Favorite quotes this week:

“What I need is gentleness by which the prince of this world is overthrown.” (Ignatius, bishop of Antioch, and he was a fervent or “rambunctious church father”).

Also, by him, “We attempt to live in union with Him now, since we shall rise in union with Him. Down here, is union practice.”

The idea of gentleness as a weapon of the heart! To overthrow hatred and violence. Nice. It’s an important fruit of the spirit listed in Galatians 4.  Maybe gentleness has been underrated in our individualistic constantly in competition world. A soft answer of our being, when we turn and listen in love, turns away the ways of wrath.

Another,

“The choice before us today is just what it always was—whether to be worldly or otherworldly; whether to live for the unloving self or to live for the love of God.” (Joy Davidman)

And one from CS Lewis’ mentor who he said “baptized his imagination” into God:

“Love has ever in view the absolute loveliness of that which it beholds…..Therefore, all that is not beautiful in the beloved, all that comes between and is not of love’s kind, must be destroyed. And our God is a consuming fire.” (George MacDonald, scottish mystic theologian and poet)

John’s main point: “Love as such, regardless of the object to which it is directed, is participation in the life of God. Agape is born of God.” That’s basically his whole argument in I John.

Another I liked:

“Is it shocking to think of God as a pursuing Lover? Then Christianity is shocking.”

It’s beyond a slight interest in us, it a Lover actively pursuing us passionately. That’s a different image of God, we have to deal with, if we wish to encounter that type of God.

I love collecting great quotes which trigger deeper thoughts and tumblings into what is Real. Most great questions and quotes, provoke us to continue further into being and becoming… They trigger us into the reality of their answer, and towards our real questions. Jesus always taught this way. He discerned the real question, and then asked questions which lead into the reality of the answers.

My last, i promise! Something He mentioned to me this month; “I really am well pleased with you.” Can we live in the embarrassment of the reality of having God tell us He is pleased with us. Or as another monk put it, to deal with the words: “You are my love, you are my love. You yourself are actually included in the Belovedness I have towards My Son; can you  be caught up in that level of Love!”

I love overhearing other’s spirituality, to get inspired to stay within my own. The pleasant lines of my own inheritance. Let us each celebrate our own.

 God is actually shocking, when we really encounter Him. Shocking, that is,  to our ideas about Him, and our experiences thus far of Him. To align with Reality involves lots of saying to our pet ideas about what is Real. This never stops. Our imaginations have to come into visual alignment, and living alignment with what is actually Real. That’s a journey of becoming beyond our cultural constructs and life experiences of what life is really like. Turns out people have been growing spiritually for a long time, and learned a few things, along The Way.