“You weren’t an accident.You weren’t mass produced.You weren’t an assembly line product.You were deliberately planned, specifically gifted and lovingly positioned on earth by the Master Craftsman.”Max Lucado … [Read more...]
The 4th of July – Erma Bombeck
You have to love a nation that celebrates its independence every July 4, not with a parade of guns, tanks, and soldiers who file by the White House in a show of strength and muscle, but with family picnics where kids throw Frisbees, the potato salad gets iffy, and the flies die from happiness. You may think you have overeaten, but it is patriotism. ~Erma Bombeck … [Read more...]
A Native American Prayer – Give Us Hearts To Understand
Here is a great Native American Prayer to enrich your devotions: Give us hearts to understand; Never to take from creation's beauty more than we give; never to destroy wantonly for the furtherance of greed; Never to deny to give our hands for the building of earth's beauty; never to take from her what we cannot use. Give us hearts to understand That to destroy earth's music is to create confusion; that to wreck her appearance is to blind us to beauty; That to callously pollute her fragrance is to make a house of stench; that as we care for her she will care for us. We have forgotten who we are. We have sought only our own security. We have exploited simply for our own ends. We have distorted our knowledge. We … [Read more...]
The Long View – Oscar Romero – Quote of the Week
It helps, now and then, to step back and take the long view. The kingdom is not only beyond our efforts, it is beyond our vision. We accomplish in our lifetime only a tiny fraction of the magnificent enterprise that is God’s work.Nothing we do is complete, which is another way of saying that the kingdom always lies beyond us. No statement says all that could be said. No prayer fully expresses our faith. No confession brings perfection.No pastoral visit brings wholeness. No program accomplishes the church’s mission. No set of goals and objectives includes everything.That is what we are about: We plant seeds that one day will grow. We water seeds already planted, knowing that they hold future promise. We lay foundations that will need further development. We provide yeast that produces effects beyond our capabilities.We cannot do everything and there is a sense of liberation in realizing that. This enables us to do something, and to do it very well. It may be incomplete, but it is … [Read more...]
The Search for It – Quote of the Week
Most of my life I've been in search of IT. And I thought IT came inside a big box with a bow on top carefully marked and labeled and numbered. I brushed away all the 'incidental' discoveries like cobwebs. But now everything counts. Now I search for traces of miracles, and I find them everywhere. Monique Duval (The Persistence of Yellow) … [Read more...]
In the Desert – Quote of the Week
In the desert the most urgent thing is--to wait.The desert does not take kindly to those who tackle it at breakneck speed, subjecting it to their plans and deadlines.Instead, the desert welcomes those who shed their sandals of speed and walk slowly in their bare feet, letting them be caressed and burnt by the sand.If you have no ambition to conquer the desert, if you do not think you are in charge, if you can calmly wait for things to be done, then the desert will not consider you an intruder and will reveal its secrets to you.Allessandro Pronzato in Meditations on the Sand … [Read more...]
Lifting Our Hearts No Matter What – Quote of the Week
Refuse to fall down. If you cannot refuse to fall down, refuse to stay down. If you cannot refuse to stay down, lift your heart toward heaven, and like a hungry beggar, ask that it be filled, and it will be filled. You may be pushed down. You may be kept from rising. But no one can keep you from lifting your heart toward heaven.Dr. Clarissa Pinkola Estés … [Read more...]
Spiritual Growth – Quote of the Week
Physical and spiritual growth cannot be reduced to mechanics. I'm all for getting the mechanics right, but spiritual growth is more than a procedure; it's a wild search for God in the tangled jungle of our souls, a search which involves a volatile mix of messy reality, wild freedom, frustrating stuckness, increasing slowness, and a healthy dose of gratitude.Mike Yaconelli … [Read more...]