The measuer of a person

"The ultimate measure of a person is not where they stand in moments of comfort and convenience, but where they stand at times of challenge and controversy."

Martin Luther King, Jr.

Reason and Imagination

When Descartes said, “I think, therefore I am,” he did us no favor, but further fragmented us, making us limit ourselves to the cognitive at the expense of the imaginative and the intuitive. But each time we read the gospels we are offered anew this healing reconciliation and, if we will, we can accept the most wondrous gift of the magi.

Madeleine L'Engle

Theology

Theology is the name we give to the efforts of our minds and hearts to catch up with the work of the Living God in the world. Or… theology is the name we give to the effort of our minds and hearts to grasp the world conjured by God and construed by Scripture. Or… theology is our successfully imagining the world imagined by Scripture, which reveals the world imagined by God.

• • Luke Timothy Johnson

Taking Sides

“I am not altogether on anyone’s side because no one is altogether on my side.”

Treebeard from the Lord of the Rings

Stress and Sloth

“Stress, overwork, stretching our mental and physical resources too thinly, too fast, or too often is a common characteristic of modern life. It is also an easy way of avoiding doing what we should be doing. Doing too much can be a form of sloth. If stress could be measured, it would be by the distance we have allowed to develop between our selves and ourselves, between body and mind, grace and nature, our work and God’s work…. It is often also related to a sense that what we are doing in the world, even successful and acclaimed work, is useless and meaningless. If we are not doing what we love, what we should be doing, everything we do will feel compromised or guilty.”

Laurence Freeman, O.S.B.

Discernment and Entering Community

“As the Rule [of St. Benedict] describes, entering a community is a process and requires discernment. This is not because the community is any kind of elite. But because the full benefit of entering demands the clearest possible understanding of one’s reasons and of the call to which one is responding.”

Laurence Freeman, O.S.B.

Conversion

“Dramatic experiences of conversion may have their value but their meaning is in opening a new phase of life. This vow is a commitment to be always a pilgrim, living an ongoing conversion of one’s way of life by an ever fuller harmony with the principles of peace, tolerance, selflessness and generosity and the courage to say the truth about injustice.”

Laurence Freeman, O.S.B.