#ions

Nationalism is form of collective narcissism, where the citizens possess an inflated self-love of "their own people," to the exclusion of other human beings. ↗

— Bryant McGill

#faith #justification #religions #trust #faith

Questions are disturbing, especially those which may threaten our traditions, our institutions, our security. But questions never threaten the living God, who is constantly calling us, and who affirms for us that love is stronger than hate, blessings stronger than cursing. ↗

— Madeleine L'Engle

#god #questions #faith

If God were to remove all evil from our world (but somehow leave human beings on the planet), it would mean that the essence of 'humanness' would be destroyed. We would become robots. Let me explain what I mean by this. If God eliminated evil by programming us to perform only good acts, we would lose this distinguishing mark - the ability to make choices. We would no longer be free moral agents. We would be reduced to the status of robots. Let's take this a step further. Robots do not love. God created us with the capacity to love. Love is based upon one's right to choose to love. We cannot force others to love us. We can make them serve us or obey us. But true love is founded upon one's freedom to choose to respond. ↗

— Billy Graham

#freedom #god #good #love #moral-freedom

The spiritual energy of our time, as I've come to understand it, is not a rejection of the rational disciplines by which we've ordered our common life for many decades - law, politics, economics, science. It is, rather, a realization that these disciplines have a limited scope. They can't ask ultimate questions...they don't begin to tell us how to order our astonishments, what matters in life, what matters in a death, how to love, how we can be of service to each other. These are the kinds of questions religion arose to address and religions traditions are keepers of conversation across generations about them. ↗

— Krista Tippett

#love #questioning #questions #religion #service

All I know is that the closer I get to God, the deeper I get into the Bible, and the heavier the burden seems on my shoulders. ↗

— Tim LaHaye

#burdens #faith #god #love #relationships

Aspiring Asimovs! ↗

— Brandon Sanderson

#cussing #exclamations #librarians

The blood dried on his good hand, he passed his palm over her hair. It curled about his wrist and sprung back into displace as the breeze fluttered by. In the firelight, it was golden like the dandelions of which she’d spoken. The ones that had grown along the Franklin riverbank in late summer. The ones he had lost any faith in since he’d committed his first murder there. ↗

— V.S. Carnes

#love #murder #mystery #romance #faith

The cure for our modern maladies is dirt under the fingernails and the feel of thick grass between the toes. The cure for our listlessness is to be out within the invigorating wind. The cure for our uselessness is to take back up our stewardship; for it is not that there has been no work to be done, we simply have not been attending to it. ↗

— L.M. Browning

#cure #faith #god #l-m-browning #meaning

Hespe's mouth went firm. She didn't scowl exactly, but it looked like she was getting all the pieces of a scowl together in one place, just in case she needed them in a hurry. ↗

— Patrick Rothfuss

#literacy #relationships #humor

But the coconut is also a symbol of resilience, Samar. Even in the conditions where there's very little nourishment and even less nurturance, it flourishes, growing taller than most of the plants around it. ↗

— Neesha Meminger

#family #name-calling #relationships #self-worth #family