Christian Federation Statement on the word "Allah"

New Day

Finish every day and be done with it. You have done what you could. Some blunders and absurdities no doubt have crept in; forget them as soon as you can. Tomorrow is a new day; begin it well and serenely and with too high a spirit to be cumbered with your old nonsense. This day is all that is good and fair. It is too dear, with its hopes and invitations, to waste a moment on yesterdays.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

American Poet

P.S Tomorrow is already today. Today is the new day.

Things Take Time

I believe one of the temptation in one’s spiritual journey is to do too much too soon. One can think of a great act of charity as something that arises naturally without one’s act of will; or that great act of charity was formed over the years in little bits and pieces.

Letters To A Young Poet by Rainer Maria Rilke

Paris
February 17, 1903

Dear Sir,

     

Your letter arrived just a few days ago. I want to thank you for the great confidence you have placed in me. That is all I can do. I cannot discuss your verses; for any attempt at criticism would be foreign to me. Nothing touches a work of art so little as words of criticism: they always result in more or less fortunate misunderstandings. Things aren't all so tangible and sayable as people would usually have us believe; most experiences are unsayable, they happen in a space that no word has ever entered, and more unsay able than all other things are works of art, those mysterious existences, whose life endures beside our own small, transitory life.

To laugh often and much

By Ralph Waldo Emerson

To laugh often and much;
to win the respect of the intelligent people
and the affection of children;
to earn the appreciation of honest critics
and endure the betrayal of false friends;
to appreciate beauty;
to find the best in others;
to leave the world a bit better
whether by a healthy child,
a garden patch, or a redeemed social condition;
to know that one life has breathed easier
because you lived here.
This is to have succeeded.

Power of Celebration

“People of our time are losing the power of celebration. Instead of celebrating we seek to be amused or entertained.

Celebration is an active state, an act of expressing reverence or appreciation.

To be entertained is a passive state--it is to receive pleasure afforded by an amusing act or a spectacle....

Celebration is a confrontation, giving attention to the transcendent meaning of one's actions.

Source: The Wisdom of Heschel”

Stopping by the Woods on a Snowy Evening

Stopping By Woods on a Snowy Evening

Whose woods these are I think I know.

His house is in the village though;

He will not see me stopping here

To watch his woods fill up with snow.

My little horse must think it queer

To stop without a farmhouse near

Between the woods and frozen lake

The darkest evening of the year.

He gives his harness bells a shake

To ask if there is some mistake.

The only other sound's the sweep

Of easy wind and downy flake.

The woods are lovely, dark and deep.

But I have promises to keep,

And miles to go before I sleep,

And miles to go before I sleep.

 

 

Robert Frost,

1874–1963

Harden not your hearts as at the waters of Meriba...

Don't forget to greet your creator daily!

你今天不要忘记你的主，天主

St. Henry
Henry, surnamed the Pious, Duke of Bavaria, became successively King of Germany and Emperor of the Romans; but not satisfied with a mere temporal principality, he strove to gain an immortal crown, by paying zealous service to the eternal King. As emperor, he devoted himself earnestly to spreading religion, and rebuilt with great magnificence the churches which had been destroyed by the infidels, endowing them generously both with money and lands. He built monasteries and other pious establishments, and increased the income of others; the bishopric of Bamberg, which he had founded out of his family possessions, he made tributary to St. Peter and the Roman Pontiff. When Benedict VIII, who had crowned him emperor, was obliged to seek safety in flight, Henry received him and restored him to his see.

Desire to do God's Will

           MY LORD GOD, I have no idea where I am going. I do not see the road ahead of me. I cannot know for certain where it will end. Nor do I really know myself, and the fact that I think that I am following your will does not mean that I am actually doing so.

            But I believe that the desire to please you does in fact please you. And I hope I have that desire in all that I am doing. I hope that I will never do anything apart from that desire.

            And I know that if I do this you will lead me by the right road though I may know nothing about it.

            Therefore will I trust you always though I may seem to be lost and in the shadow of death. I will not fear, for you are ever with me, and you will never leave me to face my perils alone.

― Thomas Merton (January 31, 1915 – December 10, 1968 – Catholic Trappist Monk)