Quotations

A collection of 103 posts

Jeff Tweedy

Give The Song A Little Space – Jeff Tweedy

I’ve been reading, and loving, Jeff Tweedy’s book, “How to Write One Song.” Here’s one gem from it: “Let me just say this: I believe we stop ourselves sometimes when we’re happy. We create conflict in our relationships sometimes because we’re feeling uncertain and needy.

Quotations

Change and Trust

Dr. Mandy Cohen, the former N.C. Secretary of Health and Human Services, was the honorary degree recipient this year at Guilford College’s graduation. This is one piece of her remarks that has stuck with me. “Trust is the foundation of all relationships, both personal and professional. I truly

Blog Entries

David Whyte on Friendship

My friend, Maia Dery is responsible for me finding and reading David Whyte. Here are a few quotes from Whyte’s lovely chapter called Friendship in his book, Consolations: The Solace, Nourishment and Underlying Meaning of Everyday Words Friendship not only helps us see ourselves through another’s eyes, but

Family Systems

The Power of Presence

This is a long quote from one of my favorite books, “A Failure of Nerve: Leadership in the Age of Quick Fix” by Edwin Friedman. I’ve been thinking about it the past couple days with all the news about Covid-19 and thinking about the importance of pastors, leaders, parents,

Uncategorized

A Reading for Advent – Oscar Romero

No one can celebrate a genuine Christmas without being truly poor. The self-sufficient, the proud, those who, because they have everything, look down on others, those who have no need even of God – for them there will be no Christmas. Only the poor, the hungry, those who need someone to

Quotations

Howard Thurman on the Act of Creation

“The simplest definition of art is that it is the activity by which people realize their ideals…We are all artists in the sense that we are all engaged in some kind of activity by which we are realizing our ideals. What kind of ideas are you realizing? There is

Quotations

(Untitled)

“One of the great liabilities of history is that all too many people fail to remain awake through great periods of social change. Every society has its protectors of status quo and its fraternities of the indifferent who are notorious for sleeping through revolutions. Today, our very survival depends on

Quotations

An Inward Sea by Howard Thurman

There is in every person an inward sea, and in that sea there is an island and on that island there is an altar and standing guard before that altar is the ”angel with the flaming sword.” Nothing can get by that angel to be placed upon that altar unless

Quotations

Truth as Blasphemy

The whole world is crazy…The only reason we’re not locked up in an institution is that there are so many of us. So we’re crazy. We’re living on crazy ideas about love, about relationships, about happiness, about joy, about everything. We’re crazy to the point,

Quotations

A Listening That is So Alive

Douglas Steere speaks of listening to one another with a depth that might change the speaker, and also the listener. He uses Kierkegaard’s image of vocal ministry in describing this listening which is ‘so alive that judgment is withheld…To listen correctly, we must radically shift the roles. Now

Quotations

Missing Out of the Orchestra – De Mello

I never tire of Jesuit Anthony De Mello’s thoughts and challenges. Here is one that I have been reflecting on recently: Now think of yourself listening to an orchestra in which the sound of the drum is so loud that nothing else can be heard. To enjoy the symphony

Blog Entries

The Imagined Rebellion – Kierkegaard

A revolutionary age is an age of action; ours is the age of advertisement and publicity. Nothing ever happens but there is immediate publicity everywhere. In the present age a rebellion is, of all things, the most unthinkable. Such an expression of strength would seem ridiculous to the calculating intelligence

Quotations

If God is Love – Peggy Morrison

“If God is Love, then all Love is of God. Where Love is—there God is—without exception. If you truly love, or are loved, by anyone, then God is in that relationship, named or unnamed. God touches them through your love. And because God is love, and love is

Quotations

Detachment by Anthony de Mello

DETACHMENT by Anthony de Mello “The only way to change is by changing your understanding. But what does it mean to understand? How do we go about it? Consider how we’re enslaved by various attachments; we’re striving to rearrange the world so that we can keep these attachments,

Quotations

Edward Abbey on Living

My friend Greg Woods reminded me of this quote today, which is really quite amazing: One final paragraph of advice: do not burn yourselves out. Be as I am – a reluctant enthusiast….a part-time crusader, a half-hearted fanatic. Save the other half of yourselves and your lives for pleasure and

Prayers

A Prayer from Dorothy White

“You are the branches of the true Vine, you Spouses of the Beloved, you Daughters of [Zion] and Sons of Jacob…let the tribulated [rejoice] and sing, let the poor in spirit be glad; let them that dwell in the Valleys [rejoice], who drink of the Springs of the Fountain

Quotations

‘it defines itself in terms of the growing edge’ -H. Thurman

The crucifixion of Jesus Christ reminds us once again of the penalty which any highly organized society exacts of those who violate its laws. The social resistors fall into two general groups – those who resist the established order by doing the things that are in opposition to accepted standards of

Prayer

On the Harm We Have Done

Here is a prayer from Walter Rauschenbusch (1861-1918) that seems as timely as ever, and one we ought to be praying regularly, especially given the state of the church and its too often unfortunate behavior in American society and politics. OUR Father, we look back on the years that are

Quotations

Dorothy Sayers

A society in which consumption has to be artificially stimulated in order to keep production going is a society founded on trash and waste, and such a society is a house built upon sand.

Blog Entries

What is Enlightenment Like? Anthony De Mello

This is a story from Anthony De Mello’s book “Awareness” I used in my sermon yesterday: Somebody once asked, “What is enlightenment like? What is awakening like”? It’s like the tramp in London who was settling in for the night. He’d hardly been able to get a

Denise Levertov

‘…That Passeth All Understanding’ by Denise Levertov

An awe so quiet I don’t know when it began. A gratitude has begun to sing in me. Was there some moment dividing song from no song? When does dewfall begin? When does night fold its arms over our hearts to cherish them? When is daybreak?

death and dying

The Dead by Denise Levertov

Earnestly I looked into their abandoned faces at the moment of death and while I and aged their slack jaws and straighter waxy unrestraint limbs and plugged the orifices with cotton but like everyone else I learned each time nothing new, only that as it were, a music, however harsh,

James Alison

James Alison – Standing at the Edge of an Impact

Imagine two different groups of scientists. One group, armed with a set of encyclopedic guidebooks which are constantly being annotated, take turns to look at a distant star or galaxy through an extremely powerful telescope. The scientists offer comments from what they see, and in the light of what they

Quotations

John Greenleaf Whittier (on outward evidence not availing us)

They fail to read clearly the signs of the times who do not see that the hour is coming when, under the searching eye of philosophy and the terrible analysis of science, the letter and the outward evidence will not altogether avail us; when the surest dependence must be upon

Quotations

Rufus Jones – What is Vital?

The time has come – it is long overdue – for a Christianity that is fresh and vital and in conformity with established truth, but, what is no less important, proves its reality by the test-tube method of corresponding results. Too long our Christianity has consisted of words – has begun and ended