"Love and reverence are two different mental attitudes.
So long as the worshiper thinks of the divinity as the almighty creator,
or the stern ruler,
or the dispassionate onlooker of the world order,
he may have fear and reverence for God,
but not love.

He may even have the tendency to bow down before Him,
but only from a distance.

He will not feel drawn toward Him;
there will not be the urge to become united with Him
, or to embrace Him as his own.

But, with the growth of devotion there comes a sense
of intimate relationship to God.

The more intensely the votary contemplates God's love and grace,
the deeper grows his devotion
to Him."

-Satprakashananda, "Divine Love"

Little Elegy
for a child who skipped rope

Here lies resting, out of breath,
Out of turns, Elizabeth
Whose quicksilver toes not quite
Cleared the whirring edge of night.

Earth whose circles round us skim
Till they catch the lightest limb,
Shelter now Elizabeth
And for her sake trip up death.

- X. J. Kennedy (1929- )

Click on:

"God's Grandeur"

for a beautiful treat.

"For what do we give thanks? Are there limits to giving thanks? Our text says - "In everything give thanks!" This does not mean - give thanks for everything, but give thanks in every situation! There are no limits to situations in which to thank, but there are limits to things for which thanks can be expressed. This is again a question the answer to which might lead us into a new understanding of the human predicament."

- Paul Tillich, "The Eternal Now", p.179

"For everything created by God is good and nothing is to be rejected if it is received with thanksgiving; for then it is consecrated by the word of God and prayer."

- I Timothy 4:4


"In these words, thanksgiving recieves a new function. It consecrates everything created by God. Thanksgiving is consecration; it transfers something that belongs to the secular world into the sphere of the holy."

-Paul Tillich, The Eternal Now, Chapter 16

But there is one consolation: we are not separated from the ever active presence of God, and we can become aware of it in every moment. Our hearts can become filled with praise and thanks without the use of words; and sometimes we may also find these words of praise and thanks. But this is not the first step, and, often, not even the last. Let us not follow those who use what is called "the present religious revival" to force us back into forms of prayer and thanks that we cannot honestly accept, or that produce joy and thanks through self-suggestion. But let us keep ourselves open to the power that carries our life in every moment, that is here and now, that comes to us through nature and through the message of Jesus as the Christ. May we keep open to it, so that we may be filled with silent gratefulness for the power of being which is in us. And then perhaps words of thanks, words of sacrifice and consecration, may come to our tongues, so that we again may give thanks in truth and honesty.

-Paul Tillich, The Eternal Now, Chapter 16

Saint Augustine, On the Lord's Sermon on the Mount 2.3.14 (Latin text available):

"But again one might ask whether we are to pray by words or deeds and what need there is for prayer, if God already nows what is needful for us.
But it is because the act of prayer clarifies and purges our heart
and makes it more capable of receiving the divine gifts that are poured out for us in the spirit.
God does not give heed to the ambitiousness of our prayers,
because he is always ready to give to us his light,
not a visible light but an intellectual and spiritual one:
but we are not always read to receive it when we turn aside and down to other things out of a desire for temporal things.
For in prayer there occurs a turning of the heart
to he who is always ready to give if we will but take what he gives:
and in that turning is the purification of the inner eye when the things we crave in the temporal world are shut out;
so that the vision of the pure heart can bear the pure light that shines divinely without setting or wavering:
and not only bear it,
but abide in it;
not only without difficulty,
but even with unspeakable joy,
with which the blessed life is truly
and genuinely brought to fulfillment."

http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/jod/augustine.html

A DECLAMATION BY ERASMUS OF ROTTERDAM

"FOLLY SPEAKS: Whatever is generally said of me by mortal men, and I'm quite well aware that Folly is in poor repute even amongst the greatest fools, still, I am the one and indeed, the only one - whose divine powers can gladden the hearts of gods and men. Proof enough of this is the fact that as soon as I stepped forward to address this crowded assembly, every face immediately brightened up with a new, unwonted gaiety and all your frowns were smoothed away. You laughed and applauded with such delightfully happy smiles that as I look at you all gathered round me I could well believe you are tipsy with nectar like the Homeric gods, with a dash of nepenthe too to drive away your cares, though a moment ago you were sitting looking as gloomy and harassed as if you had just come up from Trophonius's cave.1 Now, when the sun first shows his handsome golden visage upon earth, or after a hard winter the new-born spring breathes out its mild west breezes,2 it always happens that a new face comes over everything, new colour and a kind of youthfulness return; and so it only takes the mere sight of me to give you all a different look. For great orators must as a rule spend time preparing long speeches and even then find it difficult to succeed in banishing care and trouble from your minds, but I've done this at once and simply by my looks."

'And by sanctifying the whole everyday life, Hasidism takes "the other world into this world". The present time, the world, is the place where faith is made real, where God reveals Himself. God is not the far-away ruler of the world who will bring redemption some time (this is said against the exaggerated messianic hopes), but God wants "to conquer the world he created through the human being".

'God does not want to complete his creation in any other way than with our help. He does not want to reveal his realm before we have founded it. He does not want to put on the crown of the King of the World but by receiving it from our hand.
(The Hasidic Message)'

- from Andreas Schmidt at http://www.buber.de/en/dialogue_trust.shtml

Buber is best known for his philosophy of dialogue, a religious existentialism centered on the distinction between direct, mutual relations (called by him the "I-Thou" relationship, or dialogue), in which each person confirms the other as of unique value, and indirect, utilitarian relations (designated the "I-It" relationship, or monologue), in which each person knows and uses others but does not really see or value them for themselves.


Human relationships can only approximate the perfect I-Thou dialogue. When people are in a genuine dialogue with God (the only perfect Thou), the true I-Thou relationship is present. Buber's philosophy of dialogue has had a wide influence on thinkers of many faiths, including such important Protestant theologians as Swiss Karl Barth and Emil Brunner, German-born American Paul Tillich, and American Reinhold Niebuhr.

- http://www.island-of-freedom.com/BUBER.HTM