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Every person who has lost someone close to them, and I suppose that includes nearly all of us, knows the heartache that comes from the death of a loved one. Such sorrow apparently was felt by Stephen Foster when he wrote "Gentle Annie." And such feelings seem to have prompted him to ask, "Thou art gone ... Annie ... Shall we nevermore behold thee, never hear thy ... voice again?"1
Disagreement among people is a common, perhaps even necessary part of our daily existence. But too often we feel that because someone's point of view is different from ours, he is our enemy and must be stopped. As such thoughts grow, disagreement soon turns to violence, and that is a sad comment on life.
Recently a friend of mine lost his father, suddenly and without warning. My friend's sorrow was not only at his father's passing, but also because it had been a long time since he had told his father how much he thought of him.
The dreams and hopes we all have in life will never be realized by just waiting and hoping they'll come true. It takes an effort on our part. If we are to accomplish anything we must be willing to accept the challenge of searching, waiting, trying, perhaps failing, and trying again. Success requires a constant effort, a perseverance every day of our lives. Yet too often we are willing to give up too easily - to leave the challenge for someone else.
From the diary of Anne Frank, we read: "The best remedy for those who are afraid, lonely, or unhappy is to go outside, somewhere where they can be quite alone with the heavens, nature and God. Because only then does one feel that all is as it should be amidst the simple beauty of nature."1
Much has been said and written - especially by the young - about peace in the world, but as Max Lerner said, "You may call for peace as loudly as you wish, but where there is no brotherhood there can in the end be no peace."1
"Not all lost then was our hope, Our proud hope so old yet new ... "1
As we ponder life and the problems that face us every day, we are ofttimes stunned at what seems to be a lack of solutions to our problems. As we look to our future - especially the young - we could easily become discouraged and filled with despair at its prospects.
Nearly two thousand years ago Mary Magdalene, Joanna, and Mary the mother of James, stood with others, before a huge, rock cave which was being used as a tomb - and found it empty. Already they had suffered extreme grief and misery, and then an added disappointment. But soon they, and millions of others since, learned that their dis appointment was not another cruel injustice by men, but rather the greatest event in his tory: the resurrection of Jesus Christ.1
Last week we spoke of not wasting the time we have, of not idly dreaming about tomorrow at the expense of today.
"To everything there is a season, … A time to be born, ... a time to die ..."1 And, may we add, a time to live, and that time is NOW! "Look to this day," is written in Sanskrit, "for it is life, the very life of life." Too often we are not content with the moment and wish it to rush on. Too often we wish the present hour would pass so we could hurry to the next, and hope that it, too, will quickly pass.
The words of Emerson' suggest there is something stronger than material force - something more than just what we can see and feel and smell and touch. Thoughts rule the world, indeed, mankind. "We are what we think," is a common saying. Thoughts, it seems, are the starting place for all that ever has been.
On the surface it might seem that we today have few of the problems of Valley Forge, and that they had few, if any, of ours. But the principles and the problems that pertain to people basically are quite constant.
We cite one of Dostoevsky's characters who was facing a fatal illness, and who had this to say concerning health: "Oh, now I don't care, now I've no time to be angry," he said, "but ...how I used to dream ...how I longed to be turned out into the street ... to be deserted and utterly alone, without lodging, without work, without a crust of bread, without relations, without one friend in a great town, hungry, beaten ... but healthy ... then I would show them."1
Two essentials for a good and effective life are flexibility and firmness - flexibility in some things and an adamant and absolute immovability in others. Frequently we hear it said that times have changed.
The words of an old song suggest a subject: "Let us oft speak kind words to each other, At home or wher-e'er we may be ... "1 Negatively, it suggests another subject: the opposite of kindness, which is cruelty. There is so much need of kindness, and yet so many kinds of cruelty - the physical kind and sometimes the almost crueler, subtler kind - the cruelty of sarcasm, the cruelty of indifference, the cruelty of neglect, the cruelty of ignoring people, of making them feel small, inadequate, foolish, or frustrated.
There is a proverb that says: “Believe no tales from an enemy’s tongue.” But perhaps we can believe our own examination of ourselves.
One of the most gracious and considerate men of our acquaintance, and one of the busiest also, puts at ease those who come to call by giving them his complete attention. Many people seem preoccupied when others are talking to them, and the split attention is obvious. It is difficult to talk to people who are thinking two ways at once. This tendency has many manifestations. There are those, for example, who only give half attention in their offices, who only give half attention in an interview, those who only give half attention when receiving instructions, those who try to read or study while looking at or listening to entertainment. This two-way attention is hardly effective for either purpose. Perhaps all of us have sat in church or in a classroom and received credit for being present when the thinking part of us really wasn't there.
“Build the more stately mansions, O my soul, As the swift seasons roll!”1 This is more than a line of finely phrased poetry. It suggests we must not be indifferent, or resigned, or smugly satisfied with ourselves.
There is maxim quoted in Don Quixote which this day somehow suggests: "Where one door shuts, another opens. . .."1 We come to an end and find a beginning.
We have spoken before of the several sides of this season. But beyond all else, all the festivities, all the gathering of families and friends, the gayety, the gifts and giving, beyond all the outward evidence, there is yet a side to consider which is the essence of all that Christmas is.
What can one say for a season where so much is intermixed? There is thoughtfulness for others, but a thoughtfulness preoccupied with a bustling of busy-ness. Nor could one deny that sentiment is encouraged partly by commercial motive, but the sentiment is there, a sentiment set apart from all other times and seasons with many buying for others, few for themselves. Whether or not all this is always wise, whether or not there are some excesses, whether or not it is partly compulsion, the compulsion of expectancy, of custom, the compulsion of comparisons, is something which by itself should sometime be considered—but, nevertheless, not at any other time are hearts so intent on doing so much for so many, moved by a spirit which is real, and different, and which runs down deep—despite all the mixture of motives.
Last week we talked of the waste of worshiping the average, and that the average is neither an absolute nor an ideal and is not something with which we should necessarily be satisfied, and this we quoted from Carlyle: "Men do less than they ought, unless they do all that they can."1 In this day and season of many pressures, we frequently feel we ought to do more than we reasonably call. We feel both the shortness of time and the magnitude of our tasks.
Last week we closed with this comment: "Man is obviously made to think. It is his whole dignity and his whole merit; and his whole duty is to think as he ought."' And now we should like to turn to what follows from the thoughts we think: the doing, the learning, the practicing, the performing—and would preface what follows with a quotation from Carlyle: "Men do less than they ought, unless they do all that they can."1
Today we should like somewhat to summarize our subject of some weeks on our responsibility for all the thoughts we think, for our actions and utterances, and for turning from wrong ways; and the fallacy of being resigned to wrong, once we have made a mistake—the fallacy of postponing repentance when we have done wrong things, when he have thought wrong thoughts. This whole subject seems somehow to be summarized in a single sentence from Pascal, who said: "Man is obviously made to think. It is his whole dignity and his whole merit; and his whole duty is to think as he ought."1 It follows, of course, that if he thinks as he ought he will do as he ought, for thought is the forerunner of all action and utterance.
We would turn back today to a citation from Emerson which said: "Cause and effect, means and ends, seed and fruit, cannot be severed; for the effect already blooms in the cause, the end pre-exists in the means, the fruit in the seed. . .—"1 At this season when the harvest has been brought home, we are earnestly thankful that the fruit is in the seed, that the harvest comes from causes that can be counted on, that the Creator is over all.
We would turn again to a sentence previously cited, which says: "What we are to be, we are becoming."1 This seems somewhat to coincide with another quoted sentence which says: "I believe . . . we will be judged as we are, for what we are, and. maybe not for what we have been!"2 When we have done wrong things, when we have thought wrong thoughts, when we have made mistakes, we can well be exceedingly grateful for the great and blessed principle of repentance—because there isn't very much that anyone can do about the past, except to learn from it. But there is much we can do about the present and the future.
We should like further to pursue the question of where thoughts come front and how we can control them—for controlling thoughts is essential to controlling all we are ever likely to become, everything we are about to be. And he who persists in saying that he cannot help what be thinks, is in effect saying that be cannot help what he does. And if he cannot help what he thinks or what he does, he obviously could not be trusted under any conceivable circumstances. But fortunately we can control thoughts, because we can choose to think other thoughts, and the obligation for choosing clearly is ours, but it does require will; it does require wanting to; it requires concentration. And this brings us to another side of the subject—the use of the mind for positive purposes. Perhaps we have all been aware of being physically present and mentally absent.
Last week we talked of "the seed and the fruit," of cause and consequence in thought and action and utterance, and of the importance of avoiding all untoward intent. This scripture is perhaps most frequently cited on this subject: "For as he thinketh in his heart so is he."1 Now since thoughts are the forerunners of action, there sometimes comes the question: Where do thoughts come from? How can they be controlled?
Recently we cited a sentence from Emerson which said, "Cause and effect, means and ends, seed and fruit, cannot be severed;” This suggests another sentence concerning cause and consequence which says, "There is a law, irrevocably decreed... upon which all blessings are predicated—And when we obtain any blessing... from God it is by obedience to that law upon which it is predicated."1