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 Love - Unconditional Love. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Love - Unconditional Love. Show all posts

Tuesday, May 6, 2014

The Mission: Love, Penance, Forgiveness, Restoration






The Mission - Trailer - (1986) - HQ





Related: "Whispers in a Dream" (a poem)
by R.E. Slater





The Mission - Gabriel's Oboe (Full HD)
Gabriel's Oboe(Nella Fantasia)




Robert DeNiro reads 1 corinthians 13

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dmUxkdTZY18&feature=related


1 Corinthians 13

English Standard Version (ESV)

The Way of Love

13 If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. 2 And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. 3 If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned,[a] but have not love, I gain nothing.


4 Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant 5 or rude. It does not insist on its own way; itis not irritable or resentful;[b] 6 it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. 7 Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

8 Love never ends. As for prophecies, they will pass away; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will pass away. 9 For we know in part and we prophesy in part, 10 but when the perfect comes, the partial will pass away.11 When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I gave up childish ways. 12 For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known.

13 So now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love.

Footnotes:
1 Corinthians 13:3 Some manuscripts deliver up my body [to death] that I may boast
1 Corinthians 13:5 Greek irritable and does not count up wrongdoing



E. Morricone-1986 The Mission [Full Album ]





Ennio Morricone "The Mission"
Sound Track Remix





"Whispers in a Dream," a poem by R.E. Slater




Saturday, November 9, 2013

Unconditional Love Brings Death

 
http://theupsidedownworld.com/2013/07/09/unconditional-love-brings-death/
 
by Rebecca Trotter
July 9, 2013
 
I’ve come across a number of Christians lately who are questioning the impulse to elevate love above any other concern. Love is too soft and squishy, they say. Love becomes an excuse to avoid hard things like confronting sin and enforcing discipline. One writer even asked if we are in danger of making love an idol. (Perhaps he hasn’t gotten to the part where the bible says that God IS love?!?).
 
I have something to tell you about people who say that love is squishy, soft, a cop-out: quite clearly, such a person has never actually attempted to love unconditionally. Loving unconditionally is the hardest thing any human being can ever try to do. Confronting sin? Upsetting friends and family? Setting boundaries and rules? Pffftttt . . . . Those are the simplest, most natural things in the world for the fallen human mind to do. Loving unconditionally? That WILL DESTROY YOU. It will cost you EVERYTHING. You will DIE if you try to do it.
 
Then Jesus said to his disciples, “If any of you wants to be my follower, you must turn from your selfish ways, take up your cross, and follow me.” ~ Matthew 16:24
 
These Christians who warn against love are right to be afraid of it. But not because it’s soft and squishy. Just the opposite. Unconditional love is the hardest, heaviest cross a human being can bear. It sent Jesus to his death.
 
He warned us that it would divide “father against son and son against father, mother against daughter and daughter against mother, mother-in-law against daughter-in-law and daughter-in-law against mother-in-law.”
 
In fact, unconditional love is so hard and so dangerous that I’ve had mature, devout, loving Christians who I respect warn me against it.
 
One man told me to never ask God to teach me to love people the way he does. It’s impossible, he said. Another woman told me the same thing about the sort of love described in 1 Corinthians 13. It’s impossible.
 
Jesus said to them, “With people this is impossible, but with God all things are possible.” ~ Matthew 19:26
 
When you love unconditionally, you don’t get to make demands. You don’t get to pressure the other to change, to make you happy, to do as you see fit. When they hurt you, you have to forgive. Every time. When they don’t give you what you need, you don’t get to withhold in return.
 
To love unconditionally, you have to “be perfect as your father in heaven is perfect.”
 
“Your Father who is in heaven. . . causes His sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous.” ~Matthew 5:45
 
Which is the real secret of unconditional love: it has nothing to do with the person you are loving. Human love is all about the other person – how they make me feel, if they are good, what is pleasing about them, if they treat me well. If the person is good, kind, giving, gentle, attractive, useful, then our affection for them grows and we call that love. When someone is bad, mean, selfish, harsh, ugly, useless, then we struggle to call up any affection for them and loving them can become impossible.
 
Unconditional love works differently. It comes from the goodness of the lover, not the loved. We humans cannot do it unless we have been redeemed and purified in love. And that’s the rub. It is as we attempt to do the impossible – love unconditionally – that we are redeemed and purified in love. Love is a terrible cross. It is the narrow path that few find. It is our salvation.
 
The truth is that humanity is suspicious of love because loves doesn’t address what we see as the real problem – other people and their sins. Instead, love focuses like a laser on me and my heart. I cannot attend to the work love demands of me and look at the sins of others at the same time. But if I let go of my worry about everyone else and follow love where it will lead me, the Kingdom of God will begin to be manifest in and through me.
 
“Truly, truly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit.” ~ John 12:24
 
Salvation comes from dying. If you try to love unconditionally, make no mistake about it; you will die. You will lose everything you ever took life from: the approval of others, status, power, comfort, achievement, certainty, rules, talents, relationships, titles, roles – all of it will be lost. God is a jealous God – he does not share his throne with anything or anyone. Because he is the only source of life – in his presence everything else must become dead to you.
 
When I am hurt by someone, when I am maligned, when my needs are not met, human love dies. If someone mistreats me and instead of fighting back, I absorb that and bring it to my father for healing and correction, what is meant for evil becomes part of my salvation.
 
People will push your love to its limits so God can remove them. They will trigger your every dysfunction so they can be unlearned. They will create and play with your every hurt so it can be scrupulously cleaned out, sutured, operated on and attacked until it is all healed. They will slam up against your hard places until they are soft and abuse your soft spots until God makes them strong.
 
“Hold everything in your hands lightly, otherwise it hurts when God pries your fingers open.” ~ Corrie ten Boom
 
When you give up your right to judge, to hold a grudge, to be offended, to control and pressure, to withhold affection, to demand that your rights be respected, you will lose faith in everything you know, everything you trust, and everything you depend on so that it can all be cast aside. Learning to love unconditionally will lead to everything being removed from your clinging fingers until you have nothing left to hold onto except God alone. Your life in the flesh must die. And make no mistake – like death on the cross always it, it’s a long, painful, ugly, tortuous death.
 
”My Father, if it is not possible for this cup to be taken away unless I drink it, may your will be done.” ~ Matthew 26:42
 
Unless you really want God, unless you really want his kingdom, unless you really want to give yourself over to love completely, this is not a journey you should take. Because before it’s all done, you will beg for mercy a million times over. You will search for a way to quit. You will spend countless hours calling out to the darkness that surrounds you. You will collapse under the weight of the cross. You will despair and feel forsaken by God and man. Dying hurts, but we must die to be born again in the Spirit.
 
There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love. ~ 1 John 4:18
 
Those people who are worried about love – ishy, squishy, namby-pamby love? They are right to be worried. Because if we all follow love, then we will have to put down the tools humanity has been been using to try to shape reality with since time immemorial – the rules, the boundaries, the battles. And if we put those tools down – everything will come unhinged. Every boundary will be crossed. Every evil will occur. The dams we have been propping up to keep the worst of human nature at bay will break. We will die. They know this and fear it. But it’s already happening. They can’t stop it and they are going to die right along with everyone else. In fact, the longer they fight love, the longer and more painful the death will be.
 
But it’s the storm before the calm. These people don’t trust love and are desperate to avoid the storm because they don’t really trust God. They don’t understand that the enemy death which they fear so much has already been defeated for us by Christ. In their heart of hearts, they are afraid that God will be defeated by the forces of darkness, cruelty, sin and, yes, death. And they are wrong. Completely and utterly wrong.
 
And he who was seated on the throne said, “Behold, I am making all things new. . . “ He said to me: “It is done. I am the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End.” ~ Revelation 21:5,6
 
God’s Kingdom is a bit like happiness – we can’t get there by trying to create it directly. In God’s Kingdom, there will be no sin. So we wage war on sin, thinking that will bring about God’s Kingdom. But sin can only be defeated through purification by love. In God’s Kingdom, there will be no suffering. So we try to fix, suppress and hide from whatever makes us suffer, thinking that is the way to God’s Kingdom. But the end of suffering comes only when we have walked through the suffering of death to new birth. In God’s Kingdom, no one will stand above or below another, but we will love each other all the same. So we work to elevate the downtrodden and bring down the mighty thinking that will manifest God’s Kingdom. But to love the low and the high all the same, we must unlearn human love and embrace unconditional love and all that entails.
 
God’s Kingdom is love. It is made by love. It comes through love. It is manifest through love. If we ever want to see the new heaven and new earth God has promised, it can only be found by picking up the cross of love and following it through death, hell and into the resurrection of new life.
 
I heard a loud voice from the throne, saying, “Behold, the tabernacle of God is among men, and He will dwell among them, and they shall be His people, and God Himself will be among them, and He will wipe away every tear from their eyes; and there will no longer be any death; there will no longer be any mourning, or crying, or pain; the first things have passed away.” ~ Revelation 21:3-4
 
 
 

Wednesday, October 26, 2011

The Mission: Love, Penance, Forgiveness, Restoration





The Mission - Trailer - (1986) - HQ








The Mission - Gabriel's Oboe (Full HD)
Gabriel's Oboe(Nella Fantasia)




Robert DeNiro reads 1 corinthians 13

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dmUxkdTZY18&feature=related


1 Corinthians 13
English Standard Version (ESV)

The Way of Love

13 If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. 2 And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. 3 If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned,[a] but have not love, I gain nothing.


4 Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant 5 or rude. It does not insist on its own way; itis not irritable or resentful;[b] 6 it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. 7 Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

8 Love never ends. As for prophecies, they will pass away; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will pass away. 9 For we know in part and we prophesy in part, 10 but when the perfect comes, the partial will pass away.11 When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I gave up childish ways. 12 For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known.

13 So now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love.

Footnotes:
1 Corinthians 13:3 Some manuscripts deliver up my body [to death] that I may boast
1 Corinthians 13:5 Greek irritable and does not count up wrongdoing



E. Morricone-1986 The Mission [Full Album ]





Ennio Morricone "The Mission"
Sound Track Remix