Saturday Mornings

We must know where to doubt , where to feel certain, where to submit. -- Blaise Pascal

Treat people as if they were what they ought to be, and help them become what they're capable of being. -- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

It seems to me that less is more; the less we have the more we are able to understand.  The more we have, the less we are able to understand...

The LORD gives strength to his people;      the LORD blesses his people with peace. -- Psalm 29:11

There is always more misery among the lower classes than there is humanity in the higher. -- Victor Hugo

I was recently discussing with a friend some areas of life that have changed for me over the years and the discovery that has ensued as I ha...

He departed from our sight, so that we should turn to our hearts and find him there. -- St. Augustine

The Bible tells us to love our neighbors, and also to love our enemies; probably because they are generally the same people. -- G.K. Chest...

Compared to Everyman, I really don't have much to complain about.... It is interesting how comparing numbs us to something, isn't ...

We live with a humility born out of personal brokeness, moving towards each other with a deep patience, anticipating the surprising and myst...

The saved sinner is prostrate in adoration, lost in wonder and praise. He knows repentance is not what we do in order to earn forgiveness; ...

In heaven, God will not ask us why we sinned; He will ask us why we didn't repent. -- Pope Shenouda III ...worth pondering.

Writing is only writing. The accomplishments of courage and tenderness are not to be measured by paragraphs. -- Mary Oliver

...together!

...a funny thing happened on the way to my vocation.  Today, twenty-five years after I left education in anger and fear, my work is deeply r...

It was supposed to be all about comfort and predictability, twin notions that must make God chortle fairly heartily . -- Andy Whitman Ge...

It is the heart that is not yet sure of its God that is afraid to laugh in His presence. -- George MacDonald

One thing about stars , while once or twice a year on some undistracted evening we 'oooh and aaah'...most of the time we just don...

It is faith that compels us to stand up again...to stand up again and look through all the evidence of our failures to the God of our faith ...

There is some truth in what almost everyone is saying....

If you are looking for painless ways to grow toward each other and toward maturity, call off the search. -- J. Grant Howard

I've made the most important discovery of my life. It's only in the mysterious equation of love that any logical reasons can be f...

True humility doesn't consist of thinking ill of yourself but of not thinking of yourself much differently from the way you'd be apt...

Have you noticed how... we often refer to things that have taken place in the past ?

After we learned more about the status of things, the race was even more fun.  Cardinal Center apparently has lost over 3/4 of a million ...

If man were a tree, pornography is like taking an axe to his roots.  It cuts off his source of strength, weakening his whole being. "...

Amazing view of Chicago's skyline!   Click for more pics ....

We can walk without fear, full of hope and courage and strength to do His will, waiting for the endless good which He is always giving as fa...

You don't hang on to God, He hangs on to you.  Believing that is where you come in.

A recent re-viewing of this great story reminds me again of the power of mercy in life...in my life. I am gratef...

I am done with Great things and Big things, with great institutions and big success, and I am for those tiny invisible molecular forces, tha...

When I observe the families where parents seem to be doing a good job of living the Christian faith in relation to their children, it is rea...

The harder you work to be loved, the more you wonder whether you are loved.

It is remarkable to me, the power of an unfilled morning. Space. The space of time. What such a thing opens within me. Today’s space aff...

If you look for truth, you may find comfort in the end; if you look for comfort you will not get either comfort or truth... -- C.S. Lewis

Every father should remember that one day his son will follow his example instead of his advice. -- Unknown

I've high-lighted the ones I recognize as really valuable for me (at half her age)... To celebrate growing older, I once wrote the 45 ...

The discipline of gratitude is the explicit effort to acknowledge that all I am and have is given to me as a gift of love, a gift to be cele...

If we live by the Spirit, let us also be guided by the Spirit. Let us not become conceited, competing against one another, envying one anoth...

And this is my prayer: that your love may abound more and more in knowledge and depth of insight, so that you may be able to discern what is...

There is no work better than to please God; to pour water, to wash dishes, to be a cobbler, or an apostle, all is one, to wash dishes and to...

Understanding is the reward of faith. Therefore seek not to understand that you may believe, but believe that you may understand. -- St. ...

Despite what people think, the discussion about speed is never really about the current state of technology. It goes much deeper than that, ...

Lord, have mercy. Have mercy on my darkness, my weakness, my confusion. Have mercy on my infidelity, my cowardice, my turning about ...

Even mystery has a stone on which to kneel.

I thank God today for the ability to see.  I was out running this morning through the woods, down a path that meandered a course along a l...

I am struck again today at 2 seemingly opposite things: - That I regularly live trying to anticipate the future - That the future is comp...

I don't profess to be a 'huge' baseball fan, but I do remember many many nights going to sleep to Earnie's voice.  His pass...

I was thinking today that when we have the courage to pray for God's expansion in our lives, we don't have in mind that His answer o...

The opposite of joy is not sorrow. It is unbelief. -- Leslie Weatherhead

The more I feel responsible for, the less free I seem to be.

The more I do, the more I think I'm responsible for.

Sin in life has damaged us all. So now what? What is productive about comparing our damage? If this is a given, what cliff are we looking...

Can't really say enough about the redemption that drips from a recent letter from Linford Detweiler of the band Over the Rhine. If some...

Good outweighs bad...by a long shot. But bad's weight will still kill you...and only good can lift you back to life.

Beloved, I urge you as aliens and exiles to abstain from the desires of the flesh that wage war against the soul. -- 1 Peter 2:11

You will be graced with the disaster your soul requires to find it’s way home.  -- Tim Farrington

Those who cling to worthless idols        forfeit the grace that could be theirs. -- Jonah 2:8

It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery. -- Gala...

Those of us who inhabit the sphere of “American Christianity” live in a world that doesn’t know when, how, or even why to grieve. For us, Ch...

The truth does not change according to our ability to stomach it. -- Flannery O'Connor

Liberty means responsibility.  That is why most men dread it. -- George Bernard Shaw In light of the role of 'responsibility' in...

I want to stop brokering goodness with God...from God and wherever else I think it is.  I want to yield completely to God's goodness, th...

Lets not be afraid to look at everything that has brought us to where we are now and trust that we will soon see in it the guiding hand of a...

God uses life to offer humility to everyone.

We must lay before Him what is in us, not what ought to be in us. -- C.S. Lewis

Several ideas resonate with me from this interview with Melissa Pritchard...mostly things that I cannot yet fully put words to. The ones bel...

Accept as good whatever happens to you or affects you, knowing that nothing happens without God. -- The Didache

Have you seen the posts at " Dawn's Random Acts of Thought "? I particularly like this one: Beware of refusing to go to the...

The great secret of a life of faith is to hang upon Jesus daily; to go to Him in every trial; to cast upon Him every burden ; to take the in...

I thought I could get away with whatever I wanted to. I felt that I had worked hard throughout my entire life and deserved to enjoy all the ...

God is going to redeem every single piece of you…He just is not going to submit his plan for doing so for your approval.

The nice part about being a pessimist is that you are constantly being either proven right or pleasantly surprised.   -- George F. Will

More Winona eagle pics here ....

I’ve reached all kinds of conclusions about you…because of all my conclusions about myself.

The love I bear Christ is but a faint and feeble spark, but it is an emanation from himself:  He kindled it and he keeps it alive; and becau...

More often than not, but not every time, I wake up with a fairly clear list of the ‘get tos’ I want for the ensuing day.  Things to think ab...

And which of you by being anxious can add a cubit to his span of life? If then you are not able to do as small a thing as that, why are you ...

AS WE LAY IN BED this morning, Norma asked what I was going to do today. “Save the world,” I replied in a deadpan voice. “Did you say ‘save,...

The Milky Way was created by a herd of white horses set loose, rearing and kicking, galloping through the desert night, leaving their wh...

The first duty of love - is to listen. -- Paul Tillich I wonder if the listening required is a listening to life and to those in it, as ...

As much as there is in the 1 Cor 13 passage on love (see below), I'm struck by is 'not' there...and what is not there seems to l...

Q:  Is 'love' an idea or a person? A:  God is love.

Bitterness & Confession. Prejudice & Love. Life & Death. ...one of my Top 10 movies.

I’m in a hurry a lot.  I find myself often thinking that I could get more done IF it didn’t take me so long to get from A to B.  So I tend t...

Love loves when it is not loved back. How can it do this?  …because it knows it is loved by another who loves when He is not loved back.

Love always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Is trust the root of protects, hopes, perseveres?  In other words, c...

Love never fails – 1 Corinthians 13:8.  I feel a bit snagged by the absolute nature of this statement, but suspect that it is meant to be en...

We reach for a new law, often through the muck of an ever-present old one.  And, as we do, we discover that the ‘new law’ is really the olde...

I am both surprised and disappointed at the regularity and rate of change within myself.  Why would I even be surprised or disappointed by s...

What will a new year bring?  Unanticipated suffering or surprising ease.  Health or physical descent.  Or, rather than either extreme, will ...

I heard the bells on Christmas day       Their old familiar carols play,       And wild and sweet the words repeat       Of peace on eart...