Page: the demands of love

Saturday, February 20, 2010
    Commemoration of Cecile Isherwood, Founder of the Community of the Resurrection, Grahamstown, South Africa, 1906
Meditation:
    [Jesus] also told them this parable: “Can a blind man lead a blind man? Will they not both fall into a pit? A student is not above his teacher, but everyone who is fully trained will be like his teacher.”
    —Luke 6:39-40 (NIV)
Quotation:
    Not by conforming to this world can humanity be saved. Lying down in the gutter with the derelict is no way to reform him. Acquiescence is not an effective way of remedying evils. Sharing the gains of exploitation and enjoying the privileges arising out of injustice will never lead to the transformation of society. Untiring opposition to false standards and ceaseless activity against wrongdoing are demanded by love. Mankind can never be lifted to the highest levels if its teachers dwell in the lowlands. To be in the world and yet not of it is the difficult requirement of love.
    ... Kirby Page (1890-1957), Jesus or Christianity, Doubleday, Doran & Company, Inc., 1931, p. 32 (see the book)
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, You have sent Your people to bring the world out of darkness. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Vitz: what about my profession?

Friday, February 19, 2010
Meditation:
    ... then I saw all that God has done. No one can comprehend what goes on under the sun. Despite all his efforts to search it out, man cannot discover its meaning. Even if a wise man claims he knows, he cannot really comprehend it.
    —Ecclesiastes 8:17 (NIV)
Quotation:
    It is difficult to document such a thing as the general attitude of a profession. But the hostility of most psychologists to Christianity is very real. For years, I was part of that sentiment; today it still surrounds me. It is a curious hostility, for most psychologists are not aware of it. Their lack of awareness is due mostly to sheer ignorance of what Christianity is—for that matter, of what any religion is. The universities are so secularized that most academics can no longer articulate why they are opposed to Christianity. They merely assume that, for all rational people, the question of being a Christian was settled—negatively—at some time in the past.
    ... Paul C. Vitz (b. 1935), Psychology as Religion, Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1977, p. 12 (see the book)
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, lead my colleagues, especially _____ and _____, to open their minds to Your truth. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Chesterton: one is real and the other not

Thursday, February 18, 2010
Meditation:
    Never again will they hunger; never again will they thirst. The sun will not beat upon them, nor any scorching heat. For the Lamb at the center of the throne will be their shepherd; he will lead them to springs of living water. And God will wipe away every tear from their eyes.
    —Revelation 7:16-17 (NIV)
Quotation:
    Those who call these cults “religions,” and “compare” them with the certitude and challenge of the Church have much less appreciation than we have of what made heathenism human, or of why classic literature is still something that hangs in the air like a song. It is no very human tenderness for the hungry to prove that hunger is the same as food. It is no very genial understanding of youth to argue that hope destroys the need for happiness.
    And it is utterly unreal to argue that these images in the mind, admired entirely in the abstract, were even in the same world with a living man and a living polity that were worshipped because they were concrete... They are only different because one is real and the other is not. I do not mean merely that I myself believe that one is true and the other is not. I mean that one was never meant to be true in the same sense as the other.
    ... Gilbert Keith Chesterton (1874-1936), The Everlasting Man, London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1925, Wilder Publications, 2008, p. 68 (see the book)
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, place Your words in my mouth, that I may be a witness for You to this generation. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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ten Boom on prayer

Wednesday, February 17, 2010
    Ash Wednesday
    Feast of Janani Luwum, Archbishop of Uganda, Martyr, 1977
Meditation:
    Then the LORD said to Joshua, “Today I have rolled away the reproach of Egypt from you.” So the place has been called Gilgal [wheel] to this day.
    —Joshua 5:9 (NIV)
Quotation:
    Is prayer your steering wheel or your spare tire?
    ... Corrie ten Boom (1892-1983), Clippings from My Notebook: writings of and sayings collected, Nashville: T. Nelson, 1982, p. 64 (see the book)
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, You guide me in prayer. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Ryle: inarticulate groans

Tuesday, February 16, 2010
Meditation:
    See, a king will reign in righteousness and rulers will rule with justice. Each man will be like a shelter from the wind and a refuge from the storm, like streams of water in the desert and the shadow of a great rock in a thirsty land. Then the eyes of those who see will no longer be closed, and the ears of those who hear will listen. The mind of the rash will know and understand, and the stammering tongue will be fluent and clear.
    —Isaiah 32:1-4 (NIV)
Quotation:
    Fear not because your prayer is stammering, your words feeble, and your language poor. Jesus can understand you. Just as a mother understands the first lispings of her infant, so does the blessed Saviour understand sinners. He can read a sigh, and see a meaning in a groan.
    ... J. C. Ryle (1816-1900), A Call to Prayer, published in the 1850’s as a pamphlet, p. 3 (see the book)
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, receive my prayer, though it be poorly expressed. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Taylor: prayer to be guided

Monday, February 15, 2010
    Commemoration of Thomas Bray, Priest, Founder of SPCK, 1730
Meditation:
    Young men, in the same way be submissive to those who are older. All of you, clothe yourselves with humility toward one another, because, “God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.”
    —1 Peter 5:5 (NIV)
Quotation:
    Guide me, O Lord, in all the changes and varieties of the world, that in all things that shall happen I may have an evenness and tranquillity of spirit; that my soul may be wholly resigned to thy divinest will and pleasure, never murmuring at thy gentle chastisements and fatherly correction, never waxing proud and insolent though I feel a torrent of comforts and prosperous successes.
    ... Jeremy Taylor (1613-1667), Holy Living [1650], in The Whole Works of the Right Rev. Jeremy Taylor, D.D., v. III, London: Longman, Brown, Green & Longmans, 1847, p. 34 (see the book)
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, Your word reduces me. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Kierkegaard: the natural hatred of Spirit

Sunday, February 14, 2010
    Feast of Cyril & Methodius, Missionaries to the Slavs, 869 & 885
    Commemoration of Valentine, Martyr at Rome, c.269
Meditation:
    But if Christ is in you, your body is dead because of sin, yet your spirit is alive because of righteousness.
    —Romans 8:10 (NIV)
Quotation:
    What is “spirit?” (for Christ is spirit, his religion that of the spirit). Spirit is: to live as though dead (dead to the world).
    This way of life is so entirely foreign to man that to him it is quite literally worse than death.
    Very carefully introduced for an hour or so in the distance of the imagination, natural man can bear it, it even pleases him; but if it is brought nearer him, so near that it becomes, in all seriousness, something required of him, the natural instinct of self-protection rises up so powerfully in him that a regular uproar follows, as with drink... And in that condition, in which he is beside himself, he demands the death of the man of spirit, or rushes upon him to put him to death.
    ... Søren Kierkegaard (1813-1855), Journals, ed. Alexander Dru, Oxford University Press, 1959, p. 548 (see the book)
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, take away the spirit of rebellion and allow Your Spirit to reign in my life. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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