Step one in any anti-racist agenda: Refuse to speak in terms of race. Skin color? Pigment? Melanin? Yes. But “‘[r]ace’ itself is just a restatement and retrenchment of the problem” (Ta-Nehisi Coates).
Sexual ethics is not about consent. It’s about love, of which consent is just one, small, basic constituent.
Living unanxiously mindful of your own certain death is probably salutary. Living unanxiously mindful of the certain death of those you love might be even more so.
A clean conscience goes a long way.
Love itself is the prime spiritual discipline. All others, including Bible study and prayer, are good only insofar as they serve to empower, amplify, or inform love.
Pianists don’t cultivate their skill and musicianship by reading books on the history of piano music or by talking with composers, as enriching and obliquely helpful as that might be. They improve by playing piano.
Similarly, the way you get better and more consistent at loving is by trying to love.
Become love plankton.
What I really want in this instance, as George MacDonald taught me, isn’t the forgiveness for the consequences of my sins (e.g., the wrath of God) but freedom from my actual sins. I’d like to become the father that doesn’t snap at his son. I don’t want an imputed purity. I actually want to be, myself, pure.
Good working definition of joy from Richard Beck: “great delight regardless of external circumstance.”
On the subject of the solo satisfaction of biological and psychological drives (e.g., eating, masturbating, sightseeing): As long as they are not harmful and they are undertaken with thanksgiving, they are done in love, and are thus good.
“[A] Christian sexual ethic is a process of transforming eros into agape.”
Shame and guilt can be healthy, life-giving emotions. There’s a reason we have them. Sure, shame and guilt can become toxic and debilitating. But let’s not think that there’s something unhealthy about feeling shame or guilt when you do something that violates your conscience. That’s called being a human being.
Love is hardly love if it is lazy.
“…[w]ith humility of mind regard one another as more important than yourselves…” (Paul). This is a crucial verse for me if I’m going to bear the fruit of love. It’s this regard of others as more important than myself that is going to turn up my inner hearth of love for others. Without that phrase, my love risks being too mechanical, too principled. If I can honestly regard others as more important than myself, I will fulfill the second Great Commandment.
But consider what Rabbi Abraham Heschel said to the members of his synagogue who complained that the words of the liturgy did not express what they felt. He told them that it was not that the liturgy should express what they feel, but that they should learn to feel what the liturgy expressed.
— Ben Patterson, as cited in Philip Yancey’s Prayer
At the level of the individual, there is wisdom in my friend’s aversion to marriage, which she stated the other day as “I don’t know why people would want to get married.” I prefer to reword it as: “Don’t make a commitment you don’t think you can keep.” But at the level of society, there needs to be a complementary wisdom: Cultivate people who are capable of making lifelong commitments.
My new motto is: “Live every day like it’s your last.” And no, that does not mean find a hospital, go there, find a room and lay down, eyes twitching…
— Sullivan
You’re more helpful than a rabid dog!
— Sullivan, thanking a friend who was helping clean up
“Don’t worry about the parts of the Bible you don’t understand. Obey the parts you do.”
— a Red Letter Wake Up email newsletter
Q: How do you account for evil?
A: I don’t. I fight it.
Understanding creation as a war zone, with God having delegated to us the authority to fight, helps greatly to steel one’s faith and motivate one toward good works.
And you could always say: Well, I could have given that money to the missionary. And that is true. Every ice cream cone you buy you could have been sent to somewhere else. But I am thinking: Would you have? Has it gotten in the way of heartfelt calling to do a good thing?
— John Piper, “What Luxuries in My Life Are Sinful?”
“The Lord gave me sixty-two years of joy and prosperity; will I curse him if the last five years are hard?”
— Eileen Anderson, Harps Unhung, xvii, as [quoted by John Piper]((https://twitter.com/johnpiper/status/519895769592393728)
“Whatever you are, be a good one.”
— William Makepeace Thackeray, as quoted by Laurence Hutton as quoted by The Boston Herald, cited here in my journal with some emphasis on the “whatever” part
“And He made no distinction between us and them” (Acts 15:9a). May we who claim to follow Him follow suit.
When did hardship and decay become reason to blame God rather than to turn to Him?