Eugene Peterson: The Bible isn’t interested in whether we believe in God or not. It assumes that everyone more or less does. What it is interested in is the response we have to him: Will we let God be as he is, majestic and holy, vast and wondrous, or will we always be trying to... Continue Reading →
From The Story of the Other Wise Man, by Henry Van Dyke: "'And remember, my son,' said he, fixing his deep-set eyes upon the face of Artaban, 'the King whom you are seeking is not to be found in a palace, nor among the rich and powerful. If the light of the world and the... Continue Reading →
Jesus of the Scars by Edward Shillito (1872 – 1948) If we have never sought, we seek Thee now; Thine eyes burn through the dark, our only stars; We must have sight of thorn-pricks on Thy brow, We must have Thee, O Jesus of the Scars. The heavens frighten us; they are too calm;... Continue Reading →
At the insistent urging of my wife (who loves all of Tolkien's books) and wanting to read the book before I saw the movie, I finally read The Hobbit this December. It was, of course, great. Reaching the end, I was struck with the book's final lines: "'Then the prophecies of the old songs have... Continue Reading →
Gary Thomas, in his book Sacred Marriage: "Kathleen and Thomas Hart refer to the 'paschal mystery' of marriage - the process of dying and rising as a pattern of life for married people. Each day we must die to our own desires and rise as a servant. Each day we are called to identify with... Continue Reading →
Albert Einstein, quoted here: "We are in the position of a little child entering a huge library filled with books in many languages. The child knows someone must have written those books. It does not know how. It does not understand the languages in which they are written. The child dimly suspects a mysterious... Continue Reading →
Augustine, Confessions: "For Thy Word, the eternal Truth, far exalted above even the higher parts of Thy creation, lifts his subjects up toward himself. But in this lower world, he built for himself a humble habitation of our own clay, so that he might pull down from themselves and win over to himself those whom... Continue Reading →
From Christian Wiman's 2007 essay, Gazing into the Abyss about his return to God, partly through his diagnosis with terminal cancer: "I was not wrong all those years to believe that suffering is at the very center of our existence, and that there can be no untranquilized life that does not fully confront this fact. The... Continue Reading →
Fred Sanders, in The Deep Things of God, on how the coming of Christ moved the disciples into deeper reflection on the nature of God Himself: "Look, for instance, at the way the New Testament takes a step further back with its declaration of salvation: where God declares in the old covenant, 'I have chosen... Continue Reading →
Alan Jacobs, in his book Shaming the Devil - Essays in Truthtelling: I want to suggest...that we (and I mean here especially we Christians) need to explore the mystery of virtue as well as the mystery of iniquity, to press our audiences to see the strangeness of goodness, the extraordinary unexpectedness of love and grace...... Continue Reading →
Thin Worn Image 