God is more of a painter than a preacher. His sermons come in silent but living colour.

I'd Take A Simple Doer Over An Eloquent Preacher Any Day

We take pride in our almost unique and wide-ranging learning, as if there were not many people much more learned than we whom we do not want to despise us. We enjoy ridiculing those who are less educated than we and make no effort to remember that entry into the kingdom lies open not for those who only learn the mysteries of faith and the commands of the Creator by meditating on them, but for those who put into practice the things they have learned.
- Bede Bede
from Homilies on the Gospels, quoted in Essential Monastic Wisdom: Writings on the Contemplative Life by Hugh Feiss

I'd always thot it said..."and the Lion shall Lay down With the Lamb

In a zoo in California , a mother tiger gave birth to a rare set of triplet tiger cubs. Unfortunately, due to complications in the pregnancy, the cubs were born prematurely and due to their tiny size, they died shortly after birth.The mother tiger after recovering from the delivery, suddenly started to decline in health, although physically she was fine. The veterinarians felt that the loss of her litter had caused the tigress to fall into a depression. The doctors decided that if the tigress could surrogate another mother's cubs, perhaps she would improve.After checking with many other zoos across the country, the depressing news was that there were no tiger cubs of the right age to introduce to the mourning mother. The veterinarians decided to try something that had never been tried in a zoo environment. Sometimes a mother of one species will take on the care of a different species. The only "orphans" that could be found quickly, were a litter of weanling pigs. The zoo keepers and vets wrapped the piglets in tiger skin and placed the babies around the mother tiger. Would they become cubs or pork chops?

Now, please tell me one more time..........why can't the rest of the world get along?*********************************************************************

Brokenness

The great mystery of God's love is that we are not asked to live as if we are not hurting, as if we are not broken. In fact, we are invited to recognize our brokenness as a brokenness in which we can come in touch with the unique way that God loves us. The great invitation is to live your brokenness under the blessing. I cannot take people's brokenness away and people cannot take my brokenness away. But how do you live in your brokenness? Do you live your brokenness under the blessing or under the curse? The great call of Jesus is to put your brokenness under the blessing.

- Henri J.M. Nouwen
Lecture at Scarritt-Bennett Center