This Sunday’s readings: James 1:19-27

Reflections

Just as our love for God begins with listening to God’s Word, the beginning of love for other Christians is learning to listen to them.
~ Dietrich Bonhöffer

Everyone feels benevolent if nothing happens to be annoying him at the moment.
~ C.S. Lewis, 1898-1963, British Writer

The great test of life is obedience to God. … When obedience ceases to be an irritant and becomes our quest, in that moment God will endow us with power.
~ Ezra Taft Benson, 1899-1994, U.S. Secretary of Agriculture

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Growth for the sake of growth is the ideology of the cancer cell.
~ Edward Abbey, 1927-1989, Author/Essayist, Environmentalist

Sometimes the process of growth looks a lot like destruction and pain. But you’ll realize with time that you’re not breaking; you’re healing.
~ Brittany Burgunder, Author, Life-Coach, eating disorder specialist

Our grand business is not to see what lies dimly at a distance, but to do what lies clearly at hand.
~ Thomas Carlyle, 1795-1881, British Essayist, Historian

I never work better than when I am inspired by anger; for when I am angry, I can write, pray, and preach well, for then my whole temperament is quickened, my understanding sharpened, and all mundane vexations and temptations depart.
~ Martin Luther, 1483-1546, German Priest/Theologian

I am angry nearly every day of my life, Jo, but I have learned not to show it; and I still hope to learn not to feel it, though it may take me another forty years to do so.
~ Louisa May Alcott, 1832-1888, Author, Little Women

The closer you get to the truth, the clearer becomes the beauty, and the more you will find worship welling up within you. That’s why theology and worship belong together.
~ N.T. Wright , Author/Professor, Former Bishop of Durham

Every action of our lives touches on some chord that will vibrate in eternity.
~ Edwin Hubbell Chapin, 1814-1880, Am. Preacher/Writer

This Sunday’s readings: James 1:18-21

Reflections

Just as our love for God begins with listening to God’s Word, the beginning of love for other Christians is learning to listen to them.
~ Dietrich Bonhöffer

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, The Light in the Heart

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I begin to speak only when I’m certain what I’ll say isn’t better left unsaid.
~ Cato the Younger

A man that does not know how to be angry does not know how to be good.
~ Henry Ward Beecher

The absence of anger … can, in my opinion, be a most alarming symptom … If the Jews cursed more bitterly than the Pagans this was, I think, at least in part because they took right and wrong more seriously.
~ C.S. Lewis, Reflections on the Psalms

People demand freedom of speech as a compensation for the freedom of thought which they seldom use.
~ Søren Kierkegaard, 1813-1855, Danish Philosopher

Women speak because they wish to speak, whereas a man speaks only when driven to speak by something outside himself-like, for instance, he can’t find any clean socks.
~ Jean Kerr, 1922-2003, Author/Playwright

Truth must of necessity be stranger than fiction . . . For fiction is the creation of the human mind, and therefore is congenial to it.
~ G.K. Chesterton, 1874-1936, The Club of Queer Trades