The Church knew what the Psalmist knew: music praises God.
Music is as well, or better, able to praise Him than the
building of a church and all its decoration; it is the Church's
greatest ornament.
... Igor Stravinsky (1882-1971)

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Christianity is the highest perfection of humanity; and as
no man is good but as he wishes the good of others, so no man
can be good in the highest degree, who wishes not to others the
largest measures of the greatest good. To omit for a year, or
for a day, the most efficacious method of advancing
Christianity [i.e., the Bible], in compliance with any purposes
that terminate this side of the grave, is a crime [the like} of
which I know not that the world has yet had an example.
... a letter from Samuel Johnson (1709-1784)
to William Drummond of Edinburgh, 1766

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One of the catchwords in contemporary Protestantism is that
religion must aid man in "becoming human" or even "truly human"
-- whatever that means -- and the "model" is Christ. Take the
"obvious things" about Christ as listed by a contemporary
minister:
He was a popular and controversial preacher;
He gathered a group of followers;
He spent most of his time with the disinherited;
He taught with authority;
He never married;
He never (so far as we know) held a job;
He did not participate in public affairs;
He did not have income, property, or an address;
He was in bitter and frequent conflict with the religious
and political authorities;
He seemed to expect that the world would be eminently,
radically, and supernaturally transformed;
He attacked the traditions and values of his own people;
He practically forced the authorities to prosecute and
execute him.
There is nothing exclusively religious, much less Christian, in
this description, which, with a few exceptions, might apply
also to Socrates or to "Che" Guevara. I asked many socially
oriented ministers why they were Christians at all. Some said
through faith, and some said that Christianity gave them
courage and the motivation to endure (but so do other beliefs).
Some said they hardly knew and that, if another, more
acceptable, ideology came along, they would embrace it.
... Arthur Herzog, The Church Trap

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The "good" man, the man whose god is righteousness, has as
his life's ambition the keeping of rules and commandments and
the keeping of himself uncontaminated by the world. This
sounds admirable; but, as the truth of Christ showed, the whole
of such living, the whole drive and ambition, the whole
edifice, is self-centered. That entire process of effort must
be abandoned if a man is to give himself in love to God and his
fellows. He must lose his life if he is ever going to find it.
... J. B. Phillips, When God was Man [1954]

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This total and entire conversion of the inner man, this
absolute doing away of the old and acceptance of the new life,
being in its nature a real breach and not a formal one,
necessarily involved a corresponding outward breach with the
old form of life. Of this breach Baptism was the sacrament.
In Baptism the change was effected and realized in fact.
Baptism was not a mere formal external act, a symbol of a
spiritual fact which was already complete without it. A
Spiritual conversion which was not also a conversion of life
was no conversion at all, but a delusion... With the heart man
believes, with the mouth he confesses; but a mouth which does
not confess disproves the existence of a heart that believes.
The soul cannot be God's and the life not God's at the same
time. The soul can not be recreated and the life remain
unchanged. The spiritual breach is proved and realized and
completed in the outward breach. Where there is no outward
change, it is safe to deny an inward change. Faith without
Baptism and all that Baptism involved was consequently no part
of St. Paul's teaching.
... Roland Allen,
Missionary Methods: St. Paul's or ours? [1927]

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A lost reputation is the best degree for Christ's service.
... C. T. Studd (1860-1931)

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Character cannot be developed in ease and quiet.
Only through experience of trial and suffering
can the soul be strengthened, vision cleared,
ambition inspired, and success achieved.
Helen Keller
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You must live in the present, launch yourself on
every wave, find your eternity in each moment.
Fools stand on their island opportunities and
look toward another land. There is no other land,
there is no other life but this.
Henry David Thoreau
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Start by doing what's necessary, then do what's
possible, And suddenly you are doing the
impossible.
Saint Francis of Assisi
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When they discover the center of the universe,
a lot of people will be disappointed to discover
they are not it.
Bernard Bailey
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Your belief determines your action and your action
determines your results, but first you have to
believe.
Mark Victor Hansen
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Reflect upon your present blessings, of which
every man has plenty; not on your past
misfortunes of which all men have some.
Charles Dickens
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The most difficult thing in the world is to
know how to do a thing and to watch someone
else do it wrong, without comment.
Theodore H. White


Love always begins with the person closest to you. It does not begin with nameless and faceless people. It begins with those you sweat and struggle with--those who frequently disagree with you and put you down. That is why it is so hard. It is easier to love the world than your closest relative. The world is general. Your relative is specific. The world is vague. Your relative has character... Whom will you love today? Can you love him or her in the way Christ loves you? It won't be easy. Love is never an option.

Jim Smoke is a Christian writer on the experience of being single and on divorce.

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Everything has its wonders, even darkness and silence, and I learn, whatever state I may be in, therein to be content.

Helen Keller (1880-1968)

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One only understands the things that one tames," said the fox. "Men have no more time to understand anything. They buy things all ready made at the shops. But there is no shop anywhere where one can buy friendship, and so men have no friends anymore."

Antoine De Saint-Exupery (1900-1944
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