Thoughts for the Week
Sunday 1st August 2010 - Dr Francis Macnab
AUGUST- THE MONTH OF AN INTELLIGENT RELIGION
It is time for the bell to ring and the question to be asked - "What have intelligent people done about an intelligent religion?"
In the Book of Genesis, Eve was told she was forbidden to eat from the tree of knowledge, ie;
"You can do anything in this magnificent garden, except become intelligent."
"How readily men construct fables in order to avoid looking reality in the face."
-Michael Onfray
The Ten Commandments include a simple unmistakable direction - "Thou shalt not kill" (Deuteronomy 5, 17). In chapter 7,1, God tells the Israelites to exterminate SEVEN different nations of people.
"Spurning compassion, he demands the demolition of their altars and monuments."
- Michael Onfray
"Jesus utters the word LOVE only twice in the entire Gospel of Mark. So where did the doctrine called "Christian love" come from? In two of the gospels, Jesus says, ‘Love your enemies'. Paul, however never utters such words."
- Robert Wright
"Religion created gods because people could not find any other explanation to console them for the tragedy of life in this world."
- Karen Armstrong
"All those years ago when my faith in an all-good and all-powerful God suddenly collapsed at university, I had yet to discover that best evidence of all for this non-existence: that bully churches survive and bigots flourish."
-David Marr
When Christianity became swollen into an elaborate code of prescribed beliefs and ritual obligations policed by a hierarchy, the meaning of faith was warped almost beyond recognition."We are witnessing the emergence of a different vocabulary, one that is closer to the original sense of the word faith before its debasement"
-Harvey Cox
Sunday 25th July 2010 - Dr Francis Macnab
We all stand on the edge of life, each moment compromising that edge. Before us is only possibility."
-Rollo May
The imagination of a boy is healthy, and the mature imagination of a man is healthy; but there is a space of life in between, in which the soul is in ferment...the way of life uncertain.
-John Keats
"I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I -
I took the one less travelled by,
And that has made all the difference!"
-Robert Frost
"The freedom of each of us is in proportion to the degree with which we confront and live in relation to our destiny."
-Rollo May
"A man who has made a mistake and doesn't correct it is making another mistake."
-Confucius
"Yet we have gone on living,
Living and partly living."
-T.S. Eliot
"The revolutionary idea that defines the boundary between modern times and the past is the mystery of risk: the notion that the future is more than a whim of the gods, and that men and women are not passive before nature."
-Peter Bernstein
Sunday 18th July 2010 - Dr Francis Macnab
"God does not die on the day when we cease to believe in a personal deity, but we die on the day when our lives cease to be illumined by the steady radiance, renewed daily, of a wonder, the source of which is beyond all reason."
- Dag Hammarskjöld (Secretary-General, United Nations 1953-1961. Nobel Prize 1963.)
"A miracle -
Second to none:
Just this orchard
From just that seed."
- Wislawa Szymborska (Nobel Prize 1996)
"Human life begins at the far-side of despair"
- Jean-Paul Sartre (French philosopher and novelist. Nobel Prize 1964.)
"Three passions, simple but overwhelmingly strong, have governed my life: the longing for love, the search for knowledge, and unbearable pity for the suffering of mankind."
- Bertrand Russell (Nobel Prize 1950)
"The world breaks everyone; and afterward many are strong at the broken places."
- Ernest Hemingway (Nobel Prize 1954)
"Is there an answer to this question of why bad things happen to good people?"
- Harold Kushner
Sunday 11th July 2010 - Dr Francis Macnab
"So we pray give us humility that we may remember that the work we do today, the work we do every day, is false and pretentious if it fails to serve those who day in and day out are your small gestures of beauty and tenderness."
-Stanley Hanerwas
The human brain is not like that heart or the liver: it is your brain that gives you your sense of unique individuality."
-Susan Greenfield
"The beauty of the soul shines out in one's intelligence, one's virtue, one's generorsity..."
- Mignel de Cervantes
"The highest values of humanity reflect our human maturity and our spiritual evolution."
-George Valliant
Sunday 4th July 2010 - Dr Francis Macnab
We do know this: the human spirit has been greatly neglected. It is rarely if ever mentioned in medical and psychology text books. It is avoided by doctors and psychologists alike.
And yet - there is widespread talk of
"the strength of the human spirit"
"the resilience of the human spirit"
"a happy human spirit"
"an expansive human spirit"
When it is so important in everyone's everyday experience, why the professional evasion?
Why are we not studying how the courageous human spirit is of vital importance in times of stress and trauma. When we know how we can all lose touch with the inner spirit of joy and celebration, we don't learn how to recover that joy and celebration in the quickest possible time?
"How unspeakably poor a soul can be when it enters the mists and returns to nothing".
- Henrik Ibser
"Deep-soul therapy requires learned listening".
Call the world, if you please
‘The value of soul-making'
then you will find out
the use of the world.
- John Keats
"So we sit still and are quiet"
-Ainslie Meares
"Each of us needs to escape the incessant noise that surrounds us- everyday business, social chatter, mass media - to create the opening to connect with our inner wisdom"
-W.B Stewart (Renowned oculoplastic surgeon, Director of The Institute for Health and Healing)
Sunday 27th June 2010 - Dr Francis Macnab
"Something has happened to me. It is as if my inner self, my soul, something inside me, has lost its zap. There is a kind of sadness or deadness there."
"I see some people. They have a good position in life. But they sound so un-alive."
"I have a black hole in my soul and I wish I could get rid of it."
Perhaps in this neglected spot is laid some heart once pregnant with celestial fire.
- Thomas Gray
You need not see what someone is doing to know if it is his vocation, you have only to watch his eyes.
- W.H Auden
Theses stars are not wanted now;
put out every one;
Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun;
Pour away the ocean and sweep up the wood;
For nothing can ever come to any good.
- W.H Auden
Life is what we make it,
Life is a buzz that we generate around ourselves..
Life is the ceaseless whirling dance..T
he miracle of life!
It's self-healing
Self-refreshing
Self-renewal;
Life! Life!
- Don Cupitt
Sunday 20th June 2010 - Dr Francis Macnab
God said, "Let there be light." And there was light; and God saw that the light was good.
-Genesis 1.3
In years to come, "astronomers may be able to observe directly how a dark featureless universe formed the brilliant panoply of objects that now give us light and life."
-Richard Larson: Scientific American
"Some 15 billion years ago the universe emerged from a hot, dense sea of matter and energy. As the cosmos expanded and cooled , it spawned galaxies, stars, planets, and life."
-James Peebles et al.
How did a hot amorphous fireball evolve into a complex cosmos? How did atoms assemble...into living beings intricate enough to ponder their own origins?
-Martin Rees
Human beings will continue to search for the origins of the parts, but they will also continue to wonder how all the parts come together, and hold together - providing us with that vast scope for exploration, inspiration and delight.
-F.A.M
A tapestry like this brings all the parts and pathways together. If I could sit quietly and stare at this tapestry, I would see that the parts of my life journey take on a wide range of colours - and through them all, I am able to see the illumination and inspiration bringing their enhancement and transformation.
-F.A.M
William James, regarded as one of the greatest of the early psychologists, wrote -
"The visible world is part of a more spiritual universe from which it draws its chief significance; And our union or harmonious relation with that higher universe is our true end."
When I look up to the stars I don't try counting, but I know that the lights I see can pass right through me.
-Judith Wright
Sunday 13th June 2010 - Dr Francis Macnab
"Fear always remains. A man may destroy everything written himself, love and hate and belief, and even doubt; but as long as he clings to life he cannot destroy fear - that pervades his being, tinges his thoughts, lurks in his heart..."
- Joseph Conrad
"I believe that man's growth is a process of continuous birth, of continuous awakening"
- Erich Fromm
"Freedom has a twofold meaning for modern man: that he has been freed from traditional authorities and has become isolated, powerless ..alienated from himself and others; furthermore, this state undermines his self, weakens and frightens him and makes him ready for submission to new kinds of bondage"
- Erich Fromm
Fear is a complex and multifaceted sensation. And so is your response to it:
Some scream and shake and sweat
Some get choked up in the throat or churned up in the stomach.
Some faint and fall over and fear they are going crazy
Your reactions TO fear may need more attention than the fear itself.
"Some people speak of ‘facing their demons'. They speak about it, but they then act as if they wished to avoid -ever -facing their demons."
- John Peteet
Sunday 6th June 2010 - Dr Francis Macnab
"Often we are pushed to the limit, a point of last resort, and sometimes we go under. A collapse that lasts an hour, a week, months or years. Rest may be enough for recovery. The self resets itself, starts anew."
The person standing next to you may be dying.
May be dead and gone for many years, waiting for life.
How to get through the emotional storms, to learn more about succeeding and failing, and "move toward a richer blend of trust and circumspection"
"The Bible speaks of God's voice coming from inside a whirlwind or other storms."
- Michael Eigen
"His rash fierce blaze of riot cannot last, but violent fires soon burn out themselves; small showers last long, but sudden storms are short"
- Shakespeare on Richard II
"Yet, because outward storms the strongest break, and strength itself by confidence grows weak, this new world may be safer, being told the dangers and diseases of the old"
- John Donne
"There is a great deal of unmapped country within us which would have to be taken into account in an explanation of our gusts and storms."
- George Elliot
"Put your shoes at the door,
Sleep,
Prepare for life"
- T.S Eliot
Sunday 30th May 2010 - Dr Malcolm Sinclair
"At some time in our life we may have to turn away from seeing, at least for a while, because certain child parts of us are not strengthened or freshened by our seeing"
- Robert Bly
"How shall I name you, immortal, mild, proud shadows? I only know that all we know comes from you, and that you come from Eden on flying feet."
- W.B Yeats
"Throw away the lights, the definitions and say what you see in the dark, that it is this or that it is that; but do not use rotted names. Nothing must stand between you and the shape you take on when the Christ shape has been destroyed."
-Theodore Roethke
"And death shall have no dominion. Though lovers be lost, love shall not, and death shall have no dominion."
-Dylan Thomas
Sunday 23rd May 2010 - Dr Malcolm Sinclair
In a world of tremendous upheavels such as ours, where almost all the old moorings are uprooted, it is simply maddening to try to secure and maintain one's bearings.
- Howard Thurman
I am being driven forward into an unknown land, the pass grows steeper, the air colder and sharper. Wind from my unknown goal stirs the strings of expectation. Still the question: Shall I ever get there, there where life resounds a clear, pure note in the silence?
- Dan Hammarskjold
Only the hand that erases can write the true thing.
- Meister Eckhart
Prayers From Malcolm Sinclair - Sunday 23rd May 2010
A Prayer to Fix Our Bearings...To Anchor Ourdelves in the Sacred Heart of Things:
My love colours outside the lines, exploring paths that few could ever find, and takes me into places where I've never been before, and opens doors to worlds outside the lines.
My soul longs to colour outside the lines, tear back the curtains, sun, come in and shine. I want to walk beyond the boundaries where I've never been before, throw open doors to worlds outside the lines.
A Prayer of Gratitude for our Great Resource:
I have a feeling that my boat has struck down there in the depths against a great thing, and nothing
happens...nothing...silence...waves. Nothing happens? Or has everything happened and we are standing now quietly in a new life? (Juan Jiminez)
A Prayer for our Engagement:
I crave the dark; no shadow to inspire, distract, impeded my disaffected soul with wandering. Yet I must go through. No fear can hold me down, confound the center. My mouth is full of stones. I long to find that field, that sacred field of my unburdening. There, you wait my shy, besotted soul, in love again. And though the game is fixed and though the stones are shardds. This time you will, this time you must lay down your cards. (Patti Orr)
Sunday 16th May 2010 - Dr Francis Macnab
St Michaels welcomes Dr Malcolm Sinclair, The Minister of Metropolitan United Church Toronto, Canada.
As guest minister for May 16, May 23 and May 30.
We hope he will thoroughly enjoy his visit and that St Michael's will be warmly enriched by his presence.
"The art of life is to deal with problems as they arise, rather than destroy one' spirit by worrying about them too far in advance."
-Cicero: as in Robert Harris' Imperium
"We crave freedom, but we need to belong. We chase happiness and light, but learn more from the dark, difficult places. We yearn for permanence but are renewed by change. The ugliest thing x its own strange beauty. This contradictory nature of things calls for balance... a tolerance of difference and ambiguity. Life is too subtle to yield to one interpretation."
-Rosaline Price
"The bulk of the population are currently rethinking their religion. It is changing over from God-centred to life-centred... The new religion of life is not likely to become dogmatic in the way that theism has. It has no creed, no priesthood, and indeed no organization into a distinct sacred society."
- Don Cupitt
Sunday 9th May 2010 - Dr Francis Macnab
There is an emptiness that seems to cry-out to be filled. But even our spasms of purposeful activity may not diminish that emptiness.
Many people try to ‘make u' for the absence of purpose and purposeful activity in their lives. "Even the caged factory farm hen devours her daily nutritional needs in a few minutes pecking at the feed with which she is supplied and then is left with nothing at all to do. As a result, she will restlessly peck at her companions, and all factory farm hens are now ‘debeaked' to stop them killing each other."
-Peter Singer
"Some people - typically men - find their purpose by taking a competitive attitude to life."
-Peter Singer
Sunday 2nd May 2010 - Dr Francis Macnab
"There has never been greater hunger or need for a better and deeper understanding of what it means to be human."
-Steven Levy, Emory School of Medicine
A core belief in human life is intrinsically significant. This poignancy extends to all we do and are in life. Our existence is a creative process - making a life. We humans posess an innate desire to deepen our understanding of who we are, of our purpose and meaning.
-Nader Shabahangi
"The mystery of life and death has been one of the primary motives for humanity's search for the meaning of life."
"How one lives has much to do with how one dies."
-M. Massoudi
While we live, we are able to experience five areas of growth:
A greater appreciation of life;
A changed sense of priorities;
Warmer more intimate relationships with others
Greater personal strength
Recognition of new paths for ones life and enhanced spiritual development.
-K. Heffernan et al
"My Father told me, after he had undergone a surgery, that due to complications, he almost died. In jest I replied: ‘Why didn't you.' Astounded, he said, ‘I was afraid. I like living. I love living.'"
-Stanley Keleman
"There is a hunger that remains after other hungers have been met -
We call this our ‘spirit' hunger."
- from This Hungry Time, Macnab
Sunday 25th April: ANZAC Day 2010 - Dr Francis Macnab
"The traditional worship or God has widened into the CELEBRATION OF LIFE. Faith is a matter of saying "YES" to life in all of its planetary complexity"
"We humans must live without the divine heavenly props thought to exist in the past... We must mature as God is mature."
"An anonymous host of genuine enquirers..value the spirituality of the past, but who wonder where the path of faith is now leading."
"Christianity stands at a critical point in its long and complex history"
"..What attracted people in the first century is not necessarily what we of the 21st century would find attractive. We are in a very different cultural situation from that of Jesus, and also of those who shaped Christianity."
"We need to be fully aware of the ever evolving and changing character of the human religious quest..."
"... The pioneers of the modern secular world were all thinkers deeply immersed in the Christian tradition."
"The real future of the Judeo-Christian path is a secular one. Far from being the enemy of Christianity, the truly secular life is the legitimate continuation of the Judeo Christian tradition."
[NB: All of the above quotations have been taken from Sir Lloyd Geering's book- "Coming Back To Earth"]
Sunday 18th April 2010 - Dr Francis Macnab
"That which does not kill me makes me stronger."
-Friedrich Nietzsche
"The world breaks everyone and afterward. Many are strong at the broken places."
-Ernest Hemingway
"Sometimes the person is thrown back on his/her own resources and discovers, to his/her amazement, that there is a flow of consciousness, a deep river of awareness, which he/she can tap into and use."
-Edgar Levenson
"When I look back on my childhood, I wonder how I survived at all."
-Frank McCourt
"To live into the future means to leap into the unknown, and this requires a degree of courage for which there is no immediate precedent, and which few people realize."
-Rollo May
"Music helps, and music heals.
Music forms a significant, and on the whole, pleasant part of life for most of us - not only external music we hear with out ears, but internal music that plays in our hearts."
-Oliver Sacks
So we sit and are quiet
In the calm and the stillness
And the depth of it all
is good in our heart.
Sit quietly,
For it is in the quietness that we grow.
-Ainslie Meares
Sunday 11th April 2010 - Dr Francis Macnab
You will find plenty of worthwhile things to do. You will not be bored, or lack fulfillment in your life. Most important of all, you will know you have not lived and died for nothing; because you will have become part of the great tradition of those who have responded to the amount of pain and suffering in the universe by trying to make the world a better place.
Peter Singer: How to Live.
Don't get into the Doldrums. "The Doldrums are where nothing ever happens, and nothing ever changes. No thinking. No Laughing.
Monica Grandy and Steve Tuber
"In accepting new experience and formulating it to myself, I enter a new world that I have created out of which I emerge different."
Stanley Keleman
Sunday 4th April 2010 - Dr Francis Macnab
Easter is a time of celebration.
It is a time of awakening to new possibilities.
It is a celebration of life, the Gift of life, the wonder of life
this unrepeatable life
this life to be lived once
this life to be lived fully and well.
Easter is a time of laughter
as our kids search for Easter Eggs
as they talk of the Easter "Bunny"'
as they see how life can be a life of growth and good fun.
Out of the night that conquers me
Black as the Pit from pole to pole
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.
-William Ernest Henley
Make Easter Mean More-
Easter tells the story of the Resurrection. But what is the real meaning of that Resurrection? What is the meaning of our Resurrection?
The real resurrection is not in the biblical legend.
The real resurrection is not in all the outward symbols.
The real resurrection is in the mind and the heart.
"This is the new reality.
There is no going back"
-Nelson Mandela
"Evasive Source of all vitality
here discloses exuberant streams
of nascent life."
-Part of the Tapestry poem.
Sunday 28th March 2010 - Dr Francis Macnab
"Within each one of us there is an internal mental world- I have come to think of as the sea inside- this is a wonderfully rich place, filled with thoughts and feelings, memories and dreams, hopes and wishes. Of course it can also be a turbulent place, where we experience the dark side of all these wonderful feelings and thoughts- fears, sorrows, dreads, regrets, nightmares. Who among us has not felt overwhelmed by the sensations from within our minds?"
Daniel Siegel
We have all benefited from hindsight and foresight- and insight. But here today we will focus on MINDSIGHT. It gives us a deeper and wider opportunity to explore "who we are, to create a life of deeper meaning", and a richer internal world.
"In the consciousness of widespread violence, multiple life stresses, and the strains on our planet, ‘A Theology of Beauty' points to a humanity concerned about sustaining the beauty of life"
Sandra Foster
The human mind can be cluttered, confused, conflicted, grief-stricken, damaged. We not only need a contemporary psychology of the mind, we need a theology of the Renewal and Restoration of our troubled minds.
We all have times of celebration- if not in rowdy events, then in the quietness of a satisfying moment. Would a theology of celebration make a major difference? Palm Sunday is about something beautiful, open minds, hearts ready to celebrate.
Sunday 21st March 2010 - Dr Francis Macnab
"We seek to quiet the daily busy work and chatter to access the inner stillness and wisdom. There are different names for this hidden sphere: the individual soul, the realm of spirit, the infinite. It is experiences through awe and mystery. The inner world has a powerful impact on outer world.
Each moment of life, we experience the pumping of the heart, the flow of blood, the rhythm of breathing...We need rest between bursts of activity whether in a momentary, daily, monthly or yearly cycle."
Dr W.B Stewart, Plastic Surgeon
"The being of God is seen in the values of love, justice and compassion - qualities to be manifested within the human race.
Christianity and all religions must now come to terms with the new global context."
Llyod Geering
"Anger closes our hearts; compassion is a doorway to an open heart."
Dr Dean Ornish, Cardiologist.
"One reason why people have interest in organised religion is..it loses the spiritual essence that's most meaningful: the underlying spirit that connects us."
Dr Dean Ornish
"A large empirical literature shows that people who are happier achieve better life outcomes, including mental health, offective coping and even longevity."
Michael Conn, Psychology researcher.
Daily positive emotions predict increases in ego resilience and life satisfaction.
Sunday 14th March 2010 - Dr Francis Macnab
Welcome. You are here. From time to time you will probably wonder -
What part does religion and church play in the real world?
The real world of sickness and health -
The real world of war and the brutality of human beings -
The real world of doubtful values and a mixture of ethics -
The real world of putting people out of business, "cut-throat" competition, survival of the fittest.
And religion and church -
Are they supposed to be an influence in the "Big Real World?"
Are they meant to do more than promise something better after we die?
Do they point us in a good direction?
Are they part of the same world of putting people down, pulling each other apart, saying how we love, but showing how we can hate?
Sunday 7th March 2010 - Dr Francis Macnab
"Christians no longer believe in a personal, objective, thinking God ‘out there' somewhere. Christians have become a-theists."
Robert Funk
"It may seem self-evident that belief in God is the foundation stone on which Christianity is built in. Buddhism is older than Christianity and has existed all this time without belief in any God. So it is possible for RELIGION to exist without belief in God."
Llyod Geering
"Nowadays people's love for God finds expression only though love for life, and in their case there isn't any great difference between ‘God' and ‘Life'."
Don Cupitt
"God was born in men's minds and has no existence beyond man-made literature and art."
Yaakov Malkin
"We move forward our new conception of God.."
Rabbi Michael Lerner
"If we love god, even though we think he doesn't exist, he will make his existence manifest."
Simon Weil
"Circumstances change. And God changes with them."
Robert Wright
"Many think that because some ideas on ‘God' and religion have had to change, that all shows the full fallacy of it all. But science has changed relentlessly, revising if not discarding old theories, and none of us think of that as an indictment of prejudice."
Robert Wright
Sunday 28th February 2010 - Dr Francis Macnab
Welcome -
You are here. We invite you to absorb what makes St Michael's a unique church in Melbourne.
First, its exterior: a landmark in this city.
Second, its internal quiet space invites an immediate response.
Third, the focus on the pulpit, and its international reputation.
Fourth, the organ and the way it opens you to the world of music.
And the people - we hope you will find them friendly, enjoying their belonging to this special place, knowing -
"We are accepted"
So then join us - join the conversation of what the New Faith can mean for everyone.
VACANCIES
People with a vision for what is possible.
In this 21st Century what is our best vision for ourselves and for humanity.
The New Faith shocks us to realize who we are and what we can become.
The New Faith says there is a Good Spirit in Life and we can be part of that Good Spirit - a spirit of acceptance and tolerance, of openness and growth, of generosity and goodness.
The New Faith does not look for God "up there" in the heavens. The New Faith searches for the God in acts of kindness and happiness, in times of renewal and restoration, in attitudes of genuine affirmation and in experiences of awe and wonder.
The New Faith puts each one of us in the picture frame, and the question underneath -
Are you in the picture as one who wants top embrace a New Faith for the future?
The New Faith reflects the Great Themes of the teachings of Jesus of Nazareth.
He said -
Live life to the fullest possible. Search out ways to flourish. Be part of life in all its fullness.
Look at a mustard seed. Put it in the right environment and it grows into a large tree, and birds enjoy its hospitality. Therefore be like that. Help others be like that.
Put yourself on the pathways that open you to the best psychological and emotional health. Understand your fears and anxieties. Make sure they contribute to your life rather than tyrannize it. Let health and wholeness be your goal from childhood across the lifespan.
Be a good presence in your relationships: compassionate, generous, expansive, intelligent. An intelligent presence makes you alert to the best you can be in your relationships.
Sunday 21st February 2010 - Dr Francis Macnab
At the deepest level, the NEW FAITH refinds the essential humanity in us, the best and the ugliest, and it draws us towards the best. It reminds us that within ourselves we live in a ‘big country', and someone has to nuture it and create things to make it more beautiful.
"It is only though flow of life in our lives can we direct the flow into lives others."
Winifred Rustforth
"Sometimes when we think we are young and everything before us, a door closes. Sometimes when we think we are old, a door opens onto the most creative period of our lives."
Winifred Rustforth
"Light comes on the heels of darkness."
Dan Yenuko Ali
"In order to grow strong you must first sink your roots into nothingness and learn to face your loneliest loneliness."
Irvin Yalom
"Our task is to convert the future from an enemy to a new opportunity. But we need to remember that in a world of chaos, wildness is always waiting to show itself. We need that faith to face our risks in ways we would not otherwise take."
Peter Bernstein
"We must allow every impression and every germ of emotion to mature by itself, in the dark, indescribable, unconscious realm that cannot be attained by our reason, and we must wait with patience for the birth of a new enlightenment."
Rainer Maria Rilke
Sunday 14th February 2010 - Dr Francis Macnab
Yours is a unique life
Seek to fulfill your dreams
Even if you stumble
The world will still
Embrace you.
Even if failures mount
Even so, the world is beautiful
So begin again.
Keiko Takehashi
"There is grandeur in this view of life."
Charles Darwin
"God changes his appearance every second. Blessed is the one who can recognize him in all his disguises. At one moment he is a glass of fresh water, the next your child bouncing on your knees...or perhaps a morning walk."
Nikos Kazantzakis
We live not in a "New Age", but in a time of opportunity - to discover the importance of a Good Presence.
Our inner world is often undeveloped. Often a mystery. Often becomes a tangled confusion. Yet "the inner world is where our own self-knowledge and identity and creative purpose are formed - upon a landscape of faith and fear, of joy and sadness, of inspiration and imagination."
Dr W.B. Stewart Founder of the
Institute of Health and Healing at the
California Pacific Medical Centre.
Sunday 7th February 2010 - Dr Francis Macnab
"Our world is fast succumbing to the activities of men and women who would stake the future of our species on beliefs that should not survive an elementary education."
(Sam Harris)
"People must now walk a path of faith which is significantly different from all the earlier paths."
Lloyd Geering
"As Christianity moves awkwardly but irreversibly into a new phase in its history, those who are pushing into this frontier often look to the earliest period ...Creeds did not exist then; they are fading in importance now."
Harvey Cox
"Faith starts with awe in the face of mystery."
Harvey Cox
"A life without faith in something is too narrow a space to live."
George Woodberry"The only angels we need invoke are those of our better nature: reason, honesty and love. The only demons we must fear are those that lurk inside of every human mind: ignorance, hatred, greed, and FAITH, which is surely the devil's masterpiece."
(Sam Harris)
"Creeds keep people stalled in the obsolete Age of Belief."
Harvey Cox
"Maybe religion needs to go through a second transformation."
Nicholas Wade
Sunday 31st Januajry 2010 - Dr Francis Macnab
Young people know they can believe in "something".
Old people wonder if there's "anything" they can believe in.
Young people want more excitement.
Old people are frightened of excitement.
Young people take hold of the present.
Old people worry about the future.
Young people are convinced there are things in life they can do, and they do it.
Older people know there are things in life they can't do, and they don't try.
Young people look for another way.
Older people too often say, ‘There is no way'.
Young people have a lot of fun.
Older people want to have some of that fun.
But don't know how!
Young people want to be honest.
Older people wish they could be.
Bliss was it in that dawn to be alive,
But to be young was very heaven.
Wm. Wordsworth
Sunday 24th January 2010 - Dr Francis Macnab
Look far
Into the distance.
Over fields, over forests
Beyond the horizon
Continue looking.
Then
You will begin to see the undulations of the earth
That supports all that is.
Invite every corner of this world
Into your heart.
Imagine the lives of individuals you will never meet
And the realities of unknown nations.
Then
You will begin to see a truth of the world
That permeates all that is.
Imagine the great distance
Look far.
Then
You will begin to see a path where we can live together.
Keiko Takahashi, Binary Stars 2010
"Your letter makes up for today's bad weather; within me the sun is shining...outside there is fog and drizzle."
Sigmund Freud
"Every forward step we take we leave some phantom of ourselves behind."
J.L. Spalding
"We are called upon to do something new, to confront a no-man's land, to push into a forest where there are no well-worn paths...To live into the future always means to leap into the unknown." But a great deal of forethought and a spot of wisdom can make a very large difference.
Rollo May: The Courage to Create
Australian Poet, Bill Cotter -
Let me look for new things now
Not the old,
Familiar,
For they are gone,
Slowly,
To be sure,
But gone.
...
And
I am left
Alone,
Wishing for the new,
Part clinging
To
The Old.
Australian Poet, Barrie Morley -
Old time's
gone time;
new time's come.
Old fears still lurk behind the tombstones,
hiding from the sun,
of this new season.