Posts By This Author
Tina Beattie on The New Atheists, Part 2: Faith and Reason Are Not Enemies (interview by Becky Garrison)
Following is a continuation of Becky Garrison's e-mail exchange with Tina Beattie, author of Verse of the Day: "You are not far from the kingdom of God"
Then the scribe said to [Jesus], "You are right, Teacher; you have truly said that 'he is one, and besides him there is no other'; and 'to love him with all the heart, and with all the understanding, and with all the strength,' and 'to love one's neighbor as oneself,'--this is much more important than all whole burnt offerings and sacrifices." When Jesus saw that he answered wisely, he said to him, "You are not far from the kingdom of God."
- Mark 12:30-32
Voice of the Day: Esther de Waal
If I accept myself as ordinary, weak, frail, in other words, totally human and totally dependent on God, then I am stripped of any sense of being in some way set apart, different, superior. It is then that the genuine, real self may begin to emerge.
- Esther de Waal
A Life-Giving Way
Good Art Gives -- but Doesn't Always Sell (Part 1, by Melvin Bray)
I've been on a real art binge of late. Reading, watching, listening to, experiencing, and creating as much as I can. Good art isn't just creative, it's generative -- that is, it inspires creative acts in others. It gives us hands to shape the world in new and living ways. And I've been thinking a lot about how much this world we share needs more of it.
Like any other act of love, I believe art is fundamentally contributive, not transactional. It's not an if-you-do-this-I'll-do-that [...]
Tina Beattie on The New Atheists (interview by Becky Garrison)
Voice of the Day: Bernard of Clairvaux
The virtue of discretion lies dormant without the fervor of charity; and intense fervor runs wild without the guidance of discretion.
- Bernard of Clairvaux
On the Song of Songs
Verse of the Day: The Kingdom of God
He also said, "With what can we compare the kingdom of God, or what parable will we use for it? It is like a mustard seed, which, when sown upon the ground, is the smallest of all the seeds on earth; yet when it is sown it grows up and becomes the greatest of all shrubs, and puts forth large branches, so that the birds of the air can make nests in its shade."
- Mark 4:30-32
Voice of the Day: Peter of Celle
When the stomach hears the voice of insistent hunger, it confuses necessity and pleasure in a deceptive tangle. It is a rare person who can erect a wall or divider to distinguish in [one's] appetite between necessity and excess.
- Peter of Celle
The School of the Cloister
Verse of the Day: Swift To Bear Witness
I will be swift to bear witness against the sorcerers, against the adulterers, against those who swear falsely, against those who oppress the hired workers in their wages, the widow and the orphan, against those who thrust aside the alien, and do not fear me, says the Lord of hosts.
- Malachi 3:5
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Voice of the Day: Thomas Merton
We do not detach ourselves from things in order to attach ourselves to God, but rather we become detached from ourselves in order to see and use all things in and for God.
- Thomas Merton
New Needs of Contemplation
Verse of the Day:'honor the King of heaven'
Now I, Nebuchadnezzar, praise and extol and honor the King of heaven, for all his works are truth, and his ways are justice; and he is able to bring low those who walk in pride.
- Daniel 4:37
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Verse of the Day: Long Robes and Long Prayers
As [Jesus] taught, he said, "Beware of the scribes, who like to walk around in long robes, and to be greeted with respect in the marketplaces, and to have the best seats in the synagogues and places of honor at banquets! They devour widows' houses and for the sake of appearance say long prayers.
- Mark 12:38-40
Voice of the Day: Mother Jones
Pray for the dead, and fight like hell for the living.
- Mother Jones
Verse of the Day: "created in Christ Jesus for good works"
For by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God - not the result of works, so that no one may boast. For we are what he has made us, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand to be our way of life.
- Ephesians 2:8
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Voice of the Day: Pandita Ramabai
People must not only hear about the kingdom of God, but must see it in actual operation, on a small scale perhaps and in imperfect form, but a real demonstration nevertheless.
- Pandita Ramabai
Indian Christian and reformer (1858-1922)
Prophetic Texts (Loosely Involved Part 2, by Russell Rathbun)
I double-checked the sign on the doors nearest me and looked around at the buttons and stickers of the people I was wedging my way through and breathed deeply, relieved to be in the [...]
Voice of the Day: Joseph G. Donders
Jesus sowed his seed in our hearts, then off he went.... He knew things would not be ideal. There were the birds and the droughts, the weeds and the insects, the parasites and the blights. But there was also the power of the seed itself.
- Joseph G. Donders
Teacher and chaplain at the University of Nairobi, Kenya
Verse of the Day: Stand Firm
For freedom Christ has set us free. Stand firm, therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery.
- Galatians 5:1
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Loosely Involved (Part 1, by Russell Rathbun)
I am standing in this big line outside of Charles Colson Jr. High waiting for the doors to open. I say "big line" instead of "long line" because it is more mob-ish, more wide than long. Our senior pastor was right. At a staff meeting he told us, "Get there early. I predict unprecedented involvement in [...]
Verse of the Day: One Heart
I will give them one heart, and put a new spirit within them; I will remove the heart of stone from their flesh and give them a heart of flesh, so that they may follow my statutes and keep my ordinances and obey them. Then they shall be my people, and I will be their God.
- Ezekiel 11:19
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