Category: Quote

interpretation

2065084783c20f32939a8b8a9340cfa3--book-writer-weakness-quotes

I dislike the divide in Christianity of liberal, progressive, charismatic, pentecostal, conservative, traditionalist, etc. (Basically because I do not understand them.) Any group thinks it is the future by bringing the past into the present. But in the end are they all just interpretations? And so a party needs to come to power to have its worldview become dominate?

So the takeaway for me: it is not about belonging to a particular group or party! It is about being authentic in everything I do and say.

means to an end

I was thinking about this quote today:

3f259507ea0be026cf87dba23c3bbd09

Kant was an interesting individual. Yet the above is, I think, a sound principle. I know that I have often felt like a “means to an end” for people – which, alas, I have allowed myself to be so the fault lies with me. And, I cannot control others but only myself.

So for today’s reflection:

DO I use people for the sole purpose of achieving something else?

to be a saint

Some Merton for today:

tumblr_o1tnbnvEYd1qfvq9bo1_1280

I have always loved that quote. In the Prologue to No Man Is an Island, Merton expands upon the quote. For a person (like Merton) formed in the classical western Catholic tradition it is a strange place to start. Maybe a topic for another day!?

For me it is about living my identity as God-given – seeing the divine in my life and also in the life of others. Living the part of me that is undefinable, indescribable, the nothingness within me where I meet Being. And, if I am going to be honest, for most of my life I have run away from that part. In a desire to be heard, to be listened to, to be an authority, I have ignored “myself” and tried to define myself away from God. In reality God (and “me”) are completely beyond definition, completely other.

In Merton’s language I have tried to hide behind a “false self” by putting on masks to make myself acceptable to others so that they would listen to me.