Politics & Religion
Tony Campolo, always ready to offer a one-liner: “Putting religion and politics together is like mixing ice cream with horse manure. It doesn’t hurt the horse manure; it ruins the ice cream.”
Church
When the church becomes preoccupied with defending itself to the world, it eventually becomes incoherent. The only way to be a church is to speak the peculiar language of peace, of forgiveness, of repentance and resurrection.
christianitytoday
Piety
Sometimes I observe people so diligently trying to orchestrate whatever state of prayer they’re in that they become peevish about it. They don’t dare to move or let their minds be stirred for fear of jeopardizing the slightest degree of devotion or delight. It makes me realize how little they understand of the path to union. They think the whole thing is about rapture.
But no, friends, no! What the Beloved wants from us is action. What he wants is that if one of your friends is sick, you take care of her. Don’t worry about interrupting your devotional practice. Have compassion. If she is in pain, you feel it, too. If necessary, you fast so that she can eat. This is not a matter of indulging an individual, you do it because you know it is your Beloved’s desire. This is true union with his will. What he wants is for you to be much happier hearing someone else praised than you would be to receive a compliment yourself. If you have humility, this is easy. It is a great thing to be glad when your friends’ virtues are celebrated.
Teresa of Ávila, The Interior Castle
Others
What you hate in others is usually what you hate most in yourself. The people who drive you crazy do so because they reflect back at you the worst aspects of yourself that you have either tried to deny or overcome.
Mark Manson
Ambush
I wonder if the only way that conversion, enlightenment, and transformation ever happen is by a kind of divine ambush. We have to be caught off guard. As long as we are in control, we are going to keep trying to steer the ship by our previous experience of being in charge. The only way we will let ourselves be ambushed is by trusting the “Ambusher,” and learning to trust that the darkness of intimacy will lead to depth, safety, freedom, and love.
Richard Rohr
Duty
Duty does not have to be dull. Love can make it beautiful and fill it with life. As long as we show lines of division between duty and pleasure in the world of the spirit, we will remain far from God and from His joy.
ThomasMerton
Death rate & Conversation
In perhaps the most revealing of all the health-related studies, a group of subjects who had contracted malignant melanoma received traditional treatment and then were divided into two groups. One group met weekly for only six weeks; the other did not. Facilitators taught the first group of recovering patients specific communication skills. After meeting only six times and then dispersing for five years, the subjects who learned how to express themselves effectively had a higher survival rate—only 9 percent succumbed as opposed to almost 30 percent in the untrained group.3 Think about the implications of this study. Just a modest improvement in the ability to talk and connect with others corresponded to a two-thirds decrease in the death rate. This study is just one sample of how the way you talk or don’t talk can dramatically affect your health. Mountains of research suggest that the negative feelings we hold in and the emotional pain we suffer as we stumble our way through unhealthy conversations slowly eat away at our health. In some cases, the impact of failed conversations leads to minor problems. In others, it results in disaster. In all cases, failed conversations never make us happier, healthier, or better off.
Crucial Conversations
Virtue
In “The Sovereignty of Good,” the novelist and philosopher Iris Murdoch writes that “virtue is the attempt to pierce the veil of selfish consciousness and join the world as it really is.”
Community and Intimacy with God
Dietrich Bonhoeffer—in his book on community, Life Together, suggested that sometimes the psychological energy from being with a group of people can displace true trust in God for many. He suggested that we must learn to be alone with God, which is different from loneliness, for us to become whole and to not confuse the energies of friendship and community with intimacy with God.
From fame to honor
The remedy for shame is not becoming famous. It is not even being affirmed. It is being incorporated into a community with new, different, and better standards for honor. It’s a community where weakness is not excluded but valued; where honor-seeking and “boasting” of all kinds are repudiated; where servants are raised up to sit at the table with those they once served; where even the ultimate dishonor of the cross is transformed into glory, the ultimate participation in honor. To use the powerful biblical metaphor, the gospel offers adoption—a new status as “sons,” to use the intentionally gendered, high-status word of Romans 8—to both men and women, now members of the family of the firstborn Son.
Andy Crouch
ABSOLUTE TRUTH
In full disclosure, I believe there is absolute truth. I know some will breath a sigh of relief and a few will wince.
The subject of absolute truth is a trigger in post-modern culture. The following quote helps frame the issue:
Whatever happened to the truth?! In our world, the idea of ultimate truth — something that is true at all times in all places and has relevance for our lives — is about as extinct as the dinosaur. In fact, nearly three out of four Americans say there is no such thing as ultimate, or absolute, truth. And the numbers don’t look much better among those who claim to follow Jesus.
https://www.focusonthefamily.com/church/absolute-truth/
In a society where ultimate truth is treated like a fairy tale, an outdated idea or even an insult to human intelligence, the motto of the day becomes, “WHATEVER!” Believe whatever you want. Do whatever seems best to you. Live for whatever brings you pleasure, as long as it doesn’t hurt anyone. And of course, be tolerant. Don’t try to tell anyone that their whatever is wrong.
Ironically, everyone believes in Absolute truth.
When someone says, “There is no such thing as absolute truth,” that person is actually making a statement that he or she believes to be absolutely true. Contradictory, isn’t it?
Christianity has come to be defined largely its commitment to culture wars, battling assaults on absolute truth. The opposition’s absolute belief that there is no absolute truth is a Maginot Line. This is a frightening proposition. When one believes they possess absolute truth, any action can be justified to protect truth. Therein lies the basis for concluding that absolute truth is a root cause of division. Logic will not permit any compromise. If A is absolutely true, then B is absolutely false. The conflict has evolved into trench warfare
Mutually assured destruction is not imminent, Christianity has adopted the secular ethos of “whatever”. It’s a lot easier to to declare …”whatever, believe whatever you want”… especially since their ultimate reward is eternal hell. “Whatever” is not a solution, it it is a diversion, it is the political equivalent of “love the sinner, hate the sin”. The truth is, when either side’s absolute truth is threatened they will be a fight to the death. Truth matters and is worth fighting for.
Mutually assured destruction may not be imminent for our society, but it is a present reality for families and churches. On a personal level, absolute truth is nitroglycerin, mishandle it and family, friends, spiritual bonds can be destroyed.
The challenge for me, a believer in absolute truth, is how to properly handle Absolute Truth.
STILL ON THE JOURNEY