Volume 5 Issue 1 ~~Winter 2000
Integrity/Calgary
Support for gay, lesbian and bisexual Christians & friends
A Time to Reflect
A new year is upon us, which brings many naturally to a time of reflection. Surely in the past 1900 or so years many band things have been done by good people, many regrettable things have been down, but this reminds me of story told by the Russian mystic Ignatius Bryanchaninov "A brother once asks Sisoes the Great 'Father what can I do? I have fallen into sin.' The Staretz answered him: 'Rise again.' The brother said: 'I rose up and fell' The Staretz answered: 'Rise again.' The brother answered: 'How often must I rise up?' The Staretz said: 'Until your death.'" It is a new year and a time to rise again. And remember our God is One who is merciful and loving always. I would like to present this poem that is an ancient but timeless reflection on God.
You are Above All that Is
You , O God, are all there is. These words cannot contain all that could be song of you. What hymn can ever celebrate your praise? And on what shall the mind rest since you are above the reach of all comprehension?
You only are unknowable yet all that we can think comes forth from you. All beings give you praise, those that think and those that have no thought. All that is makes prayer to you. To you every thinking creature sends up a song of silent praise. All that moves has it's motion from you. All that stays still has it's rest in you.
You are the end of all beings. You are the all and yet are nothing of what created beings are. You are not one among many and you are not the totality of all beings. You have all names there are. Yet for me it is not possible to name you for you are the only one to whom no name can be given.
Have mercy, O God! You are above all that is. These words cannot contain all that could be sung of you. -- Gregory Nazianzen (330-390)
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Archbishop Tutu Admonishes the
World Council of Churches (1997)
[Sexual] orientation is a given [trait], not a matter of choice. It would be crazy for someone to choose to be gay, given the homophobia that is present. The Church actually is confused. Our Church [Anglican] says that the orientation is ok, but gay sex activity is wrong. That is crazy. We say the expression of love in a monogamous, heterosexual relationship is more than just the physical but includes touching, embracing, kissing, maybe the genital act. The totality of this makes each of us grow to become giving, increasingly godlike, and compassionate. If this is so for the heterosexual, what earthly reason have we to say that it is not the case with the homosexual, provided the relationship is exclusive, not promiscuous? Supposing there was actually something wrong with gays and lesbians, as some people have said, how would Jesus deal with them? Not by exclusion, in the way we have tended to deal with them. And we say we are the Church of God?
Food for thought
What reason have atheists for saying that we can not rise again? which is the more difficult, to be born, or to rise again? That what has never been, should be, or what has been made should be again? Is it more difficult to come into being or to return to it? --Blaise Pascal
Ceaseless interior prayer is a continual yearning of the human spirit toward God. -- The Way of a Pilgrim
The proof that [one] does not love God and [God's] Christ lies in the fact the [one] does not keep [God's] commandments. --Basil the Great
I do not love my neighbor either. For not only am I unable to make up my mind to lay down my life for [my neighbour's] sake (according to the gospel*), but I do not even sacrifice my happiness, well being, and peace for the good of my neighbour. -- The Pilgrim Continues his Way
[* John 15:13, cf. 1John 3:16]
Everything seems particularly desirable to us from a distance. But we all find out by experience that every place, though it may have its advantages, has it's drawbacks too. -- The Pilgrim Continues his Way
I've learned silence from the talkative; tolerance from the intolerant and kindness from the unkind. I should not be ungrateful to those teachers. --Kahlil Gibran
Pardon one another so that later in you will not remember the injury. The recollection of an injury is in itself wrong. It add's to our anger, nurtures our sin and hates what is good. It is a rusty arrow and poison for the soul. It puts all virtue to flight, --St. Francis of Paola
Surely it is the nature and quality of a relationship that matter: one must not judge it by its outward appearance but by its inner worth. Homosexual affection can be selfless as heterosexual affection, and therefore we cannot see that is in some way morally worse.
Homosexual affection may of course be an emotion which some find aesthetically disgusting, but one cannot base Christian morality on a capacity for disgust. Neither are we happy with the thought all homosexual behaviour is sinful: motive and circumstances degrade or ennoble any act, and we feel that to list sexual acts as sins is to follow the letter rather than the spirit, to kill rather than give life. --Towards a Quaker View of Sex (p. 41, 1963).
Our real problem in failing to center down, is not lack of time; it is I fear, in too many of us, lack of joyful, enthusiastic delight in [God], lack of deep, deep-drawing loving directed towards [God] at every hour of the day and night. --Thomas Kelly, A Testament of Devotion (p.121)
"Jesus loves me..." anyone can know this as a quotation or even a fact, but the Christian truly knows it as an experience. --Anonymous
Not till the sun refuses you do I refuse you --Walt Whitman
Time is no judge of Eternity. It is the Eternal who is the judge and tester of time. --Thomas Kelly, A Testament of Devotion (p.91)
From childhood, it has been instilled in us that we need certain people and certain things to make us happy. We are told repeatedly that we need money, home, companionship, family, vacations, automobiles, television sets, and all the paraphernalia considered essential to modern living. The spiritual life reveals clearly that God's grace is our sufficiency in all things. We do not need anything in this world except [God's] grace. --Joel Goldsmith, Practising the Presence (p. 83-4)
So many Christians exalt the demands and the rigours of the law because, in reality, law is less demanding than pure [love]. The law after all has reasonable and safe limits! --Thomas Merton Preface to Russian Mystics
Any time is suitable for prayer, day and night, morning and evening. To ask a [person] something is not always possible because [they] might be busy, or ill, or sleeping; with God it is not so. [God] is always available at every moment and is always free. [God's] door is always open when we want to approach [God] while still living in this world. [God] is ever ready to listen to our request and is always ready to grant grace to those who ask for it. --St. Tikhon of Zadonsk
Everyone can read Church prayers but to pray with the mind within the heart, offering them in sacrifice to God is an art for those called to it. --Paisius Velichkousky
A mistaken Augustine stated that original sin is transmitted through the act of sexual intercourse. Sex is a wonderful and beautiful gift from a good and passionate CreatorYahweh. Sex is grace so filled with goodness, how can it be suspected of or blamed for evil. Sex is used to deepen the relationship. Sex does not transmit sin. --R. H. Calderhood, Some Will Say Heresy (p.66)
*
"Me thinks all are daft save me and thee, and sometimes me wonders about thee..."
·
A plane's cabin was being served by an obviously gay flight attendant who was just as obviously enjoying himself. He came swishing down the aisle and said to a man and a woman seated beside where he stood, "Captain Marvey has asked me to announce that he'll be landing the big scary plane shortly, lovely people, so if you could just put up your trays that would be super." On his trip back up the aisle, he noticed that the woman hadn't moved a muscle. "Perhaps you didn't hear me over those big brute engines. I asked you to raise your trazy-poo so the main man can pitty-pat us onto the ground." She calmly turned her head and said, "In my country, I am called a princess. I take orders from no one!" "Well, sweet cheeks, in my country, I'm called a Queen so I outrank you. Put up the tray, NOW missy!"
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