January 2010
35 posts
Where the action is
***“It’s like we’ve got more going on in our parking lot than we do within the walls of the church.” Craig Goodwin, pastor of Millwood (WA) Community Presbyterian Church. When the church was told it would have to close its farmers’ market on the church parking lot or the lot could no longer be claimed as tax-exempt, it decided to keep the market and pay the $700 in annual taxes.* (New York Times)
One of the most difficult thoughts for our culture
*For me and my sisters poverty is freedom, and the less we have the more we can give. Poverty is love before it is renunciation. It is not that we cannot have luxuries. We choose not to have them. This freedom brings joy, and joy enables us to give in love until it hurts.* Mother Teresa
How do you spend your time?
*“I use it as my alarm clock, because it has an annoying ringtone that doesn’t stop until you turn it off. At night, I can text or watch something on YouTube until I fall asleep. It lets me talk on the phone and watch a video at the same time, or listen to music while I send text messages.”* *Francisco Sepulveda, a 14-year-old Bronx eighth grader, speaking of his smart phone, an example of a new...
Go forth and blog
*Pope Benedict XVI has a new commandment for priests struggling to get their message across: Go forth and blog.* *The pope, whose own presence on the Web has heavily grown in recent years, urged priests on Saturday to use all multimedia tools at their disposal to preach the Gospel and engage in dialogue with people of other religions and cultures.* *And just using e-mail or surfing the Web is...
The Baptismal Life; Martin Luther
*“Similarly, we too are not entirely cured by baptism or repentance, but a beginning is made in us and the bandage of the first grace binds our wounds so that our healing may proceed from day to day until we are cured. …The new leaven is the faith and grace of the Spirit. It does not leaven the whole lump at once but gently, and gradually, we become like this new leaven and eventually, a bread of...
A SUPREME COUP This is not judicial activism, it’s judicial radicalism – a black-robed political coup over America’s historic democratic ideals. Five men have just overthrown the power of the people’s vote, enthroning corporate money as supreme in all of our country’s elections. Jefferson, Madison, and the other founders of our democratic republic are not merely spinning in...
True Power
*Let me explain what I mean by power. That is a word whose meaning has become twisted in your world. When you say power, people become afraid, they think of the police and tax collectors and someone having power over them. That is not what I mean by power. Power, in my way, is the spirit of medicine energy that flows through all beings. Power is strength and the ability to see yourself through...
Re: Love at the core
I like it! Good morning everyone. D
Love at the core
*… Americans, you may give your goods to feed the poor. You may give great gifts to charity. You may tower high in philanthropy. But if you have not love it means nothing.* *Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.* in his speech, “Paul’s Letter to American Christians,” Nov. 4, 1956. MLK online
Inspiration
*Inspiration is not the exclusive privilege of poets or artists generally. There is, has been, and will always be a certain group of people whom inspiration visits. It’s made up of all those who’ve consciously chosen their calling and do their job with love and imagination. It may include doctors, teachers, gardeners — and I could list a hundred more professions … A swarm...
Joan Chittister
*The God who made us what we are knows what we desire to be and waits with infinite patience while we become what we can. We, on the other hand, know that whatever we need to become all that we can be, this same great and loving God will supply. For all of that, we are thankful. From that gratitude grow love and commitment, faith and trust, wonder and worship. * Joan Chittister, from her book *The...
life and love
*For most people, a life lived alone, with passing strangers or passing lovers, is incoherent and ultimately unbearable. Someone must be there to know what we have done for those we love.* *Frank Pittman, psychiatrist from Atlanta GA. from a speech*
Things Catholic
CUTE -CATHOLIC THINGS *AMEN: *The only part of a prayer that everyone knows. *BULLETIN: *Your receipt for attending Mass. *CHOIR: *A group of people whose singing allows the rest of the Parish to lip-sync. *HOLY WATER: * A liquid whose chemical formula is H2OLY. *HYMN: *A song of praise usually sung in a key three octaves higher than that of the congregation’s range. *RECESSIONAL HYMN: *The...
The Powers
*The irony would be delicious if it were not so bitter: earnest theologians have been earnestly persuading Christians for sixteen centuries that their gospel supports violence, while massive outpourings of citizens in one officially atheist country after another [during the peaceful overturning of the Soviet regime and its allies at the end of the Cold War] recently have demonstrated the...
JOY
*”Joy”* by Julie Cadwallader *Who could need more proof than honey— How the bees with such skill and purpose enter flower after flower sing their way home to create and cap the new honey just to get through the flowerless winter. And how the bear with intention and cunning raids the hive shovels pawful after pawful into his happy mouth bats away indignant bees stumbles off in a stupor...
Faith and Belief
*Throughout the gospels we are repeatedly told that after some word or deed of Jesus “his disciples believed in him.” The point of this statement is not that up to that point they had no faith, but rather that their faith deepened with the passage of time. To believe in God is more than simply to profess God’s existence; it is to enter into communion with God and — the two...
Hasidic Song
*Wherever I go - only Thou! * *Wherever I stand - only Thou!* *Just Thou, again Thou! * *Always Thou!* *Thou,Thou, Thou!* *When things are good, Thou!* *When things are bad, Thou!* *Thou, Thou, Thou!* Hasidic Song
Reminder: Rene Minshew invited you to join Facebook…
Haiti
*God, you are the one who gave me life. Why are we suffering?* Lines of a hymn sung among the survivors of Haiti’s earthquake while camped in St. Pierre’s Plaza, Port-au-Prince. *In this kind of natural disaster, it is almost always the poorest who suffer the most — those who have the least to lose are often those who lose the most. Life is always hard for poor people —...
Old Gaelic Verse
*Host of Heaven:* I was a stranger yesterday; I put food in the eating place, drink in the drinking place, music in the listening place: And in the blessed name of the Triune he blessed myself and my house, my cattle and my dear ones. And the lark said in her song Often, often, often, Goes the Christ in the stranger’s guise; Often, often, often, Goes the Christ in the stranger’s guise.
The spirit of a culture can be shriveled in two...
*In the first, the Orwellian [as in 1984] culture becomes a prison. In the second, the Huxleyan [as in Brave New World] culture becomes burlesque.* *What Huxley teaches is that in the age of advanced technology, spiritual devastation is more likely to come from an enemy with a smiling face than from one whose countenance exudes suspicion and hate. In the Huxleyan prophecy, Big Brother does not...
C.S. Lewis
*I do not see how we could have come to know the greatness of God without that hint furnished by the greatness of the material universe. * C.S. Lewis, from *”Dogma and the Universe” *
Inscription found and translated
1’ you shall not do [it], but worship the [Lord]. 2’ Judge the sla[ve] and the wid[ow] / Judge the orph[an] 3’ [and] the stranger. [Pl]ead for the infant / plead for the po[or and] 4’ the widow. Rehabilitate [the poor] at the hands of the king. 5’ Protect the po[or and] the slave / [supp]ort the stranger. *The recently deciphered inscription, typical of biblical...
The Baptism of the Lord Sunday
*“The old Irish when immersing a babe at baptism left out the right arm so that it would remain pagan for good fighting”* Found by a research assistant while studying The Baptism of the Lord Sunday * *
One Million Acts of Kindness
Bob Votruba is promoting kindness. He is crisscrossing the country in a bus with his dog, Bogart, on a 10 year mission to encourage and remind people to be kind every day… For someone to reach 1 million kindnesses over a lifetime requires 50 acts of kindness a day for 55 years… AARP bulletin January-February, 2010
Hospitality
*Hospitality does not seek power over others. Cruelty does. Cruelty deliberately causes harm, especially by crushing a person’s self-respect … The opposite of cruelty is hospitality, a sharing of power. * Richard M. Gula, from his book *To Walk Together Again*
from written to living word
*The whole purpose of the Bible, it seems to me, is to convince people to set the written word down in order to become living words in the world for God’s sake. For me, this willing conversion of ink back to blood is the full substance of faith. * Barbara Brown Taylor, from her book, *Leaving Church*
The Day of Epiphany
*When the song of the angels is stilled, when the star in the sky is gone, when the kings and princes are home, when the shepherds are back with their flock, the work of Christmas begins: to find the lost, to heal the broken, to feed the hungry, to release the prisoner, to rebuild the nations, to bring peace … to make music in the heart.* Howard Thurman, American author, civil rights leader,...
Eternity
*One instant is eternity; eternity is the now. When you see through this one instant, you see through the one who sees.* Wu-Men 1185-1260 from The Enlightened Heart, p 45
The way of life
*The way in this world is like the edge of a blade. On this side is the underworld, and on that side is the underworld, and the way of life lies between.* Martin Buber, *Ten Rungs: Hasidic Sayings* p.69
Seeing G-d
*Whoever does not see G-d in every place does not see G-d in any place.* Rabbi Elimelech
The power of kindness is immense. It is nothing less, really, than the power to change the world.
Daphne Rose Kingma, motivational speaker
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kindness
*The power of kindness is immense. It is nothing less, really, than the power to change the world. * Daphne Rose Kingma, motivational speaker Shared by a research assistant
When I count my blessings, I count you twice.
Irish Proverb
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A Blessing
*When I count my blessings, I count you twice*. Irish Proverb