Serve the Lord with gladness. Ps. 100:2
Let us show the people of the world, who think our religion to be slavery,
that it is to us a delight and a joy!
Let our gladness proclaim that we serve a good Master.
-CH Spurgeon Near the Sun
Very often the only way to get a quality in reality is to start behaving as if you had it already. That is why children's games are so important. They are always pretending to be grown-ups-playing soldiers, playing shop. But all the time they are hardening their muscles and sharpening their wits, so that the pretense of being grown-ups helps them grow up in earnest. - C.S. Lewis
Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again: rejoice! Let your gentleness be evident to all. The Lord is near. Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God will guard your heart and keep your mind in Christ Jesus. -Paul
Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable-if anything is excellent or praiseworthy- think about such things.
The man who comes to a right belief about God is relieved of ten thousand temporal problems, for he sees at once that these have to do with matters which at the most cannot concern him for very long...The heaviest obligation lying upon the Christian Church today is to purify and elevate her concept of God until it is once more worthy of Him - and of her.
We do the greatest service to the next generation of Christians by passing on to them undimmed and undiminished that noble concept of God which we received from our Hebrew and Christian fathers of generations past.
O God of Bethel, by whose handThy people still are fedWho through this weary pilgrimageHast all our fathers led!
Our vows, our prayers we now presentBefore Thy throne of grace:God of our father! be the GodOf their succeeding race.- Philip Doddridge
"Isn't it lovely?" she sighed, "It's my favorite program- fifteen minutes of silence- and after that theres a half hour of quiet and then an interlude of lull. Why did you know there are almost as many kinds of stillness as there are sounds? But, sadly enough, nobody pays attention to them these days." -Norton Juster The Phantom Tollbooth, p.151This book is a favorite of mine, classic. I never get tired of picking it up and re-reading it. This quote goes on to talk about the loveliest types of silence.
It is good for an uneducated man to read books of quotations. Bartlett's Familiar Quotations is an admirable work and I studied it intently. The quotations when engraved on the memory give you good thoughts. They also make you anxious to read the authors and look for more.
Two thoughts - So true! and However did this quote make the cut? :-)-Winston Churchill
Decorating Magazines also perpetrate the spotless-house myth. There are never newspapers, magazines, or mail strewn about, no bulging closets, no dirty dishes in the sink. Comparing our less-than-perfect surroundings with those of "House Beautiful" is like comparing our less-than-perfect bodies with those we see in Vogue.We know that comparing ourselves to to itty bitty barbies is ludicrous; however, there are very few women I know who do not feel the pressure of keeping the perfect house while trying to enjoy a balanced, full life... maybe that's a little - well - unrealistic... - maybe the house is a balance too - sometimes clean - sometimes not so much.
Few of us feel comfortable in ... monuments to housekeeping - "places where the furnishings flourish but the spirit surely wilts."
I had a next door neighbor whose apartment was far from a paragon of order. It seemed permanently littered with books, projects, and other paraphernalia. There was also always a game or a puzzle set up somewhere, the the coffeepot was always on. It was set up more to accommodate her friends than to impress them-the kind of place you could drop by, plop down, and feel perfectly at home. I mourned when she moved and I hope she never discovered domestic perfection. - Witold Rybezynski Home, a Short History of an Idea
Sing, Sing! Children, sing!Poetry with Music - Nice.
Fresh and free as a bird a-wing;
Of Maytime and playtime,
Of work and sleep,
Of flowers and hours
When our dreams are deep;
Sing of laughter, of hope and mirth,
Of home and heaven, and God's sweet earth,-
Songs of today
Or from far away,
With the simple art
Of the childlike heart;
Songs that dance and songs that dream,
Songs out of history's mighty stream.
Sing of tomorrow, of what we shall do,
And of what we shall be when our dreams come true!
- Introductory Music, Ginn and Company, 1923, p.3
Give us Lord, a bit o' sun,
A bit o' work and a bit o' fun;
Give us all in the struggle and sputter
Our daily bread and a bit o' butter.
-On an Old Inn in Lancaster, England
Holy Sonnet XIV: Batter My Heart, Three-Personed GodEldridge in Epic presents the idea that the reason everyone loves a great romance is because we are following God's design. God created our heart with a happily ever after hole that only He can fill. Marriage, love and romance are just glimpses and shadows of life's real fairytale ending.
by John Donne
Batter my heart, three-personed God; for you
As yet but knock, breathe, shine, and seek to mend;
That I may rise and stand, o'erthrow me, and bend
Your force to break, blow, burn and make me new.
I, like an usurped town, to another due,
Labor to admit you, but O, to no end;
Reason, your viceroy in me, me should defend,
but is captived, and proves weak or untrue.
yet dearly I love you, and would be loved fain,
But am betrothed unto your enemy.
Divorce me, untie or break that knot again;
Take me to you, imprison me, for I,
Except you enthrall me, never shall be free,
Nor even chaste, except you ravish me.
But am betrothed unto your enemy.Our Bridegroom searches us out, and captures us, over and over again. Wonders of Wonders.
Divorce me, untie or break that knot again;
Take me to you, imprison me, for I,
Except you enthrall me, never shall be free,
Nor even chaste, except you ravish me.
Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word, and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless...This is a profound mystery—but I am talking about Christ and the church. - Paul
Nature was not generated by a computer but by a Person. It is personal in nature. If it seems quirky, it's quirky in the way Mozart's the Magic Flute and VanGogh's Irises are quirky. It reflects personality... We are made relational to the core. We are made, as it says in Genesis, in the image of God or, better, in the image of the Trinity: "Let us make man in our image." (1:26 emphasis added)... Meister Eckhart had it right when he said that we are born out of the laughter of the Trinity.Great little book, our Pastor introduced several weeks ago. This book really is less than a two hour read and that, is if you are high-lighting. But it is packed with lines that makes your heart nod in affirmation of the truth.
From the heart of the universe come our beating hearts. From this fellowship spring all of our longings for a friend, a family, a fellowship-for someplace to belong.... Something preceded us. Something good, We'd much rather be included in something grand than have to create the meaning of our lives. To know that life, ulitmately, doesn't rest on our shoulders, but invites us up to it. - John Eldridge, Epic, Excerpts from Act One:Eternal Love
To Theology, Mother of the Sciences, Poetry should be her wisest, eldest, and yet ever loveliest yougest daughter, the first of her handmaidens, enjoying the first-born's share of her love. To return to Corinna's appeal with a wider application-The Poet as Citizen & Other Papers, Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch, Macmillian, 1935. p. 23,24
O let thy children lean aslant
Against the tender Mother's knee,
And into her face, and want
To know what magic there can be
In words that urge some eyes to dance,
While others in a holy trance
Look up to heaven; be such praise!
Why linger? I must haste, or lose the Delphic bays.
Rejecting Poetry, how coarse and cheap is the kind of appeal nowadays offered in congregational worship?
But surely, surely, Oh for anything more poetical!Oh, for the pearly gates of Heaven,
Oh, for the golden floor!
That sort of stuff may satisfy, but it does not cure; may ease like an opiate, but cannot heal.
When half-gods go
The Gods arrive.
I hope, Gentlemen, to examine with you, next time, this opposition of the poet as an individual and as a citizen; reconciling them if we can; anyhow convinced it is worth trying in these perilous days.