My Arrogant Judgement

"The root and origin of sin is the arrogance in which man wants to be his own and his neighbor's judge."

-Karl Barth-

We Are The Same As He Is

“No, Lise, it’s not contempt,” Alyosha answered, as though he had prepared himself for the question. “I was thinking of that on the way here. How can it be contempt when we are all like him, when we are all just the same as he is?"

- Fyodor Dostoevshy. The Brothers Karamazov

Analysis From Above

"Isn’t there in all our analysis- I mean your analysis… no, better call it ours- aren’t we showing contempt for him, for that poor man- in analysing his soul like this, as it were, from above, eh?"

- Fyodor Dostoevshy. The Brothers Karamazov

The Fertile Ground Of Humility

"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 and yet it is always ready to receive any seed, ready to give it substance and life, The more lowly, the more fruitful, because it becomes really fertile when it accepts all the refuse of the earth. It is so low that nothing can soil it, abase it, humiliate it; it has accepted the last place and cannot go any lower."

-  Anthony Bloom

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

Lizard Brain Transformation

"I believe that we are invited to gaze upon the image of the crucified Jesus to soften our hearts toward all suffering, to help us see how we ourselves have been “bitten” by hatred and violence, and to know that God’s heart has always been softened toward us. In turning our gaze to this divine truth—in dropping our many modes of scapegoating and self-justification—we gain compassion toward ourselves and all others who suffer. It largely happens on the psychic and unconscious level, but that is exactly where our hurts and our will to violence lie, lodged in the primitive “lizard brain,” where we have almost no rational control.
A transformative religion must touch us at this primitive, brain-stem level, or it is not transformative."
- Richard Rohr 

Our Legacy Collapse Is Fertilizer For The New Tree

"Go ahead! Achieve all your goals! Break all the dams! Faster! You are unbound. Go ahead and fly with faster wings, with an ever greater pride for your achievements, with your conquests, with your empires, with your democracies! The pit must be filled: there is a need for fertilizer for the new tree that will grow out of your collapse."

- G. DE Giorgio. "Crollano Le Torri"  La Torre. 1930

About Feeling Religious?

"It seems that we Christians have been worshipping Jesus' journey instead of doing his journey. The first feels very religious; the second just feels human, and not glorious at all."

- Richard Rohr. Everything Belongs. 

Personal Pluming As Pride Abates

"And just as in vessels that contain water the air is excluded, so with men that are full of solid merit their pride abates, and their estimate of themselves becomes a lower one, and they cease to plume themselves on a long beard and threadbare cloak, and transfer their training to the mind, and are most severe and austere to themselves, while they are milder in their intercourse with everybody else...."

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

Pride Like Lard

Pride grows in the human heart like lard on a pig."

- Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn. The Gulag Archipelago. 

Dogmatic Anti-Religion

"You wonder why people who hate religion tend to attack it with the same dogmatism that they hate in religion."

- Richard Rohr. The Naked now

The Foundation Of All Violence and Posturing

In the early medieval period, to Christian philosophers at the monastery of St. Victor in Paris had names for these three ways of seeing, and these names had a great influence on Scholars and seekers in the western tradition. Hugh of St. Victor (1078 - 1141) and Richard of St. Victot (1223 - 1173) wrote that humanity was given three different sets of eyes, each building on the previous one. The first eye was the eye of the flesh (thought or sight), the second was the eye of reason (meditation or reflection), and the third eye was the eye of true understanding (contemplation).

I cannot emphasize strongly enough that the separation and loss of these three necessary offices that the basis of much of the short-sightedness and religious crises of the Western World. Lacking such wisdom, it is very difficult for churches, government, and leaders to move deyond ego. The desire for control, and public posture. Everything divides into opposition such as liberal versus conservative, with vested interest pulling against one another. Truth is no longer possible at this level of conversation.  Even theology becomes more a quest for power than a search for God and mystery.

One wonders how far are spiritual and political leaders can genuinely lead us without some degree of mystical seeing and action. It is hardly an exaggeration to say that "us-and-them" seeing, and the dualistic thinking that results, is the foundation of almost all this content and violence in the world."

(Richard Rohr. The Naked Now)

Leaving Intimacy Behind? Theology Gone Wrong

"'Aren't theologians trying to learn about God and help others do the same?'
'Oh, yes, there are a great many who are. But theologians have the same
problem all people have, and they can fall into plastic religion as easily as the next. Thus, the drift in a few religious scholarly circles is not really about knowing God. It's more about mastering God. Then you can develop systematic theologies to explain away the problems. It becomes a nice religious formula and can limit relationship with God to an intellectual ascent. You see, theology is necessary and can be a very healthy thing, but it can also be the empty husk of life people cling to when they leave intimacy behind.'" 

- (The Bastard Tree. M.C. Lang)

Not With You First

"The church begins not with a Pious individual, but with God. "

~ Hans Küng. "The church"

Im Not a Drunkard I'm an Alcoholic

"After the first meeting, I resolved not to go back. They just weren't my kind of people. They were blue-collar, and I was a professional. They were on polish, and I was used to moving in a more sophisticated crowd. They were drunks; I was an alcoholic"

~ Bill Irwin. Blind Courage.

A Little Fellow In The Wider World.

“Then the prophecies of the old songs have turned out to be true, after a fashion!" said Bilbo.

"Of course!" said Gandalf. “And why should not they prove true? Surely you don't disbelieve the prophecies, because you had a hand in bringing them about yourself?

"You don’t really suppose, do you, that all your adventures and escapes were managed by mere luck, just for your sole benefit? You are a very fine person, Mr. Baggins, and I am very fond of you; but you are only quite a little
fellow in a wide world after all!"

~ J.R.R Tolkein, The Hobbit

I Don't Want To Wear The Armour

"You've turned down literary honors?
You've turned down a knighthood?" ~ Steve Croft (60 Minutes)

Yes! ~ David Cornwell - Jean Le Carré

"Why?" Steve Croft

"In my own country I'm  so suspicious of the literary world that I don't want its accolades. And, least of all, do I want to be called a Commander of the British Empire, or any other thing of the British Empire. I find it emetic."

And why do you feel that way?

"I don't want to posture sombody who's been honored by the state and therefore must somehow conform with the State. And, I don't  want to wear the armour."

(60 Minutes interview. By Steve Croft. Jan 21, 2018)

Placating Sooky Christians

"Much time is spent among Christians trying to smooth over hurt feelings and even deep wounds, given and received, and to get people to stop being angry, retaliatory, and unforgiving. But suppose, instead, we devoted our time to inspiring and enabling Christians and others to be people who are not offendable and not angry and who are forgiving as a matter of course. "Great peac," the psalmist says, "have they who love thy law. Nothing trips them up" (Psalm 119:165).
To intentionally make disciples is to open the door for people to become like that. That is why it is such a gift to humankind.

But really to intend this is no trivial matter, of course. It means a huge change of direction. The weight of the tradition of client, or consumer, Christianity, which now without thought dominates the local congregations and denominations of Christian people - indeed, the entire Christian culture - stands against any such intention- not consciously, perhaps, but just by the inertia of "how things are," of the daily rounds and what "has to get done."

~ Dallas Willard. The Divine Conspiracy

"So Much Better" Condemnation

"Of course more than half the battle with condemnation is won once we have given up anger and contempt. Condemnation always involves some degree of self-righteousness and of distancing ourselves from the one we are condemning."

~ Dallas Willard. The Divine Conspiracy

How He Comes Why He Comes

"And his coming and his presence are not only the result for our waiting or a prize for our efforts: they are his decision, based on his love freely poured out.
His coming is bound to his promise, not to our works or virtue. We have not earned the meeting with God because we have served in faithfully in our brethren, or because we have heaped up such a pile of virtue as to shine before heaven.

God is thrust forward by his love not attracted by your beauty. He comes even in moments when we have done everything wrong, when we have done nothing. When we have sinned."

(From the God who comes by Carlo.. as sited in Rueben Job, & Norman Shawchuch. A Guide To Prayer)