Classic and contemporary excerpts.
Rest
Rest is not quitting
This busy career;
Rest is the fitting
Of self to one’s sphere.
’Tis the brook’s motion
Clear without strife,
Fleeing to the ocean
After its life.
’Tis loving and serving
The highest and best;
’Tis onward, unswerving:
And this is true rest.
—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe in Sourcebook of Poetry (comp. Al Bryant)
Inner wonder
There is one spectacle greater than the sea: That is the sky; there is one spectacle greater than the sky: That is the interior of the soul.
—Victor Hugo in Les Misérables
From morality to “ethics”
How do we create symbolic virtue? We take the standards of morality that we have inherited from past generations. Then we “drain” away the idea of a just and holy God that was associated with that morality. We siphon off any notion of punishment for falling short of the standard. Then we redefine obligations to God to mean mutual obligations to each other as human beings. We focus on the positive, on a few actions that people can do, rather [than] on the many possible violations of the standard or on the common ways that we all fall short of the standard. Then we change the name from morality to ethics.
—Stephen J. Keillor in Prisoners of Hope
Poor substitutes
When people do succeed in breaking free from belief in God, they simply create another religious belief to replace it. We always assimilate religion or God to a specific image, to specific rites or groups, to a specific conception, and when we banish these …, we think we have achieved freedom of thought. But we then proceed to an apotheosis of reason or science and we have new Gods.
—Jacques Ellul in What I B.elieve
The gift of freedom
The greatest gift which God in His bounty bestowed in creating, and the most conformed to His own goodness, and that which He prizes the most, was the freedom of the will, with which the creatures that have intelligence, they all and they alone, were and are endowed.
—Dante Alighieri in The Divine Comedy (Paradiso, Canto V)
Whose will?
It is difficult to be honest about the choices we make. Rather than “I decided to …” we say, “God directed me to …” When things don’t work out as we had hoped, we point the finger of blame at lack of faith or disobedience to God’s plan. We rarely stop to consider whether the decision itself was unwise.
Seeking direction from the Lord is certainly appropriate, but making choices is ultimately our responsibility.
—Kurt D. Bruner in Responsible Living in an Age of Excesses
Holy humor
I have never understood why it should be considered derogatory to the Creator to suppose that He has a sense of humour.
—William R. Inge in Marchant’s Wit and Wisdom of Dean Inge
No confusion
One of the advantages of being a woman priest is that people tend not to mistake us for God, which they sometimes do with men.
—Penelope Jamieson, Bishop of Dunedin, New Zealand, in the Church of England Newspaper (Nov. 20, 1992)
Wrong medicine
It is so much easier to fix blame than to fix problems.
—Kathleen Parker in the Orlando Sentinel, quoted in The Speaker’s Digest (Oct./Nov./Dec. 1992)
