Walter J. Burghardt, S.J., “Five Wedding Homilies” & “A Priest for Every Moment,” Lovely in Eyes Not His, p. 163-183, 194ff.
Marianne Williamson, A Return to Love, p. 190
A Return to Love
Our deepest fear is, not that we are inadequate.
Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.
It is our light and not our darkness, that frightens us.
We ask ourselves, who am I, to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented and fabulous?Actually, who are you not to be?
You are a child of God.
Your playing small doesn’t serve the world.
There’s nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you.
We are born to make manifest the glory of god that is within us.
It is not just in some of us; it is in everyone.
And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same.
As we are liberated from our fear, our presence automatically liberates others.
Rainer Maria Rilke, “July 16th, 1903,” Letters to a Young Poet, p. 37
3 John 13:10
5 Psalm 16:2
7 John 8:31
8 Matthew 6:9, 7:16-20
1-8 Thomas R. Haney, Today’s Spirituality, p. 176
1-6 William Stafford, “The Way It Is,” The Way It Is, p. 42
“The Way It Is”
There’s a thread you follow. It goes among
things that change. But it doesn’t change.
People wonder about what you are pursuing.
You have to explain about the thread.
But it is hard for others to see.
While you hold it you can’t get lost.
Tragedies happen; people get hurt
or die; and you suffer and get old.
Nothing you do can stop time’s unfolding.
You don’t ever let go of the thread.
1-5 Imaging the Word, Vol. 3, p. 209
4-5 Søren Kierkegaard, Provocations, p. 381
Provocations
As long as there are many springs from which to draw water, anxiety about possible water failure does not arise. But when there is only one source! And so it is when Christ has become a person’s one and only spring that spiritual trials begin. Spiritual trial is the expression of a concentration upon Christ as the only source. This is why most people have no spiritual trials.
4-5 Geza Vermes, The Changing Faces of Jesus, p. 51
The Changing Faces of Jesus
This state of “being in” or dwelling in” or “abiding in” someone entails assimilation or absorption and recalls the image of eating and digesting the flesh and blood of Jesus (6:56). … The whole ideology reflects the dreamlike cogitation of a religious contemplative, possibly Jewish, addressing a Gentile confraternity nurtured on Hellenistic mysticism.
4 Meister Eckhart, “German Sermons,” Preacher and Teacher, p. 300-302
5 Carla De Sola, The Spirit Moves, p. 87 — [May pole dance as example of this truth.]
7-9 Ivan Steiger, Ivan Steiger Sees the Bible, p. 252
9-17 Andrew Greeley, “The Implications of Friendship,” When Life Hurts, p. 68-71
9-17 Thomas R. Haney, Today’s Spirituality, p. 151
9-11 Frederick Buechner, “The Monkey-God,” The Hungering Dark, p. 96-103
1 “I am the true vine, and my Father is the vinedresser. 2 Every branch of mine that bears no fruit, he takes away, and every branch that does bear fruit he prunes, that it may bear more fruit. 3 You are already made clean by the word which I have spoken to you. 4 Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in me. 5 I am the vine, you are the branches. He who abides in me, and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing. 6 If a man does not abide in me, he is cast forth as a branch and withers; and the branches are gathered, thrown into the fire and burned. 7 If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, ask whatever you will, and it shall be done for you. 8 By this my Father is glorified, that you bear much fruit, and so prove to be my disciples. 9 As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you; abide in my love. 10 If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commandments and abide in his love. 11 These things I have spoken to you, that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be full.
15:1 εγω ειμι η αμπελος η αληθινη και ο πατηρ μου ο γεωργος εστιν 15:2 παν κλημα εν εμοι μη φερον καρπον αιρει αυτο και παν το καρπον φερον καθαιρει αυτο ινα πλειονα καρπον φερη 15:3 ηδη υμεις καθαροι εστε δια τον λογον ον λελαληκα υμιν 15:4 μεινατε εν εμοι καγω εν υμιν καθως το κλημα ου δυναται καρπον φερειν αφ εαυτου εαν μη μεινη εν τη αμπελω ουτως ουδε υμεις εαν μη εν εμοι μεινητε 15:5 εγω ειμι η αμπελος υμεις τα κληματα ο μενων εν εμοι καγω εν αυτω ουτος φερει καρπον πολυν οτι χωρις εμου ου δυνασθε ποιειν ουδεν 15:6 εαν μη τις μεινη εν εμοι εβληθη εξω ως το κλημα και εξηρανθη και συναγουσιν αυτα και εις το πυρ βαλλουσιν και καιεται 15:7 εαν μεινητε εν εμοι και τα ρηματα μου εν υμιν μεινη ο εαν θελητε αιτησεσθε και γενησεται υμιν 15:8 εν τουτω εδοξασθη ο πατηρ μου ινα καρπον πολυν φερητε και γενησεσθε εμοι μαθηται 15:9 καθως ηγαπησεν με ο πατηρ καγω ηγαπησα υμας μεινατε εν τη αγαπη τη εμη 15:10 εαν τας εντολας μου τηρησητε μενειτε εν τη αγαπη μου καθως εγω τας εντολας του πατρος μου τετηρηκα και μενω αυτου εν τη αγαπη 15:11 ταυτα λελαληκα υμιν ινα η χαρα η εμη εν υμιν μεινη και η χαρα υμων πληρωθη
Walter J. Burghardt, S.J., “Five Wedding Homilies” & “A Priest for Every Moment,” Lovely in Eyes Not His, p. 163-183, 194ff.
Andrew Greeley, “The Implications of Friendship,” When Life Hurts, p. 68-71
Thomas R. Haney, Today’s Spirituality, p. 151
Rainer Maria Rilke, “July 16th, 1903,” Letters to a Young Poet, p. 37
12 John 13:34; 1 John 3:23; 2 John 5
16 John 6:7
12 Liliana Ursu, “The Purification of Space for Dorothy,” The New Yorker (August 23 & 30, 1999), p. 158-159
“The Purification of Space for Dorothy”
(Translated, from the Romanian, by the author and Bruce Weigl.)
She has hair the color of rust.
She wears a red dress
and three watches:
one for her daughter in California,
one for her daughter in New York,
and one for her sister in Scotland.
She smokes cigarette after cigarette.
She takes lithium and tells everyone,
“Love, and do what you want.”
She listens to the same play on the radio
and tries to convince me
that Ibsen is American.
“He was like me, of course.
He can’t be anything else.”
She has a lover who works for God, she says.
“I’ve never met him,
so I wear this red dress
so he will recognize me
and know I am the fire.”
I pretend not to understand her.
I pretend I’m in a hurry
when she asks me, almost silently,
“What do you do
up in your apartment:
do you laugh or do you cry?”
I would like to answer her.
I would like to take her hand with three watches
and caress her
as if she were an orphan,
but she is on fire.
Below our mailboxes,
each morning,
she leaves a cup full of coffee,
a pack of cigarettes,
and, near them, a card which says,
“Live your life in beauty.
I leave these so you may partake,
as if in the body and blood of Christ.”
When she meets me running up or down the stairs,
she says the same thing:
“Fly if you want, but don’t run.
God loves us all,
But those who fly he loves the most.”
Quietly, Dorothy with rusty hair
and dress red as fire
sings,
“Raspberries ripen only in summer,
only when I dream of my love,”
and she shows me her empty wallet.
“Everything I touch turns to gold,” she says,
then into silver, then to tears.
15 Robert J. Dean, Minding the Web, p. 16
Minding the Web
15 C. Norman Kraus, The Community of the Spirit, p. 158 f.
The Community of the Spirit
Paternalistic aid is inherently condescending. … It demands, whether covertly or openly, that the recipient recognize the benefactor’s right to superior status and power, and therefore his right to control the use of what he has donated. At the same time it expects recognition of the donor’s goodness and therefore gratitude properly expressed in submission and humility. Such an assumed right is entirely foreign to agape.
[paternalistic altruism vs. agapeic identification]
15 Blaise Pascal, Pensées, p. 265
Pensées
15 Barbara Brown Taylor, “Not Servants But Friends,” Weavings (November/December 1990), p. 31-34
15 Robert J. Wicks, “Illumination Books, A Forward,” Love God–Clean House–Help Others, p. vi
“Illumination Books, A Forward”
16 Stanley Hauerwas, Preaching to Strangers, p. 10
Preaching to Strangers
16 Czesław Milosz, “Love,” quoted by Parker Palmer in On the Brink of Everything, l.378-389
"Love"
Love means to learn to look at yourself
The way one looks at distant things
For you are only one thing among many.
And whoever sees that way heals his heart,
Without knowing it, from various ills.
A bird and a tree say to him: Friend.
Then he wants to use himself and things
So that they stand in the glow of ripeness.
It doesn’t matter whether he knows what he serves:
Who serves best doesn’t always understand.
16 Henri Nouwen, Public Address at Yale, March 30, 1995, quoted in Daily Dig (October 13, 2004)
12 “This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. 13 Greater love has no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends. 14 You are my friends if you do what I command you. 15 No longer do I call you servants, for the servant does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all that I have heard from my Father I have made known to you. 16 You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit and that your fruit should abide; so that whatever you ask the Father in my name, he may give it to you. 17 This I command you, to love one another.
15:12 αυτη εστιν η εντολη η εμη ινα αγαπατε αλληλους καθως ηγαπησα υμας 15:13 μειζονα ταυτης αγαπην ουδεις εχει ινα τις την ψυχην αυτου θη υπερ των φιλων αυτου 15:14 υμεις φιλοι μου εστε εαν ποιητε οσα εγω εντελλομαι υμιν 15:15 ουκετι υμας λεγω δουλους οτι ο δουλος ουκ οιδεν τι ποιει αυτου ο κυριος υμας δε ειρηκα φιλους οτι παντα α ηκουσα παρα του πατρος μου εγνωρισα υμιν 15:16 ουχ υμεις με εξελεξασθε αλλ εγω εξελεξαμην υμας και εθηκα υμας ινα υμεις υπαγητε και καρπον φερητε και ο καρπος υμων μενη ινα ο τι αν αιτησητε τον πατερα εν τω ονοματι μου δω υμιν 15:17 ταυτα εντελλομαι υμιν ινα αγαπατε αλληλους
20 Matthew 10:24; Luke 6:40; John 13:16
24 Acts 2:22
25 Psalm 35:19, 69:4
26-27 Acts 2:32-33
26 Mark 13:11
27 Acts 1:21-22
26-27 John Wyclif, “Sermon: 6th Sunday After Easter,” Lend Me Your Ears, p. 407-410
18 “If the world hates you, know that it has hated me before it hated you. 19 If you were of the world, the world would love its own; but because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you. 20 Remember the word that I said to you, ‘A servant is not greater than his master.’ If they persecuted me, they will persecute you; if they kept my word, they will keep yours also. 21 But all this they will do to you on my account, because they do not know him who sent me. 22 If I had not come and spoken to them, they would not have sin; but now they have no excuse for their sin. 23 He who hates me hates my Father also. 24 If I had not done among them the works which no one else did, they would not have sin; but now they have seen and hated both me and my Father. 25 It is to fulfil the word that is written in their law, ‘They hated me without a cause.’
26 But when the Counselor comes, whom I shall send to you from the Father, even the Spirit of truth, who proceeds from the Father, he will bear witness to me; 27 and you also are witnesses, because you have been with me from the beginning.
15:18 ει ο κοσμος υμας μισει γινωσκετε οτι εμε πρωτον υμων μεμισηκεν 15:19 ει εκ του κοσμου ητε ο κοσμος αν το ιδιον εφιλει οτι δε εκ του κοσμου ουκ εστε αλλ εγω εξελεξαμην υμας εκ του κοσμου δια τουτο μισει υμας ο κοσμος 15:20 μνημονευετε του λογου ου εγω ειπον υμιν ουκ εστιν δουλος μειζων του κυριου αυτου ει εμε εδιωξαν και υμας διωξουσιν ει τον λογον μου ετηρησαν και τον υμετερον τηρησουσιν 15:21 αλλα ταυτα παντα ποιησουσιν υμιν δια το ονομα μου οτι ουκ οιδασιν τον πεμψαντα με 15:22 ει μη ηλθον και ελαλησα αυτοις αμαρτιαν ουκ ειχον νυν δε προφασιν ουκ εχουσιν περι της αμαρτιας αυτων 15:23 ο εμε μισων και τον πατερα μου μισει 15:24 ει τα εργα μη εποιησα εν αυτοις α ουδεις αλλος πεποιηκεν αμαρτιαν ουκ ειχον νυν δε και εωρακασιν και μεμισηκασιν και εμε και τον πατερα μου 15:25 αλλ ινα πληρωθη ο λογος ο γεγραμμενος εν τω νομω αυτων οτι εμισησαν με δωρεαν
15:26 οταν δε ελθη ο παρακλητος ον εγω πεμψω υμιν παρα του πατρος το πνευμα της αληθειας ο παρα του πατρος εκπορευεται εκεινος μαρτυρησει περι εμου 15:27 και υμεις δε μαρτυρειτε οτι απ αρχης μετ εμου εστε