"Just One Look"

 

One of Ian's fractal art pieces.

Sojourner Truth

 

The Only Thing To Fear...

...is not our own death or destruction or even our own fear. Rather, we must avoid at all cost our own apathy of God’s commands.

Aplogize... no, wait, Don't

Apologize for sins and apologize for mistakes; don’t apologize because you’ve hurt someone’s feelings if it is something they needed to bear

Take A Load Off

Rest when it is necessary so you can work at other times—and don’t apologize for needing to rest

Diane's Motto

Never hesitate to understand.

Happy Happy Joy Joy

Happiness is fleeting. It's supposed to be that way
Joy is long-lasting, or the potential to be that.
Happiness is dependent on circumstances and feelings.
Joy often is there in the face of circumstances.
Happiness must have a cause.
Joy is found in contentment.

Questioning Wisdom

"He that never changes his opinions, never corrects his mistakes, and will never be wiser on the morrow than he is today." -Tryon Edwards

True Religion

"A religious man is a person who holds God and man in one thought at one time, at all times, who suffers harm done to others, whose greatest passion is compassion, whose greatest strength is love and defiance of despair." -Abraham Joshua Heschel

Peace and History

"All who affirm the use of violence admit it is only a means to achieve justice and peace. But peace and justice are nonviolence...the final end of history. Those who abandon nonviolence have no sense of history. Rather they are bypassing history, freezing history, betraying history." --Andre Trocme

Be Honest...

... about and to yourself. Be honest to others without destroying them.

Be Cynical...

...inwardly. But be outwardly generous and gentle to all.

God isn't a Rapist...

... but He is a stalker.

Don't Pull Punches...

...unless the punch pulls another away from God.

The Main Cause of Misery...

is false expectations.

The Main Cause...

of sin is misery.

A Lone Voice, Crying in the Wilderness...

is never heard. An organized group can at least get out a whisper.

"Fanaticism...

...consists of redoubling your effort when you have forgotten your aim."
-George Santayana

False Peace

"Peace of heart that is won by refusing to bear the common yoke of human sympathy is a peace unworthy of a Christian. To seek tranquility by stopping our ears to the cries of human pain is to make ourselves not Christian but a kind of degenerate stoic having no relation either to stoicism or Christianity."
-A. W. Tozer

"The Future...

...belongs to those who give the next generation reason for hope."
Pierre Teilhard de Chardin

Compassion and Judgment

"The major block to compassion is the judgment in our minds. Judgment is the mind's primary tool of separation." -Diane Berke

Who Are The Goats?

"I was hungry and you said apply for food stamps. I was homeless and you said there is a shelter downtown. I was naked and you said a local church distributes clothes. I was sick and you said apply for the government health plan. Now I know why solutions are not the answers."
-Anonymous

Prayer

"He who rises from prayer a better man, his prayer is answered."
-Talmud

Stuff and the Cross

“Relinquishment of material goods is closely linked with the way of the cross.”
-Richard B. Hays, Moral Vision of the New Testament, 466

If You Want God to Listen to You...

... listen to Him.

God loves everyone...

...but will only reward those who love him back.

Judging

However you judge others, that is how you will be judged by God.

The Basis of Hatred...

...is fear. The basis of oppression is ignorance of another’s humanity.

Ignorance...

is the first step to oppression.

Crossing Borders

Everyone in the West should live in a third world country for at least six months on the hospitality of a third world family.

Everyone who is rich should learn to live and give like the poor.

Every judge and politician should live on the street or in a shack for a month before taking their position.

Every pastor should live on food stamps for three months, without the opporunity to make any large purchase-- including books!

If leaders live as the poor, then we can better understand how our decisions effect the poor.

Listening...

...is the hardest to learn and most needed skill. To listen is to connect. To connect is to be human.

The Western World...

is only a shadow of humanity. The one who wants to get to the heart of the human experience should learn more than one completely different cultures.

Don't Drive...

on the sidewalk. The law frowns upon that.

Learning to Drive Rules

Rule #1-- Always watch out for the stupid people.

Rule #2-- Sometimes you are the stupid person.

Traffic Wisdom

Don't read while you're stuck in traffic.

The Lesson of the Sheep and the Goats

How we treat the lowly disciple is how we will be treated by God

Switchfoot Quote #2

"It'll be a day like this one when the sky falls down
And the hungry and poor and deserted are found." -Switchfoot

Switchfoot Quote #1

"We are slaves of what we want."

The More Stuff We Have...

...the less Jesus we have.

The greater the amount of possessions, the less spirituality we have.

This Is Reality-- Revelation 4

 

The Worst Crime...

is to be apathetic in a time of need.

Faithfulness

The center of the pure human existence is faithfulness. This is more than loyalty, more than keeping one’s promise. It is recognizing the hidden commitment within each relationship and keeping that commitment. To be a neighbor is to be ready to provide with what resources one has when there is need. To be a spouse is to be acting for the benefit of one’s spouse, especially sexually. To be a friend is to know one’s friend and to allow oneself to be known. To be a mother is to nurture, to provide a context for growth. To be a father is to guide, especially by example. The ultimate in faithfulness is constancy. Would that I had been constant.

Comfort and Suffering

If you are comfortable your whole life, then you will suffer later. If you suffer now—there’s no promises, but you’ve got a better chance of eternal life than otherwise.

Enemies

Pray that God would bless those who hate you—- they need Him as much or more than you do.

Real Karma

Most Westerners think that Easterners consider karma to be a good thing. The Hindus understand that karma is a cycle that is better to be escaped. Jesus is the only one who offers us an out of karma while we still live—it is called repentance and forgiveness. (Paraphrased from Bono-- see the song "Grace" by U2)

The Poor Shall Always Be With You

“ It was clearly recognized in the Old Testament that poverty does not normally just happen. Although sometimes it was due to personal sin or national disobedience, and to God’s judgment on them, it was usually due to the sin of others, that is, to a situation of social injustice, which easily deteriorated because the poor were not in a position to change it.”
-John Stott, Decisive Issues Facing Christians Today, 1984

Two Christian Ways

"The church has often lost its glory becuase it has pointed to Peter's way rather than Jesus' way. It has sought to offer Jesus and the way of power and glory at the same time. But it is through weakness that strength is found. It is through renounciation of power and glory that power and glory will come to the church. Those who follow Jesus must do so by the way of the cross."
-Athol Gill, Life on the Road

Cursed Without Fruit

"The fig tree was not cursed on account of bad or poisonous fruit. It was condemned to wither away because it could have borne good fruit and did not do so."
-Andreas Ehrenpreis, Brotherly Community

Instant Karma?

Justice is not a microwave dinner. There’s karma, but it is rarely instant.

Karma

Everything has a consequence. What goes around comes around, if not now, then later.

Life = Suffering

Life sucks and then you die. Circumstances permitting, you get to go to heaven. But that’s only if your life really sucked.

The Tragedy of Sex

Sex is inherantly commitment. Thus each one night stand is a marriage. Every tryst with a prostitute is eternal. And every act of intercourse with a new partner is adultery.

Morality and Hope

God established a deferred self-benefit for doing good. In other words, we gain personal benefit for doing what is right, just not yet.

Love and Work

"The Servant of Charity must go to bed each night so tired from work that he will think that he has been beaten."
-Louis Guanella

Religious Acts v. Service

"To serve the needy a good work may be put aside or exchanged for a better one. In doing so, a good work is not lost; it is changed into something better."
-Thomas A Kempis

Attack

People do not purpose to attack. People almost only attack when they feel threatened themselves. So we typically need not fear people in general, no matter what culture or background they are from. Unless we attack them.

Christ Is The Anawim

"Some theologians arrived, protected by some clerics and allied with some politicians... and they invented the story about God's having been made a human being in general, an abstract human being, a single-mold human being, a human being patterning everyone... Whereas every poor person knows that Christ was like a Bolivian miner, like a black slave, like any oppressed person."
-Hugo Assmann "The Faith of the Poor"

A Principle of Francis

To use wealth on vanity, even if it be the smallest amount, is to steal from the poor.

Serving and Being Served

Somehow we have come to believe that good leadership requires a safe distance from those we are called to lead. Medicine, psychiatry, and social work all offer us models in which "service" takes place in a one-way direction. Someone serves, someone else is being served, and be sure not to mix up the roles! But how can anyone lay down his life for those with whom he is not even allowed to enter into a deep personal relationship? Laying down your life means making your own faith and doubt, hope and despair, joy and sadness, courage and fear available to others as ways of getting in touch with the Lord of life.
-Henri Nouwen, In the Name of Jesus

Fear Factor

The greatest threat to Love is Fear. Fear is the source of defense. Defense is the source of Misery. Misery is the exceptions we give ourselves to Love.

Recognizing Limitations

We have strength to do what God calls us, but not much more than that. If we take on too much beyond what God calls us, then we will not have energy to do what He actually desires us to do. Thus, the only work we should do is God’s work.

Just One Look...

Even when people focus on others, they focus on them with their own limited understanding. So even when they love others, it isn’t from the perspective of the other, but from their own. So is love even possible?

Love Is An Endurance

To love another is to find the other's need and to meet it with one's own resources.

Is Submission A Dirty Word?

To submit isn't something forced or a plan to take away someone's rights. Rather, it is a gift given to an authority to make both of your lives' easier.

Repentance

Only if we turn away from our sin can we be a part of God and His people.

And it only counts if we repent from exactly what keeps us from God.

Pessimism

Life is generally miserable, full of people who are generally apathetic.

God and Life

God helps us through the misery known as Life, but he doesn’t ever take us out of it unless we become the Misery.

Life Could Be Good...

and pleasant, but because of our innate self-centeredness and weakness, it isn’t.

To Be Human...

is to treat all others as fully human.

This means to respect them, even as we wish to be respected.

What You Really Believe Is...

found in what you do, not what you say.

And if you really want to know what you believe, look at your account book. What you spend your money on shows what is most important to you.

Not Evil, Just Pathetic

Humanity is weak, self-centered and self-ignorant and ignorant of the world around them, of the people and creation that exists around them. They live only enough to live for today, for themselves and the few they can understand. People aren’t evil—they are made in such a way to tell themselves that what they do is not evil, that there are good reasons for all they do. But people’s weaknesses, limitations, and willful ignorance makes them do evil things.

Life could be good and pleasant, but because of our innate self-centeredness and weakness, it isn’t.

Questionable Wisdom

All “wisdom” is questionable. Don’t just accept what anyone says, even me. The best books of human wisdom are those that make you think for yourself, determining between yourself, your conscience and your God what you ought to do. You may read on these pages statements that look like commands or flat statements of truth. But when I write like this, I am really writing to myself, not to the reader. The reader should question, pursue, investigate, think and determine. Hopefully, I am giving you something to think about. If not, then throw these pages aside as unworthy of consideration.