Quotes I have carried with me for years...
Scripture says no one knows the Father but the Son. Therefore, if you want to know God, you must not only be like the Son, you must be the Son.
-Meister Eckhart
If you tell me Christian commitment is a kind of thing that has happened to you once and for all like some kind of spiritual plastic surgery, I say go to, go to, you’re either pulling the wool over your own eyes or trying to pull it over mine. Every morning you should wake up in your bed and ask yourself; “Can I believe it all again today?” No, better still, don’t ask till after you’ve read The New York Times, till after you’ve studied that daily record of the world’s brokenness and corruption, which should always stand side by side with your Bible. Then ask yourself if you can believe in the Gospel of Jesus Christ again for that particular day. If your answer is always Yes, then you probably don’t know what believing means. At least five times out of ten the answer should be No because the No is as important as the Yes, maybe more so. The No is what proves you’re human in case you should ever doubt it. And then if some morning the answer happens to be really Yes, it should be a Yes that’s choked with confession and tears and great laughter.
-Frederick Buechner
I do admit that for Christians to enter this subject honestly is to invite great anxiety. It is to walk the razor's edge, to run the risk of cutting the final cord still binding many to the faith of their mothers and fathers. But the price for refusing to enter this consideration is for me even higher. The inability to question reveals that one has no confidence that one's belief system one's faith has already died. It one seeks to protect God from truth or new insights, then God has surely already died.
-John Shelby Spong
-Meister Eckhart
If you tell me Christian commitment is a kind of thing that has happened to you once and for all like some kind of spiritual plastic surgery, I say go to, go to, you’re either pulling the wool over your own eyes or trying to pull it over mine. Every morning you should wake up in your bed and ask yourself; “Can I believe it all again today?” No, better still, don’t ask till after you’ve read The New York Times, till after you’ve studied that daily record of the world’s brokenness and corruption, which should always stand side by side with your Bible. Then ask yourself if you can believe in the Gospel of Jesus Christ again for that particular day. If your answer is always Yes, then you probably don’t know what believing means. At least five times out of ten the answer should be No because the No is as important as the Yes, maybe more so. The No is what proves you’re human in case you should ever doubt it. And then if some morning the answer happens to be really Yes, it should be a Yes that’s choked with confession and tears and great laughter.
-Frederick Buechner
I do admit that for Christians to enter this subject honestly is to invite great anxiety. It is to walk the razor's edge, to run the risk of cutting the final cord still binding many to the faith of their mothers and fathers. But the price for refusing to enter this consideration is for me even higher. The inability to question reveals that one has no confidence that one's belief system one's faith has already died. It one seeks to protect God from truth or new insights, then God has surely already died.
-John Shelby Spong
Culture Making, meet Gandhi...
Whenever I despair, I remember that the way of truth and love has always won. There may be tyrants and murderers, and for a time, they may seem invincible, but in the end, they always fail. Think of it: always
-Gandhi
In light of this quote I ran across a section in the book "Culture Making" which I though was stated very nicely.
Nothing that matters, no matter how sudden, does not have a long history and take part in a long future. And like earthquakes, revolutions are much better at destroying than building. There is an important asymmetry here, whose roots go all the way down to the laws of physics: It is possible to change things quickly for the worse. It only took two hours after the collision between a 767 and the South Tower of the World Trade Center to destroy it. But no one can build the World Trade Center in two hours. The only thing you can do with Rome in a day is burn it.
The Revolutionaries - and terrorists - of the world put their hope in cataclysmic events. But even they are likely to be disappointed by the long-term effects of their actions.
-Andy Crouch (Culture Making)
I am not sure what to make of all this but I really like these two quotes.
-Gandhi
In light of this quote I ran across a section in the book "Culture Making" which I though was stated very nicely.
Nothing that matters, no matter how sudden, does not have a long history and take part in a long future. And like earthquakes, revolutions are much better at destroying than building. There is an important asymmetry here, whose roots go all the way down to the laws of physics: It is possible to change things quickly for the worse. It only took two hours after the collision between a 767 and the South Tower of the World Trade Center to destroy it. But no one can build the World Trade Center in two hours. The only thing you can do with Rome in a day is burn it.
The Revolutionaries - and terrorists - of the world put their hope in cataclysmic events. But even they are likely to be disappointed by the long-term effects of their actions.
-Andy Crouch (Culture Making)
I am not sure what to make of all this but I really like these two quotes.
Reflections on Rumi
Listening to the Speaking of Faith Podcast entitled "The Ecstatic Faith of Rumi" today and ran across a few lines which I wanted to lock away for the future.
If you don’t plow the earth, it’s going to get so hard nothing grows in it. You just plow the earth of yourself. You just get moving. And even don’t ask exactly what’s going to happen. You allow yourself to move around, and then you will see the benefit.
Something you (Fatemeh Keshavarz) wrote about whirling that was so gripping to me said, for Rumi, the whirling is one way to stay centered while moving.
Ms. Keshavarz: (translating) If anyone asks you about the houris, show your face, say: like this. If anyone asks you about the moon, climb up on the roof, say: "Like this." If anyone seeks a fairy, let them see your countenance. If anyone talks about the aroma of musk, untie your hair and say: "Like this." If anyone asks: "How do the clouds uncover the moon?" untie the front of your robe, knot by knot, say: "Like this." If anyone asks: "How did Jesus raise the dead?' kiss me on the lips, say: "Like this." If anyone asks: "What are those killed by love like?" direct him to me, say: "Like this." If anyone kindly asks you how tall I am, show him your arched eyebrows, say: "Like this."
So the whole ghazal (above) is a description of the physical beauty of the lover, but at the same time, it's a fairly long poem. At the end, it leads us to blind with envy the one who says, "How can a human being reach God?" Give each of us a candle of purity, say: "Like this." In the end, human beings can get to that candle of purity and reach God, and all human beings can do that.
If you don’t plow the earth, it’s going to get so hard nothing grows in it. You just plow the earth of yourself. You just get moving. And even don’t ask exactly what’s going to happen. You allow yourself to move around, and then you will see the benefit.
Something you (Fatemeh Keshavarz) wrote about whirling that was so gripping to me said, for Rumi, the whirling is one way to stay centered while moving.
Ms. Keshavarz: (translating) If anyone asks you about the houris, show your face, say: like this. If anyone asks you about the moon, climb up on the roof, say: "Like this." If anyone seeks a fairy, let them see your countenance. If anyone talks about the aroma of musk, untie your hair and say: "Like this." If anyone asks: "How do the clouds uncover the moon?" untie the front of your robe, knot by knot, say: "Like this." If anyone asks: "How did Jesus raise the dead?' kiss me on the lips, say: "Like this." If anyone asks: "What are those killed by love like?" direct him to me, say: "Like this." If anyone kindly asks you how tall I am, show him your arched eyebrows, say: "Like this."
So the whole ghazal (above) is a description of the physical beauty of the lover, but at the same time, it's a fairly long poem. At the end, it leads us to blind with envy the one who says, "How can a human being reach God?" Give each of us a candle of purity, say: "Like this." In the end, human beings can get to that candle of purity and reach God, and all human beings can do that.
Be the change by Jason Valendy is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.