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With the coming of warmer weather, many of us will be spending time in our gardens. If we meditate a bit while we are there, we can harvest more than food and flowers. We can gather wisdom as well.
Moral courage characterizes the highest order of manhood and womanhood. It is the courage to seek and to speak the truth; the courage to be just, to be honest, to resist temptation; the courage to do one's duty.
Jerusalem stirred with passion that Sunday before the Passover. Travelers had clustered there bringing sacrificial lambs. Coins clattered in coffers where pigeons were sold and in the temple yard, merchants were busy earning silver off the celebration. But above the hubbub hung a question, "Would the prophet from Galilee come?" "What think ye, that he will not come to the feast?"1 they asked one another.
If it's true that wisdom consists of the proper application of knowledge, then it's equally true that knowledge without application is a form of ignorance.
"Sweet are the uses of adversity,"1 wrote Shakespeare. That is counsel we might well keep in mind. The adversity and sorrow we go through may be bitter, but the experience may leave us wiser and more compassionate human beings.
Faith is the "...substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen."1
With spring nearly here, we are constantly reminded that one of the joys of this world is its physical beauty: small and beautiful miracles such as the first green shoots sent up from bulbs too eager for spring to wait for the melting of the last snow, the pattern by which a window is glazed with frost, the new patterns by which frost melts beneath the sun. And such small, remarkable beauties are supported by the larger miracles of the physical universe: the constant harmony of sunrise and sunset, the movement of stars across a night sky I the very changing of the seasons themselves.
Take a man or a woman, take any individual, and measure his progress. Use whatever yardstick as a measure: skill, aptitude, ability to produce, sensitivity, business prowess, or even genius. Then look for causes; search for the reasons behind individual potential; determine why one individual succeeds where another fails, why one man can finish the job while another is still seeking for methods; analyze why the same task is surmountable by one and impossible for another—and when you do, you'll discover this fact: that experience is one of the most valuable factors in any human success formula.
One of the most frequent words in Christ's vocabulary was a small one—come. The gestures with which we associate Him echo that same idea. Arms outstretched in welcome, His entire being said, "Come." This is not a restricted invitation for the few, for the elect, for those who somehow deserve it; He made it open and for all, no matter how weak or afraid or hesitant.
To sit on a grassy hillside bathed in warm sunlight on a quiet, windless day is one of life's simple pleasures. The calm of the moment brings a quiet, peaceful reassurance to the soul and makes us wonder why life can't always be like that.
Much had been written lately about financial investment programs. Stocks and bonds, tax shelters, money markets, and savings accounts have all been extolled as methods of adding to our financial assets, and as ways to survive the hardships of economic difficulty.
The ladies of the Choir have just sung a thoughtful text, "Tis a gift to be simple...when we find ourselves in the place just right." But if we don't end up in life at that place for which we started, it is usually not because we were tempted away, but because we were distracted from it. It doesn't take a large wound to impede our progress, a swarm of mosquitoes will do. It is the trifles, the mere nothings, the inconsequential which deflect our attention from our most worthy goals and finally defeat us.
Recently, a little girl said to her father, “Daddy, I know the opposite of night.” “What is it?” he obligingly asked. "Day!" she proudly replied, smiling at her knowledge and accomplishment.
It is traditional to look upon this season as a time to begin anew, to rise above past mistakes. It is also a time when many individuals examine their priorities and lifetime objectives and feel the need to increase their spirituality and religious commitment.
It is good to be merry, for a merry heart makes a cheerful countenance. It was Emerson who wrote about the wonderful expressiveness of the human body. "The face and eyes reveal what the spirit is doing," he said, "... [and announce] to the curious how it is with them."1
Today the New Year spreads before us open to our hopes, dedicated to our dreams. Certainly, there are problems ahead and always will be. But we, as no other people in the history of the world, have the resources with which to overcome our difficulties and achieve our aspirations.
This Christmas season is drawing to a close. The nativity scenes which have beautified the American landscape will be carefully boxed to safeguard their storage for another year.
Jesus, who created the world, could certainly have chosen any birthplace here. He must have come to a stable by design. Were there no palaces in Israel? Were there no halls decked with finery and smelling of perfume? Were there no comforts in the country, no soft beds or medical attendants? Almost surely there were, but that was not to be His beginning.
Home. Home is where our mother and our father are. Home is where our children play and think about the holiday season and wonder what bright and beautiful surprises lie ahead. Home is where we long to be and where we need to be—especially at this time of year, when the spirit of the season reminds us that we are members of a family, that we are brothers and sisters, sons and daughters.
The holiday season is an excellent time to enjoy our families. Those who nurture strong family roots watch their efforts bear fruit year-round. But the harvest is at its peak during this season—beginning with Thanksgiving and extending through Christmas and New Year's Day.
If we saw a person who could not even hear sounds struggling to be a musician, or a lawyer so shy that he could not bring himself to speak up in the courtroom, or a cripple aspiring to be an Olympic racer, we might be tempted to pity these people and wonder why they didn't choose some profession for which they were better suited. We certainly would not suspect they would succeed, but in these three cases we would be wrong. For we would be looking at Ludwig Van Beethoven creating his immortal Ninth Symphony. Our shy lawyer would one day be the great Indian leader, Mahatma Gandhi, and our crippled runner would be Glen Cunningham who dominated the mile run in the 1940's.
It seems woefully inadequate to set aside only one day out of the entire year for Thanksgiving. We are all recipients of countless blessings, enough to merit the designation of every day as a day of gratitude. The mere fact that we exist in a world of exquisite beauty, a world inhabited by others with whom to share our awareness is sufficient to evoke continuous and sincere appreciation.
The English dramatist, John Webster, observed that, "There is not in nature a thing that makes man so deformed, so beastly, as doth intemperate anger."
Marriage is perhaps the most vital of all the decisions we make in life. It is a union of minds as well as hearts, with far-reaching impact.
All creatures of the earth seem to be born with some natural instinct that makes them recoil from danger. Rabbits tremble, birds keep frantic watch, and even newborn human infants howl if they think they are about to fall. Fear is an alarm system which keeps us from danger and only a fool would never admit to occasionally feeling it. George Washington was quoted after a skirmish in 1754 with the French and Indians as saying that bullets whistling past had a "charming sound." When asked about it years later he said, "If I ever said so, I was young."1 And so, sometimes our youth or inexperience keeps us from knowing the good of a warning fear.
0, would that we had perfect peace. "Peace is a good so great," wrote Augustine, "that...there is no word we hear with such pleasure or find...more thoroughly gratifying."1 Indeed, we believe the hearts of all civilized people yearn for peace.
It seems incomprehensible to those who mourn the death of a loved one that the world keeps turning, that shops are open for business as usual, that newspapers and bills are still delivered, that neighbors and friends continue on their casual way. This is especially true for those who lose a partner in marriage, a companion through long decades of growing and changing. When death takes a spouse, much of our own life also dies, leaving us withered and unwilling to continue. Even with the healing hands of time, some are never able to fully overcome the traumatic and awesome effect of their spouse's passing. Theirs, unfortunately, is a world of pulled window shades and mementos from the past, a world where the present and the future are non-existent.
When we speak to others, we often send subtle messages—with meanings quite different from those we intend. It seems to be a growing problem. People have difficulty communicating with one another.
We live in a busy world. There are so many things to do, so many responsibilities pulling for our attention. Even our technologies do not seem able to make our lives less crowded; as soon as we invent a system to simplify one task, another responsibility moves in to consume whatever time we've saved.