^{When we are no longer able to change a situation,
we are challenged to change ourselves.
~ Viktor E. Frankl}

Reflect, Resonate, Reevaluate, Respond

Know yourself and you will have a wholesome fear of God; know him and you will also love him.
~ Bernard of Clairvaux, 1090-1153, led reform in the Benedictines

The first principle is that you must not fool yourself—and you are the easiest person to fool.
~ Richard Feynman, 1918-1988, from commencement speech, Cal-Tech

~~~~~~~ Matthew 7:13-28 ~~~~~~~

He is a bold surgeon, they say, whose hand does not tremble when he performs an operation upon his own person; and he is often equally bold who does not hesitate to pull off the mysterious veil of self-delusion, which covers from his view the deformities of his own conduct.
~ Adam Smith, 1723-1790, economist and philosopher

The leader asked us to think of someone who represented Christ in our lives. When it came time to share our answers, one woman stood up and said, “I had to think hard about that one. I kept thinking, “Who is it that told me the truth about myself so clearly that I wanted to kill him for it?” According to John, Jesus was the truth, a perfect mirror in which people saw themselves in God’s own light. What happened then goes on happening now. In the presence of his integrity, our own pretense is exposed. In the presence of his constancy, our cowardice is brought to light.
~ Barbara Brown Taylor, 1951- , Episcopal priest, academic, and author

There comes a time when it is vitally important for your spiritual health to drop your clothes, look in the mirror, and say, “Here I am. This is the body-like-no-other that my life has shaped. I live here. This is my soul’s address.”
~ Barbara Brown Taylor

A world of nice people, content in their own niceness, looking no further, turned away from God, would be just as desperately in need of salvation as a miserable world—and might be even more difficult to save.
~ C. S. Lewis, Readings for Meditation and Reflection, Harper-One