Fear
Look beneath your fear and you will discover what it is you really care about. What you wish to protect: people, places, things, hopes, dreams. Aggression, shame, and disconnection—even as attempts at making a better life for me or a better world for all of us—don’t work. But as we expand our circle of caring to include all people, all places, all of creation, we discover that our fears are shared and that all our cares come from the same place. Come to understand your fear, and you may find that we’re all just trying to figure out how to love.
Gareth Higgins
If you don’t think you can learn from people who are wrong, you’ll have a hard time understanding why other people are right. Jonah Goldberg
The Gospel
The Gospel contains the seed of transformation that lead to solutions, but the seeds are too often killed by planting them in the ground of political gain and culture wars.
When the day comes when we desire transformation by the Gospel through the Spirit…then we may change the world. Phoenix Preacher
Going Home
I think most of you probably noticed the words “going home” on the inside of the casket lid.
It is somewhat ironic that I recently read a quote attributed to a dying character on a TV show in which he described what he thought dying is like.
“… death is like when you’re a child and you get sick and feverish. You go to bed at night sweating, shivering, feeling wretched enough to die. The next morning you awake, your fever is broken, and you are feeling much better. You feel secure, snug, and strong – and suddenly you realize why. You’re now in your parents’ bed. In the middle of the night some one came to get you to take you home.”
Those words could take our thoughts in several directions, but what I want you to understand is that my experiences with my Uncle Bill and Aunt Imogene … coming to their house, being a part of their lives; even though less seldom than I had hoped, always made me feel secure, snug, and strong. It was like awaking in the warmth and comfort of your parent’s bed.
From my Uncle Bill Page’s eulogy 2006
TODAY
Today, I will be incompetent. (I can do nothing alone, but only through God)
Today, I will be present to those in front of me, and to Go(To REALLY listen to people, giving them full attention, and not missing out on anything in my presence. Also, that I may spend the entire day in the presence of God, listening to everything He is trying to say)
Today, I will be the Christ.(Being Jesus to all those around me)
Today, I will see the Christ (Seeing Jesus in those around me, especially the pestilence. Recognizing that everyone is a son/daughter of God changes my perspective of them as a whole!)
Randy Harris 2006
Servant
Mar. 1st, 2006 | 05:47 am
I was challenged by a recent sermon which pointed out that many Christians are mostly about doing service when in fact they are called to be servants. It is good to do service but we can do service without being servants. In just doing service we maintain control. When we are servants we relinquish all control to our master. Jesus has called us to leave everything and follow him.
I believe that I must first become a servant and follow Jesus and he will lead me in whatever service is to be rendered. My focus has been to figure out what service I need to do more than surrendering to the lead of Jesus.
Self-sufficient people
All self-sufficient people remain outsiders to the mystery of divine love because they will always misuse it. Only the need of a beloved knows how to receive the need and gift of the lover, and only the need of a lover knows how to receive the need and gift of the beloved without misusing such love. It is a kind of deliberate “poverty” on both sides. A mutually admitted emptiness is the ultimate safety net for love.
Richard Rohr
Real Church
“One of our great allies at present is the Church itself. Do not misunderstand me. I do not mean the Church as we see her spread out through all time and space and rooted in eternity, terrible as an army with banners. That, I confess, is a spectacle which makes even our boldest tempters uneasy. But fortunately it is quite invisible to these humans.”
Screwtape Letters
Enchantment (transcendence)
…the doggedly faithful will share stories about burning bush moments in their lives when they bumped into God, encountered a Love and Mystery beyond words and descriptions. These “strange sights” are not flights of fantasy or wishful thinking. They are the most reality-filled moments of our lives, the truest things we have ever experienced. These mystical encounters, as rare as they may be, are the foundations of faith.
Enchantment hasn’t been the supernatural vision but the surprising rush of joy and love—enjoying the gift of a sunrise, bearing witness to a small act of kindness, watching the breeze dancing in the branches of a tree, or seeing the person standing right in front you shining like the sun.
(unknown)
Pain of grief
Unlike people who tried to soothe my pain, part of the comfort God offered me was to never flinch or look away. God saw my pain and knew not to try to make me feel better, but to sit with me in the endless ache. God knows the only thing that can slightly lessen the pain of death is for it to be seen and known. So Jesus wept. And God does not forget, even for an instant, the stories of every single person who is gone.
Hannah Mitchell
Saved by grace
Sadly, much of Christianity has created an “extrinsic” view of our relationship with God and the path of salvation. In this, God is seen as exterior to our life, our relationship with Him being analogous to the individualized contractual relationships of modern culture. As such the Christian relationship with God is reduced to psychology and morality.
It is reduced to psychology in that the concern is shifted to God’s “attitude” towards us. The psychologized atonement concerns itself with God’s wrath. It is reduced to morality in that our behavior is no more than our private efforts to conform to an external set of rules and norms. We are considered “good” or “bad” based on our performance, but without regard to the nature of that performance. St. Paul says that “whatsoever is not of faith is sin.” Only our lives-lived-in-union-with-Christ have the nature of true salvation, true humanity. This is the proper meaning of being “saved by grace.”
Fr Stephen Freeman
STILL ON THE JOURNEY
Best cartoon ever! ?