Ran across these last Sunday.
“I am not bound to win, but I am bound to be true.”
“I am not bound to succeed, but I am bound to live up to what light I have.”
“I must stand with anybody that stands right; stand with him while he is right, and part with him when he goes wrong.”
Abraham Lincoln
Well, I finally accomplished a long awaited goal. Shrugging off the bonds of laziness and frivolous spending of invaluable time doing “other” trivial mundane activities, I made a concerted effort to finish reading Sailing Between the Stars by Steven James. I had bought this book way back, probably over 2 years ago and never read it in its entirety. Tonight, I closed the book…not for the last time though. Throughout this book, I’ve found a great delight in his wording of common misconceptions and his spin on the paradoxes of faith. The book is thoroughly devoted to the subject of paradox. What is a paradox? Dictionary.com brings the definition to us.
And yet, not all of his writing are of the paradoxical kind. He scatters truth throughout his book. Not truth of the “stuffy pew” kind; rather, a refreshing take on modern truth. This truth is not of the post-modernistic genre. Its truth, the kind that hurts. I’m posting both types of quotes below.
“At Sunday worship, as in every dimension of our existence, many of us pretend to believe we are sinners. Consequently, all we can do is pretend to believe we have been forgiven.” This comes indirectly from Brennan Manning’s book, The Ragamuffin Gospel.
“Tragedy is a given in this sin-stained world. Pain is the default setting for this planet…Most of my frustrations com from my unrealistic expectations about life on this planet.”
“Only one human being has ever acted the way all humans were intended to act. And we put him to death for it“
“Justice and mercy are the cornerstones of the galaxy. Heaven is proof of hell. Hell is proof of heaven. Jesus is proof of both….’Following the wrong god home we may miss our star W. Stafford’“
St. Francis of Assisi: “Is it not a form of stealing to keep something for yourself when you meet someone who needs it more?”
Well, so much for now. SJ also has some good thoughts on Easter that may or may not find their way to this blog in the near future. Though for now, my mind bids this post farewell.
I usually don’t make it a habit of forwarding those cheesy cheer-up emails primarily because I don’t like it when people do that to me. In my eyes, it clogs up the in-box and really, how many of those send-this-email-to-10-people-and-watch-what-happens actually come true? Just today, I was sent this one from the Nightingale-Conant Corporation. This is not one of the aforementioned email forwards. Rather, Nightingale-Conant is the company that pioneered the audio self-help industry. They have some very good products. Just a warning though; they tend to be slightly humanistic.
So, I haven’t sent this to anyone’s in-box but I am posting it here for the enjoyment of anyone that is interested. This short inspirational film contains some fabulous one-liners. To me, these make the film worth watching.
http://www.nightingale.com/landingpages/Finding-Joy.aspx?promo=INPxFJ01
In creating a list of books that were recommended for a group study, namely for my youth group, I ran across this quote in Edward T. Welch’s book “When People Are Big and God is Small“. I highly recommend this book to anyone who struggles with peer pressure and insecurity, which is, and this should be no big surprise, exactly the issues he addresses. The quote is as follows:
“Individualism, at first, only saps the virtues of public life; but, in the long run, it attacks and destroys all others, and is at length absorbed in downright selfishness. Selfishness is a vice as old as the world…individualism is of democratic origin.” Alexis De Tocqueville
I sincerely hope that that does not hold true for everyone as I am inclined to see myself as being quite individualistic. There are times when I’m following the crowd that I realize how non-idividualistic I am. But for the most part, I remain and tend to be a individualistic person. But I can see what Tocqueville is saying. When someone is constantly doing things that he wants to do…because he is individualistic, saying things and really doesn’t give a fig what people think…because he is individualistic and basically running his own life the way he wants to…because he is individualistic, that person will, if he/she is not careful, creating a worldview that is extremely selfish. But when given proper balance, i.e. when that person has Christ and people in the right order, I honestly think that that person can have a tremendous and a proper effect on the people they meet.
If the latter statement seems biased it may very well be. As I have mentioned, I view myself as a individualistic Christian. But there is nothing wrong with following the crowd…if the crowd is following something worthwhile. But too often, people play the game “follow the follower‘. They just follow someone. That person is following someone else. Who knows…maybe that person is following the first? It just goes in circles. Individualistic individuals tend to lead, not follow. They are comfortable with who they are and know where they are going in life. Since I’m semi-comfortable with my person and know what I’ll be doing for the next 2 1/2 years, I guess that describes me….disregarding the fact that I wrote the description.
That’s all for this ramble,
EJ
A Prince's Path 