Quote for the Day

"An important disposition for the operation of living faith within us is humility, the full acceptance of reality. . . . Humility is the acceptance of our profound ignorance with regard to God as well as to so many other things. We know what we know, and it is not very much. We know what we do not know, and that is a lot more. And we accept the fact that beyond this there is an infinity that we do not even know we do not know."

-- M. Basil Pennington Lectio Divina

Quote for the Day

"Our communication with our Divine Friend needs to be a two-way street. And if we are smart, we let God get the first word in. For he surely has a lot more that is worth saying."

--M. Basil Pennington Lectio Divina

Quote for the Day

"What you're supposed to do when you don't like a thing is change it. If you can't change it, change the way you think about it. Don't complain."

-- Maya Angelou Wouldn't Take Nothing for My Journey Now

Quote for the Day

"Perfection does not consist in feeling perfect or being perfect, but in doing what we are supposed to do without noticing it: loving people without taking any credit. Just doing it."

-- Thomas Keating Intimacy With God

Quote for the Day

"Divine love is not a feeling. It is a disposition or attitude of ongoing self-surrender and concern for others similar to the concern God has for us and every living thing."

-- Thomas Keating Intimacy With God

Quote for the Day

"St. John of the Cross wrote, 'The Father spoke one word from all eternity and he spoke it in silence, and it is in silence that we hear it.'"

-- Thomas Keating Intimacy With God

Quote for the Day

"A good and faithful Christian is one who lives the gospel in everyday life, not one who only reads about it or tries to manipulate God to fit his or her particular needs."

-- Thomas Keating Intimacy With God

Quote for the Day

"The emphasis in the New Testament is on listening and responding to the Spirit rather than initiating projects that God is expected to back up, even though God had little or nothing to do with them."

-- Thomas Keating Intimacy With God

Quote for the Day

"Human nature prefers to offer substitute sacrifices to placate God rather than to offer the sacrifice that God clearly states in Scripture is the only acceptable one, which is the gift of ourselves."

-- Thomas Keating Intimacy With God

Quote for the Day

"Prayer is not a method or power given to us so that we can order God around, or tell God how to run the world (or our own world). It is a way to express our love for God and our dependence on God's mercy."

--William A. Menninger The Loving Search for God

Quote for the Day

"A loving person is interested in the conversion of a sinner but not in chiding him or her. He is apt to err by kindness rather than severity."

--William A. Menninger The Loving Search for God

Quote for the Day

"We need no further motive for loving God than loving God. We love God for God's own sake, because God is worth loving."

-- William A. Menninger The Loving Search for God

Quote for the Day

"As for the devil, I do not fear him. Nor can I approve of those who seem to be living a kind of constant 'devil theology.' It almost seems as if they pay more attention to the devil than to God. They see him behind every telephone pole and under every bed. He seems to play a great role in their lives, as they are always talking about him.

"I would rather talk about God and see God where God is -- behind every telephone pole and under every bed and everywhere else. . . . As for me, and, I hope, for you, dear friend, I will continue on in the loving search with the help of God's grace and 'even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for God is with me.'"

-- William A. Meninger The Loving Search for God

I once visited a church in California while on furlough from Zimbabwe. The Sunday School class I attended was doing a prolonged and intensive study of the devil. There was a strange fascination with the topic (and some rather bizarre interpretation of Scripture) with no mention, and seemingly no interest in God, Himself, or Jesus in particular. I suggested to the pastor that he might want to monitor the class to see if the devil had taken the members eyes off of God. What occupies our minds controls us.

I heard of a fellow who was challenged by a fundamentalist rabble-rouser, "Do you believe in a literal devil?" He replied, "I don't believe in the devil, but I've met him in the streets among the drug dealers and pimps. I BELIEVE in Jesus." A good response.

Quote for the Day

"Externally motivated enthusiasm is not from God. It may be good and useful or it may be evil, but it is not spiritual. I am sorry to say that we see a great deal of this kind of enthusiasm today passing off for religion. Television seems to be a popular medium for this kind of hype. Beware of emotional responses generated by overenthusiastic 'Bible thumping' preachers or by media-generated audience enthusiasm, stimulated by stage effects and electronic embellishments."

--William A. Meninger The Loving Search for God

Quote for the Day

"If you want to be a true lover of God, you must love God even more than you love yourself."

-- William A. Meninger The Loving Search for God