Apples of Gold

[D. Allan]

"And when he had sent the multitudes away, he went up into a mountain apart to pray; and when the evening was come, he was there alone."

- Matthew 14:23

"He was there, alone." So are we. Man is alone because he is man! In some way every creature is alone. In majestic isolation every star travels through the darkness of endless space. Each tree grows according to its own law, fulfilling its unique possibilities. Animals live, fight and die for themselves alone, confined to the limitations of their bodies. Certainly, they also appear as male and female, in families and in flocks. Some of rhem are gregarious. But all of them are alone! Being alive means being in a body - a body separated from all other bodies. And being separated means being alone."

- Paul Tillich, The Eternal Now, chapter one, "Loneliness and Solitude"

[D. Allan]

"Do not be conformed to this eon, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind."

-Romans 12:2a

"He who risks and fails can be forgiven. He who never risks and never fails is a failure in his whole being. He is not forgiven because he does not feel that he needs forgiveness. Therefore, dare to be not conformed to this eon, but transform it courageously first in yourselves, then in your world - in the spirit and the power of love."

- Paul Tillich, The Eternal Now, chapter twelve, "Do Not Be Conformed"

[D. Allan]

"When I look at thy heavens, the work of thy fingers, the moon and the stars which thou hast established; what is man that thou art mindful of him, and the son of man that thou dost care for him? Yet thou hast made him little less than God, and dost crown him with glory and honor. Thou hast given him dominion over the works of thy hands; thou hast put all things under his feet."

-Psalms 8:3-6

"Now let us recall the words of God in the story of the Flood: 'I am sorry that I have made man.' They introduce a new element into our thinking about man and the earth - an element of judgment, frustration and tragedy. There is no theme in Biblical literature, nor in any other, more persistently pursued than this one. The earth has been cursed by man innumerable times, because she produced him, together with all life and its misery, which includes the tragedy of human history. This accusation of the earth sounds through our whole contemporary culture, and understandably so. We accuse her in all our artistic expressions, in novels and drama, in painting and music, in philosophical thought and descriptions of human nature. But even more important is the silent accusation implied in our cynical denunciation of those who would say "yes" to life, in our withdrawal from it into the refuges of mental disturbance and disease, in our forcing of life beyond itself or below itself by drugs and the various methods of intoxication, or in the social drugs of banality and conformity. In all these ways we accuse the destiny that placed us in this universe and upon this planet. "Thou dost crown him with glory and honor," says the psalmist. but many of us long to get rid of that glory and wish we had never possessed it. We yearn to return to the state of creatures, which are unaware of themselves and their world, limited to the satisfaction of their animal needs."

Paul Tillich, The Eternal Now, chapter six, "Man and Earth"

[D. Allan]

"One thing I do, forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead."

Philippians 3:13

"Life could not continue without throwing the past into the past, liberating the present from its burden. Without this power life would be without a future; it would be inslaved by the past. Nothing new could happen; and even the old could not be, for what is now old was once something new, that might or might not have come into existence. Life, without pushing the past into the past, would be altogether impossible. But life has this power, as we are able to observe in the growth of every plant and of every animal. The earlier stages in the development of a living being are left behind in order to provide space for the future, for a new life. But not everything of the past is pushed into the past; something of the past remains alive in the present, so that there is ground from which to grow into the future. Every growth displays it conquered past, sometimes in the form of scars. Life uses its past and battles against it at the same time, in order to thrust forward towards its own renewal. In this pattern, man is united with all beings. It is the universal charachter of life whether living beings are aware of it or not.

- Paul Tillich, The Eternal Now, chapter two, "Forgetting and Being Forgotten"

[D. Allan]

Peace will not come to the world until it comes into your own heart. And it cannot come into your heart as long as you see enemies or "evil" people outside of you. Every evil you percieve in the world points to an unforgiving place in your own heart that is calling out for healing. - Paul Ferrini, Reflections of the Christ Mind, pub. 2000, p.169

[D. Allan]

"It is a special kind of enlightenment to have this feeling that the usual, the way things normally are, is odd- uncanny and highly improbable. G. K. Chesterton once said that it is one thing to be amazed at a gorgon or a griffin, creatures which do not exist; but it is quite another and much highter thing to be amazed at a rhinoceros or a giraffe, creatures which do exist and look as if they don't....

....Wonder, and it expression in poetry and the arts, are among the most importat things which seem to distinguish men from other animals, and intelligent and sensitive people from morons."

- Alan Watts, The Book,p.6, p.7

[D. Allan]

"But little do men perceive what solitude is, and how far it extendeth. For a crowd is not company; and faces are but a gallery of pictures; and talk but a tinkling cymbal, where there is no love. The Latin adage meeteth with it a little: Magna civitas, magna solitudo; because in a great town friends are scattered; so that there is not that fellowship, for the most part, which is in less neighborhoods. But we may go further, and affirm most truly, that it is a mere and miserable solitude to want true friends; without which the world is but a wilderness; ....

A principal fruit of friendship, is the ease and discharge of the fulness and swellings of the heart, which passions of all kinds do cause and induce. We know diseases of stoppings, and suffocations, are the most dangerous in the body; and it is not much otherwise in the mind; you may take sarza to open the liver, steel to open the spleen, flowers of sulphur for the lungs, castoreum for the brain; but no receipt openeth the heart, but a true friend; to whom you may impart griefs, joys, fears, hopes, suspicions, counsels, and whatsoever lieth upon the heart to oppress it, in a kind of civil shrift or confession."

Francis Bacon (1561-1626), Essays, "Of Friendship"

[D. Allan]

"Our denominational religions with their archaic rites and conceptions - justified enough in themselves - express a view of the world which caused no great difficulties in the Middle Ages but has become strange and unintelligible to the man of today.... Consequently, intellectual understanding is by no means indispensable in all cases, but is called for only when evaluation through the feeling and intuition does not suffice, that is to say, with people for whom the intellect holds the prime power of conviction.

"Nothing is more characteristic and symptomatic in this respect than the gulf that has opened out between faith and knowledge. The contrast has become so enormous that one is obliged to speak of the incommensurablility of these two categories and their way of looking at the world. And yet they are concerned with the same empirical world in which we live, for even theology tells us that faith is supported by facts that became historically perceptible in this known world of ours, namely, that Christ was born as a real human being, worked many miracles and suffered his fate, died under Pontius Pilate and rose up in the flesh after his death."

C.G. Jung, The Undiscovered Self, pp. 72,73

[D. Allan]

"Save us from the evil one."

-Matthew 6:13b

"Saving is healing from sickness and saving is delivering from servitude; and the two are the same....

"Who are these healers; where are these saviours? The first answer is : They are here; they are you. Each of you has liberating and healing power over someone to whom you are a priest. We all are called to be priests to each other; and if priests, also physicians. And if physicians, also counsellors. And if counsellors, also liberators."

- Paul Tillich, The Eternal Now, Chapter 10, "Salvation," pp.114,115

[darlene]

I haven't read this thread all the way through but love the picture of the gold apples on the 1st page and some of your quotes.

What about this quote from

Counsels on Sabbath School Work pg 76

“In His charge to Peter, the Saviour first bade him, “Feed my Lambs,” and afterward commanded, “Feed my Sheep.” In addressing the apostle, Christ says to all His servants, “Feed my Lambs.” When Jesus admonished His disciples not to despise the little ones, He addressed all disciples in all ages, His own love and care for children is a precious example for His followers. If teachers in the Sabbath school felt the love which they should feel for these lambs of the flock, many more would be won to the fold of Christ. At every suitable opportunity, let the story of Jesus’ love be repeated to the children. In every sermon let a little corner be left for their benefit. The servant of Christ may have lasting friends in these little ones, and His words may be to them as apples of gold in pictures of silver.”

Love the apples of gold in pictures of sliver! Those words conjure up a very beautiful picture in our minds as Jesus speaks to us and His little ones.

[D. Allan]

Quote:

"The servant of Christ may have lasting friends in these little ones, and His words may be to them as apples of gold in pictures of silver.”

Thank you, Darlene. Children are liberated by love. So many adults are still imprisoned because of the mistreatment and thoughtless words (lack of love) they experienced and heard when they were just children. It takes a long time to recover... to be healed.

[D. Allan]

"This feeling of being lonely and very temporary visitors in the universe is in flat contradiction to everything known about man (and all other living organisms) in the sciences. We do not "come into" this world; we come out of it, as leaves from a tree. As the ocean "waves," the universe "peoples." Every individual is an expression of the whole realm of nature, a unique action of the total universe. This fact is rarely, if ever, experienced by most individuals. Even those who know it to be true in theory do not sense or feel it, but continue to be aware of themselves as isolated "egos" inside bags of skin."

-Alan Watts, The Book, pp.8,9

[D. Allan]

"If you are loving, you receive love, because love always returns to itself. If you demand love, you receive demands for love. As you sow, so do you reap."

- Paul Ferrini, Reflections of the Christ Mind, p.106

[Woody]

"Going to church doesn't make a man a Christian any more than going to a garage makes him an automobile."

Billy Sunday

[D. Allan]

Thanks for that golden nugget, Redwood. We could reshape its gold into many nice ornaments: going to church doesn't make one a Christian any more than jumping in the river makes one a fish; - than eating grass makes one a cow; - than jumping out of trees makes one a bird; - than wearing a dress makes one a woman; - than wearing pants makes one a man; - :)

[Woody]

"A God who would let us prove his existence would be an idol."

Dietrich Bonhoeffer

[D. Allan]

DEEP... a heavy nugget.

[D. Allan]

"Something that comes as a bombshell to the newer aspirant is how painful spiritual life is. Here you have turned to religion because life without it was intolerable. But now that you have made the new start, life still is intolerable. You are suffering just as much as before; perhaps in different ways, but certainly as much, if not more. You wonder why this should be."

- John Yale, "Suffering"

[D. Allan]

"The failures of a conscientious man are considerably more upsetting than those of the man who does not care. The unguarded word, the involuntary flash of old selfishness, the unmeant wounding of another - these sting the tender heart like nettles."

John Yale, "Suffering"

[D. Allan]

"Love of God is the very essence of spiritual life; without it religious practices are nothing but sheer physical and mental exercises. The sanctimonious observance of rites and ceremonies, or the worship of God for temporal interest, no matter how solemn, does not constitute spirituality."

- Satprakashananda

[D. Allan]

"Love and reverence are two different mental attitudes.

So long as the worshiper thinks of the divinity as the almighty creator,

or the stern ruler,

or the dispassionate onlooker of the world order,

he may have fear and reverence for God,

but not love.

He may even have the tendency to bow down before Him,

but only from a distance.

He will not feel drawn toward Him;

there will not be the urge to become united with Him

, or to embrace Him as his own.

But, with the growth of devotion there comes a sense

of intimate relationship to God.

The more intensely the votary contemplates God's love and grace,

the deeper grows his devotion

to Him."

-Satprakashananda, "Divine Love"

[D. Allan]

Little Elegy

for a child who skipped rope

Here lies resting, out of breath,

Out of turns, Elizabeth

Whose quicksilver toes not quite

Cleared the whirring edge of night.

Earth whose circles round us skim

Till they catch the lightest limb,

Shelter now Elizabeth

And for her sake trip up death.

- X. J. Kennedy (1929- )

[D. Allan]

Click on:

"God's Grandeur"

for a beautiful treat.

[D. Allan]

"For what do we give thanks? Are there limits to giving thanks? Our text says - "In everything give thanks!" This does not mean - give thanks for everything, but give thanks in every situation! There are no limits to situations in which to thank, but there are limits to things for which thanks can be expressed. This is again a question the answer to which might lead us into a new understanding of the human predicament."

- Paul Tillich, "The Eternal Now", p.179

[D. Allan]

"For everything created by God is good and nothing is to be rejected if it is received with thanksgiving; for then it is consecrated by the word of God and prayer."

- I Timothy 4:4

"In these words, thanksgiving recieves a new function. It consecrates everything created by God. Thanksgiving is consecration; it transfers something that belongs to the secular world into the sphere of the holy."

-Paul Tillich, The Eternal Now, Chapter 16