Reflections
Listen with curiosity. Speak with honesty. Act with integrity. The greatest problem with communication is we don’t listen to understand. We listen to reply. When we listen with curiosity, we don’t listen with the intent to reply. We listen for what’s behind the words.
~ Roy T. Bennett
In the choir of life, it’s easy to fake the words—but someday each of us will have to sing solo before God.
~ Michael P. Green, 1947-
“Jesus was the only One that ever raised the dead,” The Misfit continued, “and He shouldn’t have done it. He’s thrown everything off balance. If He did what He said, then it’s nothing for you to do but throw away everything and follow Him, and if He didn’t, then it’s nothing for you to do but enjoy the few minutes you got left, the best way you can, by killing somebody or burning down his house or doing some other meanness to him. … No pleasure but meanness,” he said and his voice had become almost a snarl.
~ Flannery O’Connor, A Good Man Is Hard to Find
Reading ought to be an act of homage to the God of all truth. We open our hearts to words that reflect the reality he has created or the greater reality which he is. Christ, the incarnate Word, is the Book of Life in whom we read God.
~ Thomas Merton, Thoughts in Solitude
Shall I tell you the secret of the whole world? It is that we have only known the back of the world. We see everything from behind, and it looks brutal. That is not a tree, but the back of a tree. That is not a cloud, but the back of a cloud. Cannot you see that everything is stooping and hiding a face? If we could only get round in front–
~ G.K. Chesterton (1874-1936), The Man Who Was Thursday
This Sunday’s readings: Acts 17:16-34