Poem

When Peace is Like a Tree

He is unaffected by the restlessness

of waiting and yet

he waits

in patience and peace

he endures

and yet stays open

to possibilities and contingencies

of fence posts and windmills

and sidewalks

he reaches over them

and past them and through them

in branched accommodation

in a rooted silence

he waits in peace.

Russell Quote

"People are zealous for a cause when they are not quite positive that it is true."

Bertrand Russell

L'Engle Quote

"We do not draw people to Christ by loudly discrediting what they believe, by telling them how wrong they are and how right we are, but by showing them a light that is so lovely that they want with all their hearts to know the source of it."

Madeleine L'Engle

A Question and Three Answers

The Question is Raised: "What does the church do when it sees the culture crumbling around it?"

Common answer 1: Sell out. Seek relevancy.

Common answer 2: Beat the culture over the head with a club labelled "Truth."

(un?) Common answer 3: Die for Truth in prophetically relevant and radically self-giving love.

Schmemann Quote

"To be truly man means to be fully oneself. The confirmation is the confirmation of man in his own, unique "personality." It is, to use again the same image, his ordination to be himself, to become what God wants him to be, what He has loved in me from all eternity. It is the gift of vocation. If the Church is truly the "newness of life" - the world and nature as restored in Christ - it is not, or rather ought not be, a purely religious institution in which to be "pious," to be a member in "good standing," means leaving one's own personality at the entrance - in the "check room" - and replacing it with a worn-out, impersonal, neutral "good Christian" type personality. Piety in fact may be a very dangerous thing, a real opposition to the Holy Spirit who is the Giver of Life - of joy, movement and creativity - and not of the "good conscience" which looks at everything with suspicion, fear and moral indignation."

Alexander Schmemann

"For the Life of the World"

Living Faithfully in a Fragmented World

"...the only way for the church to recover faithful living is for the church to disentangle its life from the culture. That is, if the church is to recover faithful living in Western culture, we must recognize the restricted cultural and social sphere within which such a recovery will take place.

However, we must be very careful in describing our reason for disentangling the life of the church from the culture. We are not to withdraw from the culture because the culture is so bad that the church cannot be part of it. The very mission of the church calls us to be in the world as witnesses of the redemptive power of the gospel. Nevertheless, there are times - and I have argued that this is one of them - when the life of the church has been so compromised that we no longer are capable of fulfilling faithfully our our mission. At such a time, the church must withdraw into a new monasticism, not in order to avoid a 'bad' society, but in order to recover faithful living and a renewed understanding of the church's mission."

Jonathan R. Wilson

"Living Faithfully in a Fragmented World."

Tolkien Quote

"All that is gold does not glitter,
Not all those who wander are lost;
The old that is strong does not wither,
Deep roots are not reached by the frost.
From the ashes a fire shall be woken,
A light from the shadows shall spring;
Renewed shall be blade that was broken,
The crownless again shall be king."

J. R. R. Tolkien

[Thanks to Denis Haack, in his publication "Critique," for turning me again to these words of Tolkien. Hope in a time of shadows - from which light springs. I am so appreciative of Denis and Margie Haack's thoughtful work. See their website: Ransom Fellowship.]