Easily Broken Anger

"But let us transfer, Euripides, these lines of yours to enmities, and bid people make their animosities moderate, and not hate with all their heart, that their hatred, and wrath, and querulousness, and suspicions, may be easily broken."

- Plutarch. Plutarch's Morals.

Don't Steal Ten Dollars - Steal Ten Million

"We seem to be letting people off in white collar crimes with a little slap on the wrist... In a sense, if I steal ten dollars, I am in trouble, but if i steal ten million dollars, i can work this out."

- Greg Fergus. Liberal MP, Quebec. 

(About deferred prosecutions agreement Liberals snuck into a 600 page document last year. He said first he saw it was when presented that night for approval. Fall of 2018)

Locals Must Desire Change First

"These contradictions infuriate the young widowed hairdresser from Blida. “They say adultery is haram, then they kidnap girls and they are raped by fifty men. How can you talk about religion after this?” I ask her how one can fight fundamentalist violence. She insists she does not want her words used to justify military intervention in Algeria, as occurred in Iraq. Terrorism is an Algerian problem that has to be resisted by Algerians, she says. The widowed hairdresser believes that everything comes from the people. In Algeria, people turned against terrorism: “They became aware.”
........ If anyone is confused about what Muslim fundamentalism can mean in the lives of Muslims, the members of Djazairouna, many of whom are deeply religious themselves, can set them straight with stories of their Algeria.

- Karima Bennoune. Your Fatwa Does Not Apply Here. (Algerian)

Living Cut-Throats

"There should be a word in English for égorger (to cut the throat). It is the word for the 1990s in Algeria."

- Karima Bennoune. Your Fatwa Does Not Apply Here: 

Untold Stories from The Fight Against Muslim Fundamentalism 

The Top Soil Of Humility

"It is the attitude of one who is like the soil. Humility comes from the Latin word humus, fertile ground. The fertile ground is there, unnoticed, taken for granted, always there to be trodden upon. It is silent, inconspicuous, dark end yet it is always ready to receive any seed, ready to give it substance and life.

- Anthony Bloom. Living Prayer.

God Doesnt Need A Space

" God does not fill space as a body fills it, in the sense that parts of him are in different parts of space, excluding other objects from them. Yet he is everywhere — totally present at every point of space — according to good theologians."

- C.S. Lewis. The Weight of Glory

Something Other Than God?

"What Satan put into the heads of our remote ancestors was the idea that they could 'be like gods'—could set up on their own as if they had created themselves...invent some sort of happiness for themselves outside God, apart from God. And out of that hopeless attempt has come nearly all that we call human history—money, poverty, ambition, war, prostitution, classes, empires, slavery—the long terrible story of man trying to find something other than God which will make him happy."

~ C.S Lewis, Mere Christianity

Waiting For Him To Bleed

We Had to Wait

One winter’s day a group of men were working in the woods in the Dromore/Ft. Augustus area when one of them received a serious, self-inflicted slash from his axe and began to bleed profusely. His companions did their best to stop the flow, but recognizing the seriousness of his injury, put him in a sleigh and headed for Town. After a three-hour trip they arrived at the office of a physician with a reputation for crankiness. After checking the wound, he looked at the two friends and said crossly, “This man has lost a lot of blood, why didn’t you get him here sooner?”

One of the men, well-known for his droll wit, looked at the Doctor and replied dryly, “Well Doc, you see we had to wait for him to cut hisself.”

David Weale 

She Ruins Tea Well

“There are many ways to ruin a cup of tea, and she’s mastered all of them."

- Statement a Prince Edward Islander said. Dave Wheale -

“Tea was the great social lubricant, and a cup of tea was a cup of delight. To refuse a cup of tea was just as big an insult as not being offered one.”

Pray Such Friends Leave?

Plutarch cracks me up sometimes.

"..... far more difficult is it to meet with many friends who will take off their coats to aid you in every fortune, each of whom "offers his services to you in prosperity, and does not object to share your adversity." For neither does a ship encounter so many storms at sea, nor do they fortify places with walls, or harbours with defences and earthworks, in the expectation of so many and great dangers, as friendship tested well and soundly promises defence and refuge from. But if friends slip in without being tested, like money proved to be bad, "Those who shall lose such friends may well be glad, And those who have such pray that they may lose them.""

- Plutarch. Plutarch's Morals. 1st cen Greek Philosopher. 

Powers Bring My Darkness

"Such expansion of status also provides unlimited opportunity for the inner darkness to reveal itself. The lust for blood, rape and destruction is really very much part of powers attraction. It is not only that men desire power so that they will no longer suffer. It is not only that they desire power so that they can overcome subjugation to want, disease and death. Power also means the capacity to take revenge, ensure submission, and crush enemies."

- Jordan Peterson 

The God Hack

"It doesn’t even work as literature. The deus ex machina—the emergence of a divine force that magically rescues the hero from his predicament—is the cheapest trick in the hack writer’s playbook. It makes a mockery of independence, and courage, and destiny, and free will, and responsibility."
- Jordan Peterson 

Minister Signs

Anyone who understands Prince Edward Island culture knows that the teapot is the lubrication of life and relationships; especially so for the older generation.

A church minister on Prince Edward Island once told me,

"I knew my visit wasn't going to go well as soon as I was invited in. After seating me in a chair at the kitchen table, the woman went straight to the stove, turned off the burner already heating a teapot for tea when i arrived, removing the teapot from the burner, setting it to one side, and then sat down at the table.
I've visit many thousands of people in my time, and most often folks put a teapot on. This was the first time someone actually took the teapot "OFF". It wasn't a good sign. And, let me tell you, I interpretated "the signs of the time" just right."

No One Owns Jesus

"He came with darker skin, from the underclass, a male body with a female soul, from an often-hated religion, living on the very cusp between East and West. No one owns him, and no one ever will."

- Richard Rohr 

Jesus Is Bigger Than Your Empire

"The Christ is always way too much for us, larger than any one era, culture, empire, or religion. Its radical inclusivity is a threat to power and arrogance. "

- Richard Rohr 

A "True" Christian?????

"In fact, that is my only definition of a true Christian. A mature Christian sees Christ in everything and everyone else. That is a definition that will never fail you, always demand more of you, and give you no reasons to fight, exclude, or reject anyone."

-Richard Rohr 

I Blame Others! And You?

"We humans largely hate or blame almost anything else rather than recognize our own weaknesses and negativity. “She made me do it.” “He is guilty.” “He deserves it.” “They are the problem.” “They are evil.” We seldom consciously know that we are scapegoating or projecting. It’s automatic, ingrained, and unconscious."

- Richard Rohr 

Where Is God Today?

"We're already in the presence of God. What's missing is awareness."

~ Richard Rohr

No Holier?

"“Love one another, Fathers,” said Father Zossima, as far as Alyosha could remember afterwards. “Love God’s people. Because we have come here and shut ourselves within these walls, we are no holier than those that are outside, but on the contrary, from the very fact of coming here, each of us has confessed to himself that he is worse than others, than all men on earth…. And the longer the monk lives in his seclusion, the more keenly he must recognise that. Else he would have had no reason to come here. When he realises that he is not only worse than others, but that he is responsible to all men for all and everything, for all human sins, national and individual, only then the aim of our seclusion is attained."

- Fyodor Dostoevshy. The Brothers Karamazov. 

We Talk Too Much

“I’ve been teaching you so many years, and therefore I’ve been talking aloud so many years, that I’ve got into the habit of talking, and so much so that it’s almost more difficult for me to hold my tongue than to talk, even now, in spite of my weakness.."

- Alyosha in Fyodor Dostoevshy's, The Brothers Karamazov. 

I'm Hopeful For The Future Church.

"I just know that God always have a church. It's OK with me if the church looks really different in the future. So I am not worried. I just want to be part of what God is doing in the world."

- Elaine Heath

My Christ Fold You?

The God of life with guarding hold you;

the loving Christ with guarding fold you;

the Holy Spirit, guarding, mould you;

each night of life to aid, enfold you;

each day and night of life uphold you.

- The Patrick Compline 

The Whistling Man

I see a Man walking by the seashore, whistling gently to the waves of those who will come to restore the ruined places.

- Celtic Daily Prayer. Book 1. 

Availability Matters

"It is by God's grace that our feet don't lose contact with the path we set out to follow. We say, "Here I Am, Lord," when He calls. He calls continually to the willing and the unwilling. It is not so much our ability he has need of, but our availability."

- Celtic Daily Prayer. Book 1. Pg342

Stop Seeking Answers From God?

"Spiritual lust causes me to demand an answer from God, instead of seeking God himself who gives the answer....

Whenever we insist that God should give us an answer to prayer we are off track. The purpose of prayer is that we get a hold of God, not of the answer."

- Oswald Chambers. My Utmost For His Highest

No Appeal But To Satan

"The OSO enjoyed another important advantage in that its penalty could not be appealed. There was nowhere to appeal to. There was no appeals jurisdiction above it, and no jurisdiction beneath it. It was subordinate only to the Minister of Internal Affairs, to Stalin, and to Satan."

- Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn. The Gulag Archipelago. Vol. 1. 

We Believed in Mercy

"We believed in amnesty that spring, we weren't being at all original in this. Talking with old prisoners, one gradually discovers that this thirst for mercy and this faith in Mercy is never absent within gray prison walls."

- Alexsandr Solzhenitsyn. The Gulag Archipelago. Vol. 1. 

Why We Need Defeat

"There is a simple truth which one can learn only through suffering: in war not victories are blessed but defeats. Governments need victories and the people need defeats. Victory gives rise to the desire for more victories. But after a defeat it is freedom that men desire—and usually attain. A people needs defeat just as an individual needs suffering and misfortune: they compel the deepening of the inner life and generate a spiritual upsurge."

- Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn. The Gulag Archipelago. Vol. 1

To Self-absorbed To See Evil

"We were too self-absorbed even to grasp Stalin's simple economic calculations let alone his malice."

-Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn. The Gulag Archipelago. Vol 1

Little Mercy Without Wisdom

"But... for mercy one must have wisdom. This has been a true throughout our history and will remain one for a long time to come."
- Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn. The Gulag Archipelago. VOL 1. 

There is a certain understanding about life and the world that drive great mercy and other ideas about it that do not.

Thought about this statement for a long time this morning. I think he is correct.

Cantankerous Leadership

My mom said something.

"You can lie down for people to walk on you and they will still complain that you're not flat enough." Live your life.

- unknown -

That Ain't Anglicanism; It Is Now

"This is listening, not cloning. 
Please do not take a model of church off the shelf and say, "That looks good.""
Don't look at the stories either on the UK or US website and look for something to copy. Look at the range of stories and let the Spirit begin to inspire your imagination about the extraordinary creativity of the Holy Spirit in mission. 
Follow the Holy Spirit  who is giving you an invitation to improvise. If that didn't used to be Anglican, it is now." 

- Rt Reverend  Graham Cray - England. 

Kind To God?

"Am i as spontaneously kind to God as I used to be, or am I only expecting God to be kind to me?"

- Oswald Chambers. My Utmost For His Highest

"This is what the Lord says: “‘I remember the devotion of your youth..." Jeremiah 2:2 (NIV)

My Little Spirituality

"Keep his mind on the inner life. He thinks his conversion is something inside him and his attention is therefore chiefly turned at present to the states of his own mind."

- Screwtape's Letter To Wormwood -

 C.S. Lewis. The Screwtape Letters 

Don't Appeal To Reason

By the very act of arguing, you awake the patient's reason; and once it is awake, who can foresee the result? Even if a particular train of thought can be twisted so as to end in our favour, you will find that you have been strengthening in your patient the fatal habit of attending to universal issues and withdrawing his attention from the stream of immediate sense experiences. Your business is to fix his attention on the stream. Teach him to call it "real life" and don't let him ask what he means by "real"

- Screwtape's Letter to Wormwood.

C.S. Lewis - The Screwtape Letters

Simplify

"Simplifying isn’t about reducing the quality of church, but rather reducing the number of non-essentials."

- Unknown -

Government Unlasting

"It goes without saying that a civilization which leaves so large a number of its participants unsatisfied and drives them into revolt neither has nor deserves prospect of a lasting experience."

- Sigmund Freud. The Future of an Illusion. 

 

Human Evil Versud Cancer and Earthquakes

Evil enters the world with self-consciousness....

 Their mere factual reality is sometimes sufficient to turn even a courageous person against life. It has been my experience, however, that human beings are strong enough to tolerate the implicit tragedies of Being without faltering - without breaking or, worse, breaking bad. I have seen evidence of this repeatedly in my private life, in my work as a professor, and in my role as a clinical practitioner. Earthquakes, floods, poverty, cancer - we're tough enough to take on all of that. But human evil adds a whole new dimension of misery to the world..... 

Conscious human malevolence can break the spirit even tragedy could not shake."

- Jordan Peterson. 12 Rules For. 

Avoid Church Strategy

"We think God's will is a strategy he wants to give us so that we can follow it. I think it is a will that unfolds." 

- Wayne Jacobsen

Fake Confessions

"Many of the brothers disliked going to the elder, and went against their own will because everyone went, and for fear they should be accused of pride and rebellious ideas. People said that some of the monks agreed beforehand, saying, “I’ll confess I lost my temper with you this morning, and you confirm it,” simply in order to have something to say."

- Fyodor Dostoevshy. The Brothers Karamazov

Changing your Values

"..... sometimes, when things are not going well, it's not the world that's the cause. The cause is instead that which is currently most valued, subjectively, and personally..... If the world you are seeing is not the world you want, therefore, it's time to examine your values. It's time to rid yourself of your current presuppositions. It's time to let go. It might even be time to sacrifice what you love best, so that you can become who you might become, instead of staying who you are."

- Jordan Peterson. 12 Rules For Life

Dangerious Weak Men

"If you think tough men are dangerous, wait until you see what weak men are capable of."

- Jordan Peterson

Not Talked Down To

People do not want to be talked down to in our time; deep down in their bones, they want someone to challenge them, elevate them, and call them to become something greater than they are.

Jordan Peterson

War Brings Out Evil Justice

"Benjamin B. Ferencz, one of the prosecutors in the Nuremberg trials who, in May 1945, investigated occurrences at the Ebensee concentration camp, and narrated them to Tom Hofmann, a family member and biographer. He was completely outraged at what the Nazis had done there. When people discovered a SS guard who attempted to flee, they tied him to one of the metal trays used to transport bodies into the crematorium. They then proceeded to light the oven, and slowly roast the SS guard to death, taking him in and out of the oven several times. Ferencz said to Hofmann that at the time, he was in no position to stop the proceedings of the mob, and frankly admitted that he had not been inclined to try. Hofmann adds, "There seemed to be no limit to human brutality in wartime."

- Wikipedia.  Death By Burning.

How To Stay Angery - Politics

My dear wormwood,

"Be sure that the patient remains completely fixated on politics. Arguments, political gossip, and obsessing on the faults of people they have never met serves as an excellent distraction from advancing in personal virtue, character, and the things the patient can control. Make sure to keep the patient in a constant state of angst, frustration, and general disdain towards the rest of the human race in order to avoid any kind of charity or inner peace from further developing. Ensure the patient continues to believe that the problem is "out there" in the "broken system" rather than recognizing there is a problem with himself.

Keep up the good work,

Uncle Screwtape.

- "Screwtape Letters" by C.S. Lewis ~1942

The Beauty Was There All The Time

When one strains and labors over his dream he is too often carving Ivory and not polishing horn. Don't cut too deeply, don't carve too hard, don't paint the picture too much yourself. Get still a while, and let God paint it through you. Wrote Gutzon Borglum, "When I carve a statue, it is very simple. I merely cut away the pieces that don't belong there and the statue itself presently comes into view. It was there all the time."" 

- Glenn Clark. I will lift up mine eyes.