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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.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
May 16, 2013
The Swan in You
“Among the books
you got as a child, do you have Anderson’s Fairy Tales? If so, read
the story of the ugly duckling. I believe in your swan-destiny . . .
Just don’t hold it against others if they haven’t discovered this
yet.”
—Edith Stein,
Christian philosopher and educator, in a letter (Aug. 17, 1931) to a
former student who was on academic probation. Stein was later
martyred by the Nazis. Spiritus, Spring, 2013.
May 15, 2013
“When God has
become our personal or group lackey, we can hate, oppress, torture,
and kill others with total impunity. The religious False Self can
even justify racism, slavery, war, and total denial or deception,
and feel no guilt whatsoever, because ‘they think they are doing a
holy duty for God’(John 16:2).”
—Richard Rohr,
Immortal Diamond, 61.
May 14, 2013
“Humble heart of holiness,
kiss me with your tenderness,
Jesus, faithful friend and true,
all I am I give to you.”
—Nick and Anita Haigh, Singing the Faith, 421.
May 12, 2012
When God at first made man,
Having a glass of blessings standing by,
“Let us,” said He, “pour on him all we can.”
The poem,”The Pulley,” goes on to mention Strength, Beauty, Wisdom,
Honor, Pleasure, and then the greatest of all--Rest..
—George Herbert, 17th century English clergyman and poet..
May 11, 2012
“Who can justify a man who runs himself down, or respect a man who
despises himself?”
“If a man is mean to himself, to whom will he be good? He does not
even enjoy what is his own. No man is meaner than the man who is
mean to himself.” Ecclesiasticus 10:29, 14:5-6, JB
May 10, 2012
“The basic claim made by the Bible for the Word of
God is not so much that it is to be blindly accepted because of
God’s authority, but that it is recognized by its transforming and
liberating power.”
Thomas Merton, cited in Square Peg, Why Wesleyans
Aren’t Fundamentalists, ( ed. Al Truesdale, Beacon Hill Press,
2012), 35
May 9, 2012
On Pentecost, They Gathered
That Spirit knows no limit,
Bestowing life and power
The church formed and reforming,
Responds in every hour.
—Jane Parker Huber, “On Pentecost They Gathered,”
1981, Presbyterian Hymnal, 128.
May 8, 2012
“The Christian life consists in living close enough
to God, attentive enough to God that the presence of God over time .
. . changes us, heals us, makes us whole, makes us more like God’s
own self.”
—Walter Bruggeman, Collected Sermons.,67.
May 7, 2012
A Sower Went Forth to Sow
“When a man sows
the seed, he must not look for quick results. . . . It takes a long,
long time before an acorn becomes an oak; and it may take a long,
long time before the seed germinates in the heart . . . . [Our] age
looks for quick results, but in the sowing of the seed we must sow
in patience and in hope, and sometimes must leave the harvest to the
years.”
—William Barclay,
Daily Study Bible, “Matthew” v. 2, 63
May 5, 2012
“ Do not underrate the talk of old men, after all, they themselves
learned it from their fathers; from whom you will learn how to think
and the art of the timely answer.” Ecclesiasticus 8:9-12, JB
May 4, 2012
O fearful saints, fresh courage take;
The clouds you so much dread
Are big with mercy and shall break
In blessings on your head.
—William Cowper, 1774, “O God in a Mysterious Way”
May 3, 2012
“Some ways in which Christians
have told the gospel Story make it not worth telling. If it is told
as a story about the superiority of one race, denomination, nation,
or gender . . . , then it is best left locked in the closet. If it
is only a story about how God exists to meet my spiritual
needs or support my religious causes, or about how God can
coexist peacefully with the gods of greed, conflict, and oppression,
then it ought to die in obscurity.”
—Al Truesdale, With Cords of
Love
May 2, 2012
I Can Explain That. . . .
“The fundamentalist mind is a mind that likes answers
and explanations so much, that it remains willfully ignorant about
how history arrived at those explanations, or how self-serving they
usually are. Satisfying untruth is more pleasing to us than
unsatisfying truth, and full truth is invariably unsatisfying—at
least to the small self.”
—— Richard Rohr, Things Hidden: Scripture as
Spirituality, 120
May 1, 2012
“The Christian life
consists in living close enough to God, attentive enough to God that
the presence of God over time . . . changes us, heals us, makes us
whole, makes us more like God’s own self.”
—Walter Bruggeman,
Collected Sermons, 67.
April 30, 2012
“ The ego’s highest task is to go
beyond itself into service, service to what is really desired by the
soul rather than the complex-ridden ego or the values of the
culture.”
——James Hollis, Finding Meaning in the Second Half of Life, 153
April 29, 2012
“There are no techniques in good conversation with God. There are no
means to manipulate him, no ways to persuade him to do things our
way. He is not open to input on how best to run my life.” — Larry
Crabb, “The PAPA Prayer,” Conversations.
April 28, 2012
Regard the “body as an animal form of divine
principles, instead of a beast of burden for Time.”
Chinese proverb, I Ching, Sam Reifler,
editor, 225
April 27, 2012
Old Is Better?
“ It is not by muscle, speed or physical dexterity,
that great things are achieved, but by reflection, force of
character, and judgment. . . . . In these qualities, old age is
usually not only not poorer, but even richer.”—Cicero
April 26, 2012
Can even a pig be beautiful?
“Everything flowers from within, of self-blessing;
though sometimes it is necessary
to reteach a thing its loveliness
. . . .
and retell it in words and in touch
it is lovely until it flowers again from within,
of self-blessing.”
—Galway Kinnell, “St. Francis and the Sow”
April 23, 2012
“The man appreciates the progress he has made until
now. The woman is in a state of peril no matter what she does.”—
Chinese proverb, I Ching, Sam Reifler, editor, 54
April 22, 2012
Clattering Through
“Even as a priest, I lived madly, and
did so because it was easier. I played at sainthood, clattered
through life . . . . I diddled away the spiritual life, wasted the
time, let it flow in and out of my hand like money.” — James A.
Connor, Silent Fire: Bringing the Spirituality of Silence into
Everyday Life, p.98.
April 21, 2012
Old Problem?
There is no greater hardship . . . than the necessity
of listening to sermons. No one but a preaching clergyman has . . .
the power of commanding an audience to sit silent and be tormented.
No one but a preaching clergyman can revel in platitudes, truisms,
and untruisms and yet receive . . . the same respectful demeanour
as though words of impassioned eloquence, or persuasive logic fell
from his lips. . . . .
We desire . . . to enjoy the comfort of public
worship; but we desire also that we may do so without an amount of
tedium which . . . human nature cannot endure with patience; that
we may be able to leave the house of God, without that anxious
longing for escape, which is the common consequence of common
sermons.
—From an 1857 novel. Anthony Trollope,
Borchester Towers.
April 20, 2012
“Forgiveness doesn’t mean ‘I really didn’t mind,’ or ‘it didn’t
really matter.’ I did mind and it did matter . . . . Nor is
forgiveness the same as saying, ‘Let’s pretend it didn’t happen.’ .
. . . Finally, forgiveness means that we have settled it in our
minds that we shall not allow this evil to determine the sort of
people we shall then become.” —N. T. Wright, Evil and the
Justice of God, 152.
April 19, 2012
“Too many Jewish prayers tend to be of the
I-am-worm-step-on-me variety.”
—Rabbi Burton Visotzky, Sage Tales,
2011
April 18, 2012
“God’s holiness is the deepest yearning and the strongest craving
that we have. We are born and created, and formed by God to want to
be with God . . . . We are made for God’s holiness, and it is
exactly God’s holiness that makes us human . . . . That is the truth
about us.”
—Walter Bruggeman, Collected
Sermons., 67.
April 17, 2012
God speaks in “ordinary things like cooking
and small talk, through storytelling, making love, fishing, tending
animals and sweet corn and flowers, through sports, music, books,
raising kids—all the places where the gravy soaks in and the grace
shines through.’
—Garrison Keillor, cited by David Meyer,
Pursuit of Happiness.
April 16, 2012
“Do not beggar yourself by banqueting on credit when there is
nothing in your pocket. ” Ecclesiasticus 18:23, JB.
April 15, 2012
“If Yahweh does not build the house,
in vain the masons toil . . . .
In vain you get up earlier,
and put off going to bed,
sweating to make a living,
since he provides for his beloved as they sleep.”
—Psalm 127: 1-2
April 14, 2012
Integrity
“If you have integrity, nothing else matters. If you
don’t have integrity, nothing else matters,”
—Alan Simpson
April 13, 2012
“Social justice gives relevance and
bite to the language of Christian love. Too often our talk about
love is sentimental and soft. It needs to be toughened by the hard
realities of absentee landlords and prostitute rings and drug
smugglers and industrial spies and political pettifoggers.”
— Richard Foster, Streams of
Living Water, 178.
April 12, 2012
My grace is sufficient for you; for my power is
made perfect in weakness (2 Cor. 12:9).
“Only the broken can most perfectly apprehend the
mystery and sufficiency of grace.”
—Judith Hougen, “The Community of the Broken,”
Conversations
April 11, 2012
“Death Be Not Proud”
“One short sleep past, we wake eternally,
And death shall be no more: death, thou shalt die.”
— John Donne, English clergyman and poet, 1572-1631,
“
April 10, 2012
“One on tip-toe cannot stand.
One astride cannot walk.
One who displays himself does not shine.
One who justifies himself has no glory.
One who boasts of his own ability has no merit.
One who parades his own success will not endure.”
—Chinese philosopher, Lao Tzu, Tao Teh Ching,
circa 180 B. C.
El Senor Resucito
“If the Lord had never risen, we’d have nothing to
believe;
But His promise can be trusted, ‘You will live
because I live.’
As we share the death of Adam, so in Christ we live
again;
Death has lost its sting and terror, Christ the
Lord has come to reign.”
—”Christo Vive” A Spanish hymn by Nicholas
Martinez. Translated by Fred Kaan., The United Methodist
Hymnal, 313.
April 9, 2012
April 7, 2012
O chime of Saint Charity,
Peal soon that Easter morn
When Christ for all shall risen be
And in all hearts new-born.
— James Russell Lowell,
Godminister Chimes
April 6, 2012
“Nothing in my hand I bring
Simply to thy cross I cling.”
—Augustus Toplady, Rock of
Ages
April 5, 2012
Maundy Thursday
The TOWEL AND BASIN stand alongside the CROSS. Those who dismiss or
stray from this paradigm mislead.
—John Franklin Hay, Grace Between the Lines
April 4, 2012
Gifted and Strong Leadership
I remember a group of fellows saying to their leader,
“You shouldn’t be doing that.
You’re our leader, your not supposed to do that, that’s not for someone like you to do.” And he acted as though they weren’t even talking. He went right ahead with what he was doing. And He took a towel and a basin and girded himself and washed their feet. You talk about gifted and strong. Wow!
—Fred Craddock, “Handling Preferential Treatment,” Collected Sermons, 2011, 262.
You’re our leader, your not supposed to do that, that’s not for someone like you to do.” And he acted as though they weren’t even talking. He went right ahead with what he was doing. And He took a towel and a basin and girded himself and washed their feet. You talk about gifted and strong. Wow!
—Fred Craddock, “Handling Preferential Treatment,” Collected Sermons, 2011, 262.
April 3, 2012
The Cross
“We have the cross on our steeples and jewelry, but
not in our hearts and hands.”
—Peter Eldersveldt, Sharing
His Suffering.
April 2, 2012
Easter Comes
“Be through my lips to unawakened earth
The trumpet of a prophecy! O Wind,
If Winter comes, can Spring be far behind?”
—Percy Bysshe Shelley, Ode to the West Win
April 1, 2012
“The fast that I choose: . . . .
Is it not to share your bread with
the hungry,
and bring the homeless poor to your
house;
when you see the naked to cover
them (Isa 58:6-7)
“It is there in the text . . . plain and
simple and unmistakable and it is my obligation to say it. Anyone
who prattles about the Bible or the word of God that does not face
this mandate is a deceiver.”
—Walter Bruggeman, Collected
Sermons., “Neighbor Religion.”
March 31, 2012
“His [Jesus’] blood, the greatest detergent in the history of time,
sufficient to wash away all your sins, was poured out for you.’
—Charles R. Swindoll, Embraced by the Spirit, 94.
March 30, 2012
Ode to Mega-Millions
“Fill your house with gold and jade,
And it can no longer be guarded.
Set store by your riches and honour,
And you will only reap a crop of calamities.”
—Chinese philosopher, Lao Tzu, Tao Teh Ching,
circa, 180 B. C.
March 29, 2012
“Who feels sorry for a snake charmer bitten by a snake? . . . .
Just so for someone consorting with a sinner, and being accomplice
to his sins.”
—Ecclesiasticus 12:13-14, JB
March 28, 2012
“Batter my heart three-personed God; for, you
As yet but knock, breathe, shine, and seek to mend;
That I may rise, and stand, o’erthrow me, and bend
Your force, to break, blow, burn, and make me new.”
— John Donne, English clergyman and poet,
1572-1631,
March 27, 2012
“Go to Dark Gathsemane”
Go to dark Gathsemane,
All who feel the tempter’s power;
Your Redeemer’s conflict see,
Watch with him one bitter hour
Turn not from His griefs away,
Learn from Jesus Christ to pray.”
—James Montgomery, 1825, Presbyterian Hymnal,
97
March 26, 2012
God Almighty, the Lord
The ruler of earth and heavens
Guard us from harm without;
Cleanse us from evil within.”
—Venantius Honorius Fortunatas, 530—609,
The Lutheran Book of Worship
March 25, 2012
O Sacred Head, Now Wounded
What language shall I borrow
To thank Thee, dearest friend.
For this Thy dying sorrow,
Thy pity without end?
O make me Thine forever;
And should I fainting be,
Lord let me never, never
Outlive my love to Thee.
—Bernard of Clairvaux (1091-1153), Presbyterian
Hymnal, 98.
March 24, 2012
”FOLLOW YOUR BLISS”
“Find something that wholly involves and enthralls
us, even if it seems hopelessly unfashionable or unproductive, and
throw ourselves into it heart and soul.”
——Karen
Armstrong,The
Circular Staircase, 305.
March 23, 2012
Contemplative Living
The contemplative life is “to live in a state of reverent awareness,
and to let go of self. . . . We either contemplate or we exploit.
When we contemplate we can look at a flower without wanting to pick
it. . . . we can let go of greed and the compulsion to consume, . .
. exploit and destroy.”
— Margaret Guenther, “Contemplative Prayer for Everyone,”
Conversations.
March 22, 2012
Evil & Radical
Forgiveness
N. T. Wright says the solution to the
Problem of Evil is radical forgiveness ( modeled by God in Christ)
starting in this world and culminating in the next. Radical
forgiveness is hard. For example:
“”In the Middle East . . . the main
protagonists embrace religions where forgiveness has never been seen
as a duty, let alone a virtue, but rather as a . . . moral
weakness. . . . They believe passionately that it would be immoral,
totally wrong.” pp.148-149.
Could Wright be right? In Psalm 3,
David gives God a list of his virtues as reasons why God should
answer his prayer. He offers in evidence of his righteousness that
he never “spared a man who wronged me.” Hmm?
March 21, 2012
Problem of Evil
“When . . . God comes back to deal with evil, he
will look like a young Jewish prophet journeying to Jerusalem at
Passover time, celebrating the kingdom, confronting the corrupt
authorities, feasting with his friends, succumbing in prayer and
agony to a cruel and unjust fate, taking upon himself the weight of
Israel’s sins, the world’s sin: Evil with a capital E. . . . The
cross has become for us the new temple, the place where we meet . .
. the Savior and Redeemer.”
—N. T. Wright, Evil and the Justice of God, 99-100.
March 20, 2012
1.
Make affirmation
real. Your
affirmation has to come from the heart to be effective. Your people
can smell it a mile away when you’re faking it.
2.
Make affirmation
regular.
Don’t be stingy with your affirmation. This isn’t something you do
every now and then. . . .
3.
Make affirmation
recognizable.
Be specific with your affirmation. Don’t just tell someone they’re
a good person. Tell them why. . . .
4.
Make affirmation written.
A written note means you’ve taken time to affirm.
—Bill Burch, “Thinking Out Loud” March 8, 2012
March 19, 2012
Circular as our way is,
it leads not back to that
snake haunted garden, but
onward to the tall city of glass
that is the laboratory of the spirit.”
—F. R. S. Thomas, “Shepherd,” Conceding an Absence: Images of
God Explored 1996.
March 18, 2012
Fellowship of the Undevout
“ He who is alone in his sin is utterly alone. . . .
The final breakthrough to fellowship does not occur because, though
they have fellowship with one another as . . . devout people, they
do not have fellowship as the undevout, as sinners. The pious
fellowship permits no one to be a sinner. So everybody must conceal
his sin from himself and from the fellowship. We dare not be
sinners.”
—Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Life Together, 110.
March 17, 2012
“The Kingdom of God is not handed over to those . . .
who spend their time looking good and constructing holiness. No, the
Kingdom is given to those who are aware of . . . their poverty and
cling in desperate dependence upon a Savior. . . . . Jesus is the
only hope I have for . . . holiness.”
—Judith Hougen, “The Community of the Broken,”
Conversations.
March 16, 2012
Holiness and Competence
“To be sure, with God’s help, we overcome areas of
sin and grow in Christlikeness, but holiness is imparted to us, not
created by our behavior. And as long as we cling to the myth of our
own competence, we remain alone, our true selves hidden from the
community and from God.”
—Judith Hougen, “The Community of the Broken,”
Conversations, Fall 2005.
March 15, 2012
“The people could smell the danger in Jesus . . . .
Jesus came . . . as a threat of newness and deep change and
massive transformation. . . . Those with the most to lose . . . try
to . . . show either that he is crazy and irrelevant, or . . . that
he is dangerous . . . . The most threatened . . .the Sadducees.
They are the big downtown priests who are cozy with the governors .
. . and bankers. . . . They are the pushers and movers who have
learned to compromise and . . . get things done.”
——Walter
Brueggemann, “ The Threat of Life: Permitting Its Intrusion,” The
Collected Sermons of Walter Brueggemann, 2011.
March 14, 2012
Reflecting on a Painting
*
While gazing at the painting, Washing of the
Feet, by Duccio di Buoninsegna (1255-1319), which pictures
Jesus kneeling and washing feet, some questions come to mind: “As
Jesus kneels before you, offering himself to you, what is your
response?. . . How ready are you to . . .untie your sandals,
relinquish those parts of yourself that need his cleansing? . . .
What would hold you back from having your feet washed?”
—Juliet Benner, “Taste and See,” Conversations,
Fall 2005.
March 13, 2012
Interrogation
“We sometimes tie the biblical text to a chair and
start flogging it with a hose until it breaks down in tears and says
what we want it to say.”
—Brian D. McLaren, “A Postmodern View of Scripture.”
March 12, 2012
Ignore Failures at Your Own Risk
“Embrace your failures. Your failures denied become
the accusers of the soul; your failures accepted can become your
greatest strength. If you give failures too much power, they will
paralyze your actions. You will do nothing for fear of failure. . .
. Yet in this failure [divorce] I learned that I was capable of any
sin . . . . As never before, I had a compassionate sensitivity to
persons who had failed in their high intentions.”
—Ben Campbell Johnson, “”Wisdom from the Road.”
March 11, 2012
Sin & Forgiveness to Become Obsolete
“At the end of time when
sin is a distant and defeated memory, and forgiveness is as obsolete
as buggy whips, then it shall be sung: ‘Now the dwelling place of
God is with human beings . . . . They will be his people, and God
himself will be . . .their God’ ”(Rev. 21:3, NIV).
—John Ortberg, “God Is Closer Than You Think,”
Conversations, Fall, 2004, 30.
March 10, 2012
God’s Relentless Love
Love is the high point in the biblical unfolding of the nature of
God.
Charles Wesley wrote:
Pure, universal Love Thou art . . . .
Thy nature and Thy name is Love.
St. Augustine notes:
God “loves each one of us as if there were only one of us to love.”
—cited by H. Ray Dunning in Grace, Faith, and Holiness.
March 9, 2012
CONSCIOUS OF THE COST.
“The cross of Christ was not an inexplicable or chance event, which
happened to strike him, like illness or accident. To accept the
cross as his destiny, to move toward it and even to provoke it, when
he could well have done otherwise, was Jesus’ constantly reiterated
free choice; and he warns his disciples lest their embarking on the
same path be less conscious of its costs.”
—John Howard Yoder, The Politics of Jesus, cited by
John Franklin Hay, Grace Between the Lines, March 4, 2012.
March 8, 2012
Yet in the maddening maze of things
And tossed by storm and flood,
To one fixed hope my spirit clings,
I know that God is good.
—John Greenleaf Whittier, “The Eternal Goodness.”
March 7, 2012
“My son, support your father in his old age, do not grieve him
during his life.
Even if his mind should fail, show him sympathy, do not despise him
in your health and strength; for kindness to a father shall not be
forgotten but will serve as reparation for your sins.”
—Ecclesiasticus 3: 12-14 Jerusalem Bible
March 5, 2012
The Divine “IF”
“IF your heirs . . . walk before me in faithfulness with all their
heart . . . .” (1 Kings 2:4),
“IF you will walk before me . . . with integrity of heart and
uprightness . . . .”(1 Kings 9:4),
“IF you turn aside from following me . . . then I will cut Israel
off from the land ” (1Kings, 9:6-7).
“We do not want it to be so, but we soon or late rush our heads
against the wall of God’s conditionality, and it does not yield.”
——Walter Bruggeman,
Collected Sermons., 75-76
March 4, 2012
“A solitary Christian is no Christian. We come to God together, or
we do not come at all.”
—Maria Harris, Fashion Me A People.
March 3, 2012
Lenten Hymn
The glory of these forty days
We celebrate with songs of praise;
For Christ, by whom all things were made,
Himself has fasted and has prayed.
— verse one of a hymn for Lent by Gregory the Great, 540—604 A. D.
The Presbyterian Hymnal, 87.
March 2, 2012
“T. S. Eliot once observed that in a world of
fugitives, the person who is headed in the right direction will
appear to be running away.”
—James Hollis, Finding Meaning in the Second Half
of Life, 171.
March 1, 2012
It's All About Me?
“You have to hold yourself lightly,
because if you are too attached to your fears, your anger, your
shame, then all you can see is yourself. The universe jitterbugs
past, with all the presence of God manifest but without
purification, while you sit in the corner whining.”
— James A. Connor, Silent Fire:
Bringing the Spirituality of Silence into Everyday Life, p.169.
February 29, 2012
“Monkey Mind”
Silent prayer invites an
attack of monkey mind!
“It’s when your brain
swings from tree to tree, hand over hand, branch to branch,
tumbling, then jitterbugging, then dropping, never stopping, nervous
. . . out of control, out of control.”
— James A. Connor, Silent Fire:
Bringing the Spirituality of Silence into Everyday Life, p. 80.
February 28, 2012
TOUCH DOWN
“There is almost nothing about
biblical faith that can be understood by our usual analytical,
scientific, objective, or common sense control of life. The Bible
is, rather, organized around the explosive moments when the holiness
of God touches down . . . . Such touch down moments are not sweet
and romantic. . . . not pious and religious. Rather they are moments
of threat and risk, when our worlds are shattered and everything is
changed.”
—Walter Bruggemann, “Re-formed for
Ministry”
February 27, 2012
SEEING STARS
For age is opportunity no less
Than youth itself, though in another dress,
And as the evening twilight fades away
The sky is filled with stars, invisible by day.
—Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
February 26, 2012
Hear 18th-century London laborers sing this Charles
Wesley song as they walk to work:
Son of the carpenter, receive
This humble work of mine;
Worth to my meanest labor give
By joining it to Thine.
End of my ev’ry action Thou,
In all things Thee I see.
Accept my hallowed labor now;
I do it unto Thee.
— From Grace Betwen the Lines, John Franklin
Hay, Feb 17, 2012
February 25, 2012
“It’s not all about you—it’s about Jesus. Beware of all those
self-help books that tell you that you can rise to some great
heights on your own; if you’re not careful, your pride will kick in
and take charge. When you look deep enough, what you’ll find is . .
. gross depravity.”
—Charles R. Swindoll, Embraced by the Spirit, 73.
February 24, 2012
“Sin takes advantage
of the law,” (Romans 7:8) to achieve its own purpose. . . . . Our
unconverted and natural egocentricity (sin) uses religion for the
purpose of gaining self-respect. If you want to hate somebody, want
to be vicious, or vengeful or cruel or vindictive, I can tell you
how to do it without feeling an ounce of guilt: Do it for religious
reasons! Do it thinking you’re obeying a law . . . or some verse in
the Bible.”
— Richard Rohr,
Hidden Things, 82
February 23, 2012
At least to pray is left, is left.
O Jesus! in the air
I know not where thy chamber is—
I’m knocking everywhere.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Say, Jesus Christ, of Nazareth,
Hast thou no arm for me?
—Emily
Dickinson, Poem XLIII
February 22, 2012
Today Is Ash Wednesday:
A Quaker’s View
"Ash Wednesday is a day of
repentance. . . a day of measuring how short you fall from Christ .
. . . a . . . dreadful reminder that one day you, and everything
that you have done as yourself, will die, and that all that will be
left is the work that God has done through you.”
— Dan Coppock, Friends Journal,
September, 2011, 8.
February 21, 2012
WHO-DUN-IT?
“Jesus did not die at the hands of
muggers, rapists. or thugs. He fell into the well-scrubbed hands of
ministers, lawyers, statesmen and professors—society’s most
respected members.”
—Brendan Manning, The Signature of
Jesus, 38.
February 20, 2012
Tithing is a debt I owe
Giving is a seed I sow.
—Bill Burch, Eagle Ministries, Inc
February 19, 2012
The Middle Way
“Our Wesleyan roots . .
. mean that we are via media people of faith, who will not be
pulled to the extremes of the liberal left or swayed by the fears of
the radical right, but choose the stability of the orthodox, middle
way. . . . . And . . . we believe God called us to serve the poor,
the marginalized, the hurting and the underserved . . . to care
about issues of biblical justice and righteousness
—David Busic,
inaugural address as President of Nazarene Theological Seminary,
October 28, 2011
February 18, 2012
Too Busy?
“To allow oneself to be carried away
by a multitude of conflicting concerns, to surrender to too many
demands, to commit oneself to too many projects ... is to succumb to
violence. The frenzy of our activism ... kills the root of inner
wisdom which makes work fruitful.”
—Thomas Merton
February 17, 2012
The Bible says. . .
“We must approach the Scriptures with humility and
patience, with our own agenda out of the way, and allow the Spirit
to stir the deeper meaning to us.
Otherwise we only hear what we already agree with or what we have decided to look for.” —— Richard Rohr, Things Hidden: Scripture as Spirituality, 125
Otherwise we only hear what we already agree with or what we have decided to look for.” —— Richard Rohr, Things Hidden: Scripture as Spirituality, 125
February 16, 2012
The Optimism of Grace
“We believe in the radical optimism
of grace that not only forgives us our sins, but transforms us from
the inside out. . . . . We believe God is holy, and calls his
people to a life of holiness. We believe in a deeper work that God
wants to accomplish in every believer that not only purifies our
heart from sin, but enables us to love God with all our heart, soul,
strength, and mind. . . . This , . . . does not mean that. . . we
are incapable of sin. Rather it means that through the power of the
Spirit, we are given the power not to have to.”
——David Busic,
inaugural address as President of Nazarene Theological Seminary,
October 28, 2011
February 15, 2012
Douglas Coupland, who coined the phrase Generation
X, wrote,
“My secret is that I need God.—that I am sick and can no longer make
it alone. I need God to help me give because I can no longer . . .
be giving; to help
me to be kind, as I no longer seem to be capable of kindness; to help me love, as I seem to beyond being able to love.”
me to be kind, as I no longer seem to be capable of kindness; to help me love, as I seem to beyond being able to love.”
—Doulas Coupland, Life After God. 359.
February 14, 2012
Big, Bad Demon
“ I have observed the demon of
vainglory being chased by nearly all the other demons, and when his
pursuers fell, shamelessly he drew near and unfolded a long list of
his virtues.” —Evagrius (4th cent.) cited by Kathleen Norris,
Acedia & Me, p. 37
February 13, 2012
TIME WASTED
“It is largely a waste of time to tell people to love
generously when the God they have been presented with is a
taskmaster, loves quite conditionally, is easily offended, very
needy, and threatens people with eternal torture if they do not
‘believe’ in him.”
— Richard Rohr, Things Hidden: Scripture as
Spirituality, 89.
February 11, 2012
“Everyone has a sad story; the trick is not to
become a sad story.”
—From a novel whose title and author I forget. But I
remember this advice given by an African-American lady to her
grandaughter who was not so successfully navigating the storms of
youth. I guess, I have repeated this advice to myself a 1,000 times.
Wes Tracy
February 10, 2012
NAILED IT!
“God has to teach the people that there are
alternatives to brute strength. If all you are taught is the art of
the hammer, everything in life is perceived as another nail.”
—Richard Rohr, Hidden Things, 94
February 9, 2012
Teresa’s Prayer
After begging in public for funds to
build her orphanage, Teresa of Avila saw it ruined by flood, rebuilt
it only to see a storm blow the roof off, repaired the building
and then it was burned down. She prayed, tradition has it, “Lord, if this is the way you treat your friends, I would hate to see your enemies.”
and then it was burned down. She prayed, tradition has it, “Lord, if this is the way you treat your friends, I would hate to see your enemies.”
February 8, 2012
IN CHRIST
“We wake up inside Christ’s body
Where all our body . . . .
Is realized in joy in Him,
And He makes us utterly real.
And everything that is hurt, everything
That seemed to us dark, harsh, shameful,
maimed, ugly, irreparably damaged
Is in Him transformed. . . .
We awaken as the beloved
In every last part of our body”
—St. Symeon, the New Theologian (A. D. 949-1022 ),
Hymn 15 in his Hymns of Divine Love. Translated by Stephen
Mitchell.
February 7, 2012
Fractured
“ In most ancient religions, God was felt to be
controllable through human sacrifice. . . . Around the time of
Abraham the sacrificial instinct . . . gets transferred to . . .
animals [that] had to be sacrificed . . . . But ‘civilized cultures’
have . . . transmuted it into self-sacrifice and moral
heroics--because . . . something has to be sacrificed to bend
this God toward us. . . . This is a fracture at the core of
everything and creates the overwhelmingly shame and guilt based
church . . . we have today in the West.”
— Richard Rohr, Hidden Things: Scripture as
Spirituality, 10
February 6, 2012
Confess Christ by silence as well as speech.
It is better for a man to be silent and be [a Christian], than to
talk and not to be one. It is good to teach, if he who speaks also
acts. There is then one Teacher, who spake and it was done; while
even those things which He did in silence are worthy of 56the
Father. He who possesses the word of Jesus, is truly able to hear
even His very silence, that he may be perfect, and may both act as
he speaks, and be recognised by his silence.
February 5, 2012
A Thought Before Dying
Ignatius of Antioch wrote to the
Ephesian church while he was being taken to Rome to be martyred.
Among other things he asked the church to be as "fitly joined
together as strings to a harp by whose concord and harmony of love,
Jesus Christ is sung. And be ye the quire, that being so consonant
in love, and taking up the song of God, ye may in unity sing with
one voice."
February 4, 2012
“Legalism, like the vilest seed of the overgrown Garden, has
flourished on the trellis of the centuries.”
—William Barry, Finding God in All Things
February 3, 2012
“ Real Holiness has
love for its essence,
humility for its clothing,
the
good of others as its employment,
and
the honor of God as its end.”
—Nathaniel Emmons
February 2, 2012
More From Clement of Rome
Let a person be faithful:
let him be powerful in the utterance of knowledge;
let him be wise in judging of words;
let him be pure in all his deeds;
yet the more he seems to be superior . . . [in these
respects], the more humble-minded ought he to be, and to seek the
common good . . .and not merely his own advantage.
—First Epistle to the Corinthians, chapter 48, circa A. D. 97.
February 1, 2012
“For the commandment’s sake go to the poor
man’s help, and do not turn him away empty-handed in his need . . .
. Deposit generosity in your storerooms.”
— Ecclesiasticus 29: 12-14, Jerusalem
Bible.
January 31, 2012
Inspection
“If we are the lone examiners of our heart, a
thousand justifications will arise to declare our innocence . . . .
At the other end of the spectrum is out tendency toward
self-flagellation . . . . It is easy for us to take one good look
at who we really are and declare ourselves unredeemable. Our damaged
self-image votes against us.”
—Richard Foster, “Prayer: Finding the
Heart’s True Home,” p.27.
January 30, 2012
“Extravagance:
Excessive love, flagrant mercy, radical
affection, exorbitant charity, immoderate faith, intemperate hope,
inordinate love. None of which is an achievement, a badge to be
earned or a trophy to be sought; all are secondary by-products of
the one thing that truly makes a saint, which is the love of God.”
—Barbara Brown Taylor, “A Cloud of Witnesses,”
Weavings.
January 29, 2012
"How blessed and wonderful, beloved, are the gifts of
God! Life in immortality, splendour in righteousness, truth in
perfect confidence [or liberty], faith in assurance, self-control in
holiness!
—The First Epistle of
Clement to the Corinthians, chapter 35.
January 28, 2012
“The impulse to serve is the mysterious ingredient that fills us up,
that makes our cup run over.”
—Robert Laurence Smith, A Quaker Book of Wisdom,
cited in Guideposts, Feb., 2012.
January 27, 2012
"Let our praise be in God, and not of ourselves; for God hateth
those that commend themselves. Let testimony to our good deeds be
borne by others, as it was in the case of our righteous forefathers.
Boldness, and arrogance, and audacity belong to those that are
accursed of God; but moderation, humility, and meekness to such as
are blessed by Him."
—First Epistle of Clement to the Corinthians,
chapter 30. ca. 97 AD
January 26, 2012
Going to heaven!—
How dim it sounds!
And yet it shall be done
As sure as flocks go home at night
Unto the shepherd’s arm!
—Emily Dickinson, Poem XLII
January 25, 2012
"You have not lived today until you have done
something for someone who can never repay you." - John Bunyan
—From Tuesday’s Child , edited
by John Franklin Hay, International Childcare Ministries,
Indianapolis,
January 24, 2012
Prayer for a Child
A prayer for when a child, grandchild, or
great-grandchild is dedicated, baptized, ill or faces surgery. It
became our 100-times-a-day prayer when our great-grandson faced
brain and neck surgery--a prayer graciously answered
“Good Shepherd, we give this little child into your
loving hands;
and in the days that lie ahead protect this little
lamb.”
—Claire Cloninger, verse 1, “Good Shepherd,” a
dedicatory hymn in The Worshiping Church, 1986, #760.
January 23, 2012
Show Me the Money
“All bow down before wealth. . . . men pay an
instinctive homage.
They measure happiness by wealth;
and by wealth they measure respectability. . . .
It is a homage resulting from a profound faith . . .
that with wealth . . . he may do all things. “
—Cardinal Newman
January 22, 2012
Bitter or Better?
“All healthy religion shows you what to do with your
pain. . . .If we do not transform our pain, we will most assuredly
transmit it. If we cannot find a way to make our wounds into sacred
wounds, we invariably become negative or bitter.”
— Richard Rohr, Hidden Things: Scripture as
Spirituality, 25
January 21, 2012
If Only I’d. . .
“ Regret, one of the ghosts of aging, comes upon us
. . . dressed up like wisdom, looking profound and serious, sensible
and responsible. . . . It prods us to question everything we’ve ever
done. . . . Regret claims to be insight. . . . No, regret is not
insight. It is, in fact, the sand trap of the soul.”
—Joan Chittister, The Gift of Years,, 2008,
2-3.
January 20, 2012
“A MAN DOES NOT GO TO A WOMAN TO GET HIS STRENGTH; HE
GOES TO OFFER IT”
—John Eldrege, Wild at Heart (2004,
Waterville, Maine: Walker Large Print, 2001, Thomas Nelson reprint).
January 19, 2012
“So often we experience depression as a dark herald
with a grim countenance that tells us something in us is dying, has
reached its end, is played out, and yet it is really announcing
something new, something larger, something developmental that wishes
greater play in our life.”
—James Hollis, Finding Meaning in the Second Half
of Life,76
January 18, 2012
That’s Where You Come In
In Genesis 1:26 God
says, “let us make humanity in our own image, in the likeness of
ourselves.” . . . . Consider . . . what God is looking for . . . God
isn’t looking for servants . . . for slaves, workers, contestants
to play the game or jump through hoops . . . . God is simply looking
for images! God wants images of God to walk around the earth!
— Richard Rohr, Hidden Things: Scripture as
Spirituality, 35
January 17, 2012
“The Father of all grace and might . . . banish sin from our
delight.”
—From a hymn by Ambrose of Milan, 4th century
January 16, 2012
Fleeing the Call to Preach
“I was putting pressure on myself by frequently exposing myself to
God talk . . . . Maybe I was beginning to overdose on the Christian
faith. After all, I was every week in Sunday School, in worship, in
youth meetings, in midweek service of prayer and Bible study. . . .
with all that exposure to religion, even Al Capone would . . .
feel a call to preach. Solution? . . . back off from God . . .
from God’s people.”
—Fred B. Craddock, Reflections on My Call to Preach, Chalice
Press, 2009, p. 16.
January 15, 2012
“Jesus . . . defines God as love. In light of this . . . we have to
abandon the cankerous, worm-eaten structure of legalism . . . that
corrupts the Good News into an ethical code rather than a love
affair.”
—Brendan Manning, The Signature of Jesus, 19
January 14, 2012
From the cowardice that shrinks from new truth,
From the laziness that is content with half-truths,
From the arrogance that thinks it knows all truth,
Oh, God of Truth, deliver us.”
—Ancient Hebrew prayer cited by “Dear Abby”
January 13, 2012
“Virtue is a good habit of thought or action that has become strong
by repetition . . . . Think of patience, self-control, prudence, and
good driving.
Vice is a bad habit grown strong by repetition. Think of
uncontrolled anger, indifference to others, runaway lust. Think
uncontrolled drinking or smoking.”
—James Atwell, The Quaker Journal, June/July, 2011, 7.
January 12, 2012
“Reveal Yourself,
beloved, and spread over me
the tabernacle of
Your peace.”
—Elazar Azikri, Yelid Nefesh (My Soul’s Beloved), from a
16th century Jewish liturgy,.
January 11, 2012
We love our
enemies-- until we actually have some.
—Martin Marty
January 10, 2012
“The day is short, the task is great, the laborers
are lazy, the reward is much, and the Master is insistent. . . .
It is not for you to complete the task, but neither
are you free to stand aside from it.”
—The Ethics of the Fathers, Rabbi Tarfon,
Mishnah, 16th century
January 9, 2012
“The light at the altar is different
from any other light. . . . You see things you don’t otherwise see.
. . . at the altar the feeble excuses stop and . . . the comparing .
. . as though we expected God to grade on the curve, all that stops
. . . . You might say, ‘Have mercy on me. . . .clean me up. Don’t
. . . take away your Holy Spirit; forgive me.’ “I have every, every
reason to believe that you will hear God say, ‘Yes, yes, yes.’”
—Fred Craddock, “Whatever Became of
Sin?”
The Collected
Sermons of Fred B. Craddock, Westminster
John Knox Press, 2011, 42.
January 8, 2012
“Despite the
blandishments of popular culture, the goal of life is not
happiness but meaning.
Those who
seek happiness by trying to avoid or finesse suffering will find
life
more and
more superficial.”
—James Hollis,
Finding Meaning in the Second Half of Life, 232
January 7, 2012
Reading Notes:
NOTE ONE;
David and Jackie Siegel’s home is for sale, 90.000 square feet,
$100,000,000.
The home, near Orlando, features 23 baths, a bowling
alley, 2 movie theaters, indoor skating rink, 10 kitchens, 13
bedrooms, 20-car garage, 6 swimming pools, an 80-foot waterfall &
more.
—The High-Beta Rich, Robert Frank, 2011,
70-71.
NOTE TWO:
“Just because you can afford it, doesn’t mean you can afford it.
Having the money is not the green light to getting it. As long as
anybody sleeps in a cardboard box, as long as any child is hungry .
. . you cannot afford it.”
— The Collected Sermons of Fred B. Craddock,
Westminster John Knox Press, 2011, 162.
January 6, 2012
The primal sin . . . is to go on . . .
basing our lives on pop religion and the power of positive thinking,
trendy spiritualities and power politics rather than the Sermon on
the Mount and the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.”
—Brendan Manning, The Signature of
Jesus, 244
January 5, 2012
“When prayer becomes
what orders our day as something we attempt to live out moment by
moment, rather than the tail blindly pinned onto the donkey of daily
life, then prayer will integrate us into itself.”
—Martin Laird, A
Sunlit Absence: Silence, Awareness, and Contemplation, Oxford
Univ. Press. 2011.
January 4, 2012
“Truth is avoided when it is painful . . . . We must
always hold truth to be more important, more vital to our
self-interest, than our comfort. Conversely, we must always consider
our personal discomfort relatively unimportant and, indeed, even
welcome it in the service of the search for truth.”
— M. Scott Peck, The Road Less Traveled.
50-52
January 3, 2012
Cross Bearing
“The cross of Christ is the sweetest burden that I ever bore;
it is such a burden as wings are to a bird.”
—Samuel Rutherford
January 2, 2012
“The point of 1 Corinthians 13 is that love is
not our duty; it is our destiny. It is the language Jesus
spoke . . . . the food they eat in God’s new world . . . . the
music God has written . . . It is the resurrection life.”
—N. T. Wright, Surprised By Hope, 2008,
288
January 1, 2012
A Blessing for the New Year:
May the Lord bless you and protect you.
May the Lord make His face shine upon you and be
gracious to you.
May the Lord turn His face to you and grant you
peace”
(Numbers 6:24-26).
December 31, 2011
Thought for the last day
of 2011:
The Year Just Past
Look back on time with kindly eyes,
He doubtless did his best;
How softly sinks his trembling sun
In nature’s west!
—Emily Dickinson,
Poem VIII
December 30, 2011
“The sinner waves reproof aside, he finds excuses to do what he
wants.” —Ecclesiasticus 32:17, Jerusalem Bible.
December 29, 2011
Egyptian Bondage
“Every generation has its own pharaoh
and its own slave masters, uniquely based on the culture of the
time.
Our pharaoh may be the electronic
devices—computers, televisions, iPhones—that mesmerize us,
dominating hour after hour . . . .
holding us in their grip and separating us from family and
friends—
sometimes from our faith.”
—Senator Joe Lieberman, The Gift of
Rest: Rediscovering the Beauty of the Sabbath, 2011, pp.
29-30.
December 28, 2011
“Health and strength are better than any gold, a robust body than
untold wealth,
no riches can outweigh bodily health.” —Ecclesiasticus 30:
15-16, Jerusalem Bible.
December 27, 2011
December 26, 2011
Saying Goodbye
”When we think of loss we think of the
loss, through death, of people we love. But . . . we lose . . .
also by leaving and being left, by changing and letting go, and
moving on .. . . losses include . . . losses of romantic dreams,
illusions of freedom and power, illusions of safety—and the loss of
our younger self, the self that thought it always would be
unwrinkled and invulnerable and immortal.”—Judith
Viorst, Necessary Losses
December 25, 2011
I sometimes think we expect too much
of Christmas Day.
We try to crowd into it the long
arrears of kindliness and humanity of the whole year.
As for me, I like to take my
Christmas a little at a time, all through the year.
And thus I drift along into the
holidays - let them overtake me unexpectedly - waking up
some fine morning and suddenly
saying to myself: "Why, this is Christmas Day!"
~David Grayson
December 24, 2011
Then let every heart keep Christmas
within.
Christ’s pity for sorrow,
Christ’s hatred for sin,
Christ’s care for the weakest,
Christ’s courage for right.
Everywhere, everywhere,
Christmas tonight.
—Phillips Brooks
December 23, 2011
The Church does not superstitiously
observe days, merely as days, but as memorials of important facts.
Christmas might be kept as well upon
one day of the year as another; but there should be a stated day for
commemorating the birth of our
Saviour, because there is danger that what may be done on any day,
will
be neglected.
~Samuel Johnson
December 22, 2011
Whatever else be lost among the
years,
Let us keep Christmas still a shining
thing;
Whatever doubts assail us, or what
fears,
Let us hold close one day,
remembering
Its poignant meaning for the hearts
of men.
Let us get back our childlike faith
again.
~Grace Noll Crowell
December 21, 2011
"He who has not Christmas in his heart will never find it under a tree." ~Roy L. Smith
December 20, 2011
Love came down at Christmas,
Love all lovely, Love Divine;
Love was born at Christmas;
Star and angels gave the sign.
~Christina Rossetti
December 19, 2011
Oh look, yet another Christmas TV special! How
touching to have the meaning of Christmas brought to us by cola,
fast food, and beer.... Who'd have ever guessed that product
consumption, popular entertainment, and spirituality would mix so
harmoniously?
~Bill Watterson, Calvin &
Hobbes
December 18, 2011
“ If the Christian beliefs inherited
from our family and passed on by our church tradition
are not grounded in a shattering,
life-changing experience of Jesus Christ, then the chasm
between our creedal statements and
our faith-experience widens and our witness is worthless.
The gospel will persuade no one
unless it has so convicted us that we are transformed by it.”
——Brendan Manning, The Signature
of Jesus,, 17
December 17, 2011
“ Stick to the advice your heart gives you, no one can be truer to
you than that; . . . a man’s soul often forewarns him better than
seven watchmen perched on a watchtower.”
—Ecclesiasticus 37:14-18, Jerusalem Bible.
December 16, 2011
Once again we find ourselves enmeshed
in the Holiday Season, that very special time of year when we join
with our loved ones in sharing centuries-old traditions such as
trying to find a parking space at the mall.
We traditionally do this in my family
by driving around the parking lot until we see a shopper emerge from
the mall, then we follow her, in very much the same spirit as the
Three Wise Men, who 2,000 years ago followed a star, week after
week, until it led them to a parking space..
~Dave Barry, “Christmas Shopping, A
Survivor’s Guide.
December 15, 2011
Shopping List
Christmas gift suggestions:
To your enemy, forgiveness.
To an opponent, tolerance.
To a friend, your heart.
To a customer, service.
To all, charity.
To every child, a good example.
To yourself, respect.
~Oren Arnold
December 14, 2011
WHEN YOU ARE OLD
When you are old and grey and full of sleep,
And nodding by the fire, take down this book,
And slowly read, and dream of the soft look
Your eyes had once, and their shadows deep.
How many loved your moments of glad grace.
And loved your beauty with love false or true,
But one man loved the pilgrim soul in you,
And loved the sorrows of your changing face.
—William Butler Yeats
December 13, 2011
I love the Christmas-tide, and yet,
I notice this each year I live;
I always like the gifts I get,
But how I love the gifts I give.
— Carolyn Wells, “ A Thought.”
December 12, 2011
Arthritis of the Spirit
“Many older people go into their later years carrying
grudges and harboring resentments . . . This resentment can be
called the arthritis of the spirit, for it deforms and cripples . .
. . We use it to protect ourselves. . . but it has a sinister way of
circling right back to us so that we are the victims of our own
self-will.”
—Richard L. Morgan, The Bible Speaks to Third and
Fourth Agers, 171
December 11, 2011
“From silly devotions and sour faced saints, spare
us, O Lord.”
—Teresa of Avila
December 10, 2011
“The ego fattens on holiness just as much as on
worldliness, on poverty as on riches, on austerity as on luxury.
There is nothing that the ego will not seize upon to inflate
itself.”
—Brendan Manning, The
Signature of Jesus, 137
December 9, 2011
Go humbly, humble are the skies,
And low and large and fierce the
Star;
**********************************
And the whole heaven shouts and
shakes,
For God Himself is born again.
—From
Christmas Spirit
by George Grant & Gregory Wilbur, 1999, Cumberland House, Nashville,
Tennessee
December 8, 2011
Temptation
“Better shun the bait than struggle in the snare.”
—John Dryden
December 7, 2011
“He [Jesus]
does not come as victory, but as helpless child.
He does not
come in pride, but in a way almost unnoticed by the world. But he is
king.
He is not
robed in splendor but in baby clothes.
He is not in
the royal nursery but in a barn.
None of this
makes sense.”
——Walter Brueggemann,
“Gosh, Some Angels” The
Collected Sermons of Walter Brueggemann, 2011.
December 6, 2011
The Christmas angels announced:
“Glory to God—Peace on earth!
They cannot be separated. Some want
peace on earth without taking seriously the holiness of God. Some
want to worship God and pay no attention to peace on earth.”
—Walter Brueggemann, “Gosh, Some
Angels,” A Christmas sermon during the Vietnam War, from The
Collected Sermons of Walter Brueggemann, 2011.
December 5, 2011
Tho Christ a thousand times
In Bethlehem be born,
If He’s not born in thee
Thy heart is still forlorn.
— Angelis Silesius
December 4, 2011
“Every act of love, every deed done in Christ and by the Spirit,
every work of true creativity—doing justice, making peace, healing
families, resisting temptation, seeking and winning true freedom— is
an earthly event in a long history of things that implement
Jesus’ own resurrection and anticipate the final new creation
and act as signposts of hope.”
—N. T. Wright, Surprised By Hope, 2008, 295.
December 2, 2011
“Truth be told, you don't have to sin. You know why you sin?
Because you want to.
That doesn’t sound very affirming but is the ugly truth. Every time you sinned last week, you wanted to.
That doesn’t sound very affirming but is the ugly truth. Every time you sinned last week, you wanted to.
——Charles R. Swindoll, Embraced by the Spirit, 131
December 1, 2011
Scared of the Dark?
“We have loved the stars too fondly
to be fearful of the night.”
—Inscription at the Obseratory,
University of Pittsburgh
November 30, 2011
Simplicity of Heart
“Let honesty prompt your thinking
about the Lord, seek him in simplicity of heart . . . .Wisdom will
never make its way into a crafty soul nor stay in a body that is in
debt to sin.”
—Wisdom 1:1,4,
Jerusalem Bible
November 29, 2011
After trying the Convent:
“I had failed to find God and had never come within
shouting distance of that complete self-surrender. . .the great
spiritual writers declared. . .essential.
—Karen Armstrong,The
Circular Staircase
November 28, 2011
“A spirituality that does not lead to active ministry
becomes an indulgent preoccupation with self, and therefore grieves
the Holy Spirit and violates the presence of the indwelling Christ.”
—Maxie Dunham, Alive in Christ, Abingdon,
155.
November 27, 2011
A Prayer for the End of the Day
Eternal God, in whom mercy is endless and the
treasury of compassion inexhaustible, look kindly upon us and
increase your mercy in us, that in difficult moments we might not
despair, nor become despondent, but with great confidence submit
ourselves to your holy will, which is love and mercy itself.
November 26, 2011
“When the gospel is diminished to . . . whether or not a person will
‘get into heaven,’ that reduces the good news to a ticket, a way to
get past the bouncer at the club. The good news is better than
that.”
— Rob Bell, Love Wins, 178
November 25, 2011
Give Us Wings
Church Father, Macarius the Egyptian, notes that a
Christian may see a dove flying and wish that he or she could fly—at
least in the spiritual sense “Just so, a man may be willing to be
pure and without blame . . . but he has not the wherewithal to
compass it . . . unless he receive wings. Let us therefore, beseech
God that He give us wings.”
November 24, 2011
“God is pleased with no music below
so much as with the thanksgiving songs of relieved widows and
supported orphans; of rejoicing, comforted, and thankful persons.”
—Jeremy Taylor
November 23, 2011
Telling the Truth
Lying to myself is denial.
Lying to others is dishonesty.
Lying to God is foolishness!
—Judith Schwanz, chapter 13, The Hunger of Your
Heart, (Beacon Hill Press/ Partnership Press) 138.
November 22, 2011
DANCE STEP
Be kinder than necessary,
for everyone you meet is
fighting some kind of battle.
Live simply,
Love generously,
Care deeply,
Speak kindly.......
Leave the rest to God
Life isn't about waiting for the
storm to pass...
It's about learning to dance in the
rain.
—Anonymous
November 21, 2011
“Those friends thou hast . . .
Grapple them to thy soul with hoops
of steel.”
—Shakespeare, Hamlet, Act 1, Scene 3
November 20, 2011
My life must be Christ’s broken bread,
My love, His outpoured wine;
A cup o’erfilled, a table spread
Beneath His name and sign,
That other souls refreshed and fed,
May share His life through mine.
—Albert Orsborn, War Cry.( the Salvation Army
magazine)
November 19, 2011
“If you have forgiven yourself for being imperfect .
. . you can now do it for just about everybody else. If you have
not done it for yourself, I am afraid you will likely pass on
your sadness, absurdity, judgment, and futility to others.”
— Richard Rohr, Falling Upward, 114.
November 17, 2011
“When I
think of those who have influenced my life the most, I think not of
the great, but the good.”
—John Knox
November 16, 2011
“Many have heard the gospel framed in terms of rescue. God has to
punish sinners because God is holy, but Jesus paid the price for our
sin . . . . What [that] can do is subtly teach people that Jesus
rescues us from God.”
— Rob Bell, Love Wins, 182
November 15, 2011
Heart Trouble
“In solitude we realize that nothing human is alien
to us, that the roots of all conflict, war, injustice, cruelty,
hatred, jealousy, and envy are deeply anchored in our own heart.”
Henri Nouwen, The Way of the Heart, 34.
November 14, 2011
“Earth’s crammed with heaven,
And every common bush afire with God;
But only he who sees takes off his shoes—
The rest sit round and pluck blackberries.”
—Elizabeth Barrett Browning
November 13, 2011
“ The spiritual life grows as love finds its center
beyond ourselves. . . . .The more we give of self, the richer we
become in soul; the more we go beyond ourselves in love, the more we
become our true selves . . . . In marriage we are seeking to bring
one another into fuller life.”
from the wedding sermon of Richard Chartes, Anglican Bishop of London, at the wedding of Prince William and Catherine Middleton.
from the wedding sermon of Richard Chartes, Anglican Bishop of London, at the wedding of Prince William and Catherine Middleton.
November 12, 2011
“It is not that suffering or failure might happen, or that it
will only happen if you are bad . . . . or that it will happen to
the unfortunate . . . or that you can somehow by cleverness and
righteousness avoid it. No, it will happen to you! Losing,
failing, falling, sin, and the suffering that comes from those
experiences—all of this is a necessary and even a good part of the
human journey.”
Richard Rohr, Falling Forward: A Spirituality for the Two Halves
of Life, Jossey-Bass, 2011, xx.
November 11, 2011
Wound Identified
“It has been acceptable . . . to remain ‘wound
identified’ (that is, using one’s victimhood as one’s identity,
one’s ticket to sympathy, and one’s excuse for not serving), instead
of using the wound to ‘redeem the world,’ as we see in Jesus and
many people who turn their wounds into sacred wounds that liberate
both themselves and others.”
—Richard Rohr, Falling Forward: A Spirituality for
the Two Halves of Life, Jossey-Bass, 2011, 34.
November 10, 2011
“Blessed and all-redeeming blood . .
. .
Bathe our polluted souls in thy clear
streams and purge away all our foul iniquities
Cleanse us, O merciful Lord, from our
secret faults and from those sins that most abuse us.
Wash off the stains our malice has
caused in others and those our weakness has received from them . . .
. . . . .
Pardon O gracious Jesus, what we have
been; with all thy holy discipline correct what we are
Order by thy providence what we shall
be, and in the end crown thine own gifts.”
—Frederick Gill, The Prayers of
John Wesley, 103
November 9, 2011
Scorn Not Godly Wisdom :
Wretched are those who scorn wisdom and discipline:
their hope is void,
their toil unavailing,
their achievements unprofitable,
their wives are reckless,
their children depraved,
their descendants accursed.
—Wisdom 3:10-12, Jerusalem
Bible
November 8, 2011
“I am like a little pencil in the hand of God. That
is all. He does the writing. The pencil has nothing to do with it.”
—Mother Teresa
November 7, 2011
“Offer to Him thy heart in a soft and tractable
state, and preserve the form in which the Creator has fashioned
thee, having moisture in thyself, lest, by becoming hardened, thou
lose the impressions of His fingers. . . . . His hand fashioned thy
substance; He will cover thee over [too] within and without with
pure gold and silver, and He will adorn thee to such a degree, that
even “the King Himself shall have pleasure in thy beauty.”
—(Irenaeus,Against
Heresies, Book IV. Chapter XXXIX. 2, about 180 A. D.).
November 6, 2011
Seven Deadly Social Sins:
1. Politics without principle.
2. Wealth without work.
3. Commerce without morality.
4. Pleasure without conscience.
5. Education without character.
6. Science without humanity.
7. Worship without sacrifice.
--Mahatma Gandhi
November 5, 2011
“Pleasures have the raw power to elbow their way out of their
intended order and to usurp the Giver who created them. . . . . An
ever increasing craving for an ever diminishing pleasure is the
devil’s formula. . . . The only protection is . . . to see every
natural gift and pleasure as a shaft of God’s glory, enjoying it
always in its proper place.”
— C. S. Lewis cited by Philip Yancey, What Good Is God? 2010,
p.109.
November 4, 2011
Fundamentalist movements distort the tradition they are trying to
defend by emphasizing the belligerent elements. . . . and
overlooking the insistent. . . . demand for compassion.”
—Karen
Armstrong, The Circular Staircase, Knof, 2004.
November 3, 2011
Travel Plans--Ethiopia
“I was surrounded by a quarter million starving people. The time I
had spent on deciding which clothes to take, what camera would work
best, even the time I had spent making decisions on the brands of
granola bars to pack, became embarrassing.”
—JoAnne Lyon, The Hunger of Your Heart, 144.
November 2, 2011
O God,
“give me modesty in my countenance,
composure in my behavior,
prudence in my speech, [and]
holiness in my actions.”
— From John Wesley’s
personal, handwritten, unpublished collection of prayers, John
Rylands Library, Manchester, England
November 1, 2011
“Totalitarian are the claims of Christ. There is a
degree of holy and complete obedience that is completely
breathtaking . . . Its joys are ravishing, its peace profound, its
humilty the deepest, its power world shaking, its love enveloping.”
Thomas Kelly, A Testament of Devotion,49,54.
October 31, 2011
Six
Questions
1. What do I need to “clear up” or
“let go of” in order to be peaceful?
2. What have I learned of truth and
how truthfully have I learned to live?
3. What have I learned of love and
how well have I learned to love?
4. What have I learned about
tenderness, vulnerability, intimacy and communion?
5. What have I learned about courage,
strength, power, and faith?
6. If I remembered that my breaths
are numbered what would be my relationship to this breath right now?
— Kathleen Dowling Singh, a hospice
worker. Cited in Healthy Aging, Andrew Weil, 229-230
October 30, 2011
RIDICULOUS WORLD
A prayer of Stanley Hauerwas in his book, “Prayers Plainly
Spoken”
“Holy One of Israel, who called Abraham and Sarah out of Ur, who
called us, your church, out of the nations, save us from
self-righteousness. You have made us different so that our
difference might save the world. But too often our differences tempt
us to ridicule because the world, after all, is ridiculous. Never
let us forget that we too are the world, and so also ridiculous.
Shape the judgments of our neighbors and our own foolish judgments
by your love, so that we might be together saved . . . Amen.”
Cited by John Hay, Grace Between the Lines
October 29, 2011
“Everything was so dark in my life
and God illuminated it. Do not forget it, O my heart! Do not forget
it.”
—Theodore Haecker
October 28, 2011
“The mark of an immature man is that he wants to die
nobly for a cause, while the mark of the mature man is that he wants
to live humbly for one.”
— quoted by J. D Salinger in
Catcher in the Rye
October 27, 2011
I PRAISE YOU FOR WHAT IS YET TO BE
Wondrous Worker of Wonders,
I praise you
not alone for what has been,
or for what is,
but for what is yet to be.
for you are gracious beyond all telling
of it.
— Ted Loder in Guerillas of Grace
(1984, Innisfree Press, Philadelphia, PA). Gleaned from John Hay’s
Grace Notes, 2007.
October 26, 2011
Lord,
I crawled
across the barrenness
to You
with an empty cup
uncertain
in asking
any small drop
of refreshment.
If only
I had known you better;
I’d have come
running
with a bucket.
—Nancy Spiegelberg
October 25, 2011
The Path Not Taken
“We have left no path of lawlessness or ruin
unexplored, . . . .
but the way of the Lord is one we have never
known.
Arrogance, what advantage has it brought us?
Wealth and boasting, what have these conferred on us?
All those things have passed like a shadow,
passed like a fleeting rumour.”
—Wisdom 5:7-9, Jerusalem
Bible
October 24, 2011
“Spirituality [can be] champagne for the ego. Cork
after cork pops as the ego guzzles enthusiastically while reading up
on what phase of the spiritual life it is in, what doorways of
prayer it has pranced through.”
—Martin Laird, A Sunlit Absence: Silence,
Awareness, and Contemplation, Oxford Univ. Press 2011
October 23, 2011
“The will of God will not take you where the grace of God cannot keep you.”
—Doris
Childers
October 22, 2011
“Drop thy still dews of quietness
Till all our strivings cease;
Take from our souls the strain and stress,
And let our ordered lives confess
The beauty of thy peace.”
—John Greenleaf Whittier, “Serenity” Methodist Hymnal
499
October 21, 2011
Know Thyself
“No one can know one’s heart except the
One who made it. Nothing can cure except convicting, justifying, and
sanctifying grace . . . . Without the help of grace, I remain a
mystery to myself. Only through the disclosure of God’s love can a
sinner know himself rightly.”
—Thomas Oden, John Wesley’s
Scriptural Christianity. 151.
October 20, 2011
Prayer Time
Forgive me for the things I have
done—
and not done.
Forgive me for the things I have
said
—and not said.
Forgive me for the life I have
lived
—and not lived.
That I might reflect the image of the one I profess to follow
in thought,
and word,
and deed,
and in discovering my true self
draw others into that light.
October 19, 2011
Your roses may have thorns, but don’t forget
Your thorns may have some roses, too.
The Lord of great compassion loves you yet
And He will never fail to see you through.
—Haldor Lillenas, 1925, “Your Roses May Have Thorns”
October 18, 2011
Thoughtful Christians
“Christ takes away our sins, not our
minds.”
—Very Rev. John Bakas, in “The Creed,” a
First Things film by Tim
Kelleher.
October 17, 2011
Martin Luther on Church Music
“Next to the Word of God music deserves the highest
praise . . . .
For whether you wish to comfort the sad, terrify the happy, encourage the despairing,
humble the proud, calm the passionate, or appease those full of hate . . .
what more effective means than music can you find? The Holy Ghost himself honors her as the instrument for His proper work . . .”
For whether you wish to comfort the sad, terrify the happy, encourage the despairing,
humble the proud, calm the passionate, or appease those full of hate . . .
what more effective means than music can you find? The Holy Ghost himself honors her as the instrument for His proper work . . .”
——cited by Carol Doran and Thomas Troeger,
Trouble at the Table: Gathering the Tribes for
Worship.
(Why
would one of Luther's critics declare that Luther
"has damned more
souls with his songs than with his preaching"? )
October 16, 2011
WORSHIP OF GOD
The tribes go up, the tribes of the Lord . . .
to give thanks to the name of the Lord . . .
For the sake of the house of the Lord,
I will seek your good. (Psalm 122:4,9).
“The praise of the Lord draws them beyond their parochial
allegiances and outshines all the excuses they might give for
confining themselves to their own tribal circle.”
—Carol Doran and Thomas Troeger, Trouble at the Table: Gathering
the Tribes for Worship, 39.
October 15, 2011
7. Beatitudes Updated to Suit our Culture:
“Happy (or blessed) are the pushers; for they get on in the world.
Happy are the hard-boiled; for they never let life hurt them
Happy are they who complain; for they get their own way in the end.
Happy are the blase; for they never worry over their sins.
Happy are the slave-drivers; for they get results.
Happy are the knowledgeable men of the world; they know their way
around.
Happy are the troublemakers, for they make people notice them.”
— J. B. Phillips, cited by Demaray in The Hunger of Your Heart,
21.
October 14, 2011
6. Blessed are the peacemakers:
“First, keep peace within yourself, then you can bring peace to
others.”
—Thomas a Kempis, The Imitation of Christ.
October 13, 2011
5. Blessed are the pure in heart:
Almighty God . . . .
Cleanse the thoughts of our hearts,
By the inspiration of Thy Holy Spirit,
That we may perfectly love Thee,
And worthily magnify Thy holy name.
Through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
—Book of Common Prayer, the Collect for the Communion Service
October 12, 2011
4. Blessed are the merciful:
“An ideal [like mercy]is not yours until it comes out of your finger
tips.”
—Florence Allshorn, cited by Janet Oke in The Hunger of Your
Heart, 63.
October 11, 2011
3. Blessed are those who hunger and thirst after righteousness:
“Our heart is eagerly athirst for all the great and precious
promises . . .
all that is in thee is athirst for God, longing to wake up after His likeness . . . .
Let me not live, but to be holy as Thou art.”
all that is in thee is athirst for God, longing to wake up after His likeness . . . .
Let me not live, but to be holy as Thou art.”
—John Wesley, “Our Lord’s Sermon on the Mount,”
October 10, 2011
2.Blessed are the Meek:
The Meekest Men
Jesus: “I am meek and lowly of heart”( Matt 11:29)
Moses: Now the man Moses was very meek, above all men” (Num. 12:3)
In Heaven: “The redeemed have made it home. Before a ‘sea of glass
mingled with fire’(Rev 15:2), the redeemed, as an eternal choir,
lift an anthem of praise. Guess what they are singing—’They sing the
song of Moses . . . and the song of the Lamb”(Rev. 15:3) Would you
believe it? — the song of the meekest men in the Bible.”
—Henry Gariepy, in chapter 3, The Hunger of Your Heart, p. 41
October 9, 2011
1. Blessed are the poor in spirit:
John Wesley described the poor in spirit as one who “sees himself as
utterly helpless with regard to atoning for his past sins; utterly
unable to make any amends to God, to pay any ransom for his own soul
. . . . He knows not how to get one step forward. . . .Encompassed
with sin and sorrow and fear . . . he can only cry out ‘Lord, save
or I perish.’”
— “Our Lord’s Sermon on the Mount,” Cited by Donald Demaray in
The Hunger of Your Heart, W. Tracy ed., Partnership Press/Beacon
Hill Press, 1997, 20.
Scorn Not Godly Wisdom
Wretched are those who scorn wisdom
and discipline:
their hope is void,
their toil unavailing,
their achievements unprofitable,
their wives are reckless,
their children depraved,
their descendants accursed.
—Wisdom 3:10-12,
Jerusalem Bible
October 8, 2011
“Hell is not an ‘oops’ or a slip. One does not miss heaven by a
hair, but by constant effort to avoid and escape God. ‘Outer
darkness’ is for one who, everything said, wants it, whose entire
orientation has slowly and firmly set itself against God and
therefore against how the universe really is.”
—Dallas Willard, Renovation of the Heart, 59
“I am like a little pencil in the hand of God. That
is all. He does the writing. The pencil has nothing to do with it.”
—Mother Teresa
October 7, 2011
I’m nobody! Who are you?
Are you nobody, too?
Then there’s a pair of us--don’t tell!
They’d banish us you know.
How dreary to be somebody!
How public like a frog
To tell your name the livelong day
To an admiring bog!
—Emily Dickinson, Poem XXVII
“Offer to Him thy heart in a soft and tractable
state, and preserve the form in which the Creator has fashioned
thee, having moisture in thyself, lest, by becoming hardened, thou
lose the impressions of His fingers. . . . . His hand fashioned thy
substance; He will cover thee over [too] within and without with
pure gold and silver, and He will adorn thee to such a degree, that
even “the King Himself shall have pleasure in thy beauty.”
—(Irenaeus,Against
Heresies, Book IV. Chapter XXXIX. 2, about 180 A. D.).
October 6, 2011
“The whole
of Creation, is some dance God is doing, and we’re meant to step
into it.”
—Sue Monk Kidd, The Mermaid
Chair, 153
October 5, 2011
LIKE A BEACH BALL
“In the middle of that service—during the song, “Here
I Am, Lord”— I had sort of a lightning bolt moment. I felt God
calling me into ministry loud and clear. I just stood there with
tears streaming down my face, because ministry was the last thing I
wanted to do. . . . [I had prayed] steadily for God’s will for my
life. Like a beach ball held under water, the call to ministry kept
bouncing right back up in front of me.”
—Kevin J. Long, Presbyterian pastor, Christian
Century, Oct. 4, 2011, 31
October 4, 2011
“Let us, with a gladsome mind,
praise the Lord for he is kind;
for his mercies shall endure,
ever faithful, ever sure.”
—John Milton, 1623 ( a paraphrase of
Psalm 136:1)
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