My role in society, or any artist or poet's role, is to try and express what we all feel. Not to tell people how to feel. Not as a preacher, not as a leader, but as a reflection of us all.
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i am everyone what if i were everyone in the world. every murder would also be a suicide. i'd be the person that shot myself, and the person that sued me for shooting me. id be the jury that sentenced myself to death. id be the judge that delivered the sentence. i'd be the preacher that gave me my last words and the chef that cooked me my last meal. i'd be the guard that escorted me to the little room. i would be the one to inject myself with lethal poisons. i would watch myself die, never feeling my own pain. i would be the preacher that preached at my funeral and the guests that attended it. i would be the pallbearers that carried my own coffin. i would be the person that dug my own grave and the one that set my coffin into the ground. and i would be the little girl that set flowers on the grave. setting flowers on my own grave
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The Preacher, the Politicain, the Teacher, Were each of them once a kiddie. A child, indeed, is a wonderful creature. Do I want one? God Forbiddie!
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If I were not an atheist, I would believe in a God who would choose to save people on the basis of the totality of their lives and not the pattern of their words. I think he would prefer an honest and righteous atheist to a TV preacher whose every word is God, God, God, and whose every deed is foul, foul, foul.
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Though language forms the preacher, 'Tis good works make the man.
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All mankind is of one author, and is one volume; when one man dies, one chapter is not torn out of the book, but translated into a better language; and every chapter must be so translated...As therefore the bell that rings to a sermon, calls not upon the preacher only, but upon the congregation to come: so this bell calls us all: but how much more me, who am brought so near the door by this sickness....No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main. If a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if promontory were, as well as if a manor of thy friend's or of thine own were. Any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind; and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.
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The fact that we don't know this man, isn't important really. Cause his experience is our experience, and his fate is our fate. Vani tass, vani tatum, et omni i vani tass, says the preacher. All is vanity I think that's a pretty good epitaph for all of us. When we're stripped of all our worldly possessions and all our fame, family, friends, we all face death alone. But it's that solitude in death that's our common bond in life. I know it's ironic, but that's just the way things are. Vani tass, vani tatum, et omni i vani tass. Only when we understand all is vanity, only then, it isn't.
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You might say that Lyndon Johnson is a cross between a Baptist preacher and a cowboy.
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There isn’t much better in this life than finding a way to spend a few hours in conversation with people you respect and love. You have to carve this time out of your life because you aren’t really living without it.
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When life seems chaotic, you don't need people giving you easy answers or cheap promises. There might not be any answers to your problems. What you need is a safe place where you can bounce with people who have taken some bad hops of their own.
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Forgiveness is the healing of wounds caused by another. You choose to let go of a past wrong and no longer be hurt by it. Forgiveness is a strong move to make, like turning your shoulders sideways to walk quickly on a crowded sidewalk. It's your move.
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EVERY path may lead you to God, even the weird ones. Most of us are on a journey. Were looking for something, though were not always sure what that is. The way is foggy much of the time. I suggest you slow down and follow some of the side roads that appear suddenly in the mist.
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2 Timothy 4:2:
Preach the word; be prepared in season and out of season; correct, rebuke and encourage – with great patience and careful instruction.
(NIV)
Herald and preach the Word! Keep your sense of urgency [stand by, be at hand and ready], whether the opportunity seems to be favorable or unfavorable. [Whether it is convenient or inconvenient, whether it is welcome or unwelcome, you as preacher of the Word are to show people in what way their lives are wrong.] And convince them, rebuking and correcting, warning and urging and encouraging them, being unflagging and inexhaustible in patience and teaching.
(AMP)
Preach the word; be instant in season, out of season; reprove, rebuke, exhort with all longsuffering and doctrine.
(KJV)
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The universe seems wondrous to me, with or without God. It has powerful lines and uncompromising ways. Patience and time sit like sages on the planets, strong and impersonal. There is a stark beauty to all of this.
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We think having faith means being convinced God exists in the same way we are convinced a chair exists. People who cannot be completely convinced of Gods existence think faith is impossible for them. Not so. People who doubt can have great faith because faith is something you do, not something you think. In fact, the greater your doubt the more heroic your faith.
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EVERY path may lead you to God, even the weird ones. Most of us are on a journey. We’re looking for something, though we’re not always sure what that is. The way is foggy much of the time. I suggest you slow down and follow some of the side roads that appear suddenly in the mist.
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This is the challenge of writing. You have to be very emotionally engaged in what you’re doing, or it comes out flat. You can’t fake your way through this.
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Woman! The peg on which the wit hangs his jest, the preacher his text, the cynic his grouch, and the sinner his justification!
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I think people want their illusions and writers are mostly illusion. When you read their words, you read a flattened, incomplete version of the writer.
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Doubting God's existence is okay and perfectly acceptable within Christianity as long as the person doubting remains obedient and committed to the Christian path.
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This is the challenge of writing. You have to be very emotionally engaged in what youre doing, or it comes out flat. You cant fake your way through this.
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There isnt much better in this life than finding a way to spend a few hours in conversation with people you respect and love. You have to carve this time out of your life because you arent really living without it.
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Woman: the peg on which the wit hangs his jest, the preacher his text, the cynic his grouch and the sinner his justification.
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We think having faith means being convinced God exists in the same way we are convinced a chair exists. People who cannot be completely convinced of God’s existence think faith is impossible for them. Not so. People who doubt can have great faith because faith is something you do, not something you think. In fact, the greater your doubt the more heroic your faith.
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And so faith is closing your eyes and following the breath of your soul down to the bottom of life, where existence and nonexistence have merged into irrelevance. All that matters is the little part you play in the vast drama.
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The only comfort comes in thinking about how nice it was to know them, and how nice it was to brush against goodness for a season.
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Fidelity to commitment in the face of doubts and fears is a very spiritual thing.
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A successful woman preacher was once asked 'what special obstacles have you met as a woman in the ministry?' 'Not one,' she answered, 'except ...
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It really doesnt matter if the person who hurt you deserves to be forgiven. Forgiveness is a gift you give yourself. You have things to do and you want to move on.
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Im searching through all that has ever been hoped, in praise of what can never be known.
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