There’s Always A Way

“When people set the highest value on relationships to one another, it does not take them long to find material accommodations for these.” Richard M. Weaver, Ideas Have Consequences

Guidance Quotes

Here are a couple of quotes related to the subject of guidance which I discussed in my last post.

One from Dallas Willard:

The will (spirit) is mysterious from the point of view of the physical and social world, for there it is causes, not choices, that dominate. But one can never get a grip on his or her own life–or that of others–from the causal point of view. It is choice that matters. Imagine a person wondering day after day if he or she is going to learn Arabic or if he or she is going to get married to a certain person just waiting, to see whether it would “happen.”

That would be laughable. But many people actually seem to live in this way with respect to major issues involving them, and with a deplorable outcome. That explains a lot of why lives go as they do. But to learn a language, and for the many even more important concerns of life, we must intend the vision if it is to be realized. That is, we must initiate, bring into being those factors that would bring the vision to reality. Renovation of the Heart

And two from Udo Middelmann:

The Bible gives images of warfare going on since Lucifer fell and became Satan. Our part in that warfare is to hunger after righteousness, seek justice, work in concert with what we are told in God’s Word about life in the real world, and pray. We are to put the hand to the plow, to resist the effects of the fall of Adam, to live and repel death in any of its ugly manners. The Innocence of God

We do not go through all of life’s ups and downs, absurdities, unfairness, and suffering to fulfill the purposes of God through all events. If that were so it would remove all needs to judge events, people, or situations. They are then all part of a major purpose. Yet the Bible clearly maintains a distance between what happens in history and God’s purposes for history. The Innocence of God

Useful Friends

“Friends do not love one another because they find the love useful to their pleasures—that is a contradiction. They wish rather to be useful to one another because of their love.” Anthony Esolen

Know Thyself

‎”Only when one is aware of one’s own human predicament can one then begin on the path toward personal moral development and true social betterment. A misunderstanding of the self leads to disastrous results. It fosters a degenerative forgetfulness of one’s own limited nature as well as a dehumanization of the other.” Gerson Moreno-Riaño

Here’s the link to Dr. Moreno-Riaño’s paper.

Human Insufficiency

‎”Perhaps the most basic [fact], one on which every community is built, is that of human insufficiency. To put it differently, every human being needs other human beings. To deny this natural fact of human existence, so Aristotle teaches, is to confirm that one is either a beast or a god. Human life occurs within a context of human needs, and it is the natural duty of human beings to assist each other in the fulfillment of these.” Gerson Moreno-Riaño

I was delighted to hear Dr. Moreno-Riaño speak yesterday. Here’s the link to his paper.