#worship

Aeneas' mother is a star?" "No; a goddess." I said cautiously, "Venus is the power that we invoke in spring, in the garden, when things begin growing. And we call the evening star Venus." He thought it over. Perhaps having grown up in the country, among pagans like me, helped him understand my bewilderment. "So do we, he said. "But Venus also became more...With the help of the Greeks. They call her Aphrodite...There was a great poet who praised her in Latin. Delight of men and gods, he called her, dear nurturer. Under the sliding star signs she fills the ship-laden sea and the fruitful earth with her being; through her the generations are conceived and rise up to see the sun; from her the storm clouds flee; to her the earth, the skillful maker, offers flowers. The wide levels of the sea smile at her, and all the quiet sky shines and streams with light..." It was the Venus I had prayed to, it was my prayer, though I had no such words. They filled my eyes with tears and my heart with inexpressible joy. ↗

— Ursula K. Le Guin

#mythology #poetry #prayer #venus #worship

I can safely say, on the authority of all that is revealed in the Word of God, that any man or woman on this earth who is bored and turned off by worship is not ready for heaven. ↗

— A.W. Tozer

#bored #earth #god #heaven #man

Continual prayer is a lifestyle." ~R. Alan Woods [2013] ↗

— R. Alan Woods

#prayer-worship #r-alan-woods #lifestyle

But some one will say that this supreme Being, who made all things, and those also who conferred on men particular benefits, are entitled to their respective worship. ↗

— Lactantius

#also #being #benefits #conferred #entitled

For if the honour paid to Him is shared by others, He altogether ceases to be worshipped, since His religion requires us to believe that He is the one and only God. ↗

— Lactantius

#believe #ceases #god #him #his

Mankind are divided into sects, and individuals think very differently on religious subjects, from the purest motives; and that gracious common Parent, who loves all his children alike, beholds with approbation every one who worships him in sincerity. ↗

— Joseph Lancaster

#approbation #beholds #children #common #differently

The arts and a belief in the values of the civil rights movement, in the overwhelming virtue of diversity, these were our religion. My parents worshipped those ideals. ↗

— Jonathan Lethem

#belief #civil #civil rights #civil rights movement #diversity

Let's face it; God has a big ego problem. Why do we always have to worship him? ↗

— Bill Maher

#big #ego #face #god #him

These things will destroy the human race: politics without principle, progress without compassion, wealth without work, learning without silence, religion without fearlessness and worship without awareness. ↗

— Anthony de Mello

#compassion #destroy #fearlessness #human #human race

There is a kind of thinking in the Church that wants to reduce the priest to a mere functionary, a managing director, where administration rather than doctrine and worship are to determine the form of the Church. ↗

— Arthur Middleton

#church #determine #director #doctrine #form