Talent without discipline is like an octopus on roller skates. There's plenty of movement, but you never know if it's going to be forward, backwards, or sideways." --H Jackson Brown, author.
"We are what we repeatedly do, excellence then is not an act, but a habit."
— Aristotle
"There are no short cuts to any place worth going." --Beverly Sills
For the love of God is broader than the measure of the mind, and the heart of the eternal is more wonderfully kind. If our love were but more faithful, we should take him at his word; and our life would be thanksgiving for the goodness of the Lord. -Frederick William Faber, 1863
"Father, give us courage to change what must be altered, serenity to accept what cannot be helped, and the insight to know the one from the other. Living one day at a time; Enjoying one moment at a time; Accepting hardships as the pathway to peace; Taking, as He did, this sinful world as it is, not as I would have it; Trusting that He will make all things right if I surrender to His Will; That I may be reasonably happy in this life and supremely happy with Him Forever in the next. Amen."
The tragedy of man is that he can conceive self perfection but cannot achieve it. --Reinhold Neihbur
26 He caused the east wind to blow in the heavens *and led out the south wind by his might.27 He rained down flesh upon them like dust *and winged birds like the sand of the sea.28 He let it fall in the midst of their camp *and round about their dwellings.29 So they ate and were well filled, *for he gave them what they craved.30 But they did not stop their craving, *though the food was still in their mouths.
It is possible then that when people use the term 'sacred space' they are attempting to rekindle something powerful and primeval. Bachelard describes this as a common ancestral history, a corporate memory that is set deep within our subconscious and which formulates what we regard as 'sacred'- almost like an invisible DNA which shapes our identities and behaviour. pg 44-45 "Finding Space for the Sacred" by Ivor Moody
Can we cultivate simultaneously the longing to form deep and abiding attachments to the places in which we live and the impulse to risk the unknown? Can we, that is, honor our desire for a sense of place without becoming stuck, trapped, confined, without closing off the new possibilities that beckon us forward? Can we honor our desire to venture into the wilderness, to keep moving toward ever-expanding horizons without eviscerating our sense of place? And to frame these questions within their ultimate, spiritual context: Can we hold in creative tension the sense that God is known both in the familiar intimacy of particular places and in the terror and uncertainty of the wilderness? Living Between Two Worlds: Home, Journey and the Quest for Sacred Place
If a nest is a place of refuge, it is also a place from which to ven- ture out into the world. We require not only the protection of an enclosed space but a sense of vistas opening up before us, an entire landscape in which we can feel at home. If home is axis mundi, it implies a world beyond and around it in which we participate and live. This sense of balance between protection and open vistas is pre- cisely what characterizes the "savanna Gestalt," an idea biologist E. O. Wilson has used to describe the kind of place from which the human species originated and in which we still feel most at home. "The crucial first step to survival in all organisms," he says, "is habitat selection. If you get to the right place, everything else is likely to be easier." Living Between Two Worlds: Home, Journey and the Quest for Sacred Place pg 5
Simone Weil claims that our hunger for place arises from deep with- in our souls: "To be rooted," she says, "is perhaps the most important and least recognized need of the human soul. . . . A human being has roots by virtue of his real, active, and natural participation in the life of a community, which preserves in living shape certain particular treasures of the past and certain particular expectations for the future." pg 6 Living Between Two Worlds: Home, Journey and the Quest for Sacred Place DOUGLAS BURTON-CHRISTIE*
Michele Hershberger's book, hospitality trades on a courage that opens outward and "expects surprises."7
Expecting surprises also means that once the stranger is invited in, the host yields stability and control, adjusting the household to accommodate and at- tend to the unique needs of the guest as they become apparent. Offering hos- pitality in this way invites disruption into the household order and routine. The status quo is challenged. The home is made different, even strange, vis-à-vis the presence of the stranger. The familiar is defamiliarized. Things do not re- main intact as they were. The center of gravity shifts. pg 197
The stranger comes unforeseen, and this requires a re- ceptiveness to surprise and a willingness to make oneself—one's home— available, open, and flexible to change once the stranger is revealed. Such availability may entail renegotiating the household, or in the case of this church community, reconfiguring the sanctuary space. pg 201
The Rev. Sara (Sally) Boyles, rector at Church of the Holy Trinity, Toronto, since 1993, defines her role as "animator" of the community, with a belief in the power of transformation—"one person at a time." In a congregation devoted to radical hospitality, Boyles sees her function as that of prophetic leader, based in the process of transformation, rather than as a minister who holds the congregation together: Boyles seeks to discern where Holy Trinity "is not engaged, getting it articulated, and setting it loose." --Sheryl A. Kujawa-Holbrook
By the mingling of this body and blood of Christ, may we come to share in the divinity of Christ who humbled himself to share in our humanity (sotto voce or silent).
For him Pentecost meant more than speaking in tongues. It meant to love in the face of hate, to overcome the hatred of a whole nation by demonstrating that Pentecost is something very different from the American way of life. The source of this ecumenical ministry is to be found in his prayer, both private and public. --WJ Seymore, early 20th C
Charismatic Impact on Ecclesial Theology
1. emphasis on the oral aspect of theology
2. theology and witness cast in narrative form
3. maximum participation at the levels of reflection, prayer and decision making, and therefore a form of community which is reconciling;
4. inclusion of dream and vision into personal and pubic forms of spirituality, so that the dreams function as kinds of icons of the individual and collective
5. an understanding of the body/mind relationship which is informed by experiences of correspondence between body and mind --Walter J. Hollenweger
It is possible that God says every morning, "Do it again" to the sun; and every evening, "Do it again" to the moon. It may not be automatic necessity that makes all daisies alike; it may be that God makes every daisy separately, but has never got tired of making them. It may be that He has the eternal appetite of infancy; for we have sinned and grown old, and our Father is younger than we." (G.K. Chesterton)
In Dostoevsky’s novel, ‘The Idiot’, at one point the main character, Prince Mishkin, says, “One can’t start straight with perfection. To attain perfection one must first of all be able to not understand many things. For if we understand things too quickly we may perhaps fail to understand them at all.”
