Just a hurried line...to tell a story which puts the contrast between *our* feast of the Nativity and all this ghastly Xmas racket at it's lowest. My brother heard a woman on a 'bus say, as the 'bus passed a church with a Crib outside it, Oh Lor' They bring religion into everything. Look- they're dragging it even into Christmas now
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The Bell of Justice'. In an old city in Italy, its king had installed a bell in the public square. Anyone wrongly treated would ring it and get justice. After many years the bell rope rotted away so it was tied with a wild vine to make it longer. One day an abandoned/old/starving horse wandered into the square, took a mouthful hungrily of the vine... and the bell rang! The king hurried to the square and saw an old/thin/hungry horse and said he should have justice. He immediately summoned the owner and ordered him to look after his old horse, to give him good food and water, a proper stable and peace and if he didn't he would be punished! Justice was done and all the citizens felt their magistrate acted wisely.'
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WHEN a man feels proud of himself, he stands erect, draws himself to his full height, throws back his head and shoulders and says with every part of his body, I am bigger and more important than you. But when he is humble he feels his littleness, and lowers his head and shrinks into himself. He abases himself. And the greater the presence in which he stands the more deeply he abases himself; the smaller he becomes in his own eyes. But when does our littleness so come home to us as when we stand in God's presence? He is the great God, who is today and yesterday, whose years are hundreds and thousands, who fills the place where we are, the city, the wide world, the measureless space of the starry sky, in whose eyes the universe is less than a particle of dust, all-holy, all-pure, all-righteous, infinitely high. He is so great, I so small, so small that beside him I seem hardly to exist, so wanting am I in worth and substance. One has no need to be told that God's presence is not the place in which to stand on one's dignity. To appear less presumptuous, to be as little and low as we feel, we sink to our knees and thus sacrifice half our height; and to satisfy our hearts still further we bow down our heads, and our diminished stature speaks to God and says, Thou art the great God; I am nothing . Therefore let not the bending of our knees be a hurried gesture, an empty form. Put meaning into it. To kneel, in the soul's intention, is to bow down before God in deepest reverence. On entering a church, or in passing before the altar, kneel down all the way without haste or hurry, putting your heart into what you do, and let your whole attitude say, Thou art the great God. It is an act of humility, an act of truth, and everytime you kneel it will do your soul good.
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My mind withdrew its thoughts from experience, extracting itself from the contradictory throng of sensuous images, that it might find out what that light was wherein it was bathed.... And thus, with the flash of one hurried glance, it attained to the vision of That Which Is.
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While the fates permit, live happily life speeds on with hurried step, and with winged days the wheel of the headlong year is turned.
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While the fates permit, live happily; life speeds on with hurried step, and with winged days the wheel of the headlong year is turned.
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Today's pressures on middle-class children to grow up fast begin in early childhood. Chief among them is the pressure for early intellectual a...
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And Change with hurried hand has swept these scenes: The woods have fallen, across the meadow-lot...
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Trouble knocked on the door, but, hearing laughter, hurried away
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Luke 1:39:
At that time Mary got ready and hurried to a town in the hill country of Judea
(NIV)
And at that time Mary arose and went with haste into the hill country to a town of Judah
(AMP)
And Mary arose in those days, and went into the hill country with haste, into a city of Juda;
(KJV)
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