Can You Handle Freedom?

"You love the idea of freedom but you are terrified by the reality of it. Every day you turn from the Truth and return to the illusion. It is because you fear the hardships and responsibilities that freedom brings. (Jim Palmer)

Some Simply Do Not Belong.

"Some of us aren't meant to belong. Some of us have to turn the world upside down and shake the hell out of it until we make our own place in it." — Elizabeth Lowell, Remember Summer

Lucky In Loosing Reputation

"Be still: There is no longer any need of comment. It was a lucky wind That blew away his halo with his cares, A lucky sea that drowned his reputation." — Thomas Merton

Treason......

"Truth is treason in the empire of lies." — George Orwell

Not Knowing What To Do May Be The Best Thing In The World

"It may be that when we no longer know what to do, we have come to our real work, and when we no longer know which way to go, we have begun our real journey. The mind that is not baffled is not employed. The impeded stream is the one that sings." ——WENDELL BERRY

Lead By Virtue - Not Threat.

"You who govern public affairs, what need have you to employ punishments? Love virtue, and the people will be virtuous. The virtues of a superior man are like the wind; the virtues of a common man are like the grass—the grass, when the wind passes over it, bends."
(Henry David Thoreau. Walden)

Really? What About Plain Old Coveting?

"I am convinced, that if all men were to live as simply as I then did, thieving and robbery would be unknown. These take place only in communities where some have got more than is sufficient while others have not enough." (Henry David Thoreau. Walden)

The State Molested. ....

"I was never molested by any person but those who represented the State. I had no lock nor bolt but for the desk which held my papers, not even a nail to put over my latch or windows. I never fastened my door night or day, though I was to be absent several days; not even when the next fall I spent a fortnight in the woods of Maine." (Henry David Thoreau. Walden)

Institutions Refuse To Leave You Alone. ...

"I had gone down to the woods for other purposes. But, wherever a man goes, men will pursue and paw him with their dirty institutions, and, if they can, constrain him to belong to their desperate odd—fellow society." (Henry David Thoreau. Walden)

Slavery Opposed By Thoreau

"One afternoon, near the end of the first summer, when I went to the village to get a shoe from the cobbler's, I was seized and put into jail, because, as I have elsewhere related, I did not pay a tax to, or recognize the authority of, the State which buys and sells men, women, and children, like cattle, at the door of its senate—house."(Henry David Thoreau. Walden)

Lost Only Once.....

".........for a man needs only to be turned round once with his eyes shut in this world to be lost.....Every man has to learn the points of compass again as often as he awakes, whether from sleep or any abstraction. Not till we are lost, in other words not till we have lost the world, do we begin to find ourselves, and realize where we are and the infinite extent of our relations." (Henry David Thoreau. Walden)

When The Church Supplants Jesus?

The last line says it all.... consider he wrote this in 1988....

"In recent years, preoccupation with styles of worship—traditiona| or renewed, organ or guitar, hymns or choruses, incense or balloons, recited or spontaneous prayers, old or new translations of the Bib|e—have upstaged the central drama of Calvary and Easter morning. Style overshadows substance, form transcends content, the church supplants Jesus. (Brennan Manning. The Signature Of Jesus)

As Messed Up As Jesus’s Disciples?

"Personally, I take great comfort in the life stories of the first disciples. Their response was flawed by fear and hesitation. What they shared in common was dullness, an embarrassing inability to understand what Jesus was all about. Their track record was not good: They complained, they misunderstood, they quarreled, they wavered, they deserted, they denied. But Christ’s reaction to their broken, inconsistent discipleship was one of unending love. The good news is that Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever." ( Brennan Manning. The Signature Of Jesus )

It's Not Our Worlds Fault.

The fallacy here is blaming the complexity of our lives on the complexity of our environment. How many people have told me they would love to live on some remote South Sea island or get back to the good old horse—and—buggy days when Sunday was spent visiting Grandma and Grandpa on the farm? It doesn’t work because we bring our feverish, unintegrated selves to these remote places. Simplicity of life does not depend upon simplicity of environment. The real problem lies within. Outer distractions reflect a lack of inner integration. “We are trying to be several selves at once. There is the civic self, the parental self, the financial self, the spiritual self, the society self, the professional self. And yet we are uneasy, strained, and fearful that we are shallow.” ( he is quoting, Peck, The Different Drum)
(Brennan Manning. The Signature Of Jesus)

The Life That Just Slipped Away.

"Our lives in the global village have grown overly complex and overly crowded. New obligations grow overnight like Jack’s beanstalk. Our days become a never—ending succession of appointments, committee meetings, burdens, and responsibilities. We are too busy to smell the flowers, to waste time with our spouses, to befriend our children, to cultivate true friends, or to be friends to those who have no friends. Our chi|dren’s schools demand our time. The civic problems of our community need our attention. Our professional status, our playtime, our membership in various organizations stake their claims. We run around, like Lancelot’s horse, in four directions at once.

Weary and breathless, we sense that life is slipping away. We change our wardrobe, slip into the costume for the next performance, and regret that we have tasted so little of the peace and joy that Jesus promised." (Brennan Manning. The Signature Of Jesus)

Unbearable forgiveness.....

"I prayed a prayer of thanksgiving for the Lord’s unbearable forgiveness, infinite patience, and tender love." (Brennan Manning. The Signature Of Jesus)

Bankrupt Spirituality Consists Of.....

"Any spirituality that does not lead from a self—centered to an other—centered mode of existence is bankrupt." (Brennan Manning. The Signature Of Jesus)

The Usefulness Of My Life Is Not My Concern?

"A few hours later, he was found dead on the floor of his cold—water flat. He died in the obscurity of a Parisian slum. Dominique Voillaume never tried to impress anybody, never wondered if his life was useful or his witness meaningful. He never felt he had to do something great for God. He did keep a journal. It was found shortly after his death in the drawer of the nightstand by his bed. His last entry is one of the most astonishing things I have ever read: All that is not the love of God has no meaning for me. I can truthfully say that I have no interest in anything but the love of God which is in Christ Jesus. If God wants it to, my life will be useful through my word and witness. If he wants it to, my life will bear fruit through my prayers and sacrifices. But the usefulness of my life is his concern, not mine."
(Brennan Manning. The Signature Of Jesus)

I Love Freedom.... But It Scares The Hell Out Of Me...

"You love the idea of freedom but you are terrified by the reality of it. Every day you turn from the Truth and return to the illusion. It is because you fear the hardships and responsibilities that freedom brings." (Jim Palmer)

In The Seventh Generation Of Aboriginal Peoples......

"Aboriginal peoples made decisions based on a “seven generation” rule: Project the impact of an action on the seventh generation and decide accordingly." (The Well Played Life. Leonard Sweet)

 

Deranged Marketism Of Life.

"...... the only way we can keep pace in our daily march to the battles of the workplace is through amphetamines, antidepressants, antacids, alcohol, acetaminophen, and so forth. God did not put us here to sacrifice at the altars of a deranged marketism, to earn/turn in taxes/and burn, to pour out our lives on assignments into which we cannot pour out our hearts.
God did not put us here to work like
beavers. God put us here to play like
otters. "
(The Well Played Life. Leonard Sweet)

We Could Use A Little More "Wild"....

“The more I considered Christianity, the more I found that while it had established a rule and order, the chief aim of that order was to give room for good things to run wi|d.”
(G. K. Chesterton)

Time For A Good Long Walk..... With Who?

"Bishop James K. Mathews began his ministry in the Methodist church as a missionary in India, where he met Eunice Jones, the daughter of E. Stanley Jones, whom some have called the greatest missionary since St. Paul. Bishop Mathews and Eunice were married for seventy years, and he became a confidant of his father- in—|aw. When Stanley Jones died in India in 1973, Bishop Mathews was asked if anyone was with him at the end. He replied, “When last seen, Stanley was walking with God, and then God took him.” ( The Well Played Life. Leonard Sweet)

Playing On The Lord's Day..... Let's Turn It Up

The Lord’s Day is the Lord’s way—to relish the freedom to dig in the dirt, explore uncharted territories, hike the highest mountains, and spelunk the deepest caverns of our faith and our world—to go outside and play, missionally and relationally, knowing we live in God’s protection and favor.

There's Power In The Church.....

"Jesus intended for his church to be a communion of the baptized, not a power structure or power struggle of bureaucrats. We've become a most worldly church." (The Well Played Life. Leonard Sweet)

A Gift..... At Birth

"At birth, every undeveloped soul is given a windfall: the breath of God." (The Well Played Life. Leonard Sweet)

When And What To Give Up

"Besides the noble art of getting things done, there is the noble art of leaving things undone. The wisdom of life consists in the elimination of non-essentials." -Lin Yutang, The Importance Of Living

Can You See God In Him?

"I have a dogmatic certainty: God is in every person's life. God is in everyone's life. Even if the life of a person has been a disaster, even if it is destroyed by vices, drugs or anything else - God is in this person's life. You can - you must - try to seek God in every human life."
(Pope Francis)

When Hope Makes Some Sense

"Hope is definitely not the same thing as optimism. It is not the conviction that something will turn out well, but the certainty that something makes sense, regardless of how it turns out."
(Vaclav Havel)

A Friend Is Ok With Simple Times.

"Sharing Our Solitude A friend is more than a therapist or a confessor, even though a friend can sometimes heal us and offer us God's forgiveness. A friend is that other person with whom we can share our solitude, our silence, and our prayer. A friend is that other person with whom we can look at a tree and say, "Isn't that beautiful," or sit on the beach and silently watch the sun disappear under the horizon. With a friend we don't have to say or do something special. With a friend we can be still and know that God is there with both of us. " (Nouwen)

Obeying Our Sadness...

“Not only preachers...but anyone who tries to express the Gospel in words, even if only to himselfi has much to learn here. The weight of these sad times we must obey and must obey just because they are sad times, sad and bewildering times for people who try to hold on to the Gospel and witness to it somehow when in so many ways the weight of our sadness all but crushes the life out of it.

One wonders if there is anything more crucial for the preacher to do than to obey the sadness of our times by taking it into account without equivocation or subterfuge, by speaking out of our times and into our times not just what we ought to say about the Gospel, not just what it would appear to be in the interests of the Gospel for us to say, but what we have ourselves felt about it, experienced of it. It is possible to think of the Gospel and our preaching of it as, above all and at no matter what risk, a speaking of the truth about the way things are.”

(Frederick Buechner, Telling the Truth: The Gospel as Tragedy, Comedy, and Fairy Tale)

Robbery Of Nature

"He knows Nature but as a robber."

(Henry David Thoreau. Walden)

No Time.......

"Most men I do not meet at all, for they seem not to have time; they are busy about their beans."
(Henry David Thoreau. Walden)

Is There Any Kindness?

"We should never cheat and insult and banish one another by our meanness, if there were present the kernel of worth and friendliness."
(Henry David Thoreau. Walden)

Holiness Is Not A Set Of Rules?

"For Jesus, holiness is not a set of rules to adhere to or a group of restrictions to obey. Holiness is not about exclusivity, but inclusivity; about how to be in relationships that exude God’s love, rather than excluding God’s blessing."

(The Well Played Life. Leonard Sweet)

You Can't Help Hate!

"We can’t insist on love in a world that hates and not get hated. We can’t take up the challenge of change and not get challenged. We can’t call for sacrifice and not be sacrificed."

(The Well Played Life. Leonard Sweet)

We Don't Need Power Or Popularity.

"If our identity is found in Christ, then it matters less and less what people think of us. If our identity is found in experiencing God’s pleasure, we don’t seek to gather power and popularity for ourselves."
(The Well Played Life. Leonard Sweet)

Trying To Hard To Be Liked?

When someone tells you, “That’s not going to win you any popularity contests," do you begin to launder and lacquer your words to make them acceptable? Or do you say at once, “But I ain’t running for office!” Few things are more uncomfortable than a person who is trying too hard to be liked.
(The Well Played Life. Leonard Sweet)

I Have No Enemies?

"True greatness is the refusal to recognize anyone as an enemy, only as a fellow hurting human being."
(The Well Played Life. Leonard Sweet)

Taught Again How to "Play"

"Every person we meet is a hurting human being. We don’t all hurt in the same places, but we all hurt. Find the hurt and mainline the soul with blessing.
The older we get, the more we need allowance and permission to play, and the more we need instruction on how to play."
(The Well Played Life. Leonard Sweet)

Drop At Hate......

"A “blessed” person is one who falls to his or her knees at the drop of a hate or a hurt."
(The Well Played Life. Leonard Sweet)

Become A "Player" no Matter What People Say.....

"We become what we spend most of our time doing, and like those with whom we spend the most time. Workers become work. Players become play. Workers become workhorses and workaholics. Players become playwrights and playmakers who write the stories of their lives according to a chosen narrative and then “play” those stories with other players."
(The Well Played Life. Leonard Sweet)

Who's The Hero Now?

"Heroes are made by the paths they choose, not the powers they are graced with." — Brodi Ashton, Everneath

When The Heart Dies...... Long Before we Die

"The heart can stop living long before it stops beating."
(The Well Played Life. Leonard Sweet)

Levitate The Soul

The art of living is in play, not work. Our bodies are calibrated for the law of gravity, but our souls are calibrated for laws of levity (grace, lightness, play, joy).
(The Well Played Life. Leonard Sweet)

Play Theology..... When Playing Theology

"It’s time for a theology of play. After five hundred years, the Protestant work ethic has not made us better disciples, only weary and cranky human beings struggling in vain to snag the unattainable dangling carrot we have named “assurance" or being driven forward by the damning stick of “eternity.".......

Despite reformers such as Luther, Wesley, Hus, and others who emphasized justification by faith alone, we still would rather think of ways of keeping ourselves “in line" rather than keeping ourselves “in love." How can we make the continental shift from finding our assurance not as attainment but as atonement? How can we find the assurance that comes not from “extreme productivity,” as one recent book title has it, but from trusting in the veracity of faith and the ferocity of God’s love?"
(The Well Played Life. Leonard Sweet)

It's Time To Play, Christian

"One wonders how the heavenly host look at us, slogging along and working our way through life, when we were given free passage to rise, ride, and “mount up on wings as eagles.” We were created to be a risen people."
(The Well Played Life. Leonard Sweet)

A Tick To Ride..... So Ride Baby....

"A nineteenth—century immigrant, after passing through Ellis Island by way of the Statue of Liberty, was found walking the tracks of the Lehigh Valley Railroad in New Jersey. On his back and in his arms he carried everything he had brought from the Old Country. Though fatigued and footsore, he shuffled along the rails until an agent stopped him and warned him to get off the tracks lest he be hit by a train or arrested for trespassing.

The man refused, instead producing a railroad ticket good from Jersey City to Scranton. The agent looked at him in shock and asked why he was walking when he could ride. The immigrant said he thought the ticket gave him only the privilege of walking the rails. He almost danced for joy when he learned that he could ride the train instead of trudging the tracks."
(The Well Played Life. Leonard Sweet)

Gids Mission Forms And Informs The Church.

"For instance, many still think that because a church does mission, therefore it is a missional church. Not so! All churches have always done some form of mission — even the most institutional. Simply reaching across cultures, even in our own neighborhoods, doesn’t mean we are missional. Rather, a truly missional understanding of the church arises from the fundamental recognition that mission is the catalyzing principle, that it actually forms and informs the church. The church takes its cue from the mission of God in the world, not the other way around. Mission shapes the church; church takes it cultural cues from mission. We ought not load ecclesiology up front in the equation."
(Alan Hirsch & David Ferguson. " On The Verge")

When Ecclesiology Dominates Missiology.

"We forgot that it’s not so much that the church has a mission as that the mission has a church. Missiology became a subset of ecclesiology, rather than the other way around."
(Alan Hirsch & David Ferguson." On The Verge ")

Its Never Been About Leadership. ...

"In fact, its wisdom on the subject is deeply subversive (the last will be first, leaders should serve, not many should presume to be teachers, and so on); rather than being about leadership, everything is about apprenticeship to Jesus."

(Alan Hirsch & David Ferguson. "On The Verge")

Taking People Under Our Wing...... All Of Us...

"If we don’t apprentice people, the culture surely will."

(Alan Hirsch & David Ferguson. "On The Verge")

Just Live.... And God is Ok...

"I generally think that anyone who thinks they're doing something for God is probably delusional. If I want to do God a favor, I should just live as fully as I can, and allow Him to enjoy the gift that He's given me."
(Rich Mullins)

Courage. ....

"I wish somebody had the courage to come along and make it different." - Mr. Washington, Lottery Ticket

Following Jesus Half Way?

“There are plenty of Christians to follow the Lord halfway, but not the other half. They will give up possessions, friends, and honors, but it touches them too closely to disown themselves.” (Fifteenth—century mystic Meister Eckhart)

‘‘In some people religion exists as a
dull habit, in others as an acute fever.” (Philosopher William James)

"Jesus did not endure the shame of the cross to pass on a dull habit."
(Brennan Manning)

When Getting To Know Our Neighbors Seems "Not Enough"

"Though unknown to me at the time, I partly relied on Christianity to make a name for myself through helping and serving people (or at least running organizations and ministries that had people who did). Loving the folks in my cul—de—sac wasn’t good enough. I had to do something bigger and more spectacular. I mean, come on, how many people do you know who went off on a spiritual retreat and returned with the grand vision of getting to know the people in their neighborhood?"
(Jim Palmer. Divine Nobodies : Shedding Religion To Find God - And the unlikely people who help you.)

When Prayer May Corrupt Discipleship

"Insofar as prayer, reading, sacraments, and spiritual direction support genuine Christian living, that is, Christian attitudes, relationships, choices, and actions, they are useful. When they become an escape from the more difficult demands of Christian living, they are the corruption of discipleship. The question at the Last Judgment is not “How religious was your talk?” nor “How much time did you spend in prayer?" nor “Was your faith orthodox in every respect?” but “How did you respond to needy brothers and sisters?”
(Brennan Manning. The Signature Of Jesus)

When the Ceremony Is The Walk.

"We need reminders, symbols, stories, exhortations, living models, time—outs for reflection and celebration. These things are indispensable supports. The error is to think these things are the Christian life."
(Brennan Manning. The Signature Of Jesus)

I Do The Church Thiny, So I'm A Disciple, Right?

"On New Year's Eve, a sincere “Christian” may decide the time has come to live like a disciple, so he or she resolves the following: I am going to get into the Word every day, join a prayer group, find a spiritual guide, do more spiritual reading, go to church more often, increase my devotional time, experiment with fasting, and shout, “Praise the Lord!” upon awakening and retiring. Many disciples do these things, yet do not follow Jesus. Though unmistakably religious, they never have submitted to the signed lifestyle."
(Brennan Manning. The Signature Of Jesus)

Helping Is Bothersome.... But Liturgy Is Satisfying

"Coming to grips with a revolution, Anthony DeMello comments, is infinitely more bothersome than organizing a beautiful liturgy. I’d rather say my prayers than get involved in neighborhood quarrels."
(Brennan Manning. The Signature Of Jesus)

Is Going To Church Discipleship?

"Religiosity per se is not discipleship; in fact, it may be a safe refuge from the revolutionary lifestyle proposed by Jesus." (Brennan Manning. The Signature Of Jesus)

Time For Talk is Over

Emile Leger said when he left his mansion in Montreal to go live in a leper colony in Africa,

“The time for talking is over."

Eccentric Conformity

"That so few now dare to be eccentric, marks the chief danger of the time." —John Stuart Mill, On Liberty

Permission To Be Totally Unreasonable

"The reasonable man adapts himself to the conditions that surround him... The unreasonable man adapts surrounding conditions to himself... All progress depends on the unreasonable man."
(George Bernard Shaw)

Do This World Differently

"Once in a while it really hits people that they don't have to experience the world in the way they have been told to." — Alan Keightley