A suburban pastor maintained services appropriate for his respected, professional parish. His father, an excitable traveling evangelist, visited and challenged the congregation to confront pride and sing out loudly with the windows open. The next day...
Evangelicals usually fail to challenge the system not just out of concern for evangelism, but also because they support the American system and enjoy its fruits. They share the Protestant work ethic, support laissez-faire economics, and sometimes fai...
I have always disliked the morning, it is too responsible a time, with the daylight demanding that it be 'faced' and (usually when I wake for I wake late) with the sun already up and in charge of the world, with little hope of anyone usurping or chal...
But if you cross me again Akil, so-help-me, I’ll find a way to kill you this time.” His eyes lit up at the prospect, as though he’d accepted a challenge I didn’t even know I’d laid down. “I’d expect nothing less.” Demons; only they ca...
Tis true, Dr. Buzzard, that a silver bullet must be of the largest and heaviest sort to travel with any amount o’ range or accuracy. But after yon hellhound took no notice o’ my challenge or my first discharge, I said what was fitting with lead b...
Each person has to face this challenge – you must search inside yourself. The props – surroundings, interactions, rituals, customs and superstitions – are just palliatives. You have to achieve your balance on your own; it has to come from the s...
The challenge of abating one with a genuine ego problem is to not try to put him down. Any and all antagonization, in his mind, is merely compensated for by his own descriptions: his feelings of persecution by the envious and his ideals of worth. Arg...
Charles Francis Adams was singular for mental poise — absence of self-assertion or self-consciousness — the faculty of standing apart without seeming aware that he was alone — a balance of mind and temper that neither challenged nor avoided not...
The fact is that given the challenges we face, education doesn't need to be reformed -- it needs to be transformed. The key to this transformation is not to standardize education, but to personalize it, to build achievement on discovering the individ...
The written word has its limits and its challenges, for the primal sound in the whole world is that made by the human voice, and the likeness of this human voice must be rendered in dots and strokes...Yet I never forget that the voice, too, is import...
I have no nostalgia for the patriarchy, please believe me. But what I have come to realize is that, when that patriarchic system was (rightfully) dismantled, it was not necessarily replaced by another form of protection. What I mean is--I never thoug...
Most intellectual training focuses on analytical skills. Whether in literary criticism or scientific investigation, the academic mind is best at taking things apart. The complementary arts of integration are far less well developed. This problem is a...
We cannot afford to be discouraged from challenging the corporate control of our food system, our genetic commons, our shared resources, or our democracy. The history of social change in our nation shows that the political system can be reformed, eve...
My challenge to you today is to observe your thoughts and internal dialogue and recognize if and when you speak poorly to yourself. We all have moments of self-deprecation and very often we are too hard on ourselves. Today, start to be caring and sup...
One of the West's singular migrations--from the Azores to California's Great Central Valley--is given faces and voices in Anthony Barcellos's new novel, . Along with its triumphs, the Francisco family embodies the challenges to an immigrant family in...
The darkest night in someone's life may be the brightest day in another person's life. Life rests on perceptions and conceptions or missed perceptions and misconceptions. You can choose to make good things out of every challenging circumstance. In co...
Being an outsider doesn't necessarily indicate any sort of social failing. We do not view a tuba player as musically challenged if he cannot play the violin.
Their words of encouragement were just what I needed. I was doing a great job, and I appreciated their cheers.I felt a dormlike camaraderie in the burn unit, since each of us knew the challenges we were facing like no one else could, and therefore ho...
There is that sense that we have to all come together, the challenges have become so great for the human species that it's going to take all of us to find our way out. One of the ways to achieve this goal, of course, is to expand the freedom of relig...
We are designed to dance. To use our bodies as weapons of grace, beauty and intrigue. We are designed to stretch until we master growth. To replace old dead cells and be physically renewed each moment. So challenges don’t destroy us, they just shou...
It is precisely that requirement of worship that has been the principal source of suffering for individual man and the human race since the beginning of history. In their efforts to impose universal worship, men have unsheathed their swords and kille...
