How To See

The Achilles heel of organized religion might be that we tend to tell people what to see instead of teaching them how to see.

Richard Rohr

Jesus, We've Got It Covered!

“My Jesus, we no longer have need of thee. We are now capable of making the aggressor pay for his offenses. We are now able to take vengeance into our own hands, and to deal with Good and Evil. Therefore, You can leave us on our own, and their will be no problem.”

~ Brother Sisois

(Maktub. Paulo Coelho)

What of A Preacher?

"..... preachers have become confused with life coaches or entertainers, and congregations have been replaced by audiences and autonomous consumers."

- Carl R. Truman

Wisdom Isn't Gold!

"So wisdom is neither gold, nor silver, nor fame, nor wealth, nor health, nor strength, nor beauty. What is it then? It is what can use all these well, and that by means of which each of these things becomes pleasant and esteemed and useful, and without which they are useless; and unprofitable and injurious, and a burden and disgrace to their possessor."

- Plutarch. Plutarch's Morals

Looking for Answers In Depressing Places

If you look at the world

You'll be distressed.

If you look within

You'll be depressed

If you look at God

You'll be at rest

Corrie Ten Boom

How Loving Solves Social Justice

Transforming the social world - Dallas Willard

"That’s the secret of Jesus. You watch Jesus, and you see he never did “withdraw” and then “attack.” All of the time people wanted him to do it and in many ways, but he would not. Then to the body of believers he said, “This will show everyone that you are my disciples, if you love one another,” but he had already said, “Love one another as I have loved you.” So that’s the model. In that sense the transformation of the social world is at its heart the transformation of personal relations. That’s the key to transforming society in the larger arena. There is no cure for the social battles that we fight in our culture—and there’s so much grief around race, gender, and so forth—until you eliminate “withdrawal” and “attack” and replace them with “acceptance” and “help.” Once you do that and not just talk about it, these other issues will fall into place quickly. They will not fall into place at all unless it is done this way."

From "Renewing the Christian Mind: Essays, Interviews, and Talks."

Two Opposite Stories Cain't win!

"As a doctor working in a slum area with many immigrant residents, I see multiculturalism from the ground up, rather than from the theory down. And it is clear from what I see almost every day that not all cultural values are compatible or can be reconciled by the enunciation of platitudes. The idea that we can all rub along together, without the law having to discriminate in favour of one set of cultural values rather than another, is worse than merely false: it makes no sense whatever."

Theodore Dalrymple, Life at the Bottom

The Diabolical Self

"The sins of the flesh are bad, but they are the least bad of all sins. All the worst pleasures are purely spiritual: the pleasure of putting other people in the wrong, of bossing and patronizing and spoiling sport, and back-biting, the pleasures of power, of hatred. For there are two things inside me, competing with the human self which I must try to become. They are the Animal self, and the Diabolical self. The Diabolical self is the worse of the two. That is why a cold, self-righteous prig who goes regularly to church may be far nearer to hell than a prostitute. But, of course, it is better to be neither." ~ C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity

Conformity

But it is not "inequity" and "unfairness" that are at the root of socialist Envy, it is a desire to stamp out diversity, to enforce uniformity....

In "Facial Justice" the British fiction writer L.P. Hartley wrote of an imaginary Utopia where envy is institutionalized by a government program that make sure all female faces are equal, performing coerced surgery to detract from the more beautiful and uplifting less unattractive until "facial Justice" is finally realized .....

Kyrt Vonnegyt Jr. wrote the short story "Harrison Bergerob" depecting a comprehensively egalitarian utopia:

" the year was 2081, and everyone was finally equal. They weren't only equal before God in the law. They were equal in every which way. Nobody was smarter than anybody else. Nobody was better looking than anyone else."

The Handicappingh worked as follows: Hazel had a perfectly average intelligence, which meant she couldn't think about anything except in short bursts.

And George, while his intelligence was way above normal, had a little mental handicap radio in his ear. He was required by law to wear it at all times. It was tuned to a government transmitter. Every 20 seconds or so, the transmitter would send out some sharp noise to keep people like George from taking on a fair advantage of their brains."

- Thomas J. Dilorenzo

Loving Beyond The World Of Deception

"In the badlands, I had been incrementally realizing that there is far more to this Christian life than getting it right. There is living it right. Learning the truth of God, the gospel, the scriptures involves understanding words, concepts, history. But living it means working through a world of deception, of doubt and suffering, a world of rejections and betrayal and idolatry."

--- Eugene Peterson