Utterly Profound Writings

Discussion in 'Your Religion & Spiritual Corner' started by Henrysullivan, Aug 11, 2010.

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  1. Henrysullivan

    Henrysullivan New Member

    I heard this uttered by Ravi Zacharias this evening, and I thought it utterly profound. That in mind, I thought why not begin a thread with utterly profound writings, not just Christian in point of view, but simply, utterly profound. So whatever you might think is such, and is short enough to take in in a few moments, or a minute or two, feel free to place it here, and or comment on whatever you may have read. I will start it off with the following:

    Hear the words of Malcolm Muggeridge:

    “The world’s way of responding to intimations of decay is to engage equally in idiot hopes and idiot despair. On the one hand some new policy or discovery is confidently expected to put everything to rights: a new fuel, a new drug, detente, world government. On the other, some disaster is as confidently expected to prove our undoing. Capitalism will break down. Fuel will run out. Plutonium will lay us low. Atomic waste will kill us off. Overpopulation will suffocate us, or alternatively, a declining birth rate will put us more surely at the mercy of our enemies.

    “In Christian terms, such hopes and fears are equally beside the point. As Christians we know that here we have no continuing city, that crowns roll in the dust and every earthly kingdom must sometime flounder, whereas we acknowledge a king men did not crown and cannot dethrone, as we are citizens of a city of God they did not build and cannot destroy.”

    Source: Malcolm Muggeridge, The End of Christendom. Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1980: p. 52.
     
  2. jim1884again

    jim1884again advocating baldness be recognized as a disability

    Muggeridge's second paragraph is very Ecclesiastical in nature--he certainly is eloquent
    (I read a book by Ravi Zacharias--a minister at a church I attended for years knew I was a wild heathen so he gave me the book as a gift--I enjoyed reading it...it was blue...and yes, I am trying to think of the name of it...senior moment...still thinking...Can Man Live Without God?--that was it)

    The following is often quoted as being in Lincoln's second inaugural address, but it is the end of his first inaugural address and among my favorite quotes of all time....

    We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battlefield and patriot grave to every living heart and hearthstone all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature.
     
  3. Henrysullivan

    Henrysullivan New Member

    Jim, I love that quotation, as I love anything of Lincoln's. He wrote, and I believe must be read, as if he were speaking. Each comma, is deliberate (as one mine here). Although today, many of his commas might not be recognized as necessary, his punctuation, carefully inserted at the moment it was written, when fully recognized in the reading today, helps any reader to more full understand what Lincoln was trying to convey. Thanks for bringing that offering, utterly profound indeed, and placing it into this thread.
     
  4. Henrysullivan

    Henrysullivan New Member

    Hear the words of Tim Stafford:

    “The first question we ask someone after learning his name is, “What do you do?” In getting to know God, then, we must ask that question. He may hide his face, but he has not hidden his work.

    “What does God do? He makes flowers and mountains and starry nights, the severity of the desert and the lushness of the forest meadow. In these he reveals himself as an artist of incomparable imagination. I have sometimes wondered: What if we had never seen a tree until, one day, someone presented one in the Museum of Modern Art? Would it not be a work of sculpture so splendid that all the other sculptors would put down their tools and come to stare? But that is only the beginning of the exhibition; next comes a whale, and after that a stone, and after that a star, and after that a seed, and after that….”
     
  5. June-

    June- New Member

    “Be the change you want to see in the world.”

    Mahatma Gandhi
     
  6. pardonme

    pardonme Guest

  7. Henrysullivan

    Henrysullivan New Member

    Oh, these are really good!
     
  8. Henrysullivan

    Henrysullivan New Member

    Yes, it all has to begin somewhere, and by someone. If that change will ever occur, it is only of folks act to enact it. But that takes more than just talking...
     
  9. Henrysullivan

    Henrysullivan New Member

    Profundity can come in many packages. I can remember being a bored kid, looking for something to entertain me. I asked my mom, "What can I do?" She answered, "Stand on your head in the corner." Now I wasn't about to do that, and all I could say was, "Mo---om," making two syllables out of one. But her message was clear, and profound, and was that in this world you have to make your own party. Nobody is responsible for your entertainment but you. And each time I would ever ask her that same question, I always received the same answer. So of course, I stopped asking and started looking for my own ways to occupy my time, a tradition I carry on even today, and even at this very moment.
     
  10. June-

    June- New Member

    My dad always responded to "I'm bored." with "Run the sweeper." I was immediately not bored anymore.
     
  11. Henrysullivan

    Henrysullivan New Member

    That's funny. Yes, that generation's outlook is sorely needed today. Run the sweeper. Profound.
     
  12. CarrieOakey

    CarrieOakey New Member

    " You got to know when to hold 'em, know when to fold 'em
    Know when to walk away, know when to run."

    Don Schlitz
     
  13. Henrysullivan

    Henrysullivan New Member

    Yeah, my only problem with that was how you are supposed to know when.
     
  14. Henrysullivan

    Henrysullivan New Member

    I will go back to Lincoln here. A most profound effect on this country, and the world, of his assassination was that there was no one left at the helm then capable of fulfilling Lincoln's vision for reconstruction, a Biblical vision, one no doubt born from his understanding of the Sermon on the Mount where Jesus commanded those listening, "You have heard that it was said, 'Eye for eye, and tooth for tooth.'[g] 39But I tell you, Do not resist an evil person. If someone strikes you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also." (Matthew 5:38)

    In his own fashion, applying the above principle to the looming circumstances, Lincoln wrote the following, imploring reconciliation rather than vengeance to a nation that had just suffered 650,000 of its own to die in the field of battle, one against another:

    "With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation's wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow and his orphan, to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations."

    Of course, after Lincoln's death the mood of the participants was hardly charitable. Rather than charity ruling, retribution and profit-taking were to rule. With Lincoln gone, because there was no figure of authority to steer the events, chaos steered. The hearts of men steered. And in those hearts were hardly thoughts of the Sermon on the Mount. Men turned on men, brother against brother, just like during the war years. And for decades, the war raged on, but in the hearts of men. It didn't have to be that way...or perhaps it did. At least, Lincoln was spared having to witness it.

    But Lincoln's words were profound, offering the righteous path to those who might choose to take it.
     
  15. dizzysheba01

    dizzysheba01 New Member

    A doctor I used to work with once said, "Isn't it amazing! We all have two arms, two hands, two eyes, one nose, one mouth, two legs, and two feet but we're all different."
     
  16. Henrysullivan

    Henrysullivan New Member

    You know, that really is amazing. All the billions fo people in the world, and every one of us is distinguishable from every other one of us.
     
  17. corona

    corona New Member

    The greatest achievement is selflessness.
    The greatest worth is self-mastery.
    The greatest quality is seeking to serve others.
    The greatest precept is continual awareness.
    The greatest medicine is the emptiness of everything.
    The greatest action is not conforming with the world's ways.
    The greatest magic is transmuting the passions.
    The greatest generosity is non-attachment.
    The greatest goodness is a peaceful mind.
    The greatest patience is humility.
    The greatest effort is not concerned with results.
    The greatest meditation is a mind that lets go.
    The greatest wisdom is seeing through appearances.

    Atisha (11th century Tibetan Buddhist master)
     
  18. Henrysullivan

    Henrysullivan New Member

    For me these above are certainly profound. The others are certainly profound to others, I do not doubt. But giving each of them a certain cursory contemplation, on the surface, I'm not sure I can really understand what Atisha was saying. For example, I believe that goodness results in a peaceful mind; but he seems to be saying that one begins with a peaceful mind and from that, goodness derives. Perhaps the peace of mind derives from meditation, something I have never experienced and therefore cannot understand.

    He says that generosity comes from non-attachment, which I take to mean a lack of want or desire for whatever is given out of generosity. That seems non-virtuous generosity though, and in conflict with trying to achieve selflessness, the perfect state of the altruist. I look at generosity as a virtue, not something that derives from a lack of want. If I do not want something, or have an attachment to it, I cannot feel generous if I give it away. In my mind, one is not generous unless one feels certain loss. The feeling of loss derives from the attachment of what is given. However in the loss, one feels goodness and peace of mind having given. That goodness and peace of mind are sort of a spiritual compensation for the loss due to giving something one is attached to. Again, not to argue against so much as to reflect some meaningful dialogue. Have I missed his point?
     
  19. corona

    corona New Member

    I don't have the answers to your questions.
     
  20. Henrysullivan

    Henrysullivan New Member

    A guy once said something extremely profound, or was it a girl. Anyway, he said, "What makes sense to me does not necessarily make sense to you, and vice versa."

    Thanks for bringing in those thoughts.
     

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