Showing posts with label Quotes. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Quotes. Show all posts
Friday, February 3, 2012
The Wound at the Heart of Life
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Thank you to my friend Matt for fwd: this to me
Thank you to my friend Matt for fwd: this to me
"This “wound at the heart of life” shows itself in many ways, but your holding and “suffering” of this tragic wound, your persistent but failed attempts to heal it, your final surrender to it, will ironically make you into a wise and holy person. It will make you patient, loving, hopeful, expansive, faithful, and compassionate—which is precisely the second half of life wisdom."
- Richard Rohr
Sunday, December 5, 2010
The Mediocrity of a Comfortable Christianity
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From Gerard Thomas Straub
From Gerard Thomas Straub
For me, seeing so much suffering in the massive slums of the world forced me to forget myself, my own limitations, and hear the silent voice of God calling me to respond, not only to the shameful injustice, but also to God's endless mercy and love. In seeing so many starving kids with bloated bellies and the overwhelming need of the poor, I became less concerned with my own subjective needs and harmful compulsions, and more aware of the self-emptying love of Christ which I needed to imitate to the best of my ability. But the noise of life sometimes distracted me and rendered me deaf to God and capable of only hearing my own confused and rambling voice.
Without the stillness and silence of solitude, we easily slip back into the mediocrity of a comfortable Christianity which is no match for the gun-toting, hopeless nihilism of postmodern life where everything is reduced to a commodity for sale, where unbridled greed has caused a catastrophic global economic recession, where materialism without qualification and sex without love are affirmed and championed, where mainstream corporations distribute pornography without shame or reproach, where dialogue has given way to vitriolic hate speech, where conflicts are settled by violence, where barbarous acts of terrorism threaten all, where blind religious fundamentalism passes for true faith, where drug addiction and alcoholism are rampant, where thousands of kids die every day from hunger, and where selfishness and individualism have created prisons of poverty and are destroying the earth. In stillness and silence we are able to catch a glimmer of the interconnectivity of all life, to see the sun as our brother and the moon as our sister, to see that all of humanity and all of creation as part of our family.
Even in solitude I am powerless to create (or even merit) the desire of my heart, the desire to see the face of God. It is only by grace that God gives us eyes to see, ears to hear, and a heart to understand. And the lived reality of God's grace and presence leads us, in our own fragility, to greater and greater heights of compassion for others.
Sunday, July 19, 2009
Quote from "Let Your Life Speak"
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"I love the fact that the word humus - the decayed vegetable matter that feeds on the roots of plans - comes from the same root that gives rise to the word humility. It is a blessed etymology. It helps me understand that the humiliating events of life, the events that leave 'mud on my face' or that 'make my name mud,' may create the fertile soil in which something new can grow." - Parker Palmer
Monday, June 29, 2009
More Wise Words from Merton
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Reading "Contemplative Prayer" I came across this description of life that seems so fitting:
"The curious state of alienation and confusion of man in modern society...underlying all life is the ground of doubt and self-questioning which sooner or later must bring us face to face with the ultimate meaning of our life. This self-questioning can never be without a certain existential 'dread' - a sense of insecurity, of 'lostness,' of exile, of sin. A sense that one has somehow been untrue not so much to abstract moral or social norms but to one's own inmost truth." ... It is the profound awareness that one is capable of ultimate bad faith with himself and with others: that one is living a lie."
This inner uncertainty and awareness of being untrue to oneself is profoundly powerful, and more common than we would like to admit. I know that I have sensed it in myself, and it is a scary place to explore. But the lazy river of American life slowly and naturally drifts me away from deep and real integrity. As he says, "Society itself, institutional life, organization, the 'approved way,' may in fact be encouraging us in falsity and illusion."
Because I resonate with his description of this "inner dread," I also resonate with his description of the solution:
"In order to be true to God and to ourselves we must break with the familiar, established and secure norms and go off into the unknown...the turning to a freedom based no longer on social approval and relative alienation, but on direct dependence on a invisible and inscrutable God, in pure faith...This is the creative and healing work of the monk, accomplished in silence, in nakedness of spirit, in emptiness, in humility. It is a participation in the saving death and resurrection of Christ. Therefore every Christian may, if he so desires, enter into communion with this silence of the praying and meditating Church, which is the Church of the Desert."
There are not many Christians, let alone American churches, advertising this type of faith. It's a difficult call to follow Jesus into the desert, into temptation, into solitude and confusion. But I have found that this is where God's heart lies, not in the easy answers or superficial feel good-ism, but a genuine search from the heart. It doesn't look like the faith that has always been described to me.
But at least it doesn't feel like I'm lying to myself anymore.
"The curious state of alienation and confusion of man in modern society...underlying all life is the ground of doubt and self-questioning which sooner or later must bring us face to face with the ultimate meaning of our life. This self-questioning can never be without a certain existential 'dread' - a sense of insecurity, of 'lostness,' of exile, of sin. A sense that one has somehow been untrue not so much to abstract moral or social norms but to one's own inmost truth." ... It is the profound awareness that one is capable of ultimate bad faith with himself and with others: that one is living a lie."
This inner uncertainty and awareness of being untrue to oneself is profoundly powerful, and more common than we would like to admit. I know that I have sensed it in myself, and it is a scary place to explore. But the lazy river of American life slowly and naturally drifts me away from deep and real integrity. As he says, "Society itself, institutional life, organization, the 'approved way,' may in fact be encouraging us in falsity and illusion."
Because I resonate with his description of this "inner dread," I also resonate with his description of the solution:
"In order to be true to God and to ourselves we must break with the familiar, established and secure norms and go off into the unknown...the turning to a freedom based no longer on social approval and relative alienation, but on direct dependence on a invisible and inscrutable God, in pure faith...This is the creative and healing work of the monk, accomplished in silence, in nakedness of spirit, in emptiness, in humility. It is a participation in the saving death and resurrection of Christ. Therefore every Christian may, if he so desires, enter into communion with this silence of the praying and meditating Church, which is the Church of the Desert."
There are not many Christians, let alone American churches, advertising this type of faith. It's a difficult call to follow Jesus into the desert, into temptation, into solitude and confusion. But I have found that this is where God's heart lies, not in the easy answers or superficial feel good-ism, but a genuine search from the heart. It doesn't look like the faith that has always been described to me.
But at least it doesn't feel like I'm lying to myself anymore.
Saturday, June 6, 2009
Quote
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Ran across this quote today as I was cleaning up stuff from the school year. We used this in our "Stations of the Cross" experience in April -
Ran across this quote today as I was cleaning up stuff from the school year. We used this in our "Stations of the Cross" experience in April -
"There is good biblical evidence that God not only suffered in Christ, but that God in Christ suffers with his people still. ...It is wonderful that we may share in Christ's sufferings; it is more wonderful still that he shares in ours."- John Stott, The Cross of Christ
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