Tag: Quotes

Striving To Be For All

As a Christian in the YMCA, I strive everyday to live out our mission in a way that honors Christ and builds up others in spirit, mind and body.

One of the things I love about the Y is their commitment to be “for all.” That’s not an easy promise to keep, but it’s the right thing to do.

In getting to know more staff and members of the Y, I’m impressed at how many strive everyday to be “for all”. I appreciate the honesty from those who are on the journey to learn how to be for all.

There are always more people to be for, and it takes a lot of humility, patience, wisdom, and compassion to learn how to be for others.

It means a lot to me to have this kind of support from the Y as they gently, methodically, and persistently explore how to be for all in a way that embodies our Christian principles, builds spirit, mind, body for all, and strengthens the foundations of our community.

Because this is such personal work that requires inner transformation, as a Christian my striving to be for all is sourced in Christ.

He is both an example of how to be for the world – a beautiful but often horribly broken world- and be a savior of people – beautifully but also tragically broken people.

Soren Kierkegaard was a Christian writing around the same time the YMCA was being established in Britain, North America, and the world. His writings have been helpful to me in striving to live Christianly in a way that is caring, honest, respectful, and responsible.

His quote below has helped me reflect on how Christ helps me be for all.

I’m not always a very good Christian, and I’m not always very good at being for all.

But I appreciate what Kierkegaard is getting at here for Christians.

My take on the quote: Being saved from our sins should keep us humble and full of unending compassion for others, and when we fail at that, we are reminded of how much humble compassion Christ has towards us, which prompts us to repent and renew our striving to be humble and compassionate, with the help of Christ himself as our teacher and savior.

“It must be firmly maintained that Christ did not come to the world only to set an example for us. 

If that were the case we would have law and works-righteousness again.

He comes to save us and in this way be our example. 

His very example should humble us, teach us how infinitely far away we are from resembling him.

When we humble ourselves, then Christ is pure compassion. 

And in our striving to approach him, he is again our very help.

It alternates: when we are striving, then he is our example; and when we stumble, lose courage, then he is the love that helps us up.

And then he is our example again.”

~ Soren Kierkegaard, Provocations, pg 223

This writing from Kierkegaard helps me frame how I strive to “love my neighbor as myself” which is how I try to be for all.

Seek the Truth

THE TRUTH IS NOT FOR ALL MEN, BUT ONLY FOR THOSE WHO SEEK IT. ~Ayn Rand

All truths are easy to understand once they are discovered; the point is to discover them. ~Galileo Galilei

The opposite of a correct statement is a false statement. But the opposite of a profound truth may well be another profound truth. ~Niels Bohr

How often have I said to you that when you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth? ~Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

Learn to do right; seek justice. Defend the oppressed. Take up the cause of the fatherless; plead the case of the widow. ~ the prophet Isaiah

Let’s be honest, we all like to think of ourselves as honest folks. Nobody likes to be called a liar.

But if we’re going to be real here, we must confess our propensity to not seek the truth, to believe our fantasies, and stubbornly close our eyes to the reality around us. It’s not easy to seek the truth.

Men occasionally stumble over the truth, but most of them pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing ever happened. ~Sir Winston Churchill

In your personal life, we believe lies about ourselves all the time. At work, being to honest can get you fired real fast. In the community, speaking truth to power can be dangerous.

All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being self-evident. ~Arthur Schopenhauer

The truth is, sometimes we benefit by little lies. Sometimes we have something to gain by not beleiving the truth about the ways our lifestyle is detrimiental to others in our region.

Who wants this to be true? Not me.

If one tells the truth, one is sure sooner or later to be found out. ~Oscar Wilde

But when I seek the truth, I must be willing to hear the ways I was wrong. And accept not just the judgment, but the correction and the new direction.

Whenever you have truth, it must be given with love, or the message and the messenger will be rejected. ~Mahatma Ghandi

We’d like to believe that our seeking the truth only has personal consequences. But as the prophet Isaiah points out, it’s the widows and the poor that often bear the brunt of our blindness to the truth. When we don’t seek the truth, injustice prevails.

While we often become victims of our own deception and lies, many others also are afflicted by them too, sometimes directly, other times indirectly.

It’s human to be deceived, and be prideful. So we must take the courage given to us to seek the truth. It is to this end that God in Jesus makes known his word and will – it is to this end that he works in the world.

To those that seek truth they will find the Lord. And as Jesus said, the truth will set you free from the bondage of lies for the flourishing of all.

Love truth, and pardon error. ~Voltaire

FICTION IS OBLIGED TO STICK TO POSSIBILITIES. TRUTH ISN’T. ~Mark Twain

 

Love From The Center Of Who You Are

Love must be sincere. Hate what is evil, cling to what is good. Be devoted to one another in love. Honor one another above yourselves. [NIV]
-St. Paul of Tarsus, Letter to the Romans, 12:9-10

Every generation has challenges to face. The daily news keeps reminding us of that. Global and local events also remind us that there is always darkness, there is always evil, there is always sorrow, there will always be hate. The questions is though: when you face challenging situations in your heart, in your home, in your community, in our nation, will you have enough light, enough good, enough joy, enough love to overcome?

Probably not on your own. We need friends to help us make it through. I believe that we especially need the Lord, who faced the darkest hate in our world – and he overcome it with light and love. He can send us friends, he can send us wisdom and strength, he can be with us as we strive together to overcome our hatred.

In our world we aspire to love others, but often succumb to hating others. As we seek to serve and lead in our homes and communities, may we be empowered by the Spirit of the Lord to let go of hating others. May we love from the center of who we are in Christ, to hate what is evil and cling to what is good, to love our enemies and bless those who curse us.

May these quotes on love and hate inspire you to honest reflection, candid confession, and a lighter tomorrow:

Hatred paralyses life; love releases it.
Hatred confuses life; love harmonizes it.
Hatred darkens life; love illuminates it.
-Martin Luther King, Jr.

You can safely assume that you’ve created God in your own image when it turns out that God hates all the same people you do.
-Anne Lamott

We have just enough religion to make us hate, but not enough to make us love one another.
-Jonathan Swift

In time we hate that which we often fear.
-William Shakespeare

Hatred is the coward’s revenge for being intimidated.
-George Bernard Shaw

It is easy to hate and it is difficult to love.
This is how the whole scheme of things works.
All good things are difficult to achieve;
and bad things are very easy to get.
-Rene Descartes

Hate is too great a burden to bear.
It injures the hater more than it injures the hated.
-Coretta Scott King

If you hate a person, you hate something in him that is part of yourself.
What isn’t part of ourselves doesn’t disturb us.
-Herman Hesse

Hating people is like burning down your own house to get rid of a rat.
-Henry Emerson Fosdick

I imagine one of the reasons people cling to their hates so stubbornly is because they sense, once hate is gone, they will be forced to deal with pain.
-James Baldwin

When we don’t know who to hate, we hate ourselves.
-Chuck Palahniuk

Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that.
Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.
-Martin Luther King, Jr.