Quotes & Sayings


We, and creation itself, actualize the possibilities of the God who sustains the world, towards becoming in the world in a fuller, more deeper way. - R.E. Slater

There is urgency in coming to see the world as a web of interrelated processes of which we are integral parts, so that all of our choices and actions have [consequential effects upon] the world around us. - Process Metaphysician Alfred North Whitehead

Kurt Gödel's Incompleteness Theorem says (i) all closed systems are unprovable within themselves and, that (ii) all open systems are rightly understood as incomplete. - R.E. Slater

The most true thing about you is what God has said to you in Christ, "You are My Beloved." - Tripp Fuller

The God among us is the God who refuses to be God without us, so great is God's Love. - Tripp Fuller

According to some Christian outlooks we were made for another world. Perhaps, rather, we were made for this world to recreate, reclaim, redeem, and renew unto God's future aspiration by the power of His Spirit. - R.E. Slater

Our eschatological ethos is to love. To stand with those who are oppressed. To stand against those who are oppressing. It is that simple. Love is our only calling and Christian Hope. - R.E. Slater

Secularization theory has been massively falsified. We don't live in an age of secularity. We live in an age of explosive, pervasive religiosity... an age of religious pluralism. - Peter L. Berger

Exploring the edge of life and faith in a post-everything world. - Todd Littleton

I don't need another reason to believe, your love is all around for me to see. – Anon

Thou art our need; and in giving us more of thyself thou givest us all. - Khalil Gibran, Prayer XXIII

Be careful what you pretend to be. You become what you pretend to be. - Kurt Vonnegut

Religious beliefs, far from being primary, are often shaped and adjusted by our social goals. - Jim Forest

We become who we are by what we believe and can justify. - R.E. Slater

People, even more than things, need to be restored, renewed, revived, reclaimed, and redeemed; never throw out anyone. – Anon

Certainly, God's love has made fools of us all. - R.E. Slater

An apocalyptic Christian faith doesn't wait for Jesus to come, but for Jesus to become in our midst. - R.E. Slater

Christian belief in God begins with the cross and resurrection of Jesus, not with rational apologetics. - Eberhard Jüngel, Jürgen Moltmann

Our knowledge of God is through the 'I-Thou' encounter, not in finding God at the end of a syllogism or argument. There is a grave danger in any Christian treatment of God as an object. The God of Jesus Christ and Scripture is irreducibly subject and never made as an object, a force, a power, or a principle that can be manipulated. - Emil Brunner

“Ehyeh Asher Ehyeh” means "I will be that who I have yet to become." - God (Ex 3.14) or, conversely, “I AM who I AM Becoming.”

Our job is to love others without stopping to inquire whether or not they are worthy. - Thomas Merton

The church is God's world-changing social experiment of bringing unlikes and differents to the Eucharist/Communion table to share life with one another as a new kind of family. When this happens, we show to the world what love, justice, peace, reconciliation, and life together is designed by God to be. The church is God's show-and-tell for the world to see how God wants us to live as a blended, global, polypluralistic family united with one will, by one Lord, and baptized by one Spirit. – Anon

The cross that is planted at the heart of the history of the world cannot be uprooted. - Jacques Ellul

The Unity in whose loving presence the universe unfolds is inside each person as a call to welcome the stranger, protect animals and the earth, respect the dignity of each person, think new thoughts, and help bring about ecological civilizations. - John Cobb & Farhan A. Shah

If you board the wrong train it is of no use running along the corridors of the train in the other direction. - Dietrich Bonhoeffer

God's justice is restorative rather than punitive; His discipline is merciful rather than punishing; His power is made perfect in weakness; and His grace is sufficient for all. – Anon

Our little [biblical] systems have their day; they have their day and cease to be. They are but broken lights of Thee, and Thou, O God art more than they. - Alfred Lord Tennyson

We can’t control God; God is uncontrollable. God can’t control us; God’s love is uncontrolling! - Thomas Jay Oord

Life in perspective but always in process... as we are relational beings in process to one another, so life events are in process in relation to each event... as God is to Self, is to world, is to us... like Father, like sons and daughters, like events... life in process yet always in perspective. - R.E. Slater

To promote societal transition to sustainable ways of living and a global society founded on a shared ethical framework which includes respect and care for the community of life, ecological integrity, universal human rights, respect for diversity, economic justice, democracy, and a culture of peace. - The Earth Charter Mission Statement

Christian humanism is the belief that human freedom, individual conscience, and unencumbered rational inquiry are compatible with the practice of Christianity or even intrinsic in its doctrine. It represents a philosophical union of Christian faith and classical humanist principles. - Scott Postma

It is never wise to have a self-appointed religious institution determine a nation's moral code. The opportunities for moral compromise and failure are high; the moral codes and creeds assuredly racist, discriminatory, or subjectively and religiously defined; and the pronouncement of inhumanitarian political objectives quite predictable. - R.E. Slater

God's love must both center and define the Christian faith and all religious or human faiths seeking human and ecological balance in worlds of subtraction, harm, tragedy, and evil. - R.E. Slater

In Whitehead’s process ontology, we can think of the experiential ground of reality as an eternal pulse whereby what is objectively public in one moment becomes subjectively prehended in the next, and whereby the subject that emerges from its feelings then perishes into public expression as an object (or “superject”) aiming for novelty. There is a rhythm of Being between object and subject, not an ontological division. This rhythm powers the creative growth of the universe from one occasion of experience to the next. This is the Whiteheadian mantra: “The many become one and are increased by one.” - Matthew Segall

Without Love there is no Truth. And True Truth is always Loving. There is no dichotomy between these terms but only seamless integration. This is the premier centering focus of a Processual Theology of Love. - R.E. Slater

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Note: Generally I do not respond to commentary. I may read the comments but wish to reserve my time to write (or write off the comments I read). Instead, I'd like to see our community help one another and in the helping encourage and exhort each of us towards Christian love in Christ Jesus our Lord and Savior. - re slater

Showing posts with label Friendships. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Friendships. Show all posts

Thursday, April 23, 2015

How To Love Your Loved One, Wife, Daughter, and Mom




It’s About Respect: 15 Signs He Treats You The Way You Truly Deserve
http://elitedaily.com/dating/he-treats-like-truly-deserve/1007416/

by Paul Hudson
April 21, 2015

The trick to a happy relationship is seeing each other as complete equals.

Now, before you all go on about how you treat all people as equals, especially your lover, let me say this: bullsh*t.

People don’t see all people as equals – in fact, we just about never see anyone else as an equal.

The only time we really do is when we love that individual. When we don’t love someone, we are basically saying he or she isn’t our equal and deserving of our love.

It’s difficult seeing other people as complete equals, as we are egocentric beings living a reality from a single perspective, a single point of view.

As far as we’re concerned, we’re really the only people in the world who matter.

Unless we’re in love. 

When we’re in love, the most magical thing happens: We find someone who we believe may be even more important than ourselves.

Ladies, this is the only sort of man for you. If he doesn’t see you as his equal, then he won’t be capable of treating you the way you deserve to be treated.

How do you know he’s treating you the way you deserve to be treated?

1. He gives you attention from the moment you wake up.

He’ll roll over, give you a hug or a kiss on the forehead. Or just plop his heavy arm over you, giving out a groan to show his disdain for the sunrise forcing him to wake from his dreams.

Whatever his morning routine, it involves him recognizing you’re laying there with him.

2. He feeds not just your body, but your mind.

He might buy you dinner; he might make it for you. A man who’s in love lives to satisfy his woman — and that’s equally through her stomach as it is through her passions and soul. He’ll just as easily buy you chocolates as he would books because he knows enriching you is his favorite hobby and it makes the both of you better.

3. He loves surprising you.

Maybe he’ll buy you little gifts. Maybe he’ll pick you some flowers. Maybe he’ll clean your apartment while you’re away at work or running errands. Maybe he’ll book you a trip around the world or simply pack the two of you a surprise picnic. When a man makes a point to surprise you, he understands the importance of keeping the excitement in a relationship alive.

4. He spends time with you because he wants to, not because he feels obligated to.

You don’t need to beg him to hang out, to see you, to spend time with you. In fact, he often finds himself having to hold back from seeing you too often, from coming off as overly eager.

He feels an urge to spend just about every waking moment with you, but he knows better. He gives you the space you need and takes the space he needs, but never fails to be there for you.

5. When he makes plans, you’re a part of them.

As far as he’s concerned, you are the plan. The life the two of you will create together is all the planning he needs. Everything else you’ll deal with when the time comes, together.

6. He consults you before he makes big decisions.

In a relationship, it’s important to share the decision-making. If the man you’re with treats you well, he’ll not only include you because he knows you want to be included, but because he values your opinions, your input.

7. He doesn’t lie to you because he doesn’t have anything he needs to lie about.

Not all men are scumbags. Not all men will lie to you, cheat on you and break your heart. Some, most even, certainly will. But not him. He refuses to treat you the same way every other assh*le in your life has treated you. He won’t lie to you, and he will never have a reason to.

How can he be so sure? Because it’s a choice, and it’s a choice he’s already decided to make.

8. He tells you that you’re beautiful when you feel your worst.

I’d say that to him, you’re always beautiful – which may very well be the case – but when you look like hell, you look like hell. It happens to the best of us. But do you know what? He refuses to tell you that you look like hell because he doesn’t want you thinking yourself to be anything but beautiful.

9. He tells you about his day and asks you about yours.

He wants to know about your life because he feels by knowing your day, he is, in a sense, becoming a bigger part of your life. He enjoys telling you about his day, telling you interesting stories or some issues he has been dealing with. He wants to share with you and wants you to share with him.

10. The only time he makes you cry is from happiness.

There should be nothing in the world that breaks his heart like watching you cry – really cry. He hates the thought of you feeling hurt and even goes as far as to share in your pain. It’s not that he’s trying to, although given the chance, he’d change places in an instance; it’s just that he can’t help it. He hurts when you hurt. It’s out of his control.

11. He tells you he loves you, but he doesn’t have to, because you already know it.

This is where most men – to be fair, women as well – make a big mistake. If you love someone, it matters less that you love that person than it matters that you make him or her feel loved.

People seem to have it backward. They are under the illusion that the way they themselves are feeling is how to best define love.

On the contrary, love is defined by actions – not by emotions or theories. Unless he knows how to make you feel loved and does his best to do so, he’s being selfish and egocentric. How can that be love?

12. He’ll give you the bigger half.

It’s the little things. It’s those little moments when he thinks about you before he thinks about himself. It’s giving you the bigger half of the sandwich, the bigger half of the bed, the bigger half of the closet, the bigger half of his heart, the bigger half of his life.

People are egocentric by nature – they will always think about themselves and will think about themselves first, most of the time. It’s not something that can be helped.

Look out for these little acts of selflessness because they are, in true sense, proof of his love for you.

13. He makes you feel safe.

He may not be the tallest, the fittest, the fastest, the strongest guy in the world, but if push comes to shove, he will sooner die trying to save you than to allow you to be abused, hurt or harassed by another.

In your heart you feel he would risk his life to save yours, if it came down to it. And although you would never ask him to do that, pushing him out of the way as he protects you from the incoming bullet, knowing he would makes you feel like the luckiest girl in the world.

14. He keeps his promises.

He may not make many of them – if only to lessen the chances of having to break them – but when he makes a promise, he always delivers. He knows you trust him and have faith in him – he doesn’t want to disappoint you. He just wants you to be happy.

15. He makes you feel like a woman.

You may be his best friend. You may be his partner, his confidante, his advisor, his better half, but first and foremost, you are a woman – his woman. And he wants you to feel like a woman. He treats you with respect. He makes you feel sexy. He makes you feel loved.

He makes you feel like he wants you – every part of you – because he does.

*For More Of His Thoughts And Ramblings, Follow Paul Hudson On TwitterAnd Facebook.


Sunday, September 2, 2012

Love, Loss and the Uncoupling of Our World

 


by Peter Rollins
September 2, 2012

I am currently reading Slavjo Zizek’s latest book Less Than Nothing. It is a profound and systematic work (though I must warn that if you don’t have a background in continental philosophy it is difficult). Anyway, the following reflections are directly inspired by his writing on Malebranche, Occasionalism and the Big Other found there.
 
Descartes famously theorised that the human being was made up of two different substances: a body and spirit/soul/mind. In order to understand how these interacted he postulated the existence of what he called the Pineal Gland. This was, for Descartes, the physical location where the two substances united.
 
The problem however was that these two substances were so different that the idea of a gland uniting the two made no sense. It simply acted as a type of black box solution. Somehow, something happened in the gland that meant our thoughts could impact our body and visa versa.
 
As a result of the problems raised by the idea of the Pineal Gland the philosopher Nicolas Malebranche argued that, for the mediation to occur between mind and body, a third (true) substance was required to intervene. For him this was God. The argument was that, at every moment, God was at work ensuring that whenever we went to pick up a glass, scratch our nose or smile the intention would correspond with the act. Without God intervening at every moment in this way our intentions would be revealed as ultimately impotent. Like experiencing anastasia awareness we would find ourselves locked inside an inert body, unable to do anything at all.
 
This philosophical idea was called “Occasionalism” and worked with the idea that what we take as immediate (the interaction between our intentions and acts) is really mediated by God, who listens tirelessly to what we want and manipulates our body seamlessly so that it would appear the two (intention and act) are one.
 
Bizarre and outdated as this philosophical idea might seem it can actually help us to make sense of a very human experience. Take the example of things that we might enjoy such as travelling, fine dinning, time with friends or certain sports. The enjoyment of these things is experienced as direct. Biting into a chocolate, for instance, and experiencing the pleasure of the taste is analogous to the connection we feel between intending toward a glass of water and the act of lifting it up. They are not felt to be two separate things, they are experienced as one.
 
However, if we lose the people we love, we discover the truth that the relationship between the act and its meaning were really coupled via a mediator: the presence of the beloved. Without them we experience a strange uncoupling of what previously seemed whole.
 
This can be a deeply traumatic event because of the way that we experience our hobbies as pleasurable in an immediate way. However, after the loss of someone who bestows our life with meaning things change. We might still go to a fine restaurant and eat some delicious food like before. But now the act is devoid of the seemingly innate pleasure it once possessed.
 
No matter how special the food, it has now been reduced to inert matter with no function other than a basic biological one. To experience the uncoupling of our acts from the seemingly implicit meaning they have is not unlike the experience of sleep paralysis, in which a person wakes up to find that their body no longer acts in conformity to their intentionality. The psychological impact of experiencing the uncoupling of such a whole is traumatic.
 
Is this not what we witness in films such as Jim Jarmusch's Broken Flowers? Here we are presented with Don Johnston (Bill Murray) a man who undergoes this radial uncoupling in his own life after his girlfriend ends their relationship unexpectedly.
 
It is for this reason that many end up in psychoanalysis. Not because of some desire to change, but because the individual no longer really desires anything at all. They have entered into a surreal, Daliesque world in which things have become disconnected from themselves. It is as if we have just discovered that we inhabit a virtual reality world that, all of a sudden, is indifferent to our movements.
 
In Broken Flowers Johnston’s neighbour embodies the role of the analyst by helping Johnston try to find meaning once again (through the attempt to track down a son who he never knew he had).
 
It is in the loss of our mediators that we learn that what is worse tha[n] losing something that we desire is losing those who enabled us to desire.
 
 
 
 

Saturday, August 4, 2012

Unfriended

 
 
By Preston Yancey
August 3, 2012

Sunday, January 15, 2012

The Blessings of Christian Friendships


Celebrating a Marriage

Very recently friends came to visit as they do twice, sometime three times a year, at one another's homes, all in good humor and fun, to share personal stories of families, past people we had known, new discoveries made, and especially their walk with God. The most curious thing about this group is that it holds within it a nucleus of those who have been life-long friends since our early college days AND have been involved in some form of Christian service since graduation. Some of which are public and held in high regard in the cities, towns, and Lakeshore communities that we live, if not nationally and globally for one of the members of our group involved with a children's adoption group.

When we get together I always like to hear how our friends have been blessed in their ministries and how God has been using them when filtered through their unique personalities that can be goofy and outrageously funny one moment and deeply somber the next. These are friends whom we have grown old with and have been with us since the collegiate days of youth when we were first single-and-unmarried at a local Christian university - one that I attended late in my college experience when transferring from a state university. My wife, on the other hand, had also attended the same campus but not while I was there, and had met this same set of friends a couple of years earlier in her freshman and sophomore years. Later, she and I met each other in a non-church setting years afterwards and eventually discovered the coincidences of our experiences.

Unlike our own experience, others in our college fellowship group had actually met their spouses directly through college itself, or within church ministries connected to the campus. Moreover, many then went on into Christian ministries so that we fondly call ourselves the "Cornerstone group" after the school we've attended and which held such a significant impact upon our faith, our ministries, and our lives personally, maritally, and vocationally.

Through the years we have developed life-long friendships that have remained steady and been a blessing to each of us in a Christian tradition that has interplayed itself within our lives, and bisected our hearts and thoughts in very significant, and deeply personal, ways. As the years have passed we have played competitive sports against each other on hot dusty softball fields in the heat of summer. Gone on hunting trips with each other in Michigan's lost northern woods. Camped together on a few occasions in the early days of our children's youths. Worked together. Prayed together. Witnessed each other's joy and delight at the birth and raising of beloved newborns through to the teen years and onwards to joyous marriages many years later. Listened and shared all the nuances of insight that come with raising children, living with spouses, and the trials and joys of family life. During the last several years we have shared the care given to aging parents that have eventual passed away within the safe keeping of their children's sorrow and love. Or, in my case, the suicidal passing of a brother suffering from untreated bipolar disorder, and my dad's subsequent heart attacks that came shortly thereafter as a result of the tragic loss of his son, now coupled with his additional personal burden of Parkinson's that slowly is consuming his body.

Through these difficult times my friends have kept me company in the car as I have driven to my next client appointment all the while listening to their ministry on the radio. Or have blessed my wife and I in church as they have preached from the pulpit warm messages of God's love and grace - and then gladly witnessed both husband and wife warmly greeting each of their parishioners afterwards. And because of another friend's involvement in the guidance of a global Christian agency, Compassion International, my own daughter supports an impoverished child from Africa named Joseph who writes to us every several months of his life's experiences, trials and joys.

It has been a unique group and one that has become latent with close friendships and godly support as I reflect on the many blessings that God has brought to us through those early days of unformed college friendships. And with that I wish to give thanks and encouragement to each-and-every reader here that pursues one another in the strength and lifelong joys that can come with obtaining a steady fellowship group given to caring for one another while serving the Lord together from whatever corner of the earth that we live and worship. Praise God for godly friendships "strong-and-wise" brought into our meager lives to behold and share God's glories!

R.E. Slater
January 15, 2012

Cornerstone University Campus - http://www.cornerstone.edu/edu_home.aspx?id=531
Distance Learning Online Education - http://online.cornerstone.edu/


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Friendship Verses

"When we consider the blessings of God—the gifts that add beauty and joy to our lives, that enable us to keep going through stretches of boredom and even sufferingfriendship is very near the top."
—Donald W. McCullough, Mastering Personal Growth

Friendship Bible Verses
This collection of friendship Bible verses celebrates the blessings of God in the gift of true friendship.

True and Lasting Friendship Can Occur Suddenly
1 Samuel 18:1–3
After David had finished talking with Saul, he met Jonathan, the king’s son. There was an immediate bond between them, for Jonathan loved David. From that day on Saul kept David with him and wouldn't let him return home. And Jonathan made a solemn pact with David, because he loved him as he loved himself. (NLT)

Proverbs 12:26
(NLT)

Gossip Separates Best Friends

Proverbs 16:28
A troublemaker plants seeds of strife; gossip separates the best of friends. (NLT)

Loyal Friends Love Through Difficult Times

Proverbs 17:17
A friend is always loyal, and a brother is born to help in time of need.NLT)

Faithful Friends are a Rare Treasure

Proverbs 18:24
There are “friends” who destroy each other, but a real friend sticks closer than a brother.(NLT)

Reliable Friends are Hard to Find

Proverbs 20:6
Many will say they are loyal friends, but who can find one who is truly reliable?(NLT)

Purity and Integrity Gain the Friendship of Kings

Proverbs 22:11
Whoever loves a pure heart and gracious speech will have the king as a friend.(NLT)

The Wrong Friends Can Have a Negative Influence

Proverbs 22:24–25
Don’t befriend angry people or associate with hot-tempered people, or you will learn to be like them and endanger your soul.(NLT)

Sincere Friends Speak the Truth in Love, Even When it Hurts

Proverbs 27:5-6
An open rebuke is better than hidden love! Wounds from a sincere friend are better than many kisses from an enemy. (NLT)

Counsel from a Friend is Pleasing

Proverbs 27:9
The heartfelt counsel of a friend is as sweet as perfume and incense. (NLT)

Friends Shape and Sharpen One Another

Proverbs 27:17
As iron sharpens iron, so a friend sharpens a friend. (NLT)

True Friends Strengthen and Help Each Other

Ecclesiastes 4:9–12
Two people are better off than one, for they can help each other succeed. If one person falls, the other can reach out and help. But someone who falls alone is in real trouble. Likewise, two people lying close together can keep each other warm. But how can one be warm alone? A person standing alone can be attacked and defeated, but two can stand back-to-back and conquer. Three are even better, for a triple-braided cord is not easily broken. (NLT)

Friendship is Marked by Sacrifice

John 15:13–15
There is no greater love than to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. You are my friends if you do what I command. I no longer call you slaves, because a master doesn't confide in his slaves. Now you are my friends, since I have told you everything the Father told me. (NLT)

The Lord is a Friend to the Godly

Proverbs 3:32
Such wicked people are detestable to the LORD, but he offers his friendship to the godly. (NLT)

Believers Enjoy Friendship with God

Romans 5:10
For since our friendship with God was restored by the death of his Son while we were still his enemies, we will certainly be saved through the life of his Son. (NLT)

Friendship with the World Makes You an Enemy of God

James 4:4
You adulterers! Don’t you realize that friendship with the world makes you an enemy of God? I say it again: If you want to be a friend of the world, you make yourself an enemy of God. (NLT)

Examples of Good Friends in the Bible

David and Jonathan (1 Samuel 18:1-3, 20:17, 42; 2 Samuel 1:26)
David and Abiathar (1 Samuel 22:23)
David and Nahash (2 Samuel 10:2)
David and Hushai (2 Samuel 15:32–37)
Elijah and Elisha (2 Kings 2:2)
Job's Friends (Job 2:11)
Ruth and Naomi (Ruth 1:16-17)
Paul’s Ministry Friends (Romans 16:3-5; 2 Corinthians 2:12-13; Philippians 2:25; Colossians 4:7, 14; 2 Timothy 1:2-4; 1 Philemon)

Bible Verses by Topic (Index)

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