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July 29, 2019 - May 3, 2020
if there’s anything that bothers me, it’s one person demeaning another. That really makes me mad!”
“Preach the gospel at all times; if necessary, use words.”
“One writes some things more freely and more vividly in a letter . . . and often I have better thoughts in a conversation by correspondence than by myself.”
Sustenance is to be shared.
“And when you’re consoled (everyone eventually is consoled), you’ll be glad you’ve known me.”
everyone can pass on what he or she has been given by another.
And so, for me, being quiet and slow is being myself, and that is my gift.
If you ever fall into quicksand, the most important thing to remember is this: take your time.
Hurriedness causes it to be hard and resistant. But taking time and going slow nurtures, or as he liked to say, “nourishes.” (The adult soul needs this kind of nourishment as well.)
(School schedules may follow a fixed schedule, he once noted, but human development doesn’t.)
“It seems to me, though,” Fred continued in response to my question, “that our world needs more time to wonder and to reflect about what is inside, and if we take time we can often go much deeper as far as our spiritual life is concerned than we can if there’s constant distraction. And often television gives such constant distraction—noise and fast-paced things—which doesn’t allow us to take time to explore the deeper levels of who we are—and who we can become.”
Sometimes slow is better: in understanding, in learning to be patient, in “going deeper” spiritually.
taking one’s time, especially in relationships, allows the other person to know he or she is worth the time.
“Just as it takes a tree a long time to begin to grow again once it’s transplanted, so you can give your healthy roots time to find the nourishment of your new soil in your new community.”
“We will make the whole universe a noise in the end,”
silence accomplishes more than noise, especially when it comes to prayer.
silence leads to reflection, that reflection leads to appreciation, and that appreciation looks about for someone to thank: “I trust that they will thank God, for it is God who inspires and informs all that is nourishing and good,”
If we can learn to wait through the “natural silences” of life, he liked to say, we will be surprised by what awaits us on the other side.
“I wonder if you don’t have somebody in your life that just the very thought of that person makes you feel better,” he spoke passionately into the camera, to the person beyond the camera. “It would be wonderful if you could take a minute, at least a minute every day, to think of such a person.
“Just think. Just be quiet and think,” he said softly. “It’d make all the difference in the world.”
“Dear God, please inspire our hearts to come ever closer to You,”
“We pray for . . . those people who know us and accept us as we are. Those people who encourage us to see what’s really fine in life.”
“We pray for all the people of Your world, our sisters and brothers whose names we may not know but whose lives are ultimately precious in Your sight. With all our hearts, we pray for all Your children everywhere—yes, everywhere,”
“And finally we offer our strengths and our weaknesses, our joys and our sorrows to Your never-ending care. Help us to remember all through our lives that we never need to do difficult things alone, that Your presence is simply for the asking and our ultimate future is assured by Your unselfish love. In our deepest gratitude we offer this prayer. Amen.”
the essence of prayer is relationship,
“Now, you know prayer is asking for something, and sometimes you get a yes answer and sometimes you get a no answer,”
“And just like anything else you might get angry when you get a no answer. But God respects your feelings, and God can take your anger as well as your happiness. So whatever you have to offer God through prayer—it seems to me—is a great gift. Because the thing God wants most of all is a relationship with you, yeah, even as a child—especially as a child. Look how Jesus loved the children who came around Him,”
All that matters is your motives. God will lead the way.
So perhaps the philosophers and politicians and poets are wrong; perhaps prayer isn’t a crutch or an old man’s bauble. Maybe it’s a necessity for both the strongest and the weakest among us.
“There are some things that are eternally reserved in privacy between the individual soul and the Creator. There is a dimension of delicate pain in this, but even in our aloneness we are together, for we each have it.”
Prayer is not only a daily discipline that deepens our relationship with God; it also provides a way for us to be together in our aloneness. Amen.
What is offered in faith by one person can be translated by the Holy Spirit into what the other person needs to hear and see. The space between them is holy ground, and the Holy Spirit uses that space in ways that not only translate, but transcend.
“The righteous will flourish like a palm tree. . . . They will still bear fruit in old age, they will stay fresh and green”
“Give your healthy roots time to find the nourishment of your new soil in your new community,”
I’ve always been myself. I never took a course in acting. I just figured that the best gift you could offer anybody is your honest self, and that’s what I’ve done for lots of years. And thanks for accepting me exactly as I am.
“Righteousness begins to reveal itself as that strength which is so secure that it can show itself as gentleness, and the only people who have this kind of righteousness are those who are integrated and do not suppress the dark side of themselves.”
“There’s the good guy and the bad guy in all of us,” he once said.
With children, you know, you don’t have to talk about the weather,” he once told me. “If the child trusts you, very often, what happens to be on his or her mind will just spill out.
suppressing feelings has the same fate as trying to suppress a beachball in the ocean—they both come out sideways.
“When they are wholly His they will be more themselves than ever.”
“the deepest likings and impulses of any man are the raw material, the starting-point, with which [Christ] has furnished him.”8 Surrendering our lives is not the same as relinquishing our God-given personalities. When we are in Christ, we will be more ourselves than ever.
if we accept ourselves we are better equipped to accept our neighbor. So accepting ourselves is always the starting point to something greater—a deeper maturity, a deeper walk with the Lord, and ultimately, a greater acceptance and understanding of our neighbor.
How we see ourselves affects how we see others.
Know this: You should judge every person by his merits. Even someone who seems completely wicked, you must search and find that little speck of good, for in that place, he is not wicked. By this you will raise him up, and help him return to God. And you must also do this for yourself, finding your own good points, one after the other, and raising yourself up. This is how melodies are made, note after note. REBBE NACHMAN OF BRESLOV
‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind’; and, ‘Love your neighbor as yourself ’
it’s less about determining who your neighbor is (i.e., who it is you’re supposed to love, according to the biblical command) and more about establishing yourself as a neighbor by your show of mercy to others.
“Be the good neighbor.”
Every person is made in the image of God, and for that reason alone, he or she is to be valued—“appreciated,” he liked to say. He believed there is sacredness in all creation—including fallen man—because of one Man, “the true light, which enlightens everyone”
“It is God who inspires and informs all that is nourishing and good” in this world,
Even God chose to identify with being human, he once noted, and He continues to work through those created in His image.
