into the Mystery of
Jesus Through the Gospel of John.
August 28, 2011
“We have to stumble through so much dirt and humbug
before we reach home. . . . . Our . . . guide is our homesickness.”
— Herman Hesse, Steppenwolf
August 27, 2011
“Whose life have I been living? . . . . The recovery
of one’s own life . . . begins with accountability. If you do not
like your life, change it, but stop blaming others, for even if they
did hurt you, you are the one who has been making the choices of
adulthood.”
—James Hollis, Finding Meaning in the Second Half
of Life, 241
August 26, 2011
j. c. on J. C.
"This is the wondrous exchange made
by Christ's boundless goodness. Having become with us the Son of
Man, he has made us with himself sons of God. By his own descent to
the earth he has prepared our ascent to heaven. Having received our
mortality, he has bestowed on us his immortality. Having undertaken
our weakness, he has made us strong in his strength. Having
submitted to our poverty, he has transferred to us his riches.
Having taken upon himself the burden of unrighteousness with which
we were oppressed, he has clothed us with his righteousness"
—John Calvin, Institutes, Book
IV.17.3.
August 25, 2011
I can wade grief,
Whole pools of it—
I’m used to that.
But the least push of joy
Breaks up my feet,
And I tip— drunken.
—Emily Dickinson, Poem XXXV
August 24, 2011
“ A life of prayer means being
willing to start over, after one has acted in a sinful or
destructive way. Both pride and acedia will assert themselves, and
it may appear that we are so far gone we may as well give up and not
embarrass ourselves further by pretending to be anything but
failures. It seems foolish to believe the door is still open . . . .
[When] I lose sight of . . . contemplation and prayer, and try to
live without it. Soon enough, once again, I am picking myself up
from the ashes.”
—Kathleen Norris, Acedia & Me,
2008, 86.
August 23, 2011
“Read and
reread scripture above all for the sake of God and God’s purposes:
hear it as God the Creator, Judge, and Savior crying out to
humanity; respond to it in cries, worship, life and thought, with
love for God and the world God loves.”
—David F. Ford, Christian Wisdom, 81
August 22, 2011
Bless the Lord, winter cold and
summer heat . . .
Bless the Lord, dews and falling snow
. . .
Bless the Lord, nights and days . . .
Bless the Lord, light and darkness .
. .
Bless the Lord, ice and cold . . .
Bless the Lord, frosts and snows;
sing praise to him and highly exalt him forever.
—Daniel 3:45-50
August 21, 2011
Keeping the Sabbath
“In Deuteronomy the commandment to
‘observe the Sabbath day’ is tied to the experience of a people
newly released from bondage. Slaves cannot take a day off; free
people can.”
—Dorothy Bass, “Keeping the Sabbath,”
cited by Kathleen Norris, Acedia & Me, 2008, 123.
August 20, 2011
Anger & Acedia
“Anger over injustice may inflame us, but that’s a
double edged-sword. If our indignation feels too good, it will
attach to our arrogance and pride and leave us a ranting void. And
if we develop full-blown acedia, we won’t even care about that.”
—Kathleen Norris, Acedia & Me, 2008, 117.
August 19, 2011
“O God, . . . . Cleanse my life from all that
negates and crushes out faith, and fill it with the purity and
honesty which foster faith.
Cleanse me from the evil that makes unbelief
its friend.”
—Samuel M. Shoemaker, Daily Prayer
Companion.
August 18, 2011
Understand Your Man
“I have suggested that women look at men this way: if
they took away their own network of intimate friends, those with
whom they share their personal journey, removed their sense of
instinctual guidance, concluded that they were almost wholly alone
in the world, and understood that they would be defined only by
standards of productivity external to them, they would know the
inner state of the average man.”
—James Hollis, Finding Meaning in the Second Half
of Life, 147-48
August 17, 2011
GOD SUFFERS WITH US.
“Nature works out its
complexities. God suffers the world’s necessities along with us, and
suffers our turning away, and joins us in exile. Christians might
add that Christ hangs, as it were, on the cross forever, always
incarnate, and always nailed.”
—Annie Dillard,
For the Time Being
August 16, 2011
Hope, child, tomorrow and tomorrow still,
And every tomorrow hope; trust while you live.
Hope, each time the dawn doth heaven fill,
Be there to ask as God is there to give.
—Victor Hugo
August 15, 2011
Temptation
Christians who seem relatively free of temptation,
the Early Church believed, “were the men and women God protects
because God knows how little temptation they can stand.”
—Roberta Bondi, To Love as God Loves, 17.
August 14, 2011
“Vanity they pursued, vanity they became” ( Jeremiah 2:5, JB).
August 13, 2011
Three Stages
of Discipleship
Gregory of
Nyssa cited three stages of the Christian life:
1. In the
beginning, one serves God out of fear like a slave.
2. In stage
two, the service of God stems from a desire for reward, like that of
a hired hand.
3. Only in
stage three does the disciple serve out of friendship with God, or
out of pure love of God, as a child in God’s household.
—Cited by
Roberta Bondi,
To Love as
God Loves,
27
August 12, 2011
Lifelines from a Wise Old Couple(Wes & Bettye) Celebrating Their
60th Anniversary on August 12, 2011
Work like you don't need the money.
Love like you've never been hurt.
Dance like nobody's watching.
Sing like nobody's listening.
Rejoice because you know that God is good.
—adapted from a piece of junk mail that came the other day
August 11, 2011
It is precisely in the Passion, when the mercy of Christ is about to vanquish it, that sin most clearly manifests its violence and its many forms: unbelief, murderous hatred, shunning and mockery by the leaders and the people, Pilate's cowardice and the cruelty of the soldiers, Judas' betrayal - so bitter to Jesus, Peter's denial and the disciples' flight. However, at the very hour of darkness, the hour of the prince of this world, the sacrifice of Christ secretly becomes the source from which the forgiveness of our sins will pour forth inexhaustibly.—Roman Catholic Catechism
August 10, 2011
THE Lord is my shepherd
The LORD is my shepherd
The Lord
IS my
shepherd
The Lord is MY shepherd
The Lord is my SHEPHERD.
August 9, 2011
Hope is the
thing with feathers
That perches
in the soul,
And sings
the tune without the words,
And never
stops at all.
—Emily Dickinson, Poem XXXII
August 8, 2011
“The problem is that much theology,
having lived for so long on the convenience food
of an easygoing tolerance of
everything, an ‘inclusivity’ with as few boundaries as McWorld,
has become depressingly flabby,
unable to climb even the lower slopes of social and cultural
judgment let alone the steep upper
reaches of that judgment of which the early Christians spoke.”
—N. T. Wright, Surprised By Hope,
2008, 178-79
August 7, 2011
God’s Love
“Perhaps a good Christian response to
Descarte’s dictum cogito ergo sum ( I think, therefore I am)
is sum amatus ergo sum (I am loved, therefore I am).
—J. Richard Middleton and Brian J.
Walsh, Truth Is Stranger Than It Used To Be, 37.
August 6, 2011
“Do not give in to the promptings of your temper, in
case it gores your soul like a mad bull; in case it gobbles up your
leaves and you lose your fruits and are left a withered tree. An
evil temper destroys a man . . . and makes him [a] laughingstock.”
—Ecclesiasticus 6:2-4, JB.
August 5, 2011
“There are three things my souls delights in:
—concord between brothers,
—friendship between neighbors.
—and a wife and husband who live happily
together.
There are three sorts of people . . . whose
existence I consider an outrage:
—a poor man swollen with pride,
—a rich man who is a liar, and
—an adulterous old man who has no sense.”
—Ecclesiasticus 25:1-4, JB.
August 4, 2011
“ Speak, old men, it is proper that you should; but know what you
are talking about, and do not interrupt the music.”
—Ecclesiasticus 32: 3-5, Jerusalem Bible.
August 3, 2011
“Do not practice . .
. a double heart.
Do not act a part in
public . . . .
Woe to . . . the
sinner who treads two paths”
—Ecclesiasticus 1:36, 2:13, Jerusalem Bible
August 2, 2011
“To fear the Lord is the beginning of wisdom .
. . .
To fear the Lord is the perfection of wisdom .
. . .
To fear the Lord is the crown of wisdom . . .
.
To fear the Lord is the root of wisdom”
—Ecclesiasticus 1:14-20, Jerusalem
Bible (emphasis added)
August 1, 2011
This week’s “morsels” will come from
Ecclesiasticus (not Ecclesiastes), a wisdom book found in the Catholic
Bible but not in the Protestant Bible. Even though you do not regard
the 13 apocryaphal books as Scripture nearly 2 billion Catholics do.
That alone puts these books on your “to read” list.
“Do not be so sure of forgiveness that you add sin to sin.”
—Ecclesiasticus 5:5, Jerusalem Bible
July 31, 2011
“Glory be to God, the last aching
abyss of the human heart is filled to overflowing with the love of
God.
Love is the beginning, love is the
middle and love is the end.”
—Oswald Chambers,
My Utmost for His Highest
July 30, 2011
Beautiful faces and loud,
empty places
Look at the way that we
live
Wastin’ our time on cheap
talk and wine
Left us so little to give.
—“You Get the Best of My
Love,” verse 1, a 1974 hit by The Eagles
July 29, 2011
“Me on my best
day.”
After pondering
a painting of Jesus and a beggar:
“On my best
day, in my brightest moment I’m the beggar on the mat sorely in need
of Jesus’ touch and empowerment.. . . .I was—am— a
ptochos,
broken person who can joyfully embrace her membership in the community
of the broken.. . .nothing to hide, nothing to defend, I am free to be
known.”
—This
appeared on p.59 of some book I was reading, but I failed to note
the author and name of the book. If you know, send me the info.
Wes).
July 28, 2011
Franciscan Blessing
“May God bless you with
discomfort at easy answers, half truths, and superficial
relationships. . . .
May God bless you with
anger at injustice, oppression, and exploitation, . . . so that you
may work for justice, freedom and peace.
May God bless you with
tears . . . for those who suffer from pain, rejection, starvation, and
war, so that you may . . . comfort them and turn their pain into joy.
And may God bless you with
enough foolishness to believe that you can make a difference, . . . so
that you can do what others claim cannot be done.”
July 27, 2011
ACTS OF GOD
“God is no more blinding people with
glaucoma, or testing them with diabetes…than he is jimmying
floodwaters, pitching tornadoes at towns, triggering rock slides, or
setting fires. The very least likely things for which God might be
responsible are what insurers call ‘acts of God.’”
—Annie Dillard,
For the Time Being
July 26, 2011
The heaven of heavens is love. There is nothing higher in religion; there is, in effect, nothing else . . . . And when you are asking others, ‘Have you received this or that blessing?’ if you mean anything but more love, you mean wrong. . . . Settle it then . . .that from the moment God has saved you from all sin [read sanctified you ] you are to aim at nothing more, but more of that love described in the thirteenth of [First] Corinthians. You can go no higher than this.
—John Wesley, Works, 11:430
July 25, 2011
Budget Balancing
Use it up,
Wear it out,
Make do or
Do without.
—Lorilee Craker, Money Secrets of the Amish
July 24, 2011
Does Jesus care when I’ve said “goodbye”
To the dearest on earth to me,
And my sad heart aches till it nearly breaks—
Is it aught to Him? Does He see?
Oh, yes, He cares, I know He cares,
His heart is touched with my grief;
When the days are weary, the long nights dreary,
I know my Savior cares.
—“Does Jesus Care?” 1901, written by Methodist Pastor
Frank E. Graeff
after meditating on 1 Peter 5:7 while battling severe
trials.
July 23, 2011
The Object of God’s Love
“If God had a refrigerator, your picture would be on
it. If He had a wallet your photo would be in it. He sends you flowers
every spring and a sunrise every morning. Whenever you want to talk,
He’ll listen . . . And the Christmas gift He sent you in Bethlehem?
Face it friend, He’s crazy about you.”
—Max Lucado, A Gentle Thunder
July
22, 2011
Show me, as my soul can bear,
The depth of inbred sin;
All the unbelief declare,
The pride that lurks within.
Take me, whom Thyself hast bought,
Bring into captivity
Ev’ry high, aspiring thought
That would not stoop to Thee.
The depth of inbred sin;
All the unbelief declare,
The pride that lurks within.
Take me, whom Thyself hast bought,
Bring into captivity
Ev’ry high, aspiring thought
That would not stoop to Thee.
—Charles Wesley, “Open Lord, My Inward
Ear.” Wesley Hymns, no. 37
July 21, 2011
We are, each of us, angels with only one wing, and we can only fly embracing each other.”
—Luciano de Crescenzo, The
Mustard Seed
July 20, 2011
Third Favorite: Tithe Party
This is my third most favorite passage in Deuteronomy, right up
there behind 6:4-9 (the Shema) and 14:3 (“You shall not eat any detestable
thing”). Least favorite in Deut. is most of chapter 13. But here’s the third
best:
“And thou shalt bestow that money [the tithe] for
whatsoever thy soul lusteth after,
for oxen,
for sheep,
for wine,
or for strong drink,
or whatsoever thy soul desireth:
and . . . before the Lord . . .thou shalt rejoice. . .” Deut.
14:26, KJV.
July 19, 2011
“The years that lie behind you, with all their struggles and pains, will in
time be remembered as the only way that led to your new life.”
—Henri Nouwen., The Inner Voice of Love, (N.Y. Image Books, 1999}, 34
July 18, 2011
I never spoke with God,
Nor visited in heaven;
Yet certain am I of the spot
As if the chart were given.
—Emily Dickinson. Poem XVII
July 17, 2011
“Forgiveness is not a moral rule with sanctions attached . . . .
Forgiveness is a way of life, God’s way of life, God’s way to
life; and if you close your life to forgiveness, why, then you close
your life to forgiveness. . . . God in his gentle love longs to set us
free from the prison we have stumbled into—the loveless prison where we
refuse both the offer and the demand of forgiveness.”
—N. T.
Wright,
Surprised By Hope,
2008, 288-89
Greek Financial Crisis
“Citizens of Athens, aren’t you ashamed to care so much
about making all the money you can . . . while for truth and wisdom and
the improvement of your souls you have no thought or care.”
—Socrates, Crito. About 400 B. C.
July 15, 2011
What Then?
“Acceptance of oneself is . . . the acid test of . . .
life. That I feed the beggar, that I forgive an insult, that I love my
enemy in the name of Christ— all these are . . . great virtues. What I
do unto the least of my brethren, that I do unto Christ.
But what if I should discover that the least amongst them
all, the poorest of all beggars, the most impudent of all offenders . .
. . that these are within me, and that I myself stand in need of the
alms of my own kindness, that I myself am the enemy who must be loved—
what then?”
—Carl Jung, Psychological Reflections, 239.
July 14,
2011
“The answer is always resurrection. Here the Christian Story
either coheres magnificently or collapses pathetically. The Christian
faith is either a resurrection movement or it is nothing at all.”
—Al Truesdale, With Cords of Love
July 11-12, 2011
"Never give the devil a ride. Because if he likes the ride, pretty soon
he will want to drive.”
—Ann Lamott, Grace (Eventually) 51
July 10, 2011
“The intention of God is that
we should each become the kind of person whom he can set free in his
universe, empowered to do what we want to do.”
—Dallas Willard,
The Divine Conspiracy,
379
July 9, 2011
“My whole hope is in Thy exceeding great mercy and that alone.
Give what You command and command what You will.”
—Augustine, Confessions
July 8,
2011
Athanasius compared the Trinity to a lighted candle: the
lighted candle is a flame; the flame is light and the flame is heat, but
it is all one flame. The one God is the creator of all, the one God is
the incarnated light of Jesus, and the one God is the warming presence
of the Holy Spirit. All of these manifestations are at the same time the
flame of the lighted candle. This remains the best analogy I have found
to describe the Trinity.
—Rufus H. Stark II, Christian
Century, April, 2011
July 7, 2011
“ We cannot live the afternoon of life according to the program of life’s morning; for what was great in the morning will be little at evening, and what in the morning was true will at evening have become a lie.”
—Carl Jung, quoted
in the
N.Y. Times
July 6, 2011
Empty the Credenza
Dispose of your credentials.
Recycle records of
successes and interrupted flights. . . .
Eviscerate the ephemeral
Erase the outmoded.
Name the no longer.
. .
All the people you were
All the people others ascribed to you
into the bin
into the bin
into the bin.
Let yourself fill with the future.
Let yourself fill with the future.
Stuff this space with who you are..
—Catharine Wald, Friends Journal, May 2011
July 5, 2011
From a hymn book I bought at a garage sale for $1
When the poor ones who have nothing share with strangers
When the thirsty water give unto us all,
When the crippled in their weakness strengthen others
Then we know that God still goes that road with us.
—Cuando El Pobre, hymn by J. A. Olivar & M. Manzano, translated from
the Spanish by George Lockwood, United Methodist Hymnal, 1989, 434.
July 4, 2011
“God wants to do more within us . . . There are scars He wants to remove.
There are fractured feelings He wants to heal. There are insights He longs
to reveal. . . . But none of the above will happen automatically—not as long
as He remains a sterile, untouchable blip on our theological screen.”
—Charles R. Swindoll,
Embraced by the Spirit,
2010, 24.
July 3, 2011
“I will instruct you and teach you the way
you should go; I will counsel you with my eye
upon you. Don’t be like a . . . mule. . .”
(Psalm 32:8-9, NRSV)
July 2, 2011
“Doesn’t my soul look like a market place where the
second-hand dealers from all the corners of the globe have assembled to sell
the shabby riches of this world? . . . . O God. . .Your Love has succeeded in
stealing into an obscure corner . . . in between the countless bales of
second-hand goods.”
—Karl Rahner, Encounters with
Silence