All Quotes By Tag: Faith

“Here’s another poem,like all others before and after,dedicated to you.There isn’t anything left to be saidbut I will spend my lifetrying to put you into words.You who is every goodness,every optimismand hope.Your love is a better fate for methan anything I could wish for.If you are a part of me, then you’re the best part.And if you’re separate from me, then you are my destination.But I’ve become a weary traveller,so please,let us never be apart.”

“I had another reason for seeking Him, for trying to espy His face, a professional one. God and literature are conflated in my mind. Why this is, I’m not sure. Perhaps because great books seem heavensent. Perhaps because I know that each nove is a puny but very valiant attempt at godlike behavior. Perhaps because there is no difference between the finest poetry and most transcendent mysticism. Perhaps because writers like Thomas Merton, who are able to enter the realm of the spirit and come away with fine, lucid prose. Perhaps because of more secular writers, like John Steinbeck, whose every passage, it seems to me, peals with religiousity and faith. It once occured to me that literature — all art really — is either talking to people about God, or talking to God about people.”

“I accept the Organic Trinity of Mineral, Vegetable, and Animal with as much authority as I accept the Holy Trinity. Both are sacred.”

“At the tattoo parlor, my friend worked with needle and ink applying a design to the skin on his client’s back, as the three of us sat discussing our spiritual desires and ambivalence about religion. In the midst of our conversation, the man under the needle turned and said, ‘Jesus is cool, it’s just that they have f***ed with Jesus. I mean, Christianity was at its best when it was secret and hidden and you could die for it.’ This profound, if crass, statement recognizes that the power of the gospel lay in its ability to be a counter-cultural and revolutionary force – not only a story to believe, but a distinctive way of life. The man’s comment prompted me to consider the questions: Am I in some measure complicit in the domestication of Jesus?”

“Heaven is a place where all the dogs you’ve ever loved come to greet you.”

“With no positivity, there is no hope; with no negativity, there is no improvement.”

“They knew how to live with nature and get along with nature. They didn’t try too hard to be all men and no animal. That’s the mistake we made when Darwin showed up. We embraced him and Huxley and Freud, all smiles. And then we discovered that Darwin and our religions didn’t mix. Or at least we didn’t think they did. We were fools. We tried to budge Darwin and Huxley and Freud. They wouldn’t move very well. So, like idiots, we tried knocking down religion. We succeeded pretty well. We lost our faith and went around wondering what life was for. If art was no more than a frustrated outflinging of desire, if religion was no more than self-delusion, what good was life? Faith had always given us answer to all things. But it all went down the drain with Freud and Darwin. We were and still are lost people.”

“Frantic orthodoxy is never rooted in faith but in doubt. It is when we are unsure that we are doubly sure. ”

“Religious people tend to encounter, among those who are not, a cemented certainty that belief in God is a crutch for the weak and the fearful…Now the belief in God may turn out at the last trump to be a mistake. Meantime, let us be quite clear, it is not merely the comfort of the simple–though it is that too, much to its glory–it is a formidable intellectual position with which most of the first-class minds of the human race, century in and century out, have concurred, each in his own way….speaking of crutches–Freud can be a crutch, Marx can be a crutch, rationalism can be a crutch, and atheism can be two canes and a pair of iron braces. We none of us have all the answers, nor are we likely to have. But in the country of the halt, the man who is surest he has no limp may be the worst-crippled.”

“But miracles are not for the asking; they come only when the stern eyes of God droop shut for a moment, and Our Lady takes advantage of His inattention to grant an illicit mercy. God…is an Anglican, whereas Our Lady is of the True Faith; the two of Them have an uneasy relationship, unable to agree on anything, except that if They divorce, the Devil will leap gleefully into the breach.”

“Sitting calmly on a ship in fair weather is not a metaphor for having faith; but when the ship has sprung a leak, then enthusiastically to keep the ship afloat by pumping and not to seek the harbor–that is the metaphor for having faith. (Concluding Unscientific Postscript)”

“Each of them had done their best. Matt was still his friend. For Meredith, maybe the day would come when she could look at him and not think “inhuman” — or at least not think it immediately and constantly. Maybe Bonnie, the moth, would be able to stay away from the unholy flame. Now, there was something to worry about. He could all too easily see Bonnie taking a walk on the very wild side with Damon. His brother had a soft spot for her already, she knew. But if either of them had a problem, he already knew what he had to do to find a plan for a solution.Just look up.”

“Only add Deeds to thy knowledge answerable; add faith; Add virtue, patience, temperance; add love, By name to come called charity, the soul Of all the rest: then wilt thou not be loath To leave this Paradise; but shalt possess A paradise within thee, happier far.”

“We may not know what lies ahead of us in the future years, nor even in the days or hours immediately beyond. But for a few yards, or possibly only a few feet, the track is clear, our duty is plain, our course is illumined. For that short distance, for the next step, lighted by the inspiration of God, go on! (“Three Parables—The Unwise Bee, the Owl Express, and Two Lamps”, Ensign, Feb. 2003, 8 – https://new.lds.org/ensign/2003/02/th…)”

“PRAISE FOR ‘THE JOURNEY HOME’Many saints are known and praised by all. We pray to them in litanies and celebrate their feast days. But the vast majority of holy men and women live heroic lives quietly before God. Loyal to family, lovers of God, servants in the Church, these unsung saints live everyday life as an example for us. David Hanneman is one such man. His story is exemplary and should be told to the world. He not only lived a noble life, but also suffered with heroism and grace as he passed into glory. This is a story to encourage and bless us all. We are thankful to Joseph Hanneman for sharing his father and making his story known to us who need such examples to encourage us as we face the difficulties and challenges of life.”