“I remember one of my seminary professors saying people who were able to appreciate others-who looked for what was good and healthy and kind-were about as close as you could get to God-to the eternal good.  And those people who were always looking for what was bad about themselves and others were really on the side of evil. ‘That’s what evil wants,’ he would say, ‘Evil wants us to feel so terrible about who we are and who we know, that we’ll look with condemning eyes on anybody who happens to be with us at the moment.’  I encourage you to look for the good where you are and embrace it.

Whereas traditional friendship (philia) is preferential (to have a friend is to prefer one type of person over another), Christian friendship (agape) is universal, unconditional, and open to all.  Likewise, while the golden rule-“Love your neighbor as yourself”-is a good formula for living a moral life, Christ goes further by challenging us to “Love one another as I have loved you.”

-Paraclete Book of Hospitality

“Let us remember that the life in which we ought to be interested is “daily” life.  We can, each of us, only call the present time our own….Our Lord tells us to pray for today, and so he prevents us from tormenting ourselves about tomorrow.  It is as if [God] were to say to us: “[It is I] who gives you this day [and] will also give you what you need for this day. [It is I] who makes the sun to rise.  [It is I] who scatters the darkness of night and reveals to you the rays of the sun.”

-Gregory of Nyssa On the Lord’s Prayer

“For me it is amazing to experience daily the radical difference between cynicism and joy. Cynics seek darkness wherever they go. They point always to approaching dangers, impure motives, and hidden schemes. They call trust naive, care romantic, and forgiveness sentimental. They sneer at enthusiasm, ridicule spiritual fervor, and despise charismatic behavior. They consider themselves realists who see reality for what it truly is and who are not deceived by “escapist emotions.” But in belittling God’s joy, their darkness only calls forth more darkness.

People who have come to know the joy of God do not deny the darkness, but they choose not to live in it. They claim that the light that shines in the darkness can be trusted more than the darkness itself and that a little bit of light can dispel a lot of darkness. They point each other to flashes of light here and there, and remind each other that they reveal the hidden but real presence of God. They discover that there are people who heal each other’s wounds, forgive each other’s offenses, share their possessions, foster the spirit of community, celebrate the gifts they have received, and live in constant anticipation of the full manifestation of God’s glory.”

-Henri Nouwen, Return of the Prodigal

‘In a very real sense not one of us is qualified, but it seems that God continually chooses the most unqualified to do his work, to bear his glory.  If we are qualified, we tend to think that we have done the job ourselves.  If we are forced to accept our evident lack of qualification, then there’s no danger that we will confuse God’s work with our own, or God’s glory with our own.’

-Madeleine L’Engle

“Yod, Hey, Vav, Hey”

“Is the name of God, the sound of breathing?”

-Rob Bell, Nooma: Breathe-watch full video here