"Intelligent Design"

A watch without a watchmaker is less incredible than a creation without a Creator.

Anonymous

"Beyond The Grandeur"

Nature is but a name for an effect,
Whose cause is God.

William Cowper

The grandeur of nature is only the beginning.
Beyond the grandeur is God.

Abraham Joshua Heschel

"Friendship Affection"

Friendship, affection is not acquired by giving presents. Friendship, affection comes about by two people sharing a significant moment, by having an experience in common.

Abraham Joshua Heschel

"The Good Pleasure Of Thy Will"

Grant me, O Lord, to know what I ought to know,
to love what I ought to love,
to praise what delights Thee most,
to value what is precious in Thy sight,
to hate what is offensive to Thee.
Do not suffer me to judge according to the sight of my eyes,
nor to pass sentence according to the hearing of the ears of ignorant men;
but to discern with a true judgment between things visible and spiritual,
and above all,
always to inquire what is the good pleasure of Thy will.

Thomas a Kempis

"He'd Rather Itch"

An inmate I was visiting commented that some guys show up in prison in such bad shape that he looks at them and thinks, “That wasn’t an arrest; it was a deliverance.” There is freedom, and then there is just rope to hang yourself.

I wonder if most of us wake up in the morning to a variety of bondages, and we put them on like a pair of pants, because we’re used to them. It’s worse than that: We don’t even want to be free of them. There is a man in C.S. Lewis’ The Great Divorce who is hagridden by an annoying lizard (lust) on his shoulder day and night. Yet when an angel offers to kill it, he doesn’t want to:

“There is always something they insist on keeping, even at the price of misery. There is always something they prefer to joy—that is, to reality. . . . The time comes when, though the pleasure becomes less and less and the craving fiercer and fiercer, and though he knows that joy can never come that way, yet he prefers to joy the mere fondling of unappeasable lust, and would not have it taken from him. He’d fight to the death to keep it. He’d like well to be able to scratch: but even when he can scratch no more, he’d rather itch than not.”

How do you figure? Our bondages are ruining our lives—and still we hold on to them for dear life. Why? It seems to me we don’t really believe that God has anything to offer that we would like better. Heaven has always seemed boring to those who live in darkness. It’s just a matter of not believing God, I guess.

Andree Seu

"Slanted News & Herd Mentality"

...The "societal purpose" of the media is to inculcate and defend the economic, social, and political agenda of privileged groups that dominate the domestic society and the state. The media serve this purpose in many ways: through selection of topics, distribution of concerns, framing of issues, filtering of information, emphasis and tone, and by keeping debate within the bounds of acceptable premises…
Noam Chomsky

How a report is framed, which facts it contains and emphasizes and which it ignores, and in what context, are as important to shaping opinion as the bare facts themselves.
Mark Hertsgaard

It is this gregarious herd-sense and herd-smell which keeps people from thinking and so reconciles them to the destruction of their private lives.

Cyril Connolly

Premature Aging

Proverbs put old heads on young shoulders.

Charles Reade

"The Real Miracle: The Divine League"

To contrast the size of the oak with that of the parent acorn, as if the poor seed had paid all costs from its slender strong-box, may serve for a child’s wonder; but the real miracle lies in that divine league which bound all the forces of nature to the service of the tiny germ in fulfilling its destiny.

James Russell Lowell

"Good Goals From Good Hearts"

Means have no merit, if our end amiss.
If wrong our hearts, our heads are right in vain.

Edward Young

"The First Cause of Infinite Complexity…Must Be Omniscient"

From the intrinsic evidence of His creation, the Great Architect of the Universe now begins to appear as a pure mathematician.

Sir James Hopwood Jeans

"Change Your Will. Loose Your Chains"

My will was perverse and lust had grown from it, and when I gave in to lust habit was born, and when I did not resist the habit it became a necessity. These were the links which together formed what I have called my chain, and it held me fast in the duress of servitude.

St. Augustine

"Create Depth"

The length of our life is less important than its depth.

Mary David Fisher

"Work With Delight"

I slept and dreamt that life was joy.
I awoke and saw that life was duty.
I acted and behold duty was joy.

Rabindranath Tagore

"Direct With Thoughtful Compassion"

I do not believe that any man can lead who does not act...under the impulse of a profound sympathy with those whom he leads.

Woodrow Wilson

"Thank God For Beauty And Answered Prayer"

Answered prayers cover the field of providential history as flowers cover the western prairies.

T.L. Cuyler

"Control Yourself"

Bridle passions, and be yourself a free man.

John Clarke

"Mr. Rogers' Rules On Rules"

Call them rules or call them limits, good ones, I believe, have this in common: They serve reasonable purposes; they are practical and within a child's capability; they are consistent; and they are an expression of loving concern.

Fred Rogers

"Bring To Others The Deliverance"

He who has been delivered from pain must not think he is now free again, and at liberty to take life up just as it was before, entirely forgetful of the past. He is now a 'man whose eyes are open' with regard to pain and anguish, and he must help to overcome those two enemies...and to bring to others the deliverance which he has himself enjoyed.

Albert Schweitzer

"Divide And Conquer"

If thy Business be perplexed, divide it, and look upon all its Parts and sides.

Thomas Fuller

"Deal With It"

All too frequently a problem evaded is a crisis invited.

Henry A. Kissinger

"Open The Windows"

O Light that never fades,
as the light of the day
now streams through these windows
and floods this room,
so let me open to Thee
the windows of my heart,
that all my life may be filled
by the radiance of Thy presence.

John Baillie

"I Would Surrender Myself To You"

O Lord,

reassure me with Your quickening Spirit; without You I can do nothing.

Mortify in me all ambition, vanity, vainglory, worldliness, pride,

selfishness, and resistance from God,

and fill me with love, peace, and all the fruits of the Spirit.

O Lord, I know not what I am, but to You I flee for refuge.

I would surrender myself to You, trusting Your precious promises

and against hope believing in hope.

You are the same yesterday, today, and forever; and therefore,

waiting on the Lord, I trust that I shall at length renew my strength.

William Wilberforce

"The Most Dangerous Place In Existence"

There is no man so unsafe as he that is...too Proud to be told Truth, or have his Errors taken Notice of.

Samuel Butler

"What Did It Really Cost You?"

The real price of every thing...is the amount of life it requires to be exchanged for it, immediately or in the long run.

Henry David Thoreau

"Do Yourself Proud"

Would the boy you were be proud of the man you are?

Laurence J. Peter

"Green Monster"

When a proud Man hears another praised, he thinks himself injured.

Thomas Fuller

"Wait For Germination"

The very man who has argued you down will sometimes be found, years later, to have been influenced by what you have said.

C.S. Lewis

"Before Approaching The Throne"

When you pray, know before Whom you stand.

Talmud

"Batten Down The Hatches"

He robs present ills of their power who has perceived their coming beforehand...In fair Weather prepare for foul.

Seneca The Younger...Thomas Fuller

"Give To Your Future Generously"

The present is the past's student and the future's teacher...Real generosity toward the future lies in giving all to the present.

Anonymous/Albert Camus

"Perseverance"

Perseverance is the hard work you do after you get tired of doing the hard work you already did.

Newt Gingrich

"You Are What You Do"

Personality change follows change in behavior. Since we are what we do, if we want to change what we are we begin by changing what we do, [and] must undertake a new mode of action.

Allen Wheelis

"Sweetest Pleasure"

The sweetest pleasure arises from difficulties overcome.

Publius Syrus

"Proportionate Growth"

Enlarged material powers spell enlarged peril if there is not proportionate growth of the soul.

Martin Luther King, Jr.

"Power At Its Best"

What is needed is the realization that power without love is reckless and abusive and that love without power is sentimental and anemic. Power at its best is love implementing the demands of justice.

Martin Luther King, Jr.

"Gushing"

Praise, like gold and diamonds, owes its value only to its scarcity.

Samuel Johnson

"Come, Lord Jesus"

Prayer is an invitation to God to intervene in our lives.

Abraham Joshua Heschel

"Work And Pray"

The things, Good Lord, I pray for, give me Thy grace to labor for.

Sir Thomas More

"Not Good Enough For Evil Companions"

I am inclined to think a Christian would be wise to avoid, where he decently can, any meeting with people who are bullies, lascivious, cruel, dishonest, spiteful, and so forth. Not because we are ‘too good’ for them. In a sense because we are not good enough. We are not good enough to cope with all the temptations, nor clever enough to cope with all the problems, which an evening spent in such society produces. The temptation is to condone, to connive at; by our word, looks and laughter, to 'consent'...We shall hear vile stories told as funny; not merely licentious stories but (to me far more serious and less noticed) stories which the teller could not be telling unless he was betraying someone’s confidence. We shall hear infamous detraction of the absent, often disguised as pity or humor. Things we hold sacred will be mocked.

C.S. Lewis

"Take A Risk"

I have been assuming that the power and the motive behind taking risks for the cause of God is not heroism,
or the lust for adventure,
or the courage of self-reliance,
or the need to earn God's good will,
but rather faith in the all-providing, all-ruling, all-satisfying Son of God, Jesus Christ.
The strength to risk losing face for the sake of Christ is the faith that God's love will lift up your face in the end and vindicate your cause....
In this way risk reflects God's value, not our valor...
Every loss we risk in order to make much of Christ, God promises to restore a thousandfold with his all-satisfying fellowship.

John Piper

"To Die Is Gain"

'My desire is to depart...and be with Christ, for that is far better.' That is what death does: It takes us into more intimacy with Christ...Daily Christian living is daily Christian dying. The dying I have in mind is the dying of comfort and security and reputation and health and family and friends and wealth and homeland...we bade farewell to friend after friend. And faring well is exactly what we believed they did.

John Piper

"As Doves Fly"

"...may the Lord Jesus Christ be exalted in the midst of his Church which is His fullness -"the fullness of Him that filleth all in all." May multitudes be converted; may they come flocking to Christ with holy eagerness to find in Him a refuge as the doves fly to their dovecotes."

Charles H. Spurgeon

"That I May Cleave To You"

O Thou Beloved:
Love eternal,
my whole good,
happiness which has no bounds...
Oh everlasting light,
surpassing all created luminaries,
flash forth Thy lightening from above,
piercing all the most inward parts of my heart.
Make clean,
Make glad,
Make bright,
and make alive my spirit,
with all the powers thereof,
that I may cleave to you
in ecstasies of joy.

Thomas Kempis

"Every Perfect Gift"

Not what we wish,
but what we need,
Oh! let your grace supply,
The good unasked, in mercy grant;
The ill, thought asked, deny.

James Merrik

"Atheism Defined"

Atheism: The belief that there was nothing and nothing happened to nothing and then nothing magically exploded for no reason, creating everything and then a bunch of everything magically rearranged itself for no reason whatsoever into self-replicating bits which then turned into dinosaurs.

Author Unknown

"Set A Worthy Goal"

If you want to be happy, set a goal that commands your thoughts, liberates your energy, and inspires your hopes.

Andrew Carnegie