“People say that we’re searching for the meaning of life. I don’t think that’s it at all. I think what we’re seeking is a spirit of being alive, so that our life experiences on the purely physical plane will have resonances within our innermost being and reality, so that we actually feel the rapture of being alive.”
Joseph Campbell, The Power of Myth, and quoted by Aron Ralston in his book Between a Rock and a Hard Place, Atria Books, a trademark of Simon Schuster, Inc., 2004, p. 173.
Doubts: A man may be haunted with doubts, and only grow thereby in faith. Doubts are the messengers of the Living One to the honest. They are the first knock at our door of things that are not yet, but have to be, understood… Doubt must precede every deeper assurance; for uncertainties are what we first see when we look into a region hitherto unknown, unexplored, unannexed.
George Macdonald (1824-1905), “The Voice of Job,” Unspoken Sermons, Second Series [1885]
Meditation:
Prove all things; hold fast that which is good.
— 1 Thessalonians 5;21 (KJV)

When you get to your wit’s end, you’ll find God lives there.

God doesn’t call the qualified, He qualifies the called.

Prayer and love are learned in the hour when prayer becomes impossible and your heart has turned to stone.

…Thomas Merton (1915-1968)

“While Christians have had a long heritage of rigorous scholarship and careful thinking, some circles still view the intellect with suspicion or even as contradictory to Christian faith. And many non-Christians are quick to label Christians as anti-intellectual and obscurantist. But this need not be so. In this classic introduction to Christian thinking, John Stott makes a forceful appeal for Christian discipleship that engages the mind as well as the heart.”

The greatest proof of Christianity for others is not how far a man can logically analyze his reasons for believing, but how far in practice he will stake his life on his belief.

…T. S. Eliot (1888-1965)

During the last year or so, I have come to appreciate the “worldliness” of Christianity as never before. The Christian is not a homo religiosus but a man, pure and simple, just as Jesus became man… It is only by living completely in this world that one learns to believe. One must abandon every attempt to make something of oneself, whether it be a saint, a converted sinner, a churchman, a righteous man, or an unrighteous one, a sick man or a healthy one… This is what I mean by worldliness — taking life in one’s stride, with all its duties and problems, its successes and failures, its experiences and helplessness… How can success make us arrogant or failure lead us astray, when we participate in the sufferings of God by living in this world?

…Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1906-1945), Letters and Papers from Prison

Prayer and action, therefore, can never be seen as contradictory or mutually exclusive. Prayer without action grows in powerless pietism, and action without prayer degenerates into questionable manipulation. If prayer leads us into a deeper unity with the compassionate Christ, it will always give rise to concrete acts of service. And if concrete acts of service do indeed lead us to a deeper solidarity with the poor, the hungry, the sick, the dying, and the oppressed, they will always give rise to prayer. In prayer we meet Christ, and in him all human suffering. In service we meet people, and in them the suffering Christ.

…Henri J. M. Nouwen (1932-1996), Compassion [1982]

Who is it that has helped you most? Has it not been those who believed in you? Perhaps there may be few such left. The light of expectation may have died out of the most friendly and hopeful eyes; and you yourself may have lost heart. Ah! but there is still One whose faith in you has never wavered. And how wonderful it is that that one should be Jesus Christ!… It was a wonderful dream God dreamed, Christ says, when He created you; it was a stately being that was in His mind when you were fashioned; and I can make you all He meant that you should be.

…A. J. Gossip (1873-1954), The Galilean Accent [1926]

We never become truly spiritual by sitting down and wishing to become so. You must undertake something so great that you cannot accomplish it unaided.

…Phillips Brooks (1835-1893)

People are funny, they want the front of the bus, the middle of the road, and the back of the church.