| For your
Reflection: "There is only one problem on which all my existence, my peace, and my happiness depend: to discover myself in discovering God. If I find God I will find myself and if I find my true self I will find God."- Thomas Merton "Our lives are of great worth if we accept with good grace the situation Providence places us in, and go on living lovingly. " ~ Takashi Nagai “To live, we must daily break, the bread and shed the blood of creation. The point is, when we do this knowingly, lovingly, skillfully, reverently, it is a sacrament; when we do it ignorantly, greedily, clumsily, destructively, it is a desecration… in such desecration, we condemn ourselves to spiritual and moral loneliness and others to want.” -Wendell Berry Love alone is capable of uniting living beings in such a way as to complete and fulfill them, for it alone takes them and joins them by what is deepest in themselves. -Pierre Teilhard de Chardin A day spent without the sight or sound of beauty, the contemplation of mystery, or the search of truth or perfection is a poverty-stricken day; and a succession of such days is fatal to human life. -Lewis Mumford Even a small thing can be not small to the great; but to the small, even great things are not altogether perfect.” - John Climacus “If we fear being seen as foolish we shall never attain the wisdom of Christ” - Paul of Tarsus For the quality of holiness is shown not by what we say but by what we do in life. - Gregory of Nyssa “The grace or love of God, whence cometh our salvation, is free in all, and free for all…” –John Wesley The greatest and sublimest power is often simple patience. -Mary Harris It is not necessary for all to be great in action. The greatest and sublimest power is often simple patience. ─ Horace Buchnell “I will not make you such rich ones as have need of many things, but I will make you truly rich who have need of nothing. Since it is not the one who has many possessions that is rich, but he who has no needs.” ─ Philoxenos, Bishop of Mabbug 6th Century “The more a tree is like itself, the more it is like God. Trees have no problem, with us it is different. Therefore the problem of sanctity and salvation is in fact the problem of finding out who I am and of discovering my true self.” – Thomas Merton "The means by which we live have outdistanced the ends for which we live. Our scientific power has outrun our spiritual power. We have guided missiles and a misguided humanity.” – Martin Luther King, Jr. When the midnight occupied the porches of the Poet's reason Sweeter than any bird He heard the Holy Child. –Thomas Merton "A Friend may well be reckoned the masterpiece of Nature." - Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803 - 1882) “Joy is the Simplest form of Gratitude.” - Karl Barth “Peace demands the most heroic labour and the most difficult sacrifice. It demands greater heroism than war. It demands greater fidelity to the truth and a much more perfect purity of conscience.” -Thomas Merton “Life is a constant Advent season: we are continually waiting to become, to discover, to complete, to fulfill. Hope, struggle, fear, expectation and fulfillment are all part of our Advent experience.” - Jay Cormier “Religion without humanity is poor human stuff.” - Sojourner Truth “The life I touch for good or ill will touch another life, and that in turn another, until who knows where the trembling stops or in what far place my touch will be felt.” – Frederick Buechner “Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.” -- Martin Luther King, Jr. “To execute a human being for difference in doctrine is not to defend the truth but is simply murder.” Miguel Servet “Being religious means asking passionately the question of the meaning of our existence and being willing to receive answers, even if the answers hurt.”- Paul Tillich “…religion touches the consciences of people which can in no way be subjected to violence, it should not be rendered secure or be defended by means of any armed force.” -Theodore Beza “If the only prayer you said in your whole life was, "thank you," that would suffice.” -Meister Eckhart “Start by doing what's necessary; then do what's possible; and suddenly you are doing the impossible.” -St. Francis of Assisi. “And the world cannot be discovered by a journey of miles, no matter how long, but only by a spiritual journey, a journey of one inch, very arduous and humbling and joyful, by which we arrive at the ground at our feet, and learn to be at home.” -Wendell Berry, Poet and Farmer "There is the Music of Heaven in all things and we have forgotten how to hear it until we sing." -Hildegard of Bingen "By having a reverence for life, we enter into a spiritual relation with the world. By practicing reverence for life we become good, deep, and alive."-Albert Schweitzer "All that is true, by whomsoever it has been said, has its origin in the Spirit." --Thomas Aquinas. “It is in the ordinary duties and labours of life that the Christian can and should develop a spiritual union with God”.-Thomas Merton "To see a world in a grain of sand And heaven in a wild flower Hold infinity in the palm of your hand And eternity in an hour." --William Blake “Before God we are all equally wise – and equally foolish.” Albert Einstein, whose theories in part gave rise to the research that led to the making of nuclear weaponry. “It is a terrible thing to see and have no vision.” –Helen Keller “Expect Great Things from God; Attempt Great things for God.” - William Carey “It takes a Village to raise a child.”- African Proverb. “Nothing that is worth doing can be achieved in a lifetime; therefore we must be saved by hope in the Life of the Spirit.” -Reinhold Niebuhr “I need to be practically reminded that Love is the Religion of Life.” -Julia Warde Howe “Human beings are fundamentally good. The aberration, in fact, is the evil one, for God created us ultimately for God, for goodness, for laughter, for joy, for compassion, for caring.”-Desmond Tutu “Lose yourself wholly; and the more you lose, the more you will find.” – Catherine of Siena "I stand against all learning, all institutions, all governments, all arts, all religions, which reject love. I protest against every so-called church which preaches faith and fails to love. I oppose the politicians who rely on force and know nothing about love. If I have to be arrested for saying this, let me be handcuffed, for I had rather die quickly by the sword than die of thirst in a loveless desert." -Toyohiko Kagawa “Whatever else we might say about it, Easter carries the message that life can emerge from death. The assurance that hope can be squeezed out of despair. The good news that joy will rise up again like the morning sun over the horizon of our sorrow." -Rev. Rob Hardies "O Holy Fool, you come armed only with truth and compassion to face the tyrants of this world. Dare we follow after?" D. Bogert-O’Brien. "You can tell the people that if they succeed in killing me, that I forgive and bless those who do it. Hopefully, they will realize they are wasting their time. A bishop will die, but the church of God, which is the people, will never perish." OSCAR ROMERO, two days before his murder. “I am imperfect in many things, nevertheless I want my brethren and kinsfolk to know my nature so that they may be able to perceive my soul’s desire.” PATRICK OF IRELAND “I freed a thousand slaves I could have freed a thousand more if only they knew they were slaves.” Harriet Tubman First they came for the Communists, and I didn’t speak up, because I wasn’t a Communist. Then they came for the Jews, and I didn’t speak up, because I wasn’t a Jew. Then they came for the Catholics, and I didn’t speak up, because I was a Protestant. Then they came for me, and by that time there was no one left to speak up for me. Rev. Martin Niemöller, 1946 “Simplicity is the nature of great souls” Papa Ramadas “The greater danger for most of us lies not in setting our aim too high and falling short; but in setting our aim too low, and achieving our mark.” Michelangelo “As you simplify your life, the laws of the universe will be simpler; solitude will not be solitude, poverty will not be poverty, nor weakness weakness. Henry David Thoreau If spirituality isn’t concrete and a part of every aspect of daily life, it isn’t worth more than a good idea. If it doesn’t get you beyond your preoccupation with self, it isn’t really spirituality, it is an illusion. Thomas Moore, “The Quest” “Hate is too great a burden to bear. It injures the hater more than it injures the hated.” Coretta Scott King “The problem to be faced is: how to combine loyalty to one's own tradition with reverence for different traditions.” Abraham Joshua Heschel “In the school of the Spirit [we] learn wisdom through humility, knowledge by forgetting, how to speak by silence, how to live by dying.” Johannes Tauler (1300-1361) “Gratitude bestows reverence, allowing us to encounter everyday epiphanies, those transcendent moments of awe that change forever how we experience life and the world.” John Milton (1608-1674) " You shall have joy, or you shall have the illusions of power, said God; you shall not have both." Emerson "Peace demands the most heroic labor and the most difficult sacrifice. It demands greater heroism than war. It demands greater fidelity to the truth and a much more perfect purity of conscience. " Thomas Merton “We must accept finite disappointment, but we must never lose infinite hope.”Dr. Martin Luther King “By what right have we cataloged persons as first-class persons or second-class persons? In the theology of human nature there is only one class: children of God”. Archbishop Oscar Romero, Killed by a Death Squad sniper on March 24, 1980, moments after giving a homily in his Cathedral. “If anyone will exclude any of God's creation from the shelter of compassion and pity, they will deal likewise with their fellow human beings.” Francis of Assisi “Peace cannot be achieved through violence, it can only be attained through understanding.” Ralph Waldo Emerson “To the Christian love is the works of love. Christ's love was not an inner feeling, a full heart and ‘what not’, it was the work of love which was his life.” - Soren Kierkegaard “God writes the gospel not in the Bible alone, but on trees, and flowers, and clouds, and stars.” – Martin Luther "We plant seeds that will flower as results in our lives, so best to remove the weeds of hatred that peace and abundance may manifest for all.” Dorothy
Day
“For every minute you remain angry, you give up sixty seconds of peace of mind.” Ralph
Waldo Emerson
It is possible to become discouraged about the injustice we see everywhere. But God did not promise us that the world would be humane and just. He gives us the gift of life and allows us to choose the way we will use our limited time on earth. It is an awesome opportunity." Cesar Chavez "Thanksgiving... is the possibility of renewing human respect for the Earth, and all the good, useful and beautiful things that come from it... I don't think this respect can be adequately enacted or conveyed by tipping our hats to nature, or by representing natural loveliness in art, or by prayers of thanksgiving, or by preserving tracts of wilderness- although I recommend all these things... The thanksgiving I mean can be given only by using well the world's goods that are given to us." Wendell Berry. “Despair is the too-little of responsibility, as pride is the too-much. God’s good work finds the way between pride and despair.” Wendell Berry. “The mystery of God hugs you in its all- encompassing arms.” Hildegard of Bingen “One of the easiest pitfalls of the prophet is to takea stand against something that is clearly wrong and then move on to victimize those one blames. Divine justice requires Divine compassion and humility.” Paul John Nuechterlein. “Our freedom is a freedom given by and for the Other.”--Brent Dean, clinical psychologist “Humanity can be attracted but not forced to faith. You may drive people to baptism, (but) you won't move them one step further in faith.” -Alcuin of Tours “When your life is the true expression of your faith, whom can you fear?” -Julia Ward Howe “God, therefore, seeing that human beings are so ready to love, throws the book of love straight at them. . . .” -Catherine of Siena “Love is creation raised to a higher degree” -Toyohiko Kagawa “There are two ways to live: you can live as if nothing is a miracle; or you can live as if everything is a miracle.”- Albert Einstein “O Holy Fool, you come armed only with truth and compassion to face the tyrants of this world. Dare we follow after?”- D. Bogert-O’Brien “The old law may shame us, and the old law may restrain us, and the old law may blame us, but it cannot change us. Only love can do that.” — Paul J. Nuechterlein “There are only two ways of spreading light- to be the candle or the mirror that reflects it.” And Jesus said, “I will not make you rich as to have need of many things, but I will make you one of the truly rich who have need of nothing. Since it is not the one who has many possessions that is rich, but the one who has no needs.”— Philoxenos, Desert Father “Africans experience God – Nana – as the good parent, the grandparent. Some say he is father: others say she is mother. But the sentiment is the same: Nana is the source of loving-kindness and protection.”— Mercy Amba Oduyoye, (Ghananian Methodist Theologian) “My soul can find no staircase to Heaven unless it be through Earth's loveliness. —Michelangelo “God works at the heart of every activity.”…Thomas Aquinas “God does not want us to do extraordinary things; he wants us to do ordinary things extraordinarily well.” …Bishop Gore “I do not want to foresee the future. I am concerned with taking care of the present. God has given me no control over the moment following.” …Mohandas Gandhi “Individuality is only possible if it unfolds from wholeness.”…Dr. David Bohm, physicist “I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word in reality. That is why right, temporarily defeated, is stronger than evil triumphant.” - Martin Luther King, Jr., Accepting Nobel Peace Prize, Dec. 10, 1964 “Do not seek to follow in the footsteps of those Wise Ones of old; instead seek what they sought.” - Basho. “Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.”- Martin Luther King Jr. “Joy is a net of love by which you can catch souls.”- Mother Teresa “There can be no vulnerability without risk; there can be no community without vulnerability; there can be no peace, and ultimately no life, without community.” - M. Scott Peck “ Christ presence is the peace found in community with all creation.”- D. Bogert-O’Brien “In Advent we celebrate the coming and indeed the presence of Christ in the world. We witness to His presence even in the midst of all the inscrutable problems and tragedies. Our Advent faith is not an escape from the world but a way of seeing all the problems in the world as part of God’s adventure with us.”-- Thomas Merton, A Meditation on Advent “But Jesus, who in this Vision informed me of all that is needful to me, answered by this word and said, Sin is behovable (unavoidable), but all shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of things shall be well.” -- Julian of Norwich. “Before one knows the meaning of what happens, one must be able to see what is actually happening. Most of us do not even do that—we trust the media and others to tell us. To know what is actually happening we must first come to know our own selves and then to use the eye of love to see the world.” --Thomas Merton, 1958 __________________________________________________________________ We are not embarrassed to urge people to go to a doctor when we think they need to, because we feel we are giving advice that is in their best interests. Why, then, should we hesitate to invite people to visit our worship services? What is more in anyone’s best interests than a closer relationship to God! |
