That Look In The Warriors Eye

"You can recognize a Warrior of the Light by the look in his eye. Warriors of the Light are in the world, they form part of the world, and they were sent into the world without saddlebags or sandals. They are often cowardly. They do not always act correctly. Warriors of the Light are wounded by the most foolish things, they worry about trivialities, they believe themselves incapable of growing. Warriors of the Light sometimes believe themselves unworthy of any blessing or miracle. Warriors of the Light often ask themselves what they are doing here. Often they find their lives meaningless. That is why they are Warriors of the Light. Because they fail. Because they ask questions. Because they keep looking for a meaning. And, in the end, they will find it."

(Paulo Coelho. Warrior Of The Light)

Refuting Unnecessary Suffering

"Someone who saw the unnecessary suffering and who will not accept it."
(Paulo Coelho. Warrior Of The Light)

Warriors Never Accept What is Unacceptable

"Hitler may have lost the war on the battlefield, but he ended up winning something too,” says Marek Halter, “because man in the twentieth century created the concentration camp and revived torture and taught his fellow men that it is possible to close their eyes to the misfortunes of others.” Perhaps he is right: There are abandoned children, massacred civilians, innocent people imprisoned, lonely old people, drunks in the gutter, madmen in power. But perhaps he isn’t right at all, for there are also Warriors of the Light. And Warriors of the Light never accept what is unacceptable."
(Paulo Coelho. Warrior Of The Light)

Dialogue With my Neuroses

"Each morning I dialogue with my neuroses and inquire whether they are in a state of acute agitation or in their normal debilitating state. If the former, I ask for the grace to draw upon deeper reserves of empathy; if the latter, I rely on my regular reservoir of compassion. Later in the day, this helps me to be gentle with the nuttiness of my neighbors."

( Brennan Manning. Ruthless Trust )

A Terrorist Spirituality

"I want neither a terrorist spirituality that keeps me in a perpetual state of fright about being in right relationship with my heavenly Father nor a sappy spirituality that portrays God as such a benign teddy bear that there is no aberrant behavior or desire of mine that he will not condone. I want a relationship with the Abba of Jesus, who is infinitely compassionate with my brokenness and at the same time an awesome, incomprehensible, and unwieldy Mystery."
( Brennan Manning. Ruthless Trust )

Must I Fake It With You?

"Is there anyone I can level with? Anyone I dare tell that I am benevolent and malevolent, chaste and randy, compassionate and vindictive, selfless and selfish, that beneath my brave words lives a frightened child, that I dabble in religion and pornography, that I have blackened a friend’s character, betrayed a trust, violated a confidence, that I am tolerant and thoughtful, a bigot and a blowhard, that I hate hard rock?"

(Brennan Manning.  Abba's Child)

I Can't Bare My Soul

"Sensing that if I bare my soul, I will be abandoned by my friends and ridiculed by my enemies, I remain in hiding, borrowing from the cosmetic kit to put on my pretty face."

(Brennan Manning. Ruthless Trust)

Tired Of Playing With The Box

"I think that in the twenty first century Christians have become enamored with the box, and have ignored the gift. This is what we've done. We decorate our boxes. We label them with signs. We define them by our beliefs. We install sound systems.  Some even have beautiful stained glass windows. But it is still just a box. It's  just a box.  ......

Why do this thing we call church? Why do we do this? I don't want Charlottetown Vineyard to exist so that we can continue to exist. That is not enough for me. It's not enough.....

I want more than the box. I want the gift. Guys, I desperately want the gift, with everything that is in me.  I want the gift. I'm tired of playing with the box. I've played with the box until there ain't  much left  that I can imagine to do with the box. I want the gift."

(Tom Zawacki 2015, Charlottetown Vineyard)

No Experience.... No Knowledge...

"In Western thinking knowledge is the intellectual apprehension of reality, the mind’s affirmation of a truth perceived. In the Hebrew and Christian scriptures, knowledge is felt; it arises from an experience of God in faith and love rather than from human investigation. Knowledge is the fruit of a faith-encounter with Jesus as the Christ. It is simply not possible to receive the revelation of God in the transcendent/immanent Christ without experience. Experience is an essential part of knowing Jesus and of the whole concept of revelation."
(Ruthless Trust. Brennan Manning)

Attend My Church Heresy

"'Churchy' thinking is one of the great heresies of the modern church - the notion that unless one appears regularly in a certain kind of building labeled a Christian church, God has no relationship with them whatsoever. This is a manifestation of the current 'preacher-cult' in which the clergy emphasize church attendance as the heart of the religious life, and thereby maintain a Sunday morning fan club." Clyde Reid (1966)

"Some people may have to reject the churches to find Christ and vitality, for there are many churches where it is almost impossible to find or to recover that vitality. And God is surely present outside the churches - often more present without than within. God's spirit is free in the world, and not captive in the churches. The Spirit of God has always resisted our efforts to put Him in a box and control access to Him. The Spirit moves where He will, and sometimes it has to bypass the comfortable, respectable structures we call religious, and speak to us in fresh ways and unaccustomed tongues."

- Clyde Reid (1966)

Jesus Or The Accuser?

"There's a very simple way to discern whether a school of thought comes from Jesus or from the accuser.
The first is always seeking to expand the circle of who you think is your neighbor.
The second is always seeking to expand the circle of who you think is your enemy.
Which of these sounds more like ideology of the typical American church?"

(Ben Fullerton)

Who Is Your Neighbour, versus who is my enemy

Ben Fullerton
There's a very simple way to discern whether a school of thought comes from Jesus or from the accuser. The first is always seeking to expand the circle of who you think is your neighbor. The second is always seeking to expand the circle of who you think is your enemy.

Which of these sounds more like ideology of the typical American church?

Making Laws To Protect Grace?

"Evangelicals have benefited enormously from the faithful and creative labors of many theologians. I certainly acknowledge that for myself. But there are other less acknowledged sides to the story of theology:

- its inability to connect with everyday concerns;
- its use to patronize and disdain others;
- its role in propping up an elitist system of leadership;
- its deadening effects on young theological students;
- its promotion of pedantry and destructive debate;
- its second-hand character that minimizes genuine creative and new perspective;
- the ways it imposes law in the name of protecting grace;
- the ways it preempts and gags conversations that might otherwise break new ground in integrating faith and life.

There is great value in laying a foundation of beliefs. But the methods and disposition of theology have failed to deliver its promise of a richer personal knowledge of God. Theology and church have by and large abducted the conversations that rightfully stand at the heart of the gathering."

Mark Strom:Reframing Paul: Conversations in Grace & Community (IVP, 2000), p. 125

Love Moves Me - And Love Moves Me

Let's do a Sunday Confession.

We have separated "Love" from "Affection" in religious systems. Even taught it so. This has been one of MY gravest errors as a theologian, and human being,  in the past.  This is what permitted me to be too heartless, gave me licence to be a lesser kind of person in how I associate with people... particularly  people I do not like, or understand.

I am not really loving anyone well apart from genuine affection, nor am I really loved without affection. Without affection, love becomes mere obligation, performance, rote, an empty duty that is not recognizing the humanity and value of the person in front of us.  We have all felt the emptiness of acts of service done out of obligation, or duty, but not desire. Dehumanizing to give, and receive. Duty happens, but it is very incomplete. Duty hurts.

Love, separated from affection, is a bar set too low, is a selling out of my call to love as God loves.  (I know what we have all been taught about the four loves, and Agape)

God's love is not separated from affection. Agape is not devoid of affection.. rather is brimming with it. Think of it..... God likes you, has a fondness for you.

As Brennan Manning Meditated on...

I AM MY BELOVED’S, AND HIS DESIRE IS FOR ME. (7:10 NASB)

"Over the past thirty years, I have prayed that passage (Song of Solomon 7:10ff.) in soaring 747s, monasteries, caves, retreat centers, and deserted places. I believe His desire for you and me can best be described as a furious longing." (Brennan Manning)

We are loved by God "AFFECTIONATELY".

I agree that Agape calls for love as a verb, love as acts of service. But they are "AFFECTIONATE" acts of service, NOT MERE DUTY. 

Affectionless duty,
Affectionless fatherhood,
Affectionless motherhood,
Affectionless marriage,
Affectionless sex,
Affectionless service,
Affectionless meetings and gatherings.
Affectionless conversation and dialogue,
Affectionless relationships,
Affectionless time spent with,

Is not love.

You can quote me... "Love moves me, and love moves me." (Andy Rayner)

Get it?

My Sunday confession... I was wrong, I've called myself, and others I have taught to an error. I have been trying to move on, and I suggest you should also.

When i cannot find a fondness in me towards you, the problem is not what you have done, or not done, it is a failure within me. I've failed to see your worth, and respond according to you worth.

If a man would learn to pray, let him go to sea

Brennan Manning actually worked on s Shrimp boat... as Franciscan

"One day we were on our way home from Beaumont when we caught the end of a Texas tailstorm. The water was calm at first. And our forty-five-foot-long boat bobbed lazily in the water like the boat on the cover of this book. But suddenly the clouds gathered and the temperature dropped. The sea began to churn, sweeping spray across the bow. Waves pummeled the sides of the boat. Our seasoned captain told us to get below. Below deck, we reached for metal handles and dear life. I was convinced we were going to die. Then the storm, the real storm, hit. Winds of 120 miles per hour. Sudden swells ten feet high. It was a fury unleashed.

Someone once said, If a man would learn to pray, let him go to sea. My life has been a life lived in God’s furious longing. And I have learned to pray."

(Brennan Manning.  The Furious Longing of God)

Suicide Money

"The whole world is committing suicide for monee." (No typo)

Said to Moritz in Brazil by Orlando. ‎Moritz Thomsen‬. The Saddest Pleasure‬

Not Seen...

"Sometimes, driven to make an effort that is against my inclinations, my sense of propriety, I will smile at passing strangers, trying to involve them with a desperate, whorish look to look back and acknowledge my existence. But their faces are preoccupied; they look through me as though were transparent or as though I were some old and superfluous derelict about to put the bite on them for a cup coffee."

(Moritz Thomsen. The Saddest Pleasure : A Journey On Two Rivers)

Fascination In Strange Places

"In less than a day I have done my duty as a tourist and am now confronted with the problem of time. My curiosity is too easily satisfied or rather I have learned that the fascination of a strange place is centered in its people rather than and its fuse and monuments. Great bronze statues of generals on horses bore the shit out of me...."
( Moritz Thomsen. The Saddest Pleasure : A Journey On Two Rivers)

Too Many Eyes

"Famous sights seen by too many eyes are robbed little by little of their power to excite or dazzle; each pair of eyes has taken something away. Public things are diminished by lying helpless under the public gaze....."

(Moritz Thomsen The Saddest Pleasure: A Journey On Two Rivers)

Blind, Drunk, or Asleep

"If the trouble isn't with the rider. There's still the threat of the car driver. For some reason most car drivers just don't  seem to see bikes. So ya got to think of them as asleep, blind, or drunk. (Peter Fonda)

Forget A Really Great Career

"Mommy and daddy told me if I work really hard I will have a good career. So if you work hard and have a good career, if you work really, really, really hard, you'll have a great career. Doesn't that, like, mathematically make sense?
Hummm, not!
But you've  managed to talk yourself into that. You know what, here's a little secret. You want to work hard?
You want to work really, really, really hard? You know what, you'll succeed. The world will give you the opportunity to work really, really, really, really hard. But, are you so sure that that's going to give you a great career, when all of the evidence is to the contrary. "

(Larry Smith. TED Talk)

Deeper Into The World.

"The spiritual life does not remove us from the world but leads us deeper into it" — Henri J.M. Nouwen

Is God In the Corner Of Your Church?

“How little chance the Holy Ghost has nowadays.  The churches and missionary societies have so bound him in red tape that they practically ask Him to sit in a corner while they do the work themselves.”
- C.T. Studd

There is Actually MORE.....After All

"Do more than belong: participate. Do more than care: help. Do more than believe: practice. Do more than be fair: be kind. Do more than forgive: forget. Do more than dream: work."

~ William Arthur Ward

Stop Trying To Change Gay... And Change.....

"Changing someone’s sexual orientation is simply not your business.
It’s out of your jurisdiction.
It’s way above your pay grade.
It’s far beyond your control.

And yet Christian, because there is so much that is within your control, here is some unsolicited, but hopefully useful advice for you with whatever precious, fleeting moments you have left on this planet:

Stop spending so much time and energy trying to make gay people “not gay”—it isn’t going to happen. Ever.

Instead, try spending that time and energy, making:
hungry people not hungry,
hurting people not hurt,
lonely people not alone,
victimized people not victimized,
invisible people feel seen.
bullied people feel protected.
grieving people feel comforted.

Those things you actually can accomplish and Jesus did explicitly call you to them.
He states that this is his business and so it should be yours."

(John Pavloviyz) link