Wackos

God has chosen the wackos in this world to confound the normal. If you hang with the wackos, you will be named a wacko. Cool.

Judging by Appearances

If someone acts weird or in an obnoxious way, there is a reason for that. Anytime someone acts in an unacceptable manner, that is a ball of mysterious twine that I desire to unravel.

Rejection

If someone doesn’t really listen to what you say, and then claims that you are wrong, don’t bother explaining yourself to them. They are rejecting you for who you are, not for any illogic in what you are saying.

Rebel Without A Clue

Don’t be a rebel for the sake of being a rebel. To be a “rebel” in the mode of other “rebels” is the worst kind of self-deceptive following of the crowd. If you are who you are, and follow what Jesus says in the gospels, then you will be truly different.

I'm So Excited and I Just Can't... well, anyway....

Don’t get caught up by enthusiasm. Distrust whatever gets everyone else excited. Ignore the best sellers list, except to find out what (the) hoi polloi are thinking about. If you want to find something significant for life, look in corners and byways.

Ignorant Wisdom

Wisdom is having more than pat answers to problems. Sometimes the wisest thing anyone can say is, “I don’t know.”

The Second Choice

"Cleanliness becomes more important when godliness is unlikely."
-P. J. O'Rourke

Lowliness

"She was said never to utter a word with which fault could be found; never to make an excuse for herself, even though the Prioress would find fault with her for things she had not done. She never complained of anything, never by word or look did she hurt the feelings of anyone, never failed in obedience but did what she was commanded to do readily, perfectly and with joy. The most trifling thing we do, she was wont to say, is beyond all price if we do it for the love of God."
-V. Sackville-West
On Beatriz Onez, a Carmelite nun of the Sixteenth Century

To Obey Is Better Than Sacrifice

"When St. Teresa of Availa saw a friend perform certain rigorous acts of penance, she felt a great desire to imitate her. Her confessor forbade her to do this. When she was tempted to disobey him, God told her, 'My daughter, you are on a good and safe road. Do you look at the penance she does? I put a greater value on obedience!"
-Francis de Sales

No Middle Way

"Either therefore you must so far renounce your Christianity as to say that you need never perform any of these good works of Charity, or you must own that you are to perform them all your life in as high a degree as possible. There is no middle way to be taken..."
-William Law, A Serious Call To A Devout and Holy Life

The Wall Between the Servant and the 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

No Deed Without Intention

“If you will stop and ask yourself why you are not as godly as the primitive Christians were, your own heart will tell you that it is neither through ignorance or inability, but purely because you never thoroughly intended it.”
-William Law

Ideas As Opiates

"Say what you want, say what you will
'Cause I find you make what makes it easier"
-Tears for Fears, 1983

Formula for Failure

"I cannot give you the formula for success, but I can give you the formula for failure: which is: Try to please everybody."
-Herbert B. Swope

"Woe to you when everyone praises you, for you are like the false prophets." -Jesus

Defusing Anger

If you want to defuse someone’s anger, then sincerely be on their side. Understand their position and communicate that understanding. But be honest—if you hold an opinion that they will get upset at and they ask you directly, tell them. They may be angry at you in the short term, but in the long run they will know you to have integrity.

The Way of Gentleness

Gentleness is not natural. It is learned and earned through difficulties with others.

Qualifications for Marriage

If you do plan to get married, marry someone who you can talk to over the long term. Don’t let hormones make the decision for you. Your potential spouse may seem nice, and have something that really attracts you—but you need to build a relationship for a lifetime. Make sure the building blocks of relationship are there—communication of the hard issues, conflict management, a love of the Lord Jesus above all else.

Popular Causes

"The heights of popularity and patriotism are still the beaten road to power and tyranny; flattery to treachery; standing armies to arbitrary government; and the glory of God to the temporal interest of the clergy."
-David Hume

Hasty Judgments

Don’t be hasty in judgments. We may think that we can solve a person’s problems five minutes after hearing them. We can’t. We can’t know a person in one conversation, nor do our brains work fast enough to solve their problems quickly. If God gives a solution to me, and I discover it is really from God, then it often takes weeks to figure out why he said what he said. I’m just not smart enough.

Freedom

My right to strike my fist ends at the point another’s face begins.
-John Stuart Mills

This Is How Change Happens...

.... It is a relay race, and we're very conscious of that, that our job really is to do our part of the race, and then we pass it on, and then someone picks it up, and it keeps going.
-Alice Walker

Character and Success

"The trouble with the rat race is that even if you win, you're still a rat."
-Lily Tomlin

Apathy is the Bedfellow...

...of hatred. There are many people who say, “I don’t hate anyone,” but they are apathetic of almost everyone. Both are the opposite of love.

Live for the Other

Live your life for other people. Use every talent and skill you have for the benefit of others. Only then will your life be worthwhile.

Necessities?

Living in the West is a bundle of necessary comforts and wastes—electricity, automobiles, television, supermarkets, fast food, newspapers, bananas, and bureaucracies. No one before a century ago thought any of these things were necessary. (Indoor plumbing, though—that is a real benefit)

I Am Nothing....

... You are nothing. Why God pays any attention to us at all is beyond me.

Poverty and Wealth

Do not seek either riches or poverty. Life is not about economics, but relationships and righteousness. Even so, don’t fear poverty. It is not the worst thing that could happen to you, unless you let it be.

The Hero and the Saint

The hero is one who kindles a great light in the world, who sets up blazing torches in the dark streets of life for men to see by. The saint is the man who walks through the dark paths of the world, himself a light.
-Felix Adler

Arguing One's Point

Example has more followers than reason.
-Christian Nevell Bovee

Pervasive Sexuality

In a modern city, sex is everywhere. You can’t escape it. If you live in a modern city, it is better to get married than to be beat up by bras and tight skirts. If God told you to not get married, get out of the city. Get out of the West.

To Marry or Not To Marry

Jesus and Paul advised their disciples not to marry. They were right. Marriage is a distraction. A bad marriage is deadly. But sex is kinda fun. And kids are a blast, when they’re not driving you nuts. It’s up to you—what you want to do.

Education and Life

Education is a crock. Learn what you need to live on. Learn how to survive on what you do well. It may require some suffering and quite a bit of poverty on the way, but make it a goal to live on what you love to do.

Control Yourself...

...because you can’t depend on anyone else controlling themselves.

Great Weakness

As much as I depend on my mind, I am losing my intellectual and self-control ability bit by bit. I need to recognize that and depend on myself less.

Stuck In The Middle...

The world is corrupt. The church is hypocritical. A godly person is hard to find. It is important to be the godly minority because very few will.

What All Religions and Philosophies Have In Common

We are all seekers of truth. We may use different methods, have different presuppositions, but we should recognize and honor the Truth-seeker in all.

Find New Ways To Communicate...

...the truth of Jesus to others, especially Christians.

Constantly Wary

The world’s entertainment and media (especially the Christian media) is not to be trusted, they always have an ungodly motive. That doesn’t mean that there isn’t much to be lauded—it is enough to be constantly wary.

To Forgive Demonic

To forgive is to insist that someone has done you wrong. Before there is forgiveness, there must be agreement at the wrong done. To forgive someone who did no wrong is an insult.

When Plans Go Awry...

...don’t be disappointed for long. Life is a process, not to be radically changed by a single event.

Don't Treat A Beggar...

...like a beggar. Rather, give according to their benefit, and treat them with respect.

Responding to "Prophets"

If someone speaks in God’s name, tear every piece of their statement apart. If it is true, accept it wholeheartedly; if it is not, then confront them. Nicely, if you can. If you can’t, well, do it anyway.

"If I Have Acheived..."

"...anything in my life,it is because I have not been embarrassed to talk about God."
-Dorothy Day

Definition of Hypocrite

Hypocrite—One who claims the name of Jesus but harms or destroys his enemy.

Devolution

"The surest way to make a monkey of a man is to quote him."
-Robert Benchley

Be Driven...

...but be sure that God steers.

You've Got To Work Hard, If You Want Anything At All

Don’t be lazy, you will regret it all of your life. Poverty is okay, but missed opportunities will haunt you.

Guilt Destroys

So don’t sin. Duh.

Not Everyone Is Born A Eunuch

Jesus and Paul advised their disciples not to marry. They were right. Marriage is a distraction. A bad marriage is deadly. But sex is kinda fun and possibly necessary. And honestly, kids are a blast, when they’re not driving you nuts. It’s up to you—what you want to do. To marry or not to marry. Be driven crazy by singleness or crazy by marriage.

Separated From the World

The true believer needs to be separated from the world. Not separated from the people of this world: the drug addicts, the criminals, the haters of God or the enslaved to passions. Rather, the people of God needs to be separated from the systems that enslave them: the financial institutions, the party politics, the government grants, and the ecclesiastical controls. Yet the church has adapted the latter and rejected the former, just the opposite of Jesus.

The Church Needs To Get Rid of Churches...

...and give to the poor. A congregation is not a group of Christians that meet in a church building—it is the two or three where Christ dwells

"Everyone Wants Revolution..."

“No one wants to do the dishes.”
-T-shirt Shane Claiborne saw

"One's Philosophy Is Not Best Expressed In Words..."

"...it is expressed in the choices one makes ... and the choices we make are ultimately our responsibility."
Eleanor Roosevelt

"None are more hopelessly enslaved...

...than those who wrongly consider themselves free."
-Goethe

"It is no measure of health...

... to be well-adjusted to a profoundly sick society."

"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.