Just a Piece of Paper?
“Like everything which is not the involuntary result of fleeting emotion but the creation of time and will, any marriage, happy or unhappy, is infinitely more interesting than any romance, however passionate.” — W. H. Auden
Listening, Learning to See, Finding a Voice
“When I was young enough to still spend a long time buttoning my shoes in the morning, I’d listen toward the hall: Daddy upstairs was shaving in the bathroom and Mother downstairs was frying the bacon. They would begin whistling back and forth to each other up and down the…
Remembering Childhood
“I can remember the feeling of swinging—how hard we would work for those split seconds, flung at furthest extension, just before the inevitable downward and backward pull, when we felt momentarily free of gravity, a little hiccup of suspension when our hands loosened on the chain and our torsos raised…
Being in God’s Presence
“…for we are being prepared for the playground of heaven.”
People Are Not Machines
“In desperate times we are tempted to go for the quick answer and the efficient solution. But the quick answer is almost always the oversimplified answer, leaving out all the complexities of actual truth; the efficient solution is almost always the depersonalized solution, for persons take a lot of time…
Externalism
“People can think correctly and behave rightly and worship politely and still live badly–live anemically, live individualistically self-enclosed lives, live bored and insipid and trivial lives.” -Eugene Peterson
Stillness
“We work hard and play hard not because we are more industrious or more playful than our ancestors but because we dare not stop lest in the stillness we are overwhelmed by the sound of our own anxieties and fears.” -Peter J. Gomes in his introduction to Tillich’s The Courage To…
Understanding
“We will not achieve an accurate knowledge of ourselves, of what has gone wrong with us, and of what we are meant to be, unless we lift our eyes from ourselves to ponder God’s nature….” -Mark Talbot