Contemplative Mind

"The contemplative mind does not need to prove anything or disprove anything. It’s what the Benedictines called a Lectio Divina, a reading of the Scripture that looks for wisdom instead of quick answers. It first says, “What does this text ask of me? How can I change because of this story?” And not “How can I use this to prove that I am right and others are wrong or sinful?”

The contemplative mind is willing to hear from a beginner’s mind, yet also learn from Scripture, Tradition—and others. It has the humility to move toward Yes/And thinking and not all-or-nothing thinking. It leads to a “Third Way,” which is neither fight nor flight, but standing in between—where I can hold what I do know together with what I don’t know. Holding such a creative tension with humility and patience leads us to wisdom instead of easy answers which largely create opinionated and smug people instead of wise people. We surely need wise people now, who hold their truth humbly and patiently. - Richard Rohr

Only Two

"There are only two movements. One is cruelty and the other is kindness." -Thomas Cahill

Definition of Love

“Love is the ability and willingness to allow those that you care for to be what they choose for themselves without any insistence that they satisfy you.” ~ Dr. Wayne Dyer

Make the Ordinary Come Alive

Measure of our Spiritual State

"Our spiritual state will ultimately be reflected in the state of our communities and our world." --Ravi Zacharias

More Bullets

“If your rights depend on your possession of a firearm, then your rights end when you meet somebody with more bullets or who's a better shot or is meaner than you are.” -Richard Slotkin

Enthusiasm

There is nothing wrong with loving the crap out of everything. Negative people find their walls. So never apologize for your enthusiasm. Never. Ever. Never.

Ryan Adams

Fault

Mandela

"The primary significance of Mandela and King was not their willingness to lock arms or hold hands with their enemies. It was their unshakable resolve to do whatever was necessary to bring those enemies to their knees." -- Bob Herbert.

What if---

It would be no less miraculous if God used evolution to create us than if he zapped us in in a day. It's all a matter of our finite perspective of time when God is timeless. If God took 100 million years to whip us up using evolution it might seem like a day to God. Wait, doesn't the Bible say something like that? 1000 years being like a day?

What You Want

The chief cause of failure and unhappiness is trading what you want
the most for what you want now. -Zig Ziglar 

Prison

Raleigh Clough

When one door closes and another door opens you might just be in prison.

Judge

We can never judge the life of others, because each person knows only their own pain and renunciation. It’s one thing to feel that you are on the right path, but it’s another to think that yours is the only path. ~ Paulo Coelho

Grateful

If you cannot be grateful for what you have received, then, be grateful for what you have been spared. Yiddish Proverb. 

You

If the "you" of five years ago doesn't consider the "you" of today a heretic, you are not growing spiritually.
- Thomas Merton

Seeing

Thoreau quote: "Could a greater miracle take place than for us to look through each other's eyes for an instant?"

Going Home

Truth

The truth that makes men free is for the most part the truth which men prefer not to hear.
- Herbert Agar

Black and White

People are drawn to black and white opinions because they are simple, not because they are true. Truth requires nuanced thinking. -Donald Miller

Our nation

"We’re a nation that was built on slavery then expanded through genocide, war and countless other atrocities. But something like gay marriage will be the tipping point where God says, “Okay, that’s just going too far.” Seriously?" - Allen Clifton

Fear

“The greatest prison that people live in is the fear of what other people think.”

—   David Icke

Most Days

In my humdrum life, the daily battle hasn't been good versus evil. It's hardly so epic. Most days, my real battle is doing good versus doing nothing. - Dierdre Sullivan

Who I am Supposed to Be

"This is who I want to be in the world. This is who I think we are supposed to be, people who help call forth human beings from deep inside hopelessness."Anne lamott

First Snow

When I no longer thrill to the first snow of the season,
I’ll know I’m growing old.  ~ Lady Bird Johnson

Refuse to Accept

“I refuse to accept the view that mankind is so tragically bound to the starless midnight of racism and war that the bright daybreak of peace and brotherhood can never become a reality... I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word.” - Martin Luther King, Jr.

Human Design

By Donald Miller

Human beings were designed to change the world. If we aren't making the world different in some way, we're likely to get depressed.

Indifference

“The opposite of love is not hate, it's indifference; the opposite of life is not death, it's indifference.” Elie Wiesel, Holocaust survivor

Forgiveness

The weak can never forgive. Forgiveness is the attribute of the strong. - Mahatma Gandhi

Powerful

Showing gratitude is one of the simplest yet most powerful
things humans can do for each other.
~ Randy Pausch

The Most Loving Thing?

"I don't think the most loving thing we can do is speak the 'truth.' I think the most loving thing we can do is to love…If you think speaking truth is the most loving thing. Here are some truths. It is estimated that in the US alone, Church organizations own in excess of 200 Billion Dollars in real estate. Roughly 1/3 of the worlds population claims to be Christian, and yet, 21,000 children die everyday from hunger and preventable diseases. It is estimated that there are 27 million people worldwide that are slaves, most are women and children, and many of the children are forced to perform in the commercial sex trade. The truth is [name] that God has provided and equipped his church to eliminate the suffering in the world, but it would require us to come out of our comfort zones, maybe sacrifice a bit, and maybe even get a little dirty, and the church is obviously not willing to do that. It is much easier, much more comfortable to sit back and focus on issues that require OTHERS to change their behavior. I choose to Love; I choose to Do Justly, Love Mercy and Walk Humbly with God, and then let Him figure out the rest."

- A man in Charlotte who saw the film today writing the most awesome response to someone who argued that the most "loving" thing to do is tell LGBT people of their "clear sin."

Sometimes

Sunday Poetry: Sometimes, by Anonymous

Sometimes

Sometimes things don’t go, after all,
from bad to worse. Some years, muscadel
faces down frost; green thrives; the crops don’t fail.
Sometimes a man aims high, and all goes well.

A people sometimes will step back from war,
elect an honest man, decide they care
enough, that they can’t leave some stranger poor.
Some men become what they were born for.

Sometimes our best intentions do not go
amiss; sometimes we do as we meant to.
The sun will sometimes melt a field of sorrow
that seemed hard frozen; may it happen for you.

– by Anonymous
________________________________________________

Respect

“If you spend your life sparing people’s feelings and feeding their vanity, you get so you can’t distinguish what should be respected in them.” - F. Scott Fitzgerald

Who are the Christians?

"Ask the poor. They will tell you who the Christians are."--Ghandi

Unhappy for the Rest of Your Life?

“If you deliberately plan on being less than you are capable of being, then I warn you that you’ll be unhappy for the rest of your life.” - Abraham Maslow

Didn't Lose My Faith

Overheard: I didn't lose my faith, so much as I lost my illusions.

Logic

John Fugelhand:
"I want to rip off your logic and make passionate sense to you."

Religion is not the Gospel

Religion needs to defend itself, the Gospel needs no defense. Religion is about certainty, the Gospel is about assurance. Religion needs every “I” dotted and every “T” crossed while the Gospel dwells in ambiguity and mystery. Religion seeks perfection, the Gospel offers wholeness. Religion validates sacred violence and a wrathful god, the Gospel speaks of the nonviolent, non-retributive God. Religion takes the State as its consort; the Gospel refuses the State and takes a peace loving people as a Bride.

Michael Hardin

CS Lewis on Buddhism

“But the truth is God has not told us what His arrangements about the other people are. … There are people who do not accept the full Christian doctrine about Christ but who are so strongly attracted by Him that they are His in a much deeper sense than they themselves understand. There are people in other religions who are being led by God’s secret influence to concentrate on those parts of their religion which are in agreement with Christianity, and who thus belong to Christ without knowing it. For example a Buddhist of good will may be led to concentrate more and more on the Buddhist teaching about mercy and to leave in the background (though he might still say he believed) the Buddhist teaching on certain points. Many of the good Pagans long before Christ’s birth may have been in this position”
–C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity, HarperSanFrancisco edition, 2001, pp. 64, 208, 209

Coffee Stains

By Anne Lamott

A gorgeous friend of mine has been joyously married for 50 years, to a man who was very sick the last two. They have many kids. (Sometimes my friend can't remember their exact order of birth, but she says, nonchalantly, "Oh, but I know all their names by heart."). Her husband died Wednesday, and I stopped by their house Thursday. All of their grown kids were there, and her husband's brothers, and some riff-raff (ie, me.) The house was filled with flowers, food, a few of us. My friend was in bed, receiving visitors, telling and hearing stories about her husband, laughing, tearing up, nibbling at honeydew melon. While bending in low to give her my biggest dancing bear hug, I caused someone else to spill their coffee all over her beautiful sheets. I was so mad at myself, but she cried out happily, "I hope it stains, so I can remember the beauty of this morning forever."

And that is what we mean by grace, hope, charity.

Great and Timeless Story!

Two men, both seriously ill, occupied the same
hospital room.

One man was allowed to sit up in his bed for an
hour each afternoon to help drain the fluid from
his lungs.

His bed was next to the room's only window.

The other man had to spend all his time flat on
his back.

The men talked for hours on end.

They spoke of their wives and families, their
homes, their jobs, their involvement in the
military service, where they had been on
vacation..

Every afternoon, when the man in the bed by the
window could sit up, he would pass the time by
describing to his roommate all the things he could
see outside the window.

The man in the other bed began to live for those
one hour periods where his world would be
broadened and enlivened by all the activity and
colour of the world outside.

The window overlooked a park with a lovely lake.Ducks and swans played on the water while
children sailed their model boats. Young lovers
walked arm in arm amidst flowers of every colour
and a fine view of the city skyline could be seen
in the distance.

As the man by the window described all this in
exquisite details, the man on the other side of
the room would close his eyes and imagine this
picturesque scene.

One warm afternoon, the man by the window
described a parade passing by.

Although the other man could not hear the band -
he could see it in his mind's eye as the
gentleman by the window portrayed it with
descriptive words.

Days, weeks and months passed.
One morning, the day nurse arrived to bring
water for their baths only to find the lifeless body
of the man by the window, who had died
peacefully in his sleep.

She was saddened and called the hospital
attendants to take the body away.

As soon as it seemed appropriate, the other man
asked if he could be moved next to the window.
The nurse was happy to make the switch, and
after making sure he was comfortable, she left
him alone.

Slowly, painfully, he propped himself up on one
elbow to take his first look at the real world
outside.

He strained to slowly turn to look out the window
besides the bed.

It faced a blank wall.

The man asked the nurse what could have
compelled his deceased roommate who had
described such wonderful things outside this
window.

The nurse responded that the man was blind and
could not even see the wall.

She said, 'Perhaps he just wanted to encourage
you.'

Epilogue:
There is tremendous happiness in making others
happy, despite our own situations.
Shared grief is half the sorrow, but happiness
when shared, is doubled.
If you want to feel rich, just count all the things
you have that money can't buy.

Good Kids

Good kids are like sunsets. We take them for granted. Every evening they disappear. Most parents never realize how hard they try to please us, and how miserable they feel when they think they have failed. (Erma Bombeck)

Weighing the Cows...

Weighing the cows won't make them fatter, feeding them will. Testing our kids won't make them smarter, teaching them will.

On particularly rough days, I like to remind myself that I have a pretty good track record for survival. I am at 100%.

Wisdom

You can tell whether a man is clever by his answers. You can tell whether a man is wise by his questions. -Naguib Mahfouz, writer, Nobel laureate (1911-2006)

Peace

"It is a man's sympathy with all creatures that truly makes him a man. Until he extends his circle of compassion to all living things, man himself will not find peace." ~ Albert Schweitzer

Following?

If your religious beliefs cause you to hate, marginalize or oppress a particular group of people rather than love them -- you might not be following Jesus.
- Rev. Mark Sandlin

Small Acts

Some believe it is only great power that can hold evil in check. But that is not what I have found. I have found that it is the small everyday deeds of ordinary folk that keep the darkness at bay. Small acts of kindness and love. ---Gandalf

rest

How beautiful it is to do nothing, and then rest afterward. -Spanish proverb

If

"If you can tell me why some should not be loved, you can in the same breath tell me why you cannot be a Christian." -Brian Zahnd

My religion

When I do good, I feel good. When I do bad, I feel bad. That's my religion.
Abraham Lincoln

By their fruits?

"The one and only test of a valid religious idea, doctrinal statement, spiritual experience, or devotional practice was that it must lead directly to practical compassion. If your understanding of the divine made you kinder, more empathetic, and impelled you to express this sympathy in concrete acts of loving-kindness, this was good theology. But if your notion of God made you unkind, belligerent, cruel, or self-righteous, or if it led you to kill in God's name, it was bad theology."

Karen Armstrong, from "The Spiral Staircase : My Climb Out of Darkness"

For some reason---

"For some reason,the most vocal Christians among us never mention the Beatitudes (Matthew 5). But, often with tears in their eyes, they demand that the Ten Commandments be posted in public buildings. And of course, that's Moses, not Jesus. I haven't heard one of them demand that the Sermon on the Mount, the Beatitudes, be posted anywhere. 'Blessed are the merciful' in a courtroom? 'Blessed are the peacemakers' in the Pentagon? Give me a break!" - Kurt Vonnegut, A Man Without a Country

Realization

"What a wonderful life I've had! I only wish I'd realized it sooner." --Colette

Toughen our children?

It's not our job to toughen our children up to face a cruel and heartless world. It's our job to raise children who will make the world a little less cruel and heartless. -L. R. Knost

Love

You need Power, only when you want to do something harmful. Otherwise love is enough to get everything done. -Charlie Chaplin

Power

Too often we underestimate the power of a touch, a smile, a kind word, a listening ear, an honest compliment, or the smallest act of caring, all of which have the potential to turn a life around.
― Leo Buscaglia

The Lap of God

She was shelling peas,
apron-covered knees
spread wide to catch
each pea/each pod

I, shaky, needy
wandered near

Her ancient swollen hands
pushed back the hair
that hid my face

She set down the pan
and, patting her knee,
said:

oh, child,
come on up here
and let me have a look at you.

Her voice was safe and so was I
sitting in the lap of God.

-Martha Popson

Church's Future

"Our faithfulness will depend on our willingness to go where there is brokenness, loneliness, and human need. If the church has a future it is a future with the poor in whatever form." - Henri J.M. Nouwen

Riches

“The bread that you store up belongs to the hungry; the coat that lies in your chest belongs to the naked; the gold that you have hidden in the ground belongs to the poor.” - St. Basil

Lamott

As Anne Lamott so brilliantly said, "You can safely assume that you've created God in your own image when it turns out that God hates all the same people you do."

work

“I would like my life to be a statement of love and compassion…and where it isn’t, that’s where my work lies.” - Ram Dass (via awelltraveledwoman)

Our Children

It is not our job to toughen our children up to face a cruel and heartless world. It is our job to raise children who will make the world a little less cruel and heartless.  -L. R. Knost

Gandhi

You must not lose faith in humanity. Humanity is an ocean; if a few drops of the ocean are dirty the ocean does not become dirty. -Gandhi

Frankl

Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms—to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.
― Viktor Frankl

Our goal

“Our goal should be to live life in radical amazement. ....get up in the morning and look at the world in a way that takes nothing for granted. Begin each day with a grateful Heart.
~ Abraham Joshua Heschel

The older I get the less I listen to what people say and the more I look at what they do. 
— Andrew Carnegie

When I feed the hungry, they call me a saint. When I ask why people are hungry, they call me a communist. -Helder Camara, archbishop (1909-1999)

"War does not determine who is right, only who is left." --The Prophecy Club

One of life's best coping mechanisms is to know the difference between an inconvenience and a problem. If you break your neck, if you have nothing to eat, if your house is on fire, then you've got a problem. Everything else is an inconvenience. Life is inconvenient. Life is lumpy. A lump in the oatmeal, a lump in the throat and a lump in the breast are not the same kind of lump. One needs to learn the difference. 

Robert Fulghum

What if we all stop doing what we're told, and started doing what's right?

Now this was the sin of your sister Sodom: She and her daughters were arrogant, overfed and unconcerned; they did not help the poor and needy.
- Ezekiel 16:49 (NIV)

Oprah: I've seen you put people out of your house for telling a racist joke! And you are not the least bit embarrassed about disrupting the whole room.

Maya: I believe that a negative statement is poison. The air between you and me is filled with sounds and images. If that were not so, how is it that I can turn on a television right now and see what's happening in New York? That means sounds and images are in the air, crowded, jammed up like bats. And Oprah, I'm convinced that the negative has power. It lives. And if you allow it to perch in your house, in your mind, in your life, it can take you over. So when the rude or cruel thing is said—the lambasting, the gay bashing, the hate—I say, "Take it all out of my house!" Those negative words climb into the woodwork and into the furniture, and the next thing you know they'll be on my skin. 

Oprah: The same is true with the positive spirit.

Maya: I believe so. 
-From Orpah's Super Soul Sunday Interview with Maya Angelou

True compassion is more than flinging a coin to a beggar; it is not haphazard and superficial. It comes to see that an edifice that produces beggars needs restructuring. -Martin Luther King, Jr., civil-rights leader (1929-1968)

 No one stands up to King Kong, either because they know it's
 futile or because they don't see the fuss over his "supposed
 inequity" in size compared with merely average-sized gorillas,
 arguing that just a few hundred King Kongs running rampant 
 throughout our nation is nothing to get worried over just
 because they haven't stomped on your personal
 home/vehicle/retirement...yet. -unknown

“I bet if we dusted her heart for fingerprints, we’d only find yours.”Rudy Francisco

"It has always seemed odd to me how people are convinced that knowing and experiencing God is grounded in correct theology. What did people do before there was a Bible from which theological propositions could be formulated? Somehow God and humans made due without a well-defined belief system in place. How did that work? For instance, in the book of Genesis, a man named Enoch, only a few generations removed from Adam and Eve, is described as a man who “walked with God.” Maybe a well-defined set of truth propositions about God isn’t necessary for knowing and experiencing God.”

- Jim Palmer, Wide Open Spaces: Beyond Paint-by-Number Christianity

"I'm not an atheist and I don't think I can call myself a pantheist. We 
are in the position of a little child entering a huge library filled with 
books in many languages. The child knows someone must have written those 
books. It does not know how. It does not understand the languages in which 
they are written. The child dimly suspects a mysterious order in the 
arrangements of the books, but doesn't know what it is. That, it seems to 
me, is the attitude of even the most intelligent human being toward God."--Einstein

You cannot make yourself feel something you do not feel, but you can make yourself do right in spite of your feelings. - Pearl Buck

"I am not interested, my friend, in your religion or if you are religious or not. What really is important to me is your behavior in front of your peers, family, work, community, and in front of the world. Remember, the Universe is the echo of our actions and our thoughts."

~Dalai Lama

We must always take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented. --Elie Wiesel

It's really hard to call Republicans a political party anymore...

They're more like a religious cult built on the idolatry of wealth than anything else.

“How lucky I am to have something that makes saying goodbye so hard.”

- A.A. Milne 

Obama plays chess while Republican leaders cheat at checkers..

If controlling another human being is the goal of parenting, then force is necessary. Fear, intimidation, threats, power-plays, and physical pain are the means of control.  But if growing healthy humans is the goal, then building trust relationships, encouraging, guiding, leading, teaching, and communicating are the tools for success. --LR Knost

CS Lewis: "I don't pray to change God. I pray to change me." He told that to someone who asked what he asked God for when his wife was dying. I personally don't believe God "steps in" arbitrarily for things like that. I like what our founding fathers, who were mostly Deists believed: Something along the lines of, "Whenever someone tells you a miracle happened, you have to either believe all the laws of physics and nature were suddenly circumvented, or somebody is lying. Knowing human nature, I have to believe the latter."

“And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom.” ―Anaïs Nin

Discontent is the principal necessity of positive growth, but only if you do something constructive with it. Without deviation from what you’ve been doing, progress is not possible. Don’t be someone who goes through greater lengths to avoid change than you do to obtain what you desire. You must define and embrace the necessary changes that move you forward.

Your life will begin to improve when you define precisely what ‘improve’ means to you. The agonies and frustrations will start to ease only when you have something real and positive to replace them with. Be specific. Happiness is not a goal, it’s the result of a life well lived. The question is: How do you want to live going forward?

To effectively move away from an unfavorable situation, you must decide exactly where you wish to go. Create a formidable intention for yourself, and feed that intention with the passion and energy that’s in your desire for change. Go beyond your discontent for what is, and instead focus on imagining and creating the best of what’s possible. Clearly know where you wish to go, and then take the first real step that gets you there.

“Two things define you. Your patience when you have nothing, and your attitude when you have everything.”--unknown

“Our disrespect for thinking: someone sitting in a chair, gazing out of a window blankly, always described as ‘doing nothing’.”

- Alain de Botton

“When another person makes you suffer, it is because he suffers deeply within himself and his suffering is spilling over. He does not need punishment, he needs help.” -Thich Naht Hanh

Charles Dickens, Great Expectations

What we have done for ourselves alone dies with us: what we have done for others and the world remains and is immortal. --Albert Pike

Stop being afraid of what could go wrong, and focus on what could go right!

"Americans can always be counted on to do the right thing...after they have exhausted all other possibilities." ~ Winston Churchill.

“…to be free is not merely to cast off one’s chains, but to live in a way that respects and enhances the freedom of others.”
~Nelson Mandela

"No person is your friend who demands your silence, or denies your right to grow." - Alice Walker

Our job is to teach the students we have. Not the ones we would like to have. Not the ones we used to have. Those we have right now. All of them. __Dr. Kevin Maxwell.

If your understanding of the Divine made you kinder, more empathetic, and impelled you to express sympathy in concrete acts of loving-kindness, this was good theology. But if your notion of God made you unkind, belligerent, cruel, of self-righteous, or if it led you to kill in God's name, it was bad theology ~Karen Armstrong

If your picture of God is ugly, the more religious you become, the more dangerous you become to yourself and everyone else around you. --Herb Montgomery

 "Have patience with everything unresolved in your heart and to try to love the questions themselves as if they were locked rooms or books written in a very foreign language. Don't search for the answers, which could not be given to you now, because you would not be able to live them. And the point is to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps then, someday far in the future, you will gradually, without even noticing it, live your way into the answer." - Rainer Maria Rilke