5/21 Quote Blog

“We are fragile vessels whose love often gets tired. We need to be converted over and over again. And so, the healing act of our growth continues. We empty ourselves that we may be filled. We uproot that we may proclaim. We take off our masks. We call forth gifts. We bless. We wash feet. And somewhere between the shedding of our masks and the foot-washing, we discover that it is not so much what we do that touches lives as who we are becoming. And so we rest in the truth that what is most important is not how much of ourselves we leave with others, but how much we enable others to be themselves.”

— Macrina Wiederkehr

“A lot of giving and receiving has a violent quality, because the givers and receivers act more out of need than out of trust. What looks like generosity is actually manipulation, and what looks like love is really a cry for affection or support. When you know yourself as fully loved (by Jesus), you will be able to give according to the other’s capacity to receive, and you will be able to receive according to the other’s capacity to give. You will be grateful for what is given to you without clinging to it, and joyful for what you can give without bragging about it. You will be a free person, free to love.”

— Henri J. M. Nouwen

“Love is blind, we like to say, but no; love is not blind. The ego is blind. All it can see is itself. But love is not blind. Love is pure vision! God seeing through us!”

—  Macrina Wiederkehr

“Your love is deep, your love is high.

Your love is long, your love is wide.

It’s deeper than my view of grace,

Higher than this worldly place,

Longer than this road I travel,

Wider than the gap You filled.

It’s deeper and higher and longer,

Wider than this gap you filled.”

- Susanna Bussey

An Easter Poem

We may never understand

The depth of love that would possess God to become a man;

To shed his holy skin and choose a human box to dwell within,

To save us from our sin;

He gave himself for us, to bleed and be crushed;

He died that day to illuminate the way to life,

The perfect sacrifice, nothing else could suffice;

And then He arose in glory no man knows,

With death destroyed,

Wiped out by a love meteoroid;

He lives again, now and forever,

And so we will too if we dive in His river;

With him in our hearts we will never drift apart

From joy like a fountain, assurance like a mountain,

For the war has been won, our chains are undone,

And our life ever after has hardly begun…

The grave is empty, but my heart is full.

Quote Blog

“Twenty years from now, you’ll be more disappointed by the things you didn’t do than the ones you did. So throw off your bowlines. Leave the still waters of the harbor. Catch the trade winds with your sail!”

—Mark Twain

“The world we live in does not offer any lasting security. It can’t. What it does offer is trials, challenges, and a whole lot of opportunity. Our security can only be found in our obedience to God’s call in our lives.”

—John Maxwell

“I am only one, but I am one. I cannot do everything, but I can do something. And what I can do, I ought to do, and what I ought to do, by God’s grace I will do.”

—Anonymous

“Fix your eyes on the rising Morning Star. Don’t be disappointed at anything or over-elated, either. Live every day as if the Son of Man were at the door, and gear your thinking to the fleeting moment. Just how can it be redeemed? Walk as if the next step would carry you across the threshold of Heaven. Pray. That saint who advances on his knees never retreats.”

—Jim Elliot

“He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose.”

—Jim Elliot

“Have I an object, Lord below

Which would divide my heart with Thee?

Which would divert its even flow

In answer to thy constancy?

O teach me quickly to return,

And cause my heart afresh to burn.

Have I a hope, however dear,

Which would defer Thy coming, Lord—

Which would detain my spirit here

Where naught can lasting joy afford?

From it, my Savior, set me free

To look and long and wait for Thee.

Be Thou the object bright and fair

To fill and satisfy the heart,

My hope to meet Thee in the air,

And nevermore from Thee to part;

That I may undistracted be

To follow, serve and wait for Thee.”

— G.W. Frazer

You are love Lord,
And Your ways testify.
You are love Lord,
Perfectly defined.
Through the suffering or joy,
We will confide in Your perfect love .

A mind full of questions
And a future unclear,
But Your perfect love scatters fear.

‘Cos Your will is to build up,
And not to harm,
But to complete us.

It’s time to stretch these legs of faith
And run into this unknown width,
With truth of Your love for us.

— Rend Collective Experiment

Surrender the Quill

So there I was, quill poised over the page, more than ready to pen the lines that would shake my story out from the dust. The next words dropped glass clear in my head. I felt so fiercely where I knew the story should go…

That was when a gentle hand closed over mine and an even gentler voice danced in my ear: “This is a good story you are writing, but I can make it even better if you give me your quill.”

Rubbish. Why should I hand it over? There’s no guarantee that I’ll like your story better than mine; just your word, and what is that? No, I think I’d rather just write this one myself, thanks. I already know what to write, and it’s going to look so good on this page.

The voice was calm and assured. “Write on if you must, Beloved. It will probably be a best seller, actually, the best story you have ever written. And that’s the only bit that concerns me… that you’re the author. Don’t get me wrong, you’re a good writer; I wrote you to be so, but (and forgive my boasting) I’m a much better writer than you, and I already have some very cool scenes planned for this next chapter you’re so excited about. You may not think that you like them as much as the ones in your head, but when the last word on the last page finally gives way to white, I think you might flip back through the book and realize that it was a perfect story after all. Not a best seller by any means, but the truly best books rarely are.”

So I gave him the quill, and now I wait for the pages to fill.

“…what many see, we call a real thing, and what only one sees we call a dream. But things that many see may have no taste or moment in them at all, and things that are shown only to one may be spears and water-spouts of truth from the very depth of truth.”

—From Till We Have Faces by C. S. Lewis.

“It may well be that by trickery of priests men have sometimes taken a mortal’s voice for a god’s. But it will not work the other way. No one who hears a god’s voice takes it for a mortal’s.”

—Ditto.

Life To-Do List:

Fly an airplane

A Hymn

Be still, my soul; the Lord is on thy side;
Bear patiently the cross of grief or pain;
Leave to thy God to order and provide;
In every change He faithful will remain.
Be still, my soul; thy best, thy heavenly, Friend
Through thorny ways leads to a joyful end.

Be still, my soul; thy God doth undertake
To guide the future as He has the past.
Thy hope, thy confidence, let nothing shake;
All now mysterious shall be bright at last.
Be still, my soul; the waves and winds still know
His voice who ruled them while He dwelt below.

Be still, my soul, though dearest friends depart
And all is darkened in the vale of tears;
Then shalt thou better know His love, His heart,
Who comes to soothe thy sorrows and thy fears.
Be still, my soul; thy Jesus can repay
From His own fulness all He takes away.

Be still, my soul; the hour is hastening on
When we shall be forever with the Lord,
When disappointment, grief, and fear are gone,
Sorrow forgot, love’s purest joys restored.
Be still, my soul; when change and tears are past,
All safe and blessed we shall meet at last.

—Catharine Amalia Dorothea von Schlegel, 1752.

“None of us is very good at silence. It says too much.”
     — Frederick Buechner

I am a marathon runner, and my legs are sore,

And I’m anxious to see what I’m running for;

I am a hot air balloon on a sailboat;

I wouldn’t make this my home if I’d learned to float.

— Yellow Ostrich