#hr

It is hard for us to recognize it now, but Peter and Paul were introducing the first Christian family to an entirely new community, a community that transcends the rigid hierarchy of human institutions, a community in which submission is mutual and all are free. ↗

— Rachel Held Evans

#community #family #mutuality #submission #family

When I give food to the poor, they call me a saint. When I ask why the poor have no food, they call me a communist. ↗

— Hélder Câmara

#christianity #communism #compassion #food #hunger

Oh look, yet another Christmas TV special! How touching to have the meaning of Christmas brought to us by cola, fast food, and beer.... Who'd have ever guessed that product consumption, popular entertainment, and spirituality would mix so harmoniously? ↗

— Bill Watterson

#food

Anybody who believes that the way to a man's heart is through his stomach flunked geography. ↗

— Robert Byrne

#believes #flunked #geography #heart #his

What’s the hurry? From my experience, dead bodies don’t get any deader. ↗

— David Harry

#mystery #the-padre-puzzle #thriller #experience

I know that whatever the complex origins of my own homosexuality are, there have been conscious choices I've made to indulge - and therefore to intensify, probably - my homoerotic inclinations. As I look back over the course of my life, I regret the nights I have given in to temptations to lust that pulsed like hot, itching sores in my mind. And so I cling to this image - washed. I am washed, sanctified, justified through the work of Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit. Whenever I look back on my baptism, I can remember that God has cleansed the stains of homosexual sin from the crevasses of my mind, heart, and body and included me in his family, the church, where I can find support, comfort, and provocation toward Christian maturity. ↗

— Wesley Hill

#homosexuality #temptation #faith

I felt a little uncomfortable because, when I went in to the military, I was the main male vocalist they had and when I came out they had like two or three vocalists. Otis came in when I was in the military, too. ↗

— William Bell

#came #felt #had #i #i came

Let us be so taken up with the knowledge of God's goodness and the desire to fellowship with Him that our emotions are warmed and our outer man reflects great love. Although we must not seek emotional experiences for their own sake, we must not shun them merely because others misuse them or ignore God's instructions on worship. ↗

— Elyse Fitzpatrick

#worship #experience

There comes a moment in our lives when some of the pieces of the puzzle come together - where all our past experiences, both good and bad, are brought to bear in causing us to become who God intends us to be. ↗

— Michael Card

#destiny #faith #life #experience

Christ did not descend from the cross except into the grave. And why not otherwise? Wouldn’t it have put fine comical expressions on the faces of the scribes and chief priests and the soldiers if at that moment He had come down in power and glory? Why didn’t He do it? Why hasn’t He done it at any one of a thousand good times between then and now? I knew the answer. I knew it a long time before I could admit it, for all the suffering of the world is in it. He didn’t, He hasn’t, because from the moment He did, He would be the absolute tyrant of the world and we would be His slaves. Even those who hated Him and hated one another and hated their own souls would have to believe in Him then. From that moment the possibility that we might be bound to Him and He to us and us to one another by love forever would be ended. And so, I thought, He must forebear to reveal His power and glory by presenting Himself as Himself, and must be present only in the ordinary miracle of the existence of His creatures. Those who wish to see Him must see Him in the poor, the hungry, the hurt, the wordless creatures, the groaning and travailing beautiful world. ↗

— Wendell Berry

#problem-of-pain #theodicy #beauty