Marshall: optimism

Saturday, November 21, 2009
Meditation:
    They are from the world and therefore speak from the viewpoint of the world, and the world listens to them. We are from God, and whoever knows God listens to us; but whoever is not from God does not listen to us. This is how we recognize the Spirit of truth and the spirit of falsehood.
    —1 John 4:5,6 (NIV)
Quotation:
    Without realizing what was happening, most of us gradually came to take for granted the premises underlying this philosophy of optimism. We proceeded to live these propositions, though we would not have stated them as blandly as I set them forth here:
    Man is inherently good.
    Individual man can carve out his own salvation with the help of education and society through progressively better government.
    Reality and values worth searching for lie in the material world that science is steadily teaching us to analyze, catalogue, and measure. While we would not deny the existence of inner values, we relegate them to second place.
    The purpose of life is happiness, [which] we define in terms of enjoyable activity, friends, and the accumulation of material objects.
    The pain and evil of life—such as ignorance, poverty, selfishness, hatred, greed, lust for power—are caused by factors in the external world; therefore, the cure lies in the reforming of human institutions and the bettering of environmental conditions.
    As science and technology remove poverty and lift from us the burden of physical existence, we shall automatically become finer persons, seeing for ourselves the value of living the Golden Rule.
    In time, the rest of the world will appreciate the demonstration that the American way of life is best. They will then seek for themselves the good life of freedom and prosperity. This will be the greatest impetus toward an end of global conflict.
    The way to get along with people is to beware of religious dictums and dogma. The ideal is to be a nice person and to live by the Creed of Tolerance. Thus we offend few people. We live and let live. This is the American Way.
    ... Catherine Marshall (1914-1983), Beyond Our Selves, New York: McGraw-Hill, 1961, p. 5-6 (see the book)
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, keep me from adopting the world’s system. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
BDTC    search    script    mobile
sub    fb    twt

D'Oyly & Mant: keeping Scripture in our hearts

Friday, November 20, 2009
    Feast of Edmund of the East Angles, Martyr, 870
    Commemoration of Priscilla Lydia Sellon, a Restorer of the Religious Life in the Church of England, 1876
Meditation:
    When his parents saw him, they were astonished. His mother said to him, “Son, why have you treated us like this? Your father and I have been anxiously searching for you.”
    “Why were you searching for me?” he asked. “Didn’t you know I had to be in my Father’s house?”
    But they did not understand what he was saying to them.
    —Luke 2:48-50 (NIV)
Quotation:
    It is to be acknowledged that many passages in the Bible are abstruse, and not to be easy to be understood. Yet we are not to omit reading the abstruser texts, which have any appearance of relating to us; but should follow the example of the Blessed Virgin, who understood not several of our Saviour’s sayings, but kept them all in her heart. Were we only to learn humility thus, it would be enough; but we shall come by degrees to apprehend far more than we expected, if we diligently compare spiritual things with spiritual.
    ... George D’Oyly (1778-1846) & Richard Mant (1776-1848), Holy Bible According to the Authorized Version, Introduction to, London: SPCK, 1839, p. 18 (see the book)
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, grant me the patience and faith to live with less than all the answers. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
BDTC    search    script    mobile
sub    fb    twt

Smith: talking or quiet

Thursday, November 19, 2009
    Feast of Hilda, Abbess of Whitby, 680
    Commemoration of Elizabeth, Princess of Hungary, Philanthropist, 1231
    Commemoration of Mechtild, Bèguine of Magdeburg, Mystic, Prophet, 1280
Meditation:
    Then he went down to Nazareth with them and was obedient to them. But his mother treasured all these things in her heart. And Jesus grew in wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and men.
    —Luke 2:51-52 (NIV)
Quotation:
    [At the Garden of Olives Monastery]
    “Why are you all so quiet all the time?” I say, still whispering at him in this hoarse voice.
    “We are teachers and workers,” he says, “not talkers.”
    “Workers, O.K.,” I say, “but how can a teacher be quiet all the time and teach anybody anything?”
    “Christ was the best,” he says, thinking of something. “He lived thirty-three years. Thirty years he kept quiet; three years he talked. Ten to one for keeping quiet.”
    ... Franc Smith, Harry Vernon at Prep, Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co., 1959, p. 134 (see the book)
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, I meditate on the goodness of Your life, that my own life might reflect it. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
BDTC    search    script    mobile
sub    fb    twt

Lewis: the anti-God state of mind

Wednesday, November 18, 2009
Meditation:
    Pride goes before destruction, a haughty spirit before a fall. Better to be lowly in spirit and among the oppressed than to share plunder with the proud.
    —Proverbs 16:18-19 (NIV)
Quotation:
    The vice I am talking of is Pride or Self-Conceit: and the virtue opposite to it, in Christian morals, is called Humility. You may remember, when I was talking about sexual morality, I warned you that the centre of Christian morals did not lie there. Well, now we have come to the centre. According to Christian teachers, the essential vice, the utmost evil, is Pride. Unchastity, anger, greed, drunkenness, and all that, are mere fleabites in comparison: it was through Pride that the devil became the devil: Pride leads to every other vice: it is the complete anti-God state of mind.
    ... C. S. Lewis (1898-1963), Christian Behavior, London: Geoffrey Bles, Macmillan, 1943, p. 42 (see the book)
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, give me the strength of faith to ask for humility. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
BDTC    search    script    mobile
sub    fb    twt

Patmore: unencumbered

Tuesday, November 17, 2009
    Feast of Hugh, Carthusian Monk, Bishop of Lincoln, 1200
Meditation:
    What is more, I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them rubbish, that I may gain Christ
    —Philippians 3:8 (NIV)
Quotation:
    Let me love Thee so that the honour, riches, and pleasures of the world may seem unworthy even of hatred—may not even be encumbrances.
    ... Coventry Patmore (1823-1896), The Rod, the Root, and the Flower, London: G. Bell, 1895, p. 222 (see the book)
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, knowledge of You is a treasure beyond price. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
BDTC    search    script    mobile
sub    fb    twt

Beach: dying of respectability

Monday, November 16, 2009
    Feast of Margaret, Queen of Scotland, Philanthropist, Reformer of the Church, 1093
    Commemoration of Edmund Rich of Abingdon, Archbishop of Canterbury, 1240
Meditation:
    Restore us again, O God our Savior, and put away your displeasure toward us.
    —Psalm 85:4 (NIV)
Quotation:
    The word of God has been so thoroughly tamed that as peddled in the churches there is nothing scandalous, strenuous, or revolutionary about it. It is not even difficult. It is easier to join a Christian church than it is to join Rotary. Whereas in some eras of its history, Christianity was threatened by persecution, in our own American culture, it faces an opposite threat which lies in its very success. Christianity is dying, not of persecution or neglect, but of respectability.
    ... W. Waldo Beach (1916-2000), The Christian Life, Richmond, Va.: CLC Press, 1966, p. 11 (see the book)
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, You will save Your church, as You have promised. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
BDTC    search    script    mobile
sub    fb    twt

Hoskyns: the tension within us

Sunday, November 15, 2009
Meditation:
    [Jesus:] If you belonged to the world, it would love you as its own. As it is, you do not belong to the world, but I have chosen you out of the world. That is why the world hates you.
    —John 15:19 (NIV)
Quotation:
    This coherence of the Bible itself, and of the Bible and the Church, is a coherence and a unity set in opposition to the world existing beyond its borders, and outside its influence, so that there comes into being a tension between the world as it actually is and the Church, in so far as the Church rests upon the Biblical revelation of God.
    But this tension is not something which concerns the Church and the world as though they are things which exist outside us and apart from us, which we can consider and observe and discuss and have theories about. The tension between the Church and the world exists within us and is the very fibre of our being, and neither the one nor the other is superficial or trivial. For we are, all of us, of the earth, earthy, and we are also baptized members of Christ and His Church. It is precisely because we belong to two worlds that our lives consist in insecurity—that we are, in fact, a drama, the final act of which, the judgment of reward or punishment, heaven or hell, is hidden from us.
    ... Sir Edwyn C. Hoskyns (1884-1937), We are the Pharisees, London: SPCK, 1960, p. 96-97 (see the book)
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, the life of this world is passing away, but the life of Your kingdom lasts forever. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
BDTC    search    script    mobile
sub    fb    twt