Reality Will Leave You Behind Without Knowledge

"..... why do people perish for lack of knowledge? Well, they perish - to make it very short and sweet - because, if you don't have knowledge, reality will run over you, or desert you, or leave you out.

Whereas if we act with knowledge and truth, our actions harmonize with reality. Otherwise, not, or they do it just by chance."

Dallas Willard. 

Prayer Happened, And I Was There.

"Without prayer, the best you can do is know by comparison, calculation, and from the limited view point of "you." Prayer is very traditionally understood, knows reality in a totally different way. Instead of presenting a guard itself to the moment, true prayer stops defending or promoting its ideas and feelings, let's go of any antagonistic attitudes or fears, and waits for, expects, and receives guidance from Another [God] ..... 

Most simply put, as we've seen, prayer is something that happens to you (Romans 8:26 - 27),  much more than anything you privately do. It is an allowing the Big Self [God] more than an assertion of the small self. Eventually you will find yourself preferring to say, "Prayer happened, and I was there" more than "I pray today." All you know is that you are being led, being guided, being loved, being used, being prayed through and you are no longer in the driver's seat. God stops being an object of attention like any other object in the world and becomes at some level your own "I am." You start knowing through, with, and in somebody else. Your little "I am" becomes "We are."

- Richard Rohr. The Naked Now 

The Prayer Tuning Fork

"The word is "resonance." 

Prayer is actually setting out a tuning fork. All you can really do in the spiritual life is get tuned to receive the always present message. Once you are tuned, you will receive, and it has nothing to do with worthiness or the group you belong to..... "

- Richard Rohr. The Naked Now 

Religious Love Affair

"Let your religion be less of a theory and more of a love affair."~ G.K. Chesterton

Don't Die Bitter - Is The Religious Imperative

"As we age we need to forgive -forgive those who hurt us, forgive others for our own mistakes, forgive life for having been unfair, and then forgive God for seemingly not having protected us - all of this so that we do not die bitter and angry, which is perhaps the greatest religious imperative of all."

- Roland Rolheiser. Sacred Fire. 

Our Most Active Years Are A Gift

"Many are the persons who deeply regret that during the healthiest and most productive years of their lives they were too driven and too unaware of the richness of their own lives to appreciate and enjoy what they were doing. Instead of privilege, they felt burden; instead of gratitude, they felt resentment; and instead of joy, they felt anger. 

- Ronald Rolheiser. Sacred Fire. 

Something Worth Doing

"There is something worse than having too much to do, and that is having nothing to do or too little to do of importance."

- Roland Rolheiser. Sacred Fire

The Who God Isn't Immune To Pain

"I could never myself believe in God, if it were not for the cross. . . . In the real world of pain, how could one worship a God who was immune to it?" 

-  John Stott

What Kind Of UNITY?

"..... we must not speak of "unity OR truth." We must not speak only of "unity AND truth," or "unity WITH truth," or "unity IN truth." We must pursue the UNITY OF TRUTH."

- Jack Cottrell. The Unity Of Truth

Agenda

“Systems and institutions move at the speed of agenda, family moves at the speed of the slowest.”
~ Wm Paul Young

Seperating Ourselves From The Church Universal

"But if the church is something we are, not someplace we go, how can we leave it unless we abandon Christ himself? And if I think only of a specific congregation as my part of the church, haven’t I separated myself from a host of other brothers and sisters that do not attend the same one I do?"

- Wayne Jacobsen 

Language of The Head And Heart

"My unexpected discovery was this: facts are the language of the head; story is the language of the heart. The language of the head encourages debate. The language of the heart encourages friendship."

-Tony Kriz, 'Neighbors and Wise Men'

My Friends Try Me So

"The friend that visits them tires their patience, And yet they do not like him to depart."

- Ion of Greece -

(Ion was believed to have founded a primary tribe of Greece, the Ionians)

You Go With Change

"..... so changes of life do not remove the sorrows and troubles of the soul; which proceed from want of experience and reflection, and from inability or ignorance rightly to enjoy the present."

- Plutarch. Plutarch's Morals. First Century Greek Philosopher.

Avoiding Honeymoons

"Classical spiritual writers warn us, after we have broken the Pleasure Principle and reached a mature level of discipleship, the old temptations will resurface with a Vengeance, just in subtler forms....

Their first warning concerns the danger of reverting to immaturity because of the longing for another honeymoon ........  One of the demons that we must wrestle with after we have made lifelong commitments is the powerful temptation to experience yet another honeymoon."

- Roland Rolheiser. Sacred Fire

Four Ways God Speaks - But One Message, One Voice

"There are four ways in which God reveals His will to us through the scriptures, through providential circumstances, through the convictions of our own higher judgment, and through the inward impressions of the Holy Spirit on our minds. 

We're these four harmonize, it is safe to say that God speaks. 

For I laid lay it down as a foundation principle..... that of course his voice will always be in harmony with itself, no matter in how many different ways he may speak. The voices may be many, the message can be but one. If God tells me in one voice to do or to leave  undone anything, he cannot possibly tell me the opposite in another voice. If there is a contradiction in the voices, the speaker's cannot be the same."

Hannah  Whitall Smith

Trusting FOr Today Or The Future?

"It is generally much less difficult for us to commit the keeping of our future to the Lord than it is to commit our present."

- Hannah Whitall Smith 

Kicking Out Way Into Maturity

"... maturity is often imposed on is by conscription, as the circumstances and responsibilities of our Lives drag as protesting into generosity and adulthood."

- Sacred Fire. Ronald Rolheiser 

Only Church Left Was The Heart.

"We have already had an opportunity to observe that the separation of church and state was so construed by the state that the churches themselves and everything that hung in them, was installed in them and painted in them, belonged to the state, and the only church remaining was that church which, in accordance with the Scriptures, lay within the heart."

-Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn 

What If We Don't Stop Exisiting?

If I am just my brain and everything I'm thinking and doing is chemistry, I want to know that.

I'm not trying to hide from that. 

I mean the the big issue is not "if you're going to stop existing". If you're going to stop existing you're out. It's like going to the dentist, it's unpleasant for a while but it'll be over. The real problem comes if you're not going to stop existing."

- Dallas Willard 

The Burden Of Proof Is Always Mine

"...the burden of proof is always mine, because i am the one who wants to know. 

I'm not in this discussion to put you back on your heals. I'm here to determine the truth, and the burden of proof is mine. I'm not trying to win an argument. 

I think it is one of the most important things especially for christians to understand. They're  not here to try and duck and dodge. If you can find a better way than what Jesus Christ  offers, he would be the first person to tell you to take it. If you don't  believe that about him,  you can't be his disciple becuse you could never trust him. "

- Dallas Willard. 

You Can Not Live Without A World View.

"You "world view" consists of your assumptions about the realities and values that goveren you and the world in which you live..... Thats an important thing to understand about worldviews: is that you don't have to  think about them in order for them to determine your behaviour. We need to let that soak in. 

You can't live without a worldview. 

It is a biological reality, built into your usual actions and responses.

It's built right into your body. Its built right into your life. Built into your body. Your body responds in terms of your world view, whether you think about it or not. Your world view is most clearly  seen in the things you don't  think about and talk about. 

-  Dallas Willard -

- DallasWillard 

"People often asked me, "Since you're so smart, why are you still in church?" and I say to them, "Well, you know, Christians are supposed to love their enemies and they will find a few of those a church. But actually that's true."

- Dallas Willard -

When The Mind Goes Wrong

"When the mind goes wrong, the will is enslaved."

- Dallas Willard -

If Do Nothing, I Do It With Jesus

I understand where Jesus says, "without me you can do nothing". That's granted.  But we need to think the thought that if you do nothing it will be without him. 

And now the questiion is, "What am I to do?"

-Dallas Willard 

"Being a disciple is not an "advanced" spiritual condition.

Thank God for that.  We come into discipleship to Christ with no credentials except our need and our understanding that he has welcomed us to life in him in the kingdom of God.....   you are in a position of a student of Jesus Christ."

- Dallas Willard 

Who Put Out More Effort?

A second reaction to all of this is, this is works, not Grace. and it's very cmmon when the topic of spiritual formation comes up, and you get into the discussion of actually doing something, then people are apt to say, "Well that's works and not Grace." And, unfortunately, it's a pretty harmful understanding of Grace.

 Grace is not opposed to effort. iIn fact, you won't see anyone put out effort like someone who's been touched by grace."

- Dallas Willard. 

"The problems caused by the idea of full-time Christian service, and the view that ordinary occupations are not full time-time Christian service. This  is one of the greatest problems that we have. It's a very old problem."

- Dallas Willard 

Sleazy Moralizers

"In our rhetoric, our politics, and our media, we are a nation of grand moralizers. In the reality of everyday life, we are in one of the most immoral periods of history, and it seems to be getting more immoral, more sleazy, more grimy every day."

- Leonard Sweet. AquaChurch 

In The House Of The Angery

"...... for in the house of an angry man "The only music ever heard is wailing,""

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

My Good Temper

"Good temper on the other hand is useful in some circumstances, adorns and sweetens others, and gets the better of all peevishness and anger by its gentleness."

- First Century Greek Philosopher, Plutarch. Plutarch's Morals 

My Own "Class", First

"In our own time we built our army on the basis of a healthy feeling of class enmity; in its name, we do not entrust even one responsible position to people who do not belong to our camp, without assigni g them.... a comnissar.  (Krylenko)

- Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn. The Gulag Archipelago. Vol 1. 

Growing The Law?

"Who was that young woman flashing past?That was Tolstoi's daughter, Alexandria, Krylenko asked her: "What did you do during these conversations?" And she answered: "I attended the samovar." Three years of concentration camp!
And that's how the son of our freedom rose.
It was as just such a well-nourished little imp that our Octobrist child - Law - began to grow. Today we don't remember this at all."

- Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn. The Gulag Archipelago. Vol 1. 

To Enjoy Growth

To come to enjoy what you have not 

you must go by a way in which you enjoy not. 

To come to the knowledge you have not 

you must go by a way in which you know not. 

To come to the possession what you have not 

you must go buy a way in which you possess not. 

To come to be what you are not 

you must go by a way in which you are not 

- John of the Cross. Spanish Mystic

The Silent Blesser

"His (John of the Cross, Spanish mystic, in "The Ascent of Mount Carmel") fourth Council invites us to relativize ourselves by no longer giving into our natural instinct to seek to be the centre of attention. For John, we move toward maturity by striving to be a listener rather than the one seeking to be listened to, by striving to give our attention to others rather than seeking to be the centre of attention, and by striving to be the one who is blessing others rather than being the one seeking the blessing. "

- Ronald Rolheiser. Sacred Fire 

I Deny My Inner Suicide Bomber

"To be a saint is to be fuelled by gratitude, nothing less. Christian discipleship is as much about having a mellow and forgiving heart as it is about believing and doing the right things. But this is not an easy thing to accept. Irrespective of our ecclesial or political ideology and Ethos, liberal or conservative, we all tend to write off this demand as a non-negotiable in regards to Christian discipleship. Invariably, we tend to rationalize it away by pointing to the weight and urgency of our causes, be they dogmatic or moral. We see this, in its worst example, in suicide bombers, who are religiously convicted that their cause is so important that they can be martyrs, for God, by destroying dozens or perhaps even thousands of innocent lives. When the case is this extreme, we see more easily what misguided religious fervour looks like and how important religiously it is to have a mellow and forgiving hurt. But we are not as perceptive in seeing the rationalizing suicide bomber inside ourselves when, for the sake of God and Truth, our own religious and political discourse is laced with bitterness, anger, jealousy, demonization, lack of respect, lack of graciousness, and lack of elementary Christian and human charity. We also tend not to recognize in the embittered moralizing that sometimes emanates from our ecclesial communities.  A mellow and gracious heart is not a negotiable Christian virtue. It is an essential demand of Christian discipleship."

- Roland Rolheiser. Sacred Fire 

Dealing With The Insubstantialy Of Me

"A man I know who likes playing the court jester is fond of lamenting: "Life is hard for me because I have to deal with the magnitude of me!" I cite this quip because for all of us the opposite is forever true; we have to deal with the insubstantiality of me. We are not born into this life with a clear sense of who we are, an easy sense of self-worth, a solid sense of security, and a sure conviction that we are wanted, love, and lovable. In biblical terms, we are born anxious."

- Roland Rolheiser. Sacred Fire 

But You Didn't Change Hearts!

"The social struggle in my day was very lively and intense, almost, I should say, as much so as in your own times. Everywhere there arose groups of men and women professing poverty and preaching poverty in the church and the renewal of society. But nothing changed, because these people did not change hearts. 

No, brothers and sisters, it is not enough to change laws. You have to change hearts. Otherwise, when you have completed the Journey of your social labour you shall find yourselves right back at the beginning only this time it is you who will be the arrogant, the rich, and the exploiters....."

You can reproach me, go ahead. But I saw, in the gospel, a road beyond, a path that transcended all cultures, all human constructs, all civilization and conventions. I felt the gospel to be Eternal; I felt politics and culture, including Christian culture, to be in time. I was made always to go beyond time. 

- Carlo carretto.  "I Francis"

Did You Spend The Night With God.

Throughout this friendly meal, I think about how she has described contemporary Algeria, where fundamentalist social attitudes are on the rise again. “Women will attack you and say, ‘How do you not wear the scarf? Didn’t God show you the good law?’ ” Cherifa Kheddar remains defiant. “I say to them, ‘Did you spend the night with God so you know what God wants?’ ”

- Karima Bennoune. Your Fatwa Does Not Apply Here.