James Castleton > James's Quotes

“We are born with a broken heart. Born with a sorrow we can only later articulate. Born missing the most essential aspect of what we need to live a fulfilling life … born without a sense of meaning.”
― James Castleton, MD, Mending of a Broken Heart

“As beings conscious of our own consciousness, we don’t want our lives defined so much as we want them explained. We want to understand why we are here, what we are to do with this life and according to what principles we are to live. We want to know whether our lives mean anything and if they do, in what that meaning consists and how we are to secure it.”
― James Castleton, MD, Mending of a Broken Heart

“The question is not whether our life is purposeful, but whether that purpose leads to a hope which is proper to our nature as human beings, for only then will life be meaningful.”
― James Castleton, MD, Mending of a Broken Heart

“The measure of a man’s character may be the manner in which he treats the one who can do him no good, but the measure of his heart is the manner in which he loves the one who has hurt him. He who is unloving in his pain was never really loving in his happiness.”
― James Castleton, MD, Mending of a Broken Heart

“A life rich with significance is likely to be the one lived on the simplest terms…the meaning of life will be greatest when it contains nothing less than it requires and nothing more than it ought.”
― James Castleton, MD, Mending of a Broken Heart

“What prompts the selfish man to change?

For some, it may be when, after committing an accidental act of selflessness, they feel their hearts strangely warmed. For the first time, they may look over, rather than through, the bars that guard their heart to the beauty of a new life that beckons. In that moment, they may realize that the edifice they have constructed out of fear, which they believe protects and secures their blessing, has been nothing more than a prison of their own creation.”
― James Castleton, MD, Mending of a Broken Heart

“Because I did not understand the difference between meaning and happiness, I did not appreciate that life could be meaningful without being happy. I didn’t understand that meaning and happiness are occasionally opposed, such that the self-sacrifice that yields meaning may come at the cost of the very things on which happiness most depends. I erroneously assumed that if I were unhappy then my life lacked significance.”
― James Castleton, MD, Mending of a Broken Heart

“Agape is a sobering love to receive, for it says, ‘If I cannot love you for who you are, then I will do so despite who you are.’ It is unique in that it is able to love those whom it cannot like.”
― James Castleton, MD, Mending of a Broken Heart

“The less fortunate will never have what they need until we who are more fortunate realize how little we require to be happy.”
― James Castleton, MD, Mending of a Broken Heart

“Agape makes 'neighbors' out of those who would otherwise be our enemies.”
― James Castleton, MD, Mending of a Broken Heart

“The terrible poverty of pride is that there is nothing that can be taken in selfishness which will exceed what is received when nothing is expected and everything is offered.”
― James Castleton, MD, Mending of a Broken Heart

“There is not a “true” happiness and a “false” happiness. Only happiness and meaning. The key to happiness is to realize that it is not the same thing as meaning.  The key to meaning is to realize that it is to be found neither in the pursuit, nor in the denial, of happiness. Happiness speaks to our health, meaning to our hope. The former provides for the necessities of life, the latter a reason for living… Happiness is the consequence of properly loving ourselves. Meaning is the consequence of loving others as ourselves.”
― James Castleton, MD, Mending of a Broken Heart

“Happiness is the sense that my life is good because my biological needs are being met. Meaning is the sense that my life is significant because it has met the needs of another. Happiness bestows the feeling that I am whole. Meaning bestows the feeling that I matter and am valued. Happiness is an event, and meaning is a state. Happiness is the means to an end; meaning is an end in itself. Happiness fades; meaning accumulates.”
― James Castleton, MD, Mending of a Broken Heart

“Great hardship always seems to be the prerequisite to meaningful spiritual growth.”
― James Castleton, MD, Mending of a Broken Heart

“God’s conception of what it means to love us is likely to different from our preconception of what it means to be loved. It is sobering to consider that God may want us to have more than we think we desire, and that we will have to experience more than happiness to receive it.”
― James Castleton, MD, Mending of a Broken Heart

“If life is a veil of tears, then God is the perfect hope behind that veil—the One by whom we were made, for whom we were meant, from whom we are separated, and to whom we cry.

To love Him is to step behind that veil, to be reunited with the source of our longings and to have those longings satisfied.”
― James Castleton, MD, Mending of a Broken Heart

“Happiness fades by design, precisely because it’s a means to an end, not an end in itself. We continually need to meet our psychological, emotional, and physical needs to remain healthy. If one meal were enough to provide lasting happiness, we would slowly starve to death afterward …

Consequently, there’s a limit to our happiness, which is defined by the amount required to satisfy a biological need. Exceed this amount, and the result isn’t more happiness but the discomfort and disease that follow from overindulgence. While some may be good, more isn’t necessarily better, and too much of a good thing can be a bad thing.”
― James Castleton, MD, Mending of a Broken Heart

“Through Scripture I came to the conclusion that I was prone on the one hand to think of God as less righteous than He is and myself as more righteous than I am, yet on the other hand to consider God as less compassionate and forgiving than He is and myself more compassionate and forgiving than I am. I had confused myself with God.”
― James Castleton, MD, Mending of a Broken Heart

“All philosophical traditions have attempted to distinguish a sense of emotional well-being that is lasting and “true” from one that is temporary and “false”—an experience that is enduring and independent of circumstance from one that is fleeting because it depends on circumstance.”
― James Castleton, MD, Mending of a Broken Heart

“Happiness is true, even though it fades, and meaning is also true, despite the fact that it endures. Those experiences that define what it most means to be human are true not because they endure, they are true because they are meaningful.

Being human is not about being happy, not because happiness fades, but because the apex of the human experience is not happiness but meaning. Meaning endures not because it is true but because it is not dependent on circumstance. Happiness is transient not because it is false but precisely because it is dependent on circumstance.

Each emotional experience is true in its proper domain. What makes one fleeting and the other lasting is not truth but the fact that one belongs to the temporal and the other to the eternal.”
― James Castleton, MD, Mending of a Broken Heart

“We should live lives of intentionality, for every life ends in death, but not every death ends in peace. The type of death one wishes to experience determines the type of life one ought to live. We should begin with the end in view, and in our journey we should never lose sight of the destination. The meaning of death holds the key to the meaning of life.”
― James Castleton, MD, Mending of a Broken Heart

“Too many seek the “good” life, whereas only a life of meaning will satisfy the existential ache within our breasts that begs the question of why we are here, what we are to do with this life, and according to what principles we are to live. This is a question best answered at the beginning, not at the end, of our lives, for the answer will determine not only the direction of our lives but also whether we will die in comfort and peace or in hopelessness and despair.”
― James Castleton, MD, Mending of a Broken Heart

“The major dilemma in life arises when it is assumed that meaning is simply a greater degree of happiness, such that the more one indulges physiological needs, the more likely it is that life will be experienced as meaningful.”
― James Castleton, MD, Mending of a Broken Heart

“Thoroughly selfish individuals can be entirely happy. They will be unlikely to find life very meaningful.

To such individuals, meaning often seems accidental, coincidental, or tangential … The reason this is so is that selfish people will find life meaningful only when they are not themselves; when they forget their selfish desires and act in a manner more consistent with agape (selfless love).

Meaning seems accidental, coincidental or tangential to their lives because, by and large, selflessness is accidental, coincidental and tangential to their lives.

There is nothing unpredictable about meaning, only the presence of selflessness in the life of a selfish person.”
― James Castleton, MD, Mending of a Broken Heart

“The journey to faith is the most marvelous and sobering of all journeys, for the transformation of one’s heart transforms the questions one asks, the values one holds, the world one perceives, and the life one lives.”
― James Castleton, MD, Mending of a Broken Heart

“I believe God mends hearts so He might fashion them into radiant jewels, for those with His love in their hearts heal the world around them.”
― James Castleton, MD, Mending of a Broken Heart

“Keep your eyes fixed on God, for our vision is transformed when our gaze is directed upward, not inward.”
― James Castleton, MD, Mending of a Broken Heart

“I pray for insight where the path is veiled, fortitude where the obstacles appear insurmountable, endurance where the destination seems unattainable, and equanimity when all that remains is to accept the journey.”
― James Castleton, MD, Mending of a Broken Heart

“There is nothing in our biology that should prompt the fear of death, the longing for meaning, or that should despair the absence of meaning.

Such thoughts presuppose something beyond our biology to be feared, longed for, or despaired. Take away the pain of death, and there is nothing in death that is intrinsically threatening. Take away existence, and meaning loses its meaning. Admit the finitude of existence, and despair over life’s finitude is illogical and unnecessary.

The fact that such emotions persist … indicates that their understanding is from another source. That they motivate us despite our biology indicates an origin apart from our material nature.”
― James Castleton, MD, Mending of a Broken Heart

“God will spare no pains necessary to bring us into relationship with Himself, even as that may mean permitting whatever pain is necessary to do so. Suffering is the grist by which the mill of faith yields the raw material of new character, greater insight and deeper relationship with God.”
― James Castleton, MD, Mending of a Broken Heart