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subear
Posts:774
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| 01/22/2007 10:44 AM |
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While studying my "Classical Philosophy" I found this:
"Unless you expect the unexpected you will never find [truth], for it is hard to discover and hard to attain." (fragment 18 of Heraclitus, a pre Socratic Greek philosopher).
Blessings,
Susannah
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"We are not human beings having a spiritual experience. We are spiritual beings having a human experience." Pierre Teilhard de Chardin |
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keyless.chuck
Posts:58
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| 01/22/2007 5:18 PM |
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Besides the quote I use as the signature of my postings, here are some of my other favorites:
"Do not seek to understand that you might have faith; seek faith that you might understand." -- St. Augustine
"If the Gospel were truly preached, the Christian people would be spared many wars." -- Desiderius Erasmus
"Knowing is not enough; we must apply. Willing is not enough; we must do." -- Goethe
"Too many Christians use the Bible as a drunk does a lamppost -- for support rather than for illumination." -- William Sloane Coffin.
"Christianity is my main meal to which I have added several supplements over the years." -- Huston Smith |
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"We do not draw people to Christ by loudly discrediting what they believe, by telling them how wrong they are and how right we are, but by showing them a light that is so lovely that they want with all their hearts to know the source of it." --Madeleine L'Engle |
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Starlight
Posts:75
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| 01/23/2007 9:09 AM |
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I love quotes :)
"Believe not because some old manuscripts are produced, believe not because it is your national belief, believe not because you have been made to believe from your childhood, but reason truth out, and after you have analyzed it, then if you find it will do good to one and all, believe it, live up to it and help others live up to it." - Buddha |
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iucc
Posts:265
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| 01/23/2007 12:12 PM |
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| Chuck, thanks for those wonderful quotes. One small comment: Coffin was borrowing from my namesake, the Scottish poet and linguist Andrew Lang. The original quote by Lang was, “He uses statistics as a drunken man uses lampposts - for support rather than illumination.” But easily adapted to the Bible, I see. |
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Andy Lang
Minister for Web Community and Communication
Local Church Ministries
United Church of Christ |
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subear
Posts:774
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| 01/23/2007 12:46 PM |
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"God does not ask anything else of you except that you let yourself go and let God be God in you" - Meister Elkhart
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"Every man is a doorway through which the Infinite passes into the finite, through which God becomes man, through which the Universal becomes individual" - Ralph Waldo Emerson
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"We are not human beings having a spiritual experience. We are spiritual beings having a human experience." Pierre Teilhard de Chardin |
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Starlight
Posts:75
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| 01/23/2007 1:08 PM |
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^ I love the second quote in your post... the one by Ralph Waldo Emerson :)
"It is my firm belief that it's a mistake to hold firm beliefs." - quote from the Principia Discordia (by the way, the whole PD is a really awesome book!) |
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subear
Posts:774
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| 01/23/2007 3:20 PM |
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Starlight:
I am not familiar with the Principia Discordia. Tell me more.
Susannah |
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"We are not human beings having a spiritual experience. We are spiritual beings having a human experience." Pierre Teilhard de Chardin |
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keyless.chuck
Posts:58
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| 01/23/2007 8:27 PM |
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Hi Andy,
Thanks for passing that on. I remember reading the quote from William Sloane Coffin in his book Credo, but had not heard the quote from Andrew Lang. As a librarian, I'm intrigued -- I'll have to look it up!
Speaking of libraries, here's one of my favorite library-related quotes: "The closest we will ever come to an orderly universe is a good library" -- Ashleigh Brilliant (author). |
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"We do not draw people to Christ by loudly discrediting what they believe, by telling them how wrong they are and how right we are, but by showing them a light that is so lovely that they want with all their hearts to know the source of it." --Madeleine L'Engle |
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subear
Posts:774
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| 01/24/2007 1:22 PM |
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Starlight:
I Googled Principia Discordia, and found it. (I don't know what I think of it. . . ?)
How strange that I didn't ever hear about it when it (supposedly) was "legendary" (according to the author) . . . and I was living in Berkeley in those years too.
About the quote from keyless.chuck: "The closest we will ever come to an orderly universe is a good library" - - - I actually think that we ARE living in an orderly universe, the (supposed) chaos is part of the order. And I think Madeleine L'Engle would agree.
Susannah
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"We are not human beings having a spiritual experience. We are spiritual beings having a human experience." Pierre Teilhard de Chardin |
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keyless.chuck
Posts:58
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| 01/24/2007 2:16 PM |
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subear,
Sorry for any offense taken by the quote I posted. I just thought it was funny, based on the current unorderly condition of my desk at work (in a library, ironically!).
Also, I don't know enough about Madeleine L'Engle's thoughts and writings on chaos and order to provide any type of response, so I'll leave it to those who know her better to continue that conversation.
Regards,
Chuck |
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"We do not draw people to Christ by loudly discrediting what they believe, by telling them how wrong they are and how right we are, but by showing them a light that is so lovely that they want with all their hearts to know the source of it." --Madeleine L'Engle |
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subear
Posts:774
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| 01/24/2007 4:18 PM |
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Dear Chuck:
I wasn't offended, I was joking. And you should see MY (cluttered) desk. And I think librarians are awesome! Shall we start a thread titled "what is ucc doing to attract more librarians?" :-)
Madeleine L'Engle wrote some totally amazing children's "fantasy" books (in the '60s) based on quantum physics. The most famous, A Wrinkle in Time, about some children time traveling through a wrinkle in the fabric of the universe (the space/time warp). I read it out loud to my children when they were young. They fell asleep, but I got totally in to it. Very spiritual and scientific. . . the story, that is. I like your quote by her because it tells me a little bit more about her as a person.
One of my favorite little reference books is: The Little Book of Science, by John Gribbin. Any time I want to know something (in a nutshell) about physics, I go to that book.
I have heard chaos theory described as another way to describe the workings of an orderly universe, although it's a dynamic orderlyness that looks different than the static image of order we usually have (or wish we had). It has always driven me crazy that the "order" I sometimes achieve, dissapates so quickely.
Blessings,
Susannah
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"We are not human beings having a spiritual experience. We are spiritual beings having a human experience." Pierre Teilhard de Chardin |
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subear
Posts:774
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| 01/25/2007 1:51 PM |
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A Poem by John Fox:
WHEN SOMEONE DEEPLY LISTENS TO YOU
When someone deeply listens to you
it is like holding out a dented cup
you've had since childhood
and watching it fill up with
cold, fresh water.
When it balances on top of the brim,
you are understood.
When it overflows and touches your skin,
you are loved.
When someone deeply listens to you
the room where you stay
starts a new life
and the place where you wrote
your first poem
begins to glow in your mind's eye.
It is as if gold has been discovered!
When someone deeply listens to you
your bare feet are on the earth
and a beloved land that seemed distant
is now at home within you.
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"We are not human beings having a spiritual experience. We are spiritual beings having a human experience." Pierre Teilhard de Chardin |
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Jack
Posts:96
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| 01/25/2007 8:04 PM |
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On a more cynical note, may I offer the following from a great South Florida commentator:
"As Americans, we must always remember that we all have a common enemy,
an enemy that is dangerous, powerful and relentless; I refer, of course, to the
federal government." -- Dave Barry By the way, a graduate student who posted this comment to his office door was forced to remove it. Isn't the openess and tolerance of the academia wonderful. Oh, Yeah!!!
More details here. http://www.thefire.org/index.php/article/7396.html
John K.
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Jack |
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rebcamuse
Posts:154
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| 01/26/2007 9:57 AM |
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Jack wrote: "By
the way, a graduate student who posted this comment to his office door
was forced to remove it. Isn't the openess and tolerance of the
academia wonderful. Oh, Yeah!!!"
Rebecca responds:
I'd venture that it is the lack of openess and tolerance of university administration, not academia as a whole. After all, the grad student who posted it is part of "academia."
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Rebecca M
Somerville, MA |
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rebcamuse
Posts:154
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| 01/26/2007 10:06 AM |
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Posted By subear on 01/25/2007 1:51 PM
A Poem by John Fox:
WHEN SOMEONE DEEPLY LISTENS TO YOU
When someone deeply listens to you
it is like holding out a dented cup
you're had since childhood
and watching it fill up with
cold, fresh water.
When it balances on top of the brim,
you are understood.
When it overflows and touches your skin,
you are loved.
When someone deeply listens to you
the room where you stay
starts a new life
and the place where you wrote
your first poem
begins to glow in your mind's eye.
It is as if gold has been discovered!
When someone deeply listens to you
your bare feet are on the earth
and a beloved land that seemed distant
is now at home within you.
This reminds me of a podcast I listened to just recently on "The Soul in Depression." An esteemed Quaker writer and educator, Parker Palmer, talked about his time in Depression. He said the people who dropped by unannounced and tried to talk to him about how beautiful the day was and how he should really get outside, did nothing for him. He had one friend who would call first, and came over every day and simply did nothing but sit with him for an hour, massaged his feet and listened.
Occasionally he would say things to the effect of "I sense today is a really hard day for you" or "I feel like you are doing better than yesterday" but little else. And Palmer related that the massaging of his feet was important because it was the only part of his body of which he was still somewhat aware--everything else just felt numb.
NOTE: I listened to this several weeks ago, so I'm not 100% sure it was Parker Palmer and not the other guest, but I'm FAIRLY sure.
http://speakingoffaith.publicradio.org/programs/depression/index.shtml
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Rebecca M
Somerville, MA |
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rebcamuse
Posts:154
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| 01/26/2007 10:11 AM |
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Andy,
Thanks for the info on the Coffin/Lang quote! Bill Coffin is one of my heroes (well, I guess it would be more acurate to say his WORK).
Rebecca
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Rebecca M
Somerville, MA |
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rebcamuse
Posts:154
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| 01/26/2007 10:15 AM |
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Dear Susannah,
I can recommend L'Engle's spiritual writings as well (if you haven't already read them):
You'd probably enjoy Walking on Water and Penguins and Golden Calves.
Chuck,
I'm going to steal the Goethe quote for my e-mail sig. Thanks!
"Knowing is not enough; we must apply. Willing is not enough; we must do." -- Goethe
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Rebecca M
Somerville, MA |
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subear
Posts:774
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| 01/26/2007 11:30 AM |
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Rebecca:
Thanks for the Madeleine L'Engle suggestion. I haven't read that. Just A Wrinkle in Time .
And, I love Parker Palmer! (his work and writings). And I also collect Speaking of Faith pod-casts; I just haven't listened to it for a while.
Last night I watched Crash , (for a class assignment), we were also assigned to see Babel (which I saw last week). . . and write a paper relating the awareness of my own "filters," assumptions, and emotional hot buttons . . . "particular areas of sensitivity in relation to insights gleaned from the films and one's reading of the assigned text." So, that's what I'm doing today.
Blessings,
Susannah
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"We are not human beings having a spiritual experience. We are spiritual beings having a human experience." Pierre Teilhard de Chardin |
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subear
Posts:774
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| 01/26/2007 1:51 PM |
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"The closer you get to the Light, the closer you also get to the darkness." (spoken by a friend of Parker Palmer's)
Somehow, I just lost a whole paragraph about my own experience with (what is called) depression. I will try to re-create it.
About 12 years ago I was going through a period (that looked like) depression. I decided to call it spiritual retreat . "I am on a spiritual retreat," I said to myself, and I spent my time quietly reading, meditating, writing, painting, being. I recognize that I had the good fortune to be able to do this. I sometimes think that we are living in a time and culture that does not value the introspective, contemplative dream-time, and melancholy aspects on the spectrum of human experience, in favor of mindless activity and quantifiable production and/or consumption.
What if we actually scheduled one or two hours a day for meditation, prayer, and introspection? What if we actually reserved a whole day each week for silence, prayer, meditation, reading; keeping a true sabbath? What if we took one month for a meditation retreat, three times a year? When we don't allow for such space and times for care of the soul, the mind/body takes it in the form of dis-ease called "depression."
Blessings,
Susannah |
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"We are not human beings having a spiritual experience. We are spiritual beings having a human experience." Pierre Teilhard de Chardin |
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rebcamuse
Posts:154
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| 01/26/2007 2:08 PM |
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Posted By subear on 01/26/2007 1:51 PM
"The closer you get to the Light, the closer you also get to the darkness." (spoken by a friend of Parker Palmer's)
Somehow, I just lost a whole paragraph about my own experience with (what is called) depression. I will try to re-create it.
About 12 years ago I was going through a period (that looked like) depression. I decided to call it spiritual retreat . "I am on a spiritual retreat," I said to myself, and I spent my time quietly reading, meditating, writing, painting, being. I recognize that I had the good fortune to be able to do this. I sometimes think that we are living in a time and culture that does not value the introspective, contemplative dream-time, and melancholy aspects on the spectrum of human experience, in favor of mindless activity and quantifiable production and/or consumption.
What if we actually scheduled one or two hours a day for meditation, prayer, and introspection? What if we actually reserved a whole day each week for silence, prayer, meditation, reading; keeping a true sabbath? What if we took one month for a meditation retreat, three times a year? When we don't allow for such space and times for care of the soul, the mind/body takes it in the form of dis-ease called "depression."
Blessings,
Susannah
Susannah,
Thank you for taking the time to re-create what you wrote. I think this is a very important topic so I'm going to start a new thread.
Reb
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Rebecca M
Somerville, MA |
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rebcamuse
Posts:154
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| 01/26/2007 2:18 PM |
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Posted By subear on 01/26/2007 11:30 AM
Rebecca:
Thanks for the Madeleine L'Engle suggestion. I haven't read that. Just A Wrinkle in Time .
And, I love Parker Palmer! (his work and writings). And I also collect Speaking of Faith pod-casts; I just haven't listened to it for a while.
Last night I watched Crash , (for a class assignment), we were also assigned to see Babel (which I saw last week). . . and write a paper relating the awareness of my own "filters," assumptions, and emotional hot buttons . . . "particular areas of sensitivity in relation to insights gleaned from the films and one's reading of the assigned text." So, that's what I'm doing today.
Blessings,
Susannah
Hi Susannah,
Sometimes I really miss taking classes! I took a course on Religion in Film that I enjoyed very much. I haven't seen Babel (yet) but I did see Crash (which I found particularly intriguing having been born and raised in LA and living in a "border" neighborhood).
If you liked A Wrinkle in Time (which I LOVED as a kid...I still refer to "tesseracts" whenever possible, LOL), you should also like the other two in the trilogy: A Wind in the Door and A Swiftly Tilting Planet. She extends it into a second generation (The Arm of the Starfish, A House Like A Lotus) but I haven't enjoyed those as much.
Sounds like a great class you are taking! Please share some of your paper if you are willing.
Rebecca
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Rebecca M
Somerville, MA |
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Jack
Posts:96
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| 01/26/2007 7:34 PM |
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"Knowing is not enough; we must apply. Willing is not enough; we must do." -- Goethe
My father worked at the U.S. Steel Lorain-Cuyahoga works for about 30 years. U.S Steel used the first part of the quote "Knowing is not enough" as its safety slogan. My public school years were littered with countless yellow # 2 pencils so inscribed.
After reading the entire quote I am sure that the other parts were also part of the company safety presentations.
I have always fantasized, it was conceived by a safety engineer who had read one too many reports containing the phrase, “I knew, I shouldn’t have…”
Thank you for a pleasant memory.
Jack
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Jack |
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Jack
Posts:96
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| 01/26/2007 7:44 PM |
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Posted By rebcamuse on 01/26/2007 9:57 AM
Rebecca responds: I'd venture that it is the lack of openess and tolerance of university administration, not academia as a whole. After all, the grad student who posted it is part of "academia."
While I am willing to concede not all people in academia are closed minded. There unfortunately far too many examples supression of the conservative point of view, under the guise of "We must not make people feel uncomfortable". The short hand is usually called "political correctness".
Unfortunately, this supression does NOT end the offensive point of view, my concern is that the suppressed point of view will reappear in more noxious and dangerous forms. Think Neo-Nazi, KKK and other hate groups. While the original opinion was only offesive, the suppression allows these more dangerous groups to co-opt and pervert the point of view into something worse.
Jack |
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Jack |
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Jack
Posts:96
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| 01/26/2007 8:51 PM |
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Some quotes about worship from an interesting UCC book.
A friend of mine is a juggler… He doesn’t juggle spectacular objects… Just balls. He’s intent on doing the simplest thing as well as possible. He can juggle eight balls and keeps trying for nine, which would tie the world’s record. I can juggle two balls and sometime three, so I know just enough to how really spectacular his achievement is. -- Carl S. Dudley
Christian liturgy is Trinitarian. God, the creative one, is the object of Christian worship. Christ. The redemptive one, is the focus. The Holy spirit is the animating force. -- Benjamin Griffin
While the small church is not always beautiful, it is enough. It is enough for keeping on. It is enough for faithfulness. It takes two or three, Jesus said. Most small churches have at least a dozen or two. Small is enough for holding lives together and for making a contribution to a community. It is enough for breaking bread and sharing wine, for wrestling with the scriptures, for calling one another to a new life. It is enough for praying, for following Jesus. What else do we need? -- Loren Mead
These quotes were included in the Pilgrim Press book, Wonderful Worship in Smaller Churches by David R. Ray.
It is a thought provoking book. Especially in what is the true nature of worship and how to make worship in a small church more effective.
Jack
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Jack |
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subear
Posts:774
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| 02/02/2007 4:01 PM |
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| Nothing in the world is as soft and yielding as water. Yet for dissolving the hard and inflexible, nothing can surpass it. The soft overcomes the hard; the gentle overcomes the rigid. -- Tao Te Ching |
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"We are not human beings having a spiritual experience. We are spiritual beings having a human experience." Pierre Teilhard de Chardin |
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