Category: Quotable

Short time to the timeless

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A gate, tombstone and surprisingly modern clock on the cathedral at Hawkshead, Lake District, England. Taken about 4pm in July 2009 on my E71.

Hawkshead is said to have a ‘timeless atmosphere’ but it would seem time has a fair grip in this beautiful part of England, as it does everywhere. Guarded by a squeaky gate, and touched by a tipping tombstone, the clock face reminds us that time, and perhaps death, waits for no one. No wonder we are invited by the Maker of time to ‘number our days aright’ in the sense of being aware of our frailty and brevity. At the same time… sorry… on the other hand… sorry, can’t avoid the time puns… In another sense, it is the very scarcity of our days that makes them so rich with meaning as we seek to ‘reedem the time’ and live fully and purposely. It is when we fool ourselves that time is not moving, that we are not changing and that we have all the time in the world, that we waste this most precious of commodities.  Likewise, if we try and save time, as in cutting corners, rushing or skimping, we tend to waste time just as profoundly. Anyway, the best news is, that our times are in His hands. Our time to live, to die, to love, to let go. Give him your time and He’ll give you yours. Now that’s truly timeless.Read More »

Unhasting and unresting

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Godspeed is fast enough
Godspeed is fast enough

We have a bit of a theme going in our community this month, Rest and Readiness. I for one am trying to get to March with something to spare for the rest of the year!

As part of that endeavour, I’m reading My Utmost for His Highest – it’s only taken me 40 odd years to take the plunge. On January 6, Oswald Chambers writes: ‘The measure of the worth of our public activity for God is the private profound communion we have with Him.’

But he debunks the idea that we have to separate worship, waiting and work. We are often told to put aside time forGod, as if putting aside time is an easy thing in our face paced world. Chambers recommends pitching the tents of our life ‘where we shall always have quiet times with God, however noisy our times with the world may be’. We follow the example of Christ who was ‘unhasting and unresting. It is a discipline, we cannot get into it all at once.’

Mmm, sounds like our idea of rest and readiness… takes a bit of learning but worth the try.

Action interrupted, truth stumbled

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The person who says it cannot be done should not interrupt the person doing it. Chinese proverb.

What have you stopped doing because of a voice, internally or externally, saying  it can’t be done, you can’t do it or you can’t do it well? Avoid these interruptions.

Men occasionally stumble over the truth, but most pick themselves up and hurry on as if nothing had happened. Winston Churchill

As opposed to the interruption of doubters, truth is worth taking note of. What truth have you stumbled over, even and embarrassing or inconvenient one, that you have done your best to ignore but keeps tapping on your shoulder. Stumble back to truth, it always set you free.

Incidentally, I came across these quotes while reading Organic Church by Frank Viola. Still trying to decide if this book is interruption or stumbling truth. Probably a bit of both… PH

Heaven is particular

Peter Hallett1 Comment

“There isn’t a soul in the world whom Heaven doesn’t regard in a particular fashion. There isn’t a sigh or a word that Heaven fails to hear.” The angel Malchiah speaking in Anne Rice’s novel, Angel Time.

We are personal beings despite relentless forces to de-personalise us. We are ‘particular’ and are known by God in a particular (unique, personal, individual) way.

This gives us hope that our particular life and this particular day are known to an infinite God, intimately. PH

God himself did make us…

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“…and I have to speculate that God himself
did make us into corresponding shapes like
puzzle pieces from the clay”
The Postal Service – Such Great Heights

Faith, even tentative, is often hard to find in popular culture… celebrate when you do.

The challenge for the democratic west…

Peter Hallett2 Comments
I’m re-reading the classic science fiction trilogy, Dune, by Frank Herbert, and came across an interesting quote in a typical Herbert entree to a chapter.

In Children of Dune the quote has this citation: ‘Words of an ancient philosopher (Attributed by Harq al-Ada to one Louis Veuillot).’

Harq al-Ada is a fictional charcter while Veuillot was a 19th century journalist, man of letters and radical Catholic ultramontane which means he supported the Pope to the exclusion of local church authorities. Ultramontane means ‘dweller beyond the mountains’ (ultra montes), that is beyond the alps – referring to the Pope in Rome…

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Sleepless in the sands of time

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I woke up one night with a line from the intro to Days of Our Lives going through my head. For the record, I do not watch Days of our Lives.

While trying to get back to sleep my mind kept twisting the words back on themselves in a ridiculous attempt to come up with ‘deeper’ meaning from the same words in different order…

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