The Listener

The person who’s listening is usually the one worth listening to.

Art and Morality

Art like morality consists in drawing the line somewhere.

G.K. Chesterton

Nice People

A person who is nice to you, but rude to the waiter, is not a nice person.

Dave Barry

Our Toolbox

Our Age of Anxiety is, in great part, the result of trying to do today's jobs with yesterday's tools.

Marshall McLuhan

Alleged Grammar Errors

Most of the hobgoblins of a contemporary prescriptive grammar (don’t split infinitives, don’t end a sentence with a preposition) can be traced back to eighteenth-century fads.

Of course, forcing modern speakers of English to not – whoops, not to split an infinitive because it isn’t done in Latin makes about as much sense as forcing modern residents of England to wear laurels and togas.

But once introduced, a prescriptive rule is very heard to eradicate, no matter how ridiculous. Inside the educational and writing establishments, the rules survive by the same dynamic that perpetuates ritual genital mutilations and college fraternity hazing: I had to go through it and am none the worse, so why should you have it any easier? Anyone daring to overturn a rule by example must always worry that readers will think he or she is ignorant of the rule, rather than challenging it.

Since perspective rules are so psychologically unnatural that only those with access to the right schooling can abide by them, they serve as shibboleths, differentiating the elite from the rabble.

Steven Pinker
The Language Instinct

Stretching

My own happiest times have not been when all was secure but rather when I was stretching to learn to fulfill a task which called for more than I have to give – and I was trying to give it.

Two Things

My memory is nearly gone, but I remember two things, that I am a great sinner, and that Christ is a great Saviour.

John Newton
Author of Amazing Grace

I love this quote because it summaries the whole of Christianity. That is, know who you are and know who God is. Some people stop with the sinner part ("Oh, I'm so awful") and miss the fact that the Gospel is really "good news". We should dwell on the Savior part yet never forget the sinner part. As someone once said, salvation is a two-sided coin, an attitude toward sin (repentance) and an attitude toward God (faith). As we turn the coin (turn away from sin) we face it in God's direction. It makes all the difference in the world whether you are looking at your own failures.. or looking at God's triumph.

Animosity

Men need no other provocation to enmity than that they find themselves excelled.

Being Ourselves

I began to see that I, and the people I know, are most winsome in all our intimate relations when we are unconsciously being ourselves with other people and accepting them just as they are without trying to manipulate or change them in any way.

Keith Miller
A Taste of New Wine

Listening

Listening is not thinking about what you are going to say when the other person has stopped talking.

H Norman Wright

Whites to Become a Minority Sooner than Expected

In just 34 years, whites will make up less than half of the US population. That’s a good eight years earlier than previously predicted. This Census Bureau finding will mean big changes for our society from schools and language to employment and politics.

I'm sure there are folks (some relatives you know) who are panicked at the very thought that white America will no longer be in the majority. It’s a comfort thing. But whether you like it or not, life is about changes. When it comes to something this big, all we can control is our reaction. Our identity, the way we think of ourselves, is always being forced to work around new circumstances. This is another reason to give our attention to what's permanent and not focus on what's passing away.

It's curious to think that the America our grandkids will grow up in will look different than the one we knew as children. But then, when you think about the world OUR grandparents grew up in - the depression era and such, it shouldn't be a shock to discover that life is taking some unexpected twists. It’s like returning to the home we grew up in and finding everything so much smaller. We shouldn’t be all that surprised.. but we are.

The change requires an adjustment on our part. And if we don't embrace that change, we'll turn out to be one of those elderly people who rail against the way the world is now and reminisce about the good old days (that never were) wasting energy and time trying to shore up our comfort level. When we shouldn't have been leaning in that direction in the first place.

Stephen Goforth

Participating Fully

I do not serve God only in the brief moments during which I am taking part in a religious service, or reading the Bible, or saying my prayers, or talking about him in some book I am writing, or discussing the meaning of life with a patient or a friend.

I serve him quite as much when I am giving a patient an injection, or lancing an abscess, or writing a prescription, or giving a piece of good advice.

Or again, I serve him quite as much when I am reading the newspaper, traveling, laughing at a joke, or soldering a joint in an electric wire.

I serve him by taking an interest in everything, because he is interested in everything, because he has created everything and has put me in his creation so that I may participate in it fully.

“It is a great mistake,” wrote Archbishop William Temple, “to suppose that God is interested only, or even primarily in religion.”

Paul Tournier
The Adventure of Living

Welcome to the Fairy Tale

Life itself is the most wonderful fairy tale.

Hans Christian Andersen

Inside

It’s what people know about themselves inside is what makes them afraid.

Clint Eastwood
High Plains Drifter

Discoveries

It is far more impressive when others discover your good qualities without your help.

The Adventure of Living

Our attitude to life is always a reflection of our attitude to God. Saying “yes” to God is saying “yes” to life, to all its problems and difficulties. “Yes” instead of “no”, an attitude of adventure instead of one of going one strike. In such an adventure we commit our entire being. It is not an escape.. We do not have to give up our reason, our intelligence, our knowledge, our facility to judge, nor our emotions, our likes, our desire, our instincts, our conscience and unconscious aspirations, but rather to place them all in God’s hand’s, so that he may direct, stimulate, fertilize, develop and use them.

Paul Tournier
The Adventure of Living

The Other Fellow

When the other fellow is set in his ways, he’s obstinate.
When you are, it’s just firmness.

When the other fellow doesn’t like your friends, he’s prejudiced and narrow minded.

When you don’t like his friends, you are simply showing you’re a good judge of human nature.

When the other fellow tries to treat someone especially well, he’s buttering them up.
When you do the same game, you’re using tact.

When the other fellow picks out flows in things, he’s cranky.
When you do, you are discriminating and just be careful.

When the other fellow says what he things, he’s spiteful.
When you do, you’re just plain spoken.

Be Bold

In times of stress, be bold and valiant.

Homer

Treasures

One by one He took them from me,
All the things I valued most,
Until I was empty-handed;
Every glittering toy was lost.

And I walked earth's highways, grieving.
In my rags and poverty.
Till I heard His voice inviting,
"Lift your empty hands to Me!"

So I held my hands toward heaven,
And He filled them with a store
Of His own transcendent riches,
Till they could contain no more.

And at last I comprehended
With my stupid mind and dull,
That God COULD not pour His riches
Into hands already full!

Martha Snell Nicholson

The Happy Catastrophe

A fire broke out backstage in a theater on opening night of a new comedy production. A clown realized the danger and pushed thorugh the curtains to alert the audience.

They applauded.

The clown repeated his warning more urgently. By now he was center stage, flailing his arms, his eyes wide with panic.

The crowd went wild. Whistles. Cheers. Raucous laughter. Never had they seen such a routine!

Is this how the world ends? The human race stands in thunderous ovation, calling for an encore, convinced it’s just another happy joke.

The 360 View

In the name of God, stop a moment, cease your work, look around you.

Leo Tolstoy

The Time Test

If a class of students are allowed an hour to complete an essay test and one student completes his before the time is up, he isn’t penalized, is he? The assignment was to write an essay, not merely to use the time.

But what if using the time were the assignment? If a person is told to use an entire day profitably, but he becomes bored and diverted by mid-morning, wasting the balance of the day, then his speed is worthless.

The same is true when life is the task. To be finished with life before life has finished with us is to have failed to complete the assignment.