Missionary's Efforts Bear Fruit 150 Years Later

The American missionary Adoniram Judson arrived in Burma, or Myanmar, in 1812, and died there thirty-eight years later in 1850. During that time, he suffered much for the cause of the gospel. He was imprisoned, tortured, and kept in shackles. After the death of his first wife, Ann, to whom he was devoted, for several months he was so depressed that he sat daily beside her tomb. Three years later, he wrote: God is to me the Great Unknown. I believe in him, but I cannot find him.
But Adoniram's faith sustained him, and he threw himself into the tasks to which he believed God had called him. He worked feverishly on his translation of the Bible. The New Testament had now been printed, and he finished the Old Testament in early 1834.
Statistics are unclear, but there were only somewhere between twelve and twenty-five professing Christians in the country when he died, and there were not churches to speak of.
At the 150th anniversary of the translation of the Bible into the Burmese language, Paul Borthwick was addressing a group that was celebrating Judson's work. Just before he got up to speak, he noticed in small print on the first page the words: "Translated by Rev. A. Judson." So Borthwick turned to his interpreter, a Burmese man named Matthew Hia Win, and asked him, "Matthew, what do you know of this man?" Matthew began to weep as he said,

We know him—we know how he loved the Burmese people, how he suffered for the gospel because of us, out of love for us. He died a pauper, but left the Bible for us. When he died, there were few believers, but today there are over 600,000 of us, and every single one of us traces our spiritual heritage to one man: the Rev. Adoniram Judson.

But Adoniram Judson never saw it! And that will be the case for some of us. We may be called to invest our lives in ministries for which we do not see much immediate fruit, trusting that the God of all grace who oversees our work will ensure that our labour is not in vain.

Adapted from Julia Cameron, editor, Christ Our Reconciler (InterVarsity Press, 2012), pp. 200-201

Billy Graham Practices Unceasing Prayer

In 1982, the Today show in New York City scheduled an interview with Reverend Billy Graham. When he arrived at the studio, one of the program's producers informed Graham's assistant that a private room had been set aside for the reverend for prayer before the broadcast. The assistant thanked the producer for the thoughtful gesture, but told him that Mr. Graham would not need the room. The producer was a bit shocked that a world-famous Christian leader would not wish to pray before being interviewed on live national television.
Graham's assistant responded, "Mr. Graham started praying when he got up this morning, he prayed while eating breakfast, he prayed on the way over in the car, and he'll probably be praying all the way through the interview."

Harold Myra and Marshall Shelley, The Leadership Secrets of Billy Graham (Zondervan, 2005)

How the "Horse Whisperer" Trains Wild Horses

Long before the "dog whisperer," Cesar Milan, there was the "horse whisperer."
Monty Roberts was raised in the horse business. He learned there was one way to train horses: by "breaking" them. Through domination and force, which at times included striking the horse with whips or even tying and suspending the horse's feet and legs, a trainer would impose his will upon the animal until it reached the conclusion that total submission was the only way to survive.
In his early teen years Roberts began to study the behaviour and communication patterns of wild mustangs in the badlands of Nevada. He took note of the nonverbal communication among the horses …. Drawing on this observation and his firsthand experience with horses, Roberts developed a breakthrough training technique he first called "hooking on" as opposed to "breaking down" the horse's will. This new training method was based on a cornerstone concept he eventually trademarked called JoinUp®. Join-Up not only stopped the "breaking" norms of traditional horse training, it showcased how to cooperate with the horse's own spirit, innate ways, and means of communicating as a member of the herd.
The personality and full potential of the horse emerge through loving freedom and desire rather than domination …. The Join-Up technique invites an untamed horse that has never been ridden to willingly accept the saddle, bridle, and rider. It is a thing of beauty to watch. Monty Roberts enters a round pen with a wild horse. In as little as half an hour, he'll be riding the horse.
Roberts creates an atmosphere of mutual respect that communicates, "I'm not going to hurt you, and you don't have to follow me if you don't want to." After a brief period of introducing himself and interacting with the horse … Roberts turns his back to the animal and walks away. At this point the horse trains her eyes on Monty with all-out intensity and attention. She is asking herself, "Where is he going?" and "Do I want to stay by myself?" The horse must choose: "I want to be with you. I want to join up and follow you on the way." She quickly decides, "My safe place is with you." Dropping her head (equine language for "I submit to you") and trotting to Roberts's side, the horse says, "I choose to follow. I want to be with you."

Leonard Sweet, I Am a Follower (Thomas Nelson, 2012), pp. 63-65; see the Youtube video

Patience

Patience serves as a protection against wrongs as clothes do against cold. For if you put on more clothes as the cold increases, it will have no power to hurt you. So in like manner you must grow in patience when you meet with great wrongs, and they will then be powerless to vex your mind

- Leonardo da Vinci

Gratitude

Gratitude unlocks the fullness of life. It turns what we have into enough, and more. It turns denial into acceptance, chaos to order, confusion to clarity. It can turn a meal into a feast, a house into a home, a stranger into a friend. Gratitude makes sense of our past, brings peace for today, and creates a vision for tomorrow

- Melody Beattie

Happiness

In order to be utterly happy the only thing necessary is to refrain from comparing this moment with other moments in the past, which I often did not fully enjoy because I was comparing them with other moments of the future

- Andre Gide

Systemic Failure

The gears of poverty, ignorance, hopelessness and low self-esteem interact to create a kind of perpetual failure machine that grinds down dreams from generation to generation. We all bear the cost of keeping it running. Illiteracy is its linchpin

- Carl Sagan

Happiness

The greater part of our happiness or misery depends on our dispositions, and not on our circumstances. We carry the seeds of the one or the other about with us in our minds wherever we go

- Martha Washington

Inspiration

The great composer does not set to work because he is inspired, but becomes inspired because he is working. Beethoven, Wagner, Bach, and Mozart settled down day after day to the job in hand. They didn't waste time waiting for inspiration

- Ernest Newman

The most valuable resource

Unlike other resources, time cannot be bought or sold, borrowed or stolen, stocked up or saved, manufactured, reproduced, or modified. All we can do is make use of it. And whether we use it or not, it nevertheless slips away

- Jean-Louis Servan-Schreiber

Mistakes

To some people, I am kind of a Merlin who takes lots of crazy chances, but rarely makes mistakes. I've made some bad ones, but fortunately, the successes have come along fast enough to cover up the mistakes. When you go to bat as many times as I do, you're bound to get a good average

- Walt Disney

Success and Failure

Success is nothing more than a few simple disciplines, practiced every day; while failure is simply a few errors in judgment, repeated every day. It is the accumulative weight of our disciplines and our judgments that leads us to either fortune or failure

- Jim Rohn

Mistakes

When you make a mistake or get ridiculed or rejected, look at mistakes as learning experiences, and ridicule as ignorance... Look at rejection as part of one performance, not as a turn down of the performer

- Denis Waitley

Failure

I have always felt that although someone may defeat me and I strike out in a ball game, the pitcher on the particular day was the best player. But I know when I see him again, I'm going to be ready for his curve ball. Failure is a part of success. There is no such thing as a bed of roses all your life. But failure will never stand in the way of success if you learn from it

- Hank Aaron (baseballer)

True Happiness

Realise that true happiness lies within you. Waste no time and effort searching for peace and contentment and joy in the world outside. Remember that there is no happiness in having or in getting, but only in giving. Reach out. Share. Smile. Hug. Happiness is a perfume you cannot pour on others without getting a few drops on yourself

- Og Mandino

The Way Forward

No horse gets anywhere until he is harnessed. No stream or gas drives anything until it is confined. No Niagara is ever turned into light and power until it is tunneled. No life ever grows great until it is focused, dedicated, disciplined.

- Harry Emerson Fosdick

Born... again and again

I believe a man is born first unto himself - for the happy developing of himself, while the world is a nursery, and the pretty things are to be snatched for, and pleasant things tasted; some people seem to exist thus right to the end. But most are born again on entering manhood; then they are born to humanity, to a consciousness of all the laughing, and the never-ceasing murmur of pain and sorrow that comes from the terrible multitudes of brothers

- D. H. Lawrence

The Greatest Success

Dependent people need others to get what they want. Independent people can get what they want through their own efforts. Interdependent people combine their own efforts with the efforts of others to achieve their greatest success

- Stephen Covey

Action and Motivation

The common conception is that motivation leads to action, but the reverse is true - action precedes motivation. You have to 'prime the pump' and get the juice flowing, which motivates you to work on your goals. Getting momentum going is the most difficult part of the job, and often taking the first step is enough to prompt you to make the best of your day.

- Robert J. McKain

Attitude

Watch your manner of speech if you wish to develop a peaceful state of mind. Start each day by affirming peaceful, contented and happy attitudes and your days will tend to be pleasant and successful

- Norman Vincent Peale -

Potential

The potential of the average person is like a huge ocean unsailed, a new continent unexplored, a world of possibilities waiting to be released and channeled toward some great good

- Brian Tracy -

Fragility

Anything can happen to anybody. In the last movie I did, "Above Suspicion," I played a paraplegic. I went to a rehab centre and I worked with the people there so I could simulate being a paraplegic. And every day I would get in my car and drive away and go, "Thank God that's not me." I remember the smugness of that, as if I were privileged in a way. And seven months later, I was in this condition. The point is, we are all one great big family, and any one of us can get hurt at any moment...We should never walk by somebody who's in a wheelchair and be afraid of them or think of them as a stranger. It could be us - in fact, it is us.

- Christopher Reeve

The Greatest Treasure

Don't be afraid of misfortune and do not yearn after happiness. It is, after all, all the same. The bitter doesn't last forever, and the sweet never fills the cup to overflowing. It is enough if you don't freeze in the cold, and if hunger and thirst don't claw at your sides. If your back isn't broken, if your feet can walk, if both arms work, if both eyes can see, and if both ears can hear, then whom should you envy? And why? Our envy of others devours us most of all. Rub your eyes and purify your heart and prize above all else in the world those who love you and wish you well

- Alexander Solzhenitsyn

Deserving

The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena; whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs and comes short again and again; who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, and spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement; and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly

- Theodore Roosevelt

When in Doubt...

When in doubt, make a fool of yourself. There is a microscopically thin line between being brilliantly creative and acting like the most gigantic idiot on earth. So, what the hell, leap

- Cynthia Heimel

Genius

Genius is only the power of making continuous efforts. The line between failure and success is so fine that we scarcely know when we pass it: so fine that we are often on the line and do not know it. How many a man has thrown up his hands at a time when a little more effort, a little more patience, would have achieved success. As the tide goes out, so it comes clear in. In business, sometimes, prospects may seem darkest when really they are on the turn. A little more persistence, a little more effort, and what seemed hopeless failure may turn to glorious success. There is no failure except in no longer trying. There is no defeat except from within, no really insurmountable barrier save our own inherent weakness of purpose

- Elbert Hubbard

Best Response

When we see ourselves in a situation which must be endured and gone through, it is best to make up our minds to it, meet it with firmness and accommodate everything to it in the best way practicable. This lessens the evil, while fretting and fuming only serves to increase your own torments

- Thomas Jefferson

The Road Less Travelled

Don't keep forever on the public road, going only where others have gone. Leave the beaten track occasionally and drive into the woods. You will be certain to see something you have never seen before. It will be a little thing, but do not ignore it. Follow it up, explore all around. One discovery will lead to another and, before you know it, you will have something worth thinking about.

attributed to Alexander Graham Bell

Time Will Pass...

Don't let the fear of the time it will take to accomplish something stand in the way of your doing it. The time will pass anyway; we might just as well put that passing time to the best possible use

- Earl Nightingale

Life Value

The major value in life is not what you get. The major value in life is what you become. That is why I wish to pay fair price for every value. If I have to pay for it or earn it, that makes something of me. If I get it for free, that makes nothing of me

- Jim Rohn

Potential

I have no doubt whatever that most people live whether physically, intellectually, or morally, in a very restricted circle of their potential being. They make use of a very small portion of their possible consciousness...Much like the man who, out of his whole body organism, should get into a habit of using and moving only his little finger...We all have reservoirs of life to draw upon, of which we do not dream!

- William James (1842 - 1910)

Hope

To hope is to risk pain. To try is to risk failure. But risk must be taken, because the greatest hazard in life is to risk nothing. The person who risks nothing does nothing, has nothing, and is nothing. He may avoid suffering and sorrow, but he simply cannot learn, feel, change, grow, live, or love. Chained by his addictions, he's a slave. He has forfeited his greatest trait, and that is his individual freedom. Only the person who risks is free

- Leo Buscaglia

Relationships

In life you can never be too kind or too fair; everyone you meet is carrying a heavy load. When you go through your day expressing kindness and courtesy to all you meet, you leave behind a feeling of warmth and good cheer, and you help alleviate the burdens everyone is struggling with

- Brian Tracy

Goals

The reason most people never reach their goals is that they don't define them, learn about them, or even seriously consider them as believable or achievable. Winners can tell you where they are going, what they plan to do along the way, and who will be sharing the adventure with them

- Denis Waitley

Man Murders Former Classmate after Holding 50-Year Grudge

In June of 2012, Carl Ericsson, a 73-year-old South Dakota man, was sentenced to life in prison after admitting to the murder of a former high school classmate. Friends and family members were shocked that the once-successful insurance salesman seemed to snap. Ericsson had been married to his wife for over 44 years.
But after the murder, Ericsson's secret finally came out. For over 50 years he had simmered with a belated grudge: He was still mad about a classmate who had once pulled a jock strap over his head during a high school locker room prank. Norman Johnson, the classmate and murder victim, was a star athlete on the track team. Ericsson was a student sports manager. According to Ericsson's confession, on one occasion Johnson put a jock strap on Ericsson's head, humiliating him and planting the seed of resentment that would continue to grow for over half a century. Apparently, throughout their lives, Norman Johnson continued to outshine Ericsson. Prior to his murder, Johnson had competed in college football, earned a degree, and then taught and coached at his alma mater for more than three decades.
After holding the grudge for over 50 years, Carl Ericsson rang Johnson's doorbell and shot him dead. Ericsson told a judge, "I guess it was from something that happened over 50 years ago. It was apparently in my subconscious." During his sentencing, Ericsson turned to Johnson's widow and apologised, saying, "I just wish I could turn the calendar back."

Cameron Smith, Bizarre S.D. murder caused by resentment over 50-year-old locker room jockstrap prank,"

Yahoo Sports Prep Rally blog (18 June 2012)

When Our Spiritual Life Resembles a Treadmill

Treadmills are fun if you want to get a little exercise. Unfortunately, for many people, religion feels like running on a treadmill: they're working hard but getting nowhere. That's a good image for one way to approach the Christian life, especially if you consider the history behind the treadmill. Elyse Fitzpatrick writes:

In Victorian England, treadmills weren't found in air-conditioned health clubs—they were found in prisons. Treadmills, or treadwheels, as they were called, were used in penal servitude as a form of punishment. Some treadwheels were productive, grinding wheat or transporting water, but others were purely punitive in nature. Prisoners were punished by spending the bulk of their day walking up an inclined plane, knowing that all their hard labour was for nothing. The only hope the prisoner had was that, at some day in the future, he would have "paid his debt" to society and would be set free. He couldn't even look on his labour at the end of the day and know that, if nothing else, he'd been productive.

As you struggle with [sin in your life], remember that [Christ] has set you free indeed and that you're no longer sentenced to be chained to the treadmill of sin and failure. He has paid the ransom demanded for your release from sin, and you're now walking in the freedom of the glory of the sons and daughters of God.

Elyse Fitzpatrick, Because He Loves Me (Crossway, 2010), pp. 87-91

Reserve Player Shared in Michael Jordan's Glory

We do not simply want to see glory; we want to be a part of it. When we lived in Chicago, a friend of ours regularly gave us Bulls tickets. Every year I would take my son, Johnny, to a game. The seats were located alongside the tunnel at the United Center, so when the Bulls ran out on to the floor, when Michael Jordan would run through the tunnel, everybody nearby wanted to give him a high five. They wanted to share his glory.
We all want to touch glory. We want to connect with it. We want to be a part of it, even though we know we are not worthy.
The Bulls had a reserve player named Stacey King. During the 1990 season King only started six games and averaged 15 minutes per game. But one night, during an overtime game against Cleveland, he contributed to an important victory. He said it would always be the greatest memory of his life: the night he and Michael Jordan scored a combined total of 70 points in a NBA playoff game. Michael Jordan scored his career-high 69 points, but King shared in the glory.

John Ortberg, from the sermon "For the Glory of God Alone"

Improving...

You should practice with a purpose. Personally, it would really frustrate me to practice for three or four hours in the morning, walk away, and two hours later say to myself, "Gee, I wish I had worked a little harder on this or that." It's the quality of the time you spend practicing that counts, not the length of time

- Jimmy Connors

Passion

I'd rather be a failure at something I'm in love with than a success at something I hate. Fortunately, I'm doing well in a business I love. I've always been in love with show business, and I still am. I love it today as much as I did for the 20 years I flopped in it.

- George Burns

Creativitiy

Be brave enough to live creatively. The creative is the place where no one else has ever been. You have to leave the city of your comfort and go into the wilderness of your intuition. You can't get there by bus, only by hard work, risking, and by not quite knowing what you're doing. What you'll discover will be wonderful: yourself

- Alan Alda

Opportunity

When I think of how quickly time flies, I am always sorry that I did not do better yesterday or last year, because that particular opportunity will never come again. But I comfort myself with thinking that the opportunity to do better next time lies before me.

- Edward Chipman Guild (1831-1899)

Life's Discipline

Life has no other discipline to impose, if we would but realise it, than to accept life unquestioningly. Everything we shut our eyes to, everything we run away from, everything we deny, denigrate or despise, serves to defeat us in the end. What seems nasty, painful, evil, can become a source of beauty, joy and strength, if faced with an open mind. Every moment is a golden one for him who has the vision to recognize it as such.

- Henry Miller

The Measure of a Person

Benjamin Franklin believed that the measure of a person's greatness was the person's goodness. He did not believe one could exist without the other. In 1729, in the "American Weekly Mercury," Franklin wrote:
If we were as industrious to become good as to make ourselves great, we should become really great by being good, and the number of valuable people would be much increased.
But it is a grand mistake to think of being great without goodness; and I pronounce it as certain, that there was never yet a truly great person who was not at the same time truly virtuous.

Be Bold

Until one is committed there is hesitancy, the chance to draw back, always ineffectiveness. Concerning all acts of initiative (and creation), there is one elementary truth - the ignorance of which kills countless ideas and splendid plans: that the moment one definitely commits oneself, then Providence moves, too. All sorts of things occur to help one that would never otherwise have occurred. A whole stream of events issues from the decision raising in one's favour all manner of unforeseen incidents and meetings and material assistance which no man could have dreamed would have come his way. Whatever you can do, or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius, power and magic in it. Begin it now.

- Goethe

A Mistake

One of the most serious mistakes we can make is to confuse the thing we call "intelligence" with another thing called "judgment." The two do not always, or necessarily, go together; many persons of high intelligence have notoriously poor judgment

- Sydney J. Harris

The Creative Tension

We cannot go back to a pristine and innocent time where humanity was free and without sin. Nor can we lunge into the future where God's kingdom is fully established and righteousness and peace will reign supreme. Both the beginning and the future are denied for us, for we are in the middle. Yet both affect us, for that innocent beginning reminds us that sin and dis­obedience are not intrinsic to our lives and the future beckons us with the promise of God's new world. This does not make life in the mid­dle undesirable; it only makes it full of promise and tension.

Perseverance

If an unusual necessity forces us onward, a surprising thing occurs. The fatigue gets worse up to a certain point, then, gradually or suddenly, it passes away and we are fresher than before! We have evidently tapped a new level of energy. There may be layer after layer of this experience, a third and a fourth wind. We find amounts of ease and power that we never dreamed ourselves to own, sources of strength habitually not taxed, because habitually we never push through the obstruction of fatigue.

- William James (1842 - 1910) Psychologist and philosopher

Attitude

I play to win even when common sense should tell me that I no longer have a chance. Even when I have been playing at my worst, or when all the breaks have been going against me, I approach each new day, each new hole, as a glorious opportunity to get going again.

- Arnold Palmer

The Greatest Loss

Every day I live I am more convinced that the waste of life lies in the love we have not given, the powers we have not used, the selfish prudence that will risk nothing and which, shirking pain, misses happiness as well

- Mary Cholmondeley

Where Life is Wasted

Every day I live I am more convinced that the waste of life lies in the love we have not given, the powers we have not used, the selfish prudence that will risk nothing and which, shirking pain, misses happiness as well

- Mary Cholmondeley

One Difference...

Ordinary people believe only in the possible. Extraordinary people visualise not what is possible or probable, but rather what is impossible. And by visualising the impossible, they begin to see it as possible

- Cherie Carter-Scott

One More Step...

All great masters are chiefly distinguished by the power of adding a second, a third, and perhaps a fourth step in a continuous line. Many a man had taken the first step. With every additional step you enhance immensely the value of your first

- Ralph Waldo Emerson

Genius

Genius is no more than childhood recaptured at will, childhood equipped now with man's physical means to express itself, and with the analytical mind that enables it to bring order into the sum of experience, involuntarily amassed

- Charles Baudelaire

Who We Are

I look back upon my youth and realise how so many people gave me help, understanding, courage – very important things to me – and they never knew it. They entered into my life and became powers within me.
All of us live spiritually by what others have given us, often unwittingly, in the significant hours of our life. At the time these significant hours may not even be perceived. We may not recognise them until years later when we look back, as one remembers some long-ago music or a boyhood landscape.
We all owe to others much of the gentleness and wisdom that we have made our own; and we may well ask ourselves what will others owe to us

- Albert Schweitzer (1875 – 1965) French medical missionary

What is Most Needed

The celebrated historian Barbara Tuchman called our times, "The Age of Disruption, a period when we've lost belief in certain kinds of moral understanding of good and bad."
A reporter for The Indianapolis Star once asked the two-time Pulitzer Prize winner what she thought was most needed in the next century.
"Probably personal responsibility," she replied, explaining that this means "taking responsibility for your behaviour and your expenditures and your actions, and not forever supposing that society must forgive you because it's not your fault."

Our Purpose

This is our purpose:
to make as meaningful as possible this life that has been bestowed upon us;
to live in such a way that we may be proud of ourselves;
to act in such a way that some part of us lives on

- Oswald Spengler (1880 - 1936) Philosopher

To Change the World

You have it easily in your power to increase the sum total of this world's happiness now. How? By giving a few words of sincere appreciation to someone who is lonely or discouraged. Perhaps you will forget tomorrow the kind words you say today, but the recipient may cherish them over a lifetime

- Dale Carnegie

The Voice of God

When God speaks He speaks so loud that all the voices of the world seem dumb. And yet when God speaks he speaks so softly that no one hears the whisper but yourself. Today, perhaps...

- Henry Drummond

Who is it all for?

The world, we are told, was made especially for man - a presumption not supported by all the facts... Why should man value himself as more than a small part of the one great unit of creation?

- John Muir, Naturalist and explorer (1838-1914)

Trouble

Trouble makes us one with every human being in the world - and unless we touch others, we're out of touch with life. If I had a formula for bypassing trouble, I wouldn't pass it around. Wouldn't be doing anybody a favour. Trouble creates a capacity to handle it. I don't say embrace trouble. That's as bad as treating it as an enemy. But I do say meet it as a friend, for you'll see a lot of it and had better be on speaking terms with it

- Oliver Wendell Holmes

Trust

Having someone's trust is like having money in the bank. Just like a bank account, you must make deposits if you expect to make withdrawals. When you keep your word, it's like making a deposit into your trust fund. The more often you perform the way you promised, the larger your balance is. Whenever you break your word, you have made a withdrawal from your account. You have a separate trust fund with each person that you have a relationship with. If you have been making regular deposits into your account with that individual, when the time comes that you are unable to keep your word (let's face it, nobody's perfect!), you will still have a large enough balance of trust to draw from. That person will realize that your account is still good. You are trustworthy!

- Matt Dimaio

First concerns

Be more concerned with your character than your reputation, because your character is what you really are, while your reputation is merely what others think you are

- John Wooden (former college basketball coach).

Relationships

Beginning today, treat everyone you meet as if he or she were going to be dead by midnight. Extend to them all the care, kindness, and understanding you can muster, and do so with no thought of any reward. Your life will never be the same again

- Og Mandino

Consequences

The effects of our actions may be postponed but they are never lost. There is an inevitable reward for good deeds and an inescapable punishment for bad. Meditate upon this truth, and seek always to earn good wages from Destiny

- Fu Wu Ming

The Seven Blunders of the World

Seven blunders of the world that lead to violence: wealth without work, pleasure without conscience, knowledge without character, commerce without morality, science without humanity, worship without sacrifice, politics without principle

- Mahatma Gandhi

Scientist Says That Physics Points to the Creator

John Polkinghorne, a theoretical physicist and a minister, claims that the equations that guide physics point to a Creator. Polkinghorne said,
Physicists are deeply impressed with the order of the world. It is rationally beautiful and structured, and the feeling that there is a mind behind it is a very natural feeling to have …. I think the feeling of wonder, which is fundamental to the experience of physicists … is fundamentally a religious experience, whether people recognise it or not.

Pallab Ghosh, "Historic Hunt for 'God Particle,'" BBC News (10 September 2008)

The Gods of Our Age

There is so much frustration in the world because we have relied on gods rather than God. We have genuflected before the god of science only to find that it has given us the atomic bomb, producing fears and anxieties that science can never mitigate. We have worshiped the god of pleasure only to discover that thrills play out and sensations are short lived. We have bowed before the god of money only to learn that there are such things as love and friendship that money cannot buy and that in a world of possible depressions, stock market crashes, and bad business investments, money is a rather uncertain deity. These transitory gods are not able to save or bring happiness to the human heart. Only God is able. It is faith in Him that we must rediscover

- Martin Luther King Jr. -

Identity and Culture

Most people are mirrors, reflecting the moods and emotions of the times; few are windows, bringing light to bear on the dark corners where troubles fester. The whole purpose of education is to turn mirrors into windows.

- Sydney J. Harris

Reflection on Culture

Born often under another sky, placed in the middle of an always moving scene, himself driven by the irresistible torrent which draws all about him, the American has no time to tie himself to anything, he grows accustomed only to change, and ends by regarding it as the natural state of man. He feels the need of it, more he loves it; for the instability; instead of meaning disaster to him, seems to give birth only to miracles all about him

- Alexis De Tocqueville -

Facing Opposition

It is easy and dismally enervating to think of opposition as merely perverse or actually evil - far more invigorating to see it as essential for honing the mind, and as a positive good in itself. For the day that moral issues cease to be fought over is the day the word "human" disappears from the race

- Jill Tweedie

Persistence

Nothing in the world can take the place of persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent

- Calvin Coolidge

Bjorn Borg

My greatest point is my persistence. I never give up in a match. However down I am, I fight until the last ball. My list of matches shows that I have turned a great many so-called irretrievable defeats into victories

- Bjorn Borg

Blame

All blame is a waste of time. No matter how much fault you find with another, and regardless of how much you blame him, it will not change you. The only thing blame does is to keep the focus off you when you are looking for external reasons to explain your unhappiness or frustration. You may succeed in making another feel guilty about something by blaming him, but you won't succeed in changing whatever it is about you that is making you unhappy

- Wayne Dyer -

A Daily Pratice

A man should hear a little music, read a little poetry, and see a fine picture every day of his life, in order that worldly cares may not obliterate the sense of the beautiful which God has implanted in the human soul

- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, German writer and scientist (1749-1832)

Speed... or?

Do not be desirous of having things done quickly. Do not look at small advantages. Desire to have things done quickly prevents their being done thoroughly. Looking at small advantages prevents great affairs from being accomplished

- Confucius