These are quotes which stood out to me, possibly for use in a sermon someday. Their presence here does not mean I agree with them, it merely shows that I might want to reference them later. The default view is five random selections. Use the tag list on the right to view all quotes relevant to that theme.
YET I WILL PRAISE Margaret Sangster Phippen wrote that in the mid 1950s her father, British minister W. E. Sangster, began to notice some uneasiness in his throat and a dragging in his leg. When he went to the doctor, he found that he had an incurable disease that caused progressive muscular atrophy. His muscles would gradually waste away, his voice would fail, his throat would soon become unable to swallow. Sangster threw himself into his work in British home missions, figuring he could still write and he would have even more time for prayer. "Let me stay in the struggle Lord," he pleaded. "I don't mind if I can no longer be a general, but give me just a regiment to lead." He wrote articles and books, and helped organize prayer cells throughout England. "I'm only in the kindergarten of suffering," he told people who pitied him. Gradually Sangster's legs became useless. His voice went completely. But he could still hold a pen, shakily. On Easter morning, just a few weeks before he died, he wrote a letter to his daughter. In it, he said, "It is terrible to wake up on Easter morning and have no voice to shout, 'He is risen!'--but it would be still more terrible to have a voice and not want to shout." CITATION: Vernon Grounds, Denver, Colorado. Leadership, Vol. 8, no. KEYWORDS: Afflictions; Adversity; Perception and reality; Optimism; Easter; Resurrection; Ministry; Health; Perseverance; Praise; Tenacity; Zeal; Eternal Perspective; Perspective SCRIPTURE: Psalms 63:4; Habakkuk 3:17-18; 2 Corinthians 4:16; 1 Peter 1:6-7
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/main.jhtml?xml=/opinion/2005/01/08/do0806.xml&sSheet=/opinion/2005/01/08/ixop.html Sacred mysteries By Christopher Howse (Filed: 08/01/2005) Will cathedrals pay the price? English cathedrals have started reimposing admission charges or introducing more or less compulsory "donations". Their finances are under strain because fewer foreign tourists have been bringing in money since September 11 2001. But the reappearance of the turnstile is "bound to create disquiet and raise some fundamental questions about the nature of the cathedrals' future work". That is the opinion of the Very Rev Trevor Beeson, whose new book The Deans (SCM Press, £19.99) is published on Monday. He speaks from experience, for he spent a decade as Dean of Winchester. It is the deans who run cathedrals, with the cathedral chapter, and local bishops have less say over them than over any other church in their dioceses. Trevor Beeson does not use the word "betrayal", but he does say that the abolition of such obstacles to entry is "essential to a cathedral's mission". It is only 80 years since cathedrals were opened up without payment to visitors and worshippers, and the man who made it possible is one of Trevor Beeson's heroes, Frank Bennett, who transformed Chester cathedral in the 1920s. Bennett did not want to be Dean of Chester when he was appointed in 1920. He had had little contact with cathedrals and "looked upon deans as the fortunate occupants of an office in the Church of England that could easily be dispensed with altogether". But by 1925, when he published The Nature of a Cathedral, he had not only changed his ideas, he had established a working model of a cathedral as "the Bishop's and his Family's great House of Prayer". By "Family" Bennet meant principally the people of the diocese, and he saw as "outrageous" the charging of sixpence for those people "to whom the cathedral really belongs" to spend a limited time looking round it. That was the usual thing. Vergers could act almost as showmen. In the 19th century, Westminster Abbey had waxworks exhibited for the paying customer. Frank Bennett threw open the doors of Chester cathedral from early morning to dusk. Beautifully printed and framed notices explained the purpose of various parts of the building. Side chapels were looked after by diocesan organisations - the Mothers' Union, the Scouts and so on. There were no locked gates and no officials demanding 6d. Voluntary donations outdid former fees fourfold. Dean Bennett abolished the singing of early-morning matins, preferring to concentrate on sung evensong, choosing popular items of music when larger congregations gathered on Saturdays. The daily services were: matins (said, not sung) at 7.30am; Eucharist at 7.50am (said, but sung on Wednesday and Friday at 9.15am); sung evensong at 5pm. A far reaching innovation was "people's Communion" at 9am on Sundays. In most parishes at the time the lengthy programme of Sunday services was enough to "fairly wear the godly out and frighten the not very godly clean away". A 9am Communion, with organ and singing, was not as daunting as an earlier service, for working people who had spent the week getting up early, and it gave families free time after its conclusion at about 10am. For him, tinkering with service times was not the whole answer. If the cathedral was to be the great House of Prayer for the bishop and his "Family", then he had to live near the cathedral and enter into its life regularly. Bennett rebuilt the ruined monastic refectory at Chester not just as a commercial teashop, but to serve the parties from all over the diocese who came to use the cathedral. Parish groups would hold short services in the cathedral and end their visit with lunch or tea in the refectory. Since Bennett's day, ordinary life has become less integrated with the parish church. But interest in cathedrals remains high. BBC2 has just begun a new prime-time series on their history. In Trevor Beeson's view, the realisation that mission is the priority in Christian life means that parish system will be remade. Meanwhile cathedrals must retain their "heritage" role, provide theological resources for the diocese, and, foremost, ensure that worship of the highest level is offered.
The History of the Universe in 200 Words or Less Quantum fluctuation. Inflation. Expansion. Strong nuclear interaction. Particle-antiparticle annihilation. Deuterium and helium production. Density perturbations. Recombination. Blackbody radiation. Local contraction. Cluster formation. Reionization? Violent relaxation. Virialization. Biased galaxy formation? Turbulent fragmentation. Contraction. Ionization. Compression. Opaque hydrogen. Massive star formation. Deuterium ignition. Hydrogen fusion. Hydrogen depletion. Core contraction. Envelope expansion. Helium fusion. Carbon, oxygen, and silicon fusion. Iron production. Implosion. Supernova explosion. Metals injection. Star formation. Supernova explosions. Star formation. Condensation. Planetesimal accretion. Planetary differentiation. Crust solidification. Volatile gas expulsion. Water condensation. Water dissociation. Ozone production. Ultraviolet absorption. Photosynthetic unicellular organisms. Oxidation. Mutation. Natural selection and evolution. Respiration. Cell differentiation. Sexual reproduction. Fossilization. Land exploration. Dinosaur extinction. Mammal expansion. Glaciation. Homo sapiens manifestation. Animal domestication. Food surplus production. Civilization! Innovation. Exploration. Religion. Warring nations. Empire creation and destruction. Exploration. Colonization. Taxation without representation. Revolution. Constitution. Election. Expansion. Industrialization. Rebellion. Emancipation Proclamation. Invention. Mass production. Urbanization. Immigration. World conflagration. League of Nations. Suffrage extension. Depression. World conflagration. Fission explosions. United Nations. Space exploration. Assassinations. Lunar excursions. Resignation. Computerization. World Trade Organization. Terrorism. Internet expansion. Reunification. Dissolution. World-Wide Web creation. Composition. Extrapolation? Copyright 1996-1997 by Eric Schulman . This piece was the inspiration for the book A Briefer History of Time and led to the Annals of Improbable Research Universal History Translation Project . Reprinted from the AIR , Volume III, Number 1, January/February 1997, page 27. http://members.bellatlantic.net/~vze3fs8i/hist/hist.html
A butcher was opening his market one morning and as he did a rabbit popped his head through the door. The butcher was surprised when the rabbit inquired ‘Got any cabbage?’ The butcher said ‘This is a meat market – we sell meat, not vegetables.’ The rabbit hopped off. The next day the butcher is opening the shop and sure enough the rabbit pops his head round and says ‘You got any cabbage?’ The butcher now irritated says ‘Listen you little rodent I told you yesterday we sell meat, we do not sell vegetables and the next time you come here I am going to grab you by the throat and nail those floppy ears to the floor.’ The rabbit disappeared hastily and nothing happened for a week. Then one morning the rabbit popped his head around the corner and said ‘Got any nails?’ The butcher said ‘No.’ The rabbit said ‘Ok. Got any cabbage?’
[Jerome] Bruner described three distinct stages in the learning process, each of which has a different state of mind: "Enactive, iconic, and symbolic." This was illustrated by an experiment with two water glasses, one short and fat, and the other tall and thin. When children are shown the contents of the short glass being poured into the tall one, they will say that there is more water in the tall one, even though they saw the pouring. If you then hide both glasses, the children change their minds, reasoning that the water had nowhere else to go. This could be done several times; each time the children would repeat the assertion that there was more water in the tall thin glass whenever they could see it but deny it when it was not visible. The experiment illustrates the different mental states that underlie our learning process. [The research cited is from Jerome Bruner, Toward A Theory of Instruction, 1966]