This Sunday’s readings: Luke 2:25-35; Romans 1:1-4

Reflections

The Bible is God’s anthropology rather than man’s theology.
~ Abraham Joshua Heschel (1907-1972), Rabbi, Theologian

I am just a human being trying to make it in a world that is rapidly losing its understanding of being human.
~ John Trudell, 1946–2015, Author, Actor, Musician

God’s love is precisely what the first Christians did feel. They had experienced Jesus’ love and had become convinced that Jesus was God incarnate. Once that love reached them, it could not be stopped.
~ Huston Smith, 1919-2016, Philosophy Chair at MIT

The purpose of life is not to be happy. It is to be useful, to be honorable, to be compassionate, to have it make some difference that you have lived and lived well.
~ Ralph Waldo Emerson, 1803-1882, Essayist, Lecturer

Man’s maker was made man that He, Ruler of the stars, might nurse at His mother’s breast; that the Bread might hunger, the Fountain thirst, the Light sleep, the Way be tired on its journey; that Truth might be accused of false witnesses, the Teacher be beaten with whips, the Foundation be suspended on wood; that Strength might grow weak; that the Healer might be wounded; that Life might die.
~ Augustine of Hippo, 354-430, Theologian and Philosopher

This Sunday’s readings: Hebrews 12:4-13

Reflections

You will know as much of God, and only as much of God, as you are willing to put into practice.
~ Eric Liddell, The Disciplines Of The Christian Life

One painful duty fulfilled makes the next plainer and easier.
~ Helen Keller, The Story of My Life

The question remains and I ask people all the time: who are you when it starts to go south? Not when you get what you want. We know when you get what you want, you’re gonna smile. Babies do that. Give them a bottle, they’re gonna smile. Give them what they want, they’re gonna smile. But when you don’t get what you want, when it doesn’t go the way you want it to … who are you?
~ Inquoris “Inky” Johnson, motivational speaker, former football player

He who has a ‘why’ to live can bear almost any ‘how’.
~ Friedrich Nietzsche

I am God’s chosen snob, and if I cannot be with the aristocracy or the intelligentsia I must go down among the proletariat, . . . the natives, because I cannot live with the middle class. … Rich people and poor people aren’t crybabies. They understand suffering, the middle class do not. The rich intrinsically know wealth doesn’t buy happiness. Poor people, of course, know life is hard, but the middle class feel that because of their hard work, because of their efforts, because of their scheduling, because of their goal setting, somehow, they’re shocked when they find out life is hard. Middle class people are the ones that are surprised when life goes wrong.
~ Isak Dinesen (Karen Blixen), Author

My wife died. I give that to the Lord. My job is gone. All right, I’ll give that to the Lord. But when I get up and I decide this is what I want to do with my day and here and there disappointments come on in, frustrations come in, this or that doesn’t show up, by the middle of the day I am overturned spiritually .. I will not let God train me.
~ John Newton