Volume 5 Issue 3 ~~February 29, 2000
Food for Thought
As true friendship does not come from using another person, but from loving [one] and feeling [their] worth, so true religion does not arise from using God but from realizing God's worth.-Georgia Harkness (Religious Living p.23)
"Human piety is a vain blasphemy, and the greatest sin that a [person] can commit" [Martin Luther].
[L]ove is a flower that is too beautiful
to be torn out of the ground just because I want it
and then thrown aside and trampled underfoot.
-Michel Quoist (The Breath of Love, p. 100)
Religious living is never a merely human achievement and it is not to be reduced to a rule. -Georgia Harkness (Religious Living p.iii)
Waste no more time talking about great souls and how they should be. Become one yourself! -Marcus Aurelius, from Meditations
[T]here is great Religious literature outside of the Christian tradition, and you will find many high thoughts in...[and] should be used occasionally both for variety and for insights it will give you into the Religious aspirations of those who have sought God through different channels. -Georgia Harkness (Religious Living p.54-55)
No place is devoid of God's presence, not even a lowly bush -Midrash on Exodus 3:2
This story [of Jonathan and David] tells us of the ambiguity and the pain of loyalty.... Commitments of loyalty are not made in a vacuum.... Friendships always have social contexts and social consequences.... Jonathan chose against what tradition dictated as his self-interest. The challenge to find loyalty in relationships today across traditional lines of race, class, sexual orientation, and national self interest will determine the future, The church in such a time would do well to read Jonathan's story carefully. New Interpreter's Bible Volume II p.1136-1137
The Hebrew word [for rod] (mateh) is related to the the Hebrew (natah, to bend), that is, to humility. Moses had already shown this quality when he had said, "Who am I?" Therefore, humility was the rod he was to take to the people. -Chasdic on Exodus 4:17
To believe that one is right as far as one can see without condemning another for differingthis is an intellectual and personal attitude of very great importance to religious living. -Georgia Harkness (Religious Living p.19)
The secret of conttentment is the discovery by every [person] of [one's] own powers and limitations, finding satisfaction [and t]he courage of being one's genuine self, of standing alone and of not wanting to be somebody else! -Lin Yutang
Instead of asking, "Dose one need to go to church to be religious?" one might better say, "If one is Religious, will [one] want to stay away?"-Georgia Harkness (Religious Living p. 59)
'How am I to know who I should become? Who
I should be?'
'By growing,' he said at once.
'Think of a tree growing,' he went on. 'imagine that it is like
a human being and conscious of itself. it would only discover
very gradually what it was becoming or should become a plane
tree, an oak, or a poplar. if it was a plane-tree and wanted to
be an oak or if it wanted to be a poplar, it would never succeed
and would only be unhappy.
You must become and be yourself. You can let others make
you richer, but you should never copy them. Others have need of
you of the you yourself that you must be. Never act the
part of your life. You may succeed brilliantly in the role you
are playing, but others do not need that they need your
life.' -Michel Quoist (The Breath of Love, p. 33)
Sex is who we are and how we feel about ourselves as created sexual human beings. A friend of mine wrote to me, and I wish to share some of the letter:
All I know is what I know. I did not choose to be gay, nor did I choose to become gay. I have always been gay. As far as I am concerned, I was created gay. I cannot understand those who claim the while God may have created me, God doesn't want me to be a sexual being. This kind of disembodied spirituality just makes no sense to me. In both Jewish texts and Christian texts of the Bible, we are called "to be." To be fully alive. To be the spirit made flesh.
I sense, this one person who is very clear about himself as a created sexual human being. Not to understand such concepts, challenges whether one clearly understands that sexuality is more than sex. -R. H. Calderwood (Some Will say Heresy, p. 51)
It is a mistake, however, to judge a service wholly by the sermon as if nothing else mattered. We go to church primarily to worship God, not primarily to listen to a discourse, and even a poor sermon can give us the occasion to enter into the presence of God. -Georgia Harkness (Religious Living p. 57)
Back Issues:
(Note 3.1-5.1 are former Integrity/Calgary newsletters)
