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A thought


  • The only way in which one human being can properly attempt to influence another is by encouraging him to think for himself, instead of endeavoring to instill ready-made opinions into his head.

A truth!!


  • "Christianity has not been tried and found wanting; it has been found difficult and not tried." -G K Chesterton

A Chinese Proverb


  • Tell me and I'll forget; show me and I may remember; involve me and I'll understand.

Chinese Wisdom

  • When we see men of worth, we should think of equaling them; when we see men of a contrary character, we should turn inwards and examine ourselves.
  • The superior man cannot be known in little matters, but he may be entrusted with great concerns. The small man may not be entrusted with great concerns, but he may be known in little matters.
  • The man who in view of gain thinks of righteousness; who in the view of danger is prepared to give up his life; and who does not forget an old agreement however far back it extends - such a man may be reckoned a complete man.
  • Recompense injury with justice, and recompense kindness with kindness.
  • If a man takes no thought about what is distant, he will find sorrow near at hand.
  • Those who are contented with what they have are often happy.
  • “A single beam cannot support a great house. ”
  • A vacant mind is open to all suggestions, as a hollow mountain returns all sounds.”
  • One's good deeds are only known at home; one's bad deeds far
  • He who rides a tiger is afraid to dismount.
  • Not the cry, but the flight of the wild duck, leads the flock
  • Much wealth will not come if a little does not go.
  • Words are the voice of the heart.
  • The journey of a thousand miles starts with a single step.
  • Virtue cannot live in solitude; neighbors are sure to grow up around it.
  • When anger arises, think of the consequences.

On a goal


  • Rowing harder doesn't help if the boat is headed in the wrong direction.

Education


  • You should have education so that you won't have to look up to people; and then more education so that you will be wise enough not to look down on people. M.L. Boren

A wonderful story


  • There was a little sparrow, lying on the ground with his feet up in the air. Somebody asked him what he was doing, and he said, "The sky is going to fall." And the person said "What do you think you can do about it?" And the little sparrow said, "One must do what one can." Elizabeth Layton

Lessons for Life

  • Some Very Good Advice
    1. Life isn't fair, but it's still good. 2. When in doubt, just take the next small step. 3. Life is too short to waste time hating anyone. 4. Your job won't take care of you when you are sick. Your friends and parents will. Stay in touch. 5. Pay off your credit cards every month. 6. You don't have to win every argument. Agree to disagree. 7. Cry with someone. It's more healing than crying alone. 8. Save for retirement starting with your first paycheck. 9. When it comes to chocolate, resistance is futile. 10. Make peace with your past so it won't screw up the present. 11. It's OK to let your children see you cry. 12. Don't compare your life to others. You have no idea what their journey is all about. 13. If a relationship has to be a secret, you shouldn't be in it. 14. Take a deep breath. It calms the mind. 15. Get rid of anything that isn't useful, beautiful or joyful. 16. Whatever doesn't kill you really does make you stronger. 17. It's never too late to have a happy childhood. But the second one is up to you and no one else. 18. When it comes to going after what you love in life, don't take no for an answer. 19. Burn the candles, use the nice sheets, wear the fancy lingerie. (OK – NOT you guys) Don't save it for a special occasion. Today is special. 20. Over prepare, then go with the flow. 21. Be eccentric now. Don't wait for old age to wear purple. 22. No one is in charge of your happiness but you. 23. Frame every so-called disaster with these words 'In five years, will this matter?' 24. What other people think of you is none of your business. 25. Time heals almost everything. Give time time. 26. However good or bad a situation is, it will change. 27. Don't take yourself so seriously. No one else does. 28. Believe in miracles. 29. Don't audit life. Show up and make the most of it now. 30. Your children get only one childhood. 31. All that truly matters in the end is that you loved. 32. Get outside every day. Miracles are waiting everywhere. 33. If we all threw our problems in a pile and saw everyone else's, we'd grab ours back. 34. Envy is a waste of time. You already have all you need. 35. The best is yet to come.

Can you beat this?


  • Jesus promises you two things. Your life has meaning and you will live forever. If you get a better deal than that, take it!!!

The source of faith


  • "Who am I?...I am one loved by Christ." Thomas Merton

Peace Prayer


  • Lord make me an instrument of your peace Where there is hatred, Let me sow love; Where there is injury, pardon; Where there is error, truth; Where there is doubt, faith; Where there is despair, hope; Where there is darkness, light; And where there is sadness, Joy. O Divine Master grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled As to console; To be understood,as to understand; To be loved, as to love. For it is in giving that we receive, It is in pardoning that we are pardoned, And it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.

knowledge

  • knowledge
    It is possible to store the mind with a million facts and still be entirely uneducated.

The Eucharist


  • The nourishing quality of the eucharist, freely offered to anyone who's famished, has always been a central metaphor for me. I don't partake because I'm a good Catholic, holy pious and sleek. I partake because I'm a bad Catholic, riddled by doubt and anxiety and anger: fainting from severe hypoglycemia of the soul. I need food. Nancy Mairs

The Second Coming

  • I've no idea when Jesus is coming back. I'm on the Welcoming Committee, not the Planning Committee!

Thomas Merton "On being Human"


  • "Behind all these labors was another question, one of great personal importance for Merton. What did it mean to be a monk, a contemplative, in the twentieth century? In a way his whole twenty-seven years at Gethsemani had been an attempt to find the answer to this problem, and as the years stripped away the obvious answers and the comforting allusions he felt he was left with little but his humanity. Like Dietrich Bonhoeffer in his Nazi prison, he began to see that the highest spiritual development was to be ordinary, to be fully a man, in the way very few human beings succeed in becoming so simply and naturally themselves. He began to see the monk not, as he had believed in his youth, as someone special, undertaking feats of incredible ascetic heroism for the love of God, but as one who was not afraid to be simply "man" , who, as he lived near to nature and his appetites, was the "measure" of what others might be of society did not distort them with greed or ambition or lust or desperate want."

Seeking God


  • It needs more training to seek God among the rough stones of the dusty road than in the beauty of the sunset.

Building


  • He that gives good advice builds with one hand; he that gives good counsel and example builds with both; but he that gives good admonition and bad example builds with one hand and pulls down with the other. Francis Bacon

make me feel important


  • Everyone has an invisible sign hanging from his neck saying Make Me Feel Important! Never forget this message when working with people. Mary Kay Ash

The Miracle


  • Maybe the burning bush was burning all the time and Moses didnt notice. Maybe the miracle is when you stop and pay attention. Francine Prose

John of the Cross


  • How amazing and pitiful it is that the soul be so utterly weak and impure that the hand of God, though light and gentle, should feel so heavy and contrary. For the hand of God does not press down or weigh upon the soul, but only touches it; and this mercifuly, for God's aim is to grant it favors and not chastise it. "The Dark Night," Book II Chapter 5

God's Love


  • God's love for us is not the reason for which we should love him. God's love for us is the reason for us to love ourselves. How could we love ourselves without this motive?

From I have a Dream


  • And this will be the day -- this will be the day when all of God's children will be able to sing with new meaning: My country 'tis of thee, sweet land of liberty, of thee I sing. Land where my fathers died, land of the Pilgrim's pride, From every mountainside, let freedom ring! And if America is to be a great nation, this must become true. And so let freedom ring from the prodigious hilltops of New Hampshire. Let freedom ring from the mighty mountains of New York. Let freedom ring from the heightening Alleghenies of Pennsylvania. Let freedom ring from the snow-capped Rockies of Colorado. Let freedom ring from the curvaceous slopes of California. But not only that: Let freedom ring from Stone Mountain of Georgia. Let freedom ring from Lookout Mountain of Tennessee. Let freedom ring from every hill and molehill of Mississippi. From every mountainside, let freedom ring. And when this happens, when we allow freedom ring, when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God's children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual: Free at last! free at last! Thank God Almighty, we are free at last!

Be Not Afraid


  • It is the heart afraid of breaking that never learns to dance. It is a dream afraid of waking, that never takes a chance. It is the one who won't be taken, who cannot seem to give. And the soul afraid of dying, that never learns to live. A.McBroon

Spirituality


  • Spirituality is anything that reminds us we are already in the presence of a Loving God. Krister Stendahl

Keep on keeping on


  • If you slip and stumble and forget God for an hour, and assert your old proud self, and rely upon your own clever wisdom, don't spend too much time in anguished regrets and self-accusations, but begin again, just where you are. Thomas R. Kelly " A Testament of Devotion"

If my compassion is true


  • If my compassion is true,if it be a deep compassion of the heart and not a legal affair, or a mercy learned from a book and practiced on others like a pious exercise, then my compassion for others is God's mercy for me. My patience with them is His patience with me. My love for them is His love for me. Thomas Merton " No Man is an Island"

Decisions

  • focus
    "There is, I think, nothing in the world more futile than the attempt to find out how a task should be done when one has not yet decided what the task is." - Alexander Meiklejohn

Live your life to the fullest

  • live life to the fullest
    Even the fear of death is nothing compared to the fear of not having lived authentically and fully.

what to do?


  • Drawing on my fine command of the English language, I said nothing.

WORK TIRELESSLY FOR PEACE

  • Sitemeter

The Problems of Sin and Imperfection


  • Indeed each time we attempt to force a solution or our difficulties in a quick, easy way we refuse to enter the school of life. This is especially true of the problems of sin and imperfection. Our personal inclinations to certain types of sin and imperfection will be with us as long as we live. They are rooted in our unique nature and in the dark recesses of our past. To be sure, we must try to overcome them in the current of our existence, but we must also humbly accept the fact that possibly we shall never be wholly rid of them in spite of our efforts. It may be that we must live with a certain imperfection to the end of our life; that we must patiently try to cope with it in countless ways while never succeeding in eliminating it. A certain sin may persecute us until our last breath, humiliate us in the eyes of others, escape our understanding, and fill our eyes with tears. This fact we must accept. The Lord will never ask how successful we were in overcoming a particular vice, sin, or imperfection. He will ask us, “Did you humbly and patiently accept this mystery of iniquity in your life? How did you deal with it? Did you learn from it to be patient and humble? Did it teach you to trust not your own ability but My love? Did it enable you to understand better the mystery of iniquity in the lives of others? Did it give you the most typical characteristic of a truly religious person—that he never judges or condemns the sin and imperfection of others?” The religious man knows from his own life that the demon of evil can be stronger than man even in spite of his best attempts; he knows that it is the patience, humility, and charity learned from this experience that count. Success and failure are accidental. The joy of the Christian is never based on his personal religious success but on the knowledge that his Redeemer lives. The Christian is the man who is constantly aware of his need of salvation. Acceptance of the mystery of iniquity in our project of existence is a school of mildness, mercy, forgiveness, and loving understanding of our neighbor.

Youth learn by example


  • Nothing is so contagious as an example, and our every really good or bad action inspires a similar one.

Believing


  • I think there is no suffering greater than what is caused by the doubts of those who want to believe. I know what torment this is, but I can only see it, in myself anyway, as a process by which faith is deepended. A faith that just accepts is a child's faith and all right for children, but eventually you have to grow religiously as every other way, though some never do. What people dont realize is how much religion costs. They think faith is a big electric blanket, when of course it is a cross. It is much harder to believe than not to believe. If you feel you can't believe, you must at least do this: keep an open mind. Keep it open toward faith, keep wanting it , keep asking for it, and leave the rest to God. Don't expect faith to clear everything up for you. Faith is trust, not certainty. Flannery O'Connor

The person of Hope


  • The person of hope is the person who waits, and with a pessimistic waiting, for normally nothing should happen. The only thing we can reckon on is frustration and derision. How could it be otherwise in God’s silence? Job waits, and his friends never tire of proving to him that this is absurd (which it is), that he is wrong (which he is), and that God will not come (which it true). They take pains to explain to him why God will not come (Job is guilty), and to make fun of him, since his attitude either is one of a godless rebellion or of an absurd expectation. Still Job waits. Just as Job is the one who attests that a person serves God for nothing, so he is the one in whom the fullness of waiting is actualized. His whole life is filled with waiting. He never lets himself be diverted to the right or to the left by his own attempts to transform the situation. He has penetrated to the bottom of the problem with lucidity. He knows that in the last analysis it is an affair between God and himself, that all the rest, the things that happen, are only the outward aspect of the quarrel with God.

God Needs Us


  • The hardest cross to bear in life is the thought that we are wasting our time, that we are useless, that the world is rushing along and we, apparently, have not yet found our feet. For the missioner the monotony of merely marking time, of facing petty tasks, or even manufacturing small jobs to kill time can be especially disheartening. This monotony readily suggests to a nervous conscience that we could be doing better work elsewhere, that we are not really appreciated at our full worth, and that we are not given a chance to show what we could accomplish in busier circumstances. All of us have our daydreams of ideal conditions in which we modestly achieve wonderful success through our own plans, and in these dreams it is difficult at times to distinguish between inspiration and vanity. We all have our moments of dreadful tedium, when even our favorite books are distasteful and when we favor a chance visitor with unusual cordiality. At such times we could recall with profit the worlds of the blind English poet Milton: “ Thousands at His bidding speed, and post o’er land and ocean without rest; they also serve who only stand and wait.” God needs us where we are at; we are active even being merely on call; and the Omnipresent God is beside us even when we feel alone….Sentry work is essential though seemingly inglorious. There is a tendency in modern moods to emphasize the emotional side of religion; and we are all somewhat tainted by this error. We are only too prone to look for sensible consolation in our mission work, and in their absence we are tempted to take a grim view of life. The remedy for this self-centered condition is contemplation and service of God. Contemplation takes us out of ourselves and focuses our attention on God; service of God instinctively issues from our contemplation. We see that God needs us in His redeeming of the human race; and we forget ourselves in satisfying God’s need. Bishop Francis Ford M.M.

Suffering


  • There is at this moment, in the world, at the back of some foresaken church, or even in an ordinary house, or at the turning of some deserted path, a poor man who joins his hands and from the depth of his misery, without very well knowing what he is saying, or without saying anything, thanks the good Lord for having made him free, for having made him capable of loving. There is somewhere else, I do not know where, a mother who hides here face for the last time in the hollow of a little breast which will beat no more, a mother next to her dead child who offers to God a groan of an exhausted resignation, as if the Voice which has thrown the suns into space as a hand throws grain, the Voice which makes the worlds tremble, had just murmured gently into her ear, “Pardon me, one day you will know, you will understand, you will give me thanks. But now, what I am looking for is your pardon. Pardon.” These—this harassed woman, this poor man—are at the heart of the mystery, at the heart of the universal creation and in the very secret of God. What can I say of it? Language is at the service of intelligence. And what these people have understood, they have understood by a faculty superior to the intelligence although not in the least in contradiction with it—or rather, by a profound and irresistible movement of the soul which engaged all the faculties at once, which engaged to the depth of their entire nature…. Yes at the moment that this man, this woman, accepted their destiny, accepted themselves humbly—the mystery of creation was being accomplished in them. While they were thus, without knowing it, running the entire risk of their human conduct, they were realizing themselves fully in the charity of Christ., becoming themselves, according to the words of St. Paul, other Christs. In short, they were saints.

I will not fear, for you are ever with me


  • My Lord God, I have no idea where I am going. I do not see the road ahead of me. I cannot know for certain where it will end. Nor do I really know myself, and the fact that I think I am following your will does not mean that I am actually doing so. But I believe that the desire to please you does in fact please you. And I hope I have that desire in all that I am doing. I hope that I will never do anything apart from that desire. And I know that if I do this you will lead me by the right road, though I may know nothing about it. Therefore will I trust you always though I may seem to be lost and in the shadow of death. I will not fear, for you are ever with me, and you will never leave me to face my perils alone. Thoughts in Solitude by Thomas Merton

Being Human


  • " I want to put in no uncertain terms that I consider it ( and I trust most people are with me here) much more important to be human than to be anything else. To extend this to idealogical categories, I also consider it much more important to be human than to be Christian or communist (or revolutionary) or capitalist. In fact, I believe that idealogies like Marxism and capitalism, or Chiristianity and Confusianism, should be judged by their fruits: do they make us more human, or less? Julia Ching "Probing China's Soul"
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« JET LAG........ DAY ONE!!! | Main | January 12, 2009 »

Sunday, January 11, 2009

First Weekend Home!

DSCN2216No man, for any considerable period, can wear one face to himself, and another to the multitude, without finally getting bewildered as to which may be the true." - Nathaniel Hawthorne

DSCN2214We have been getting our fair share of snow these days here in the Great Lake State! It is really a winter-wonderland!

I slept in the past two mornings, which felt good. My body clock is starting to adjust to Michigan time and the sooner that happens the better. 

I had a nice talk with Robbi Imhoff yesterday morning about the upcoming visit of leaders from Jilin Medical College to Baker College in Owosso next week. Robbi is also going to give me a hand talking with the group of Lansing nurses interested in teaching in China while I am home. Robbi along with her good friend Anne, spent a few weeks in China last year teaching at the medical college and has been kind enough to help the college in a number of ways since visiting last May. The talk to the Lansing nurses will be to a group of women interested in going over to China to teach as Robbi did! 

Yesterday afternoon I stopped by my home parish (Holy Cross) to talk over some plans for my twenty-fifth anniversary of ordination this coming summer with the Pastor and at the same time to offer my services while I’m home for the next month. I didn’t get too far on plans for the 25th, but I will be celebrating the 10:00 mass tomorrow. I think there will be some major changes in my plans to celebrate my 25th this summer. More on that later!!! 

I had dinner last night with my nephew Mark and his girlfriend, Alisa. They are going to spend the summer with me in Jilin this year and they had a few questions to ask about their upcoming trip. They have tickets for a May 12th arrival and a July 11th departure from China. Needless to say I’m really looking forward to their visit.

DSCN2220 I have been spending a lot of time at home with Mom and Dad so far and it isDSCN2222  really a great feeling. The siblings are dropping in to spend some time with me and my parents and so far I have been able to catch up on what they and their good friends are up to.  Last night Carol and Dave were over for a visit. They had just come from a party somewhere and we had a good chat. Dave retired from General Motors a few months ago at the DSCN2219 age of 51 (nice!) and Carol is teaching P.E. at St. Gerard's School. I have known Dave since were in primary school together and I know all of his siblings quite well, too. We spent most of last night talking about Dave'sDSCN2221  brothers and their health. 

Carol has an appointment with a specialist next Wednesday to see what is wrong with her gall bladder. She has been having some problems with that as of late and hopefully the specialist will be able to tell her what the problem is.

DSCN2227Today my niece, Julie, stopped by to say hello. Julie is in her first year of college majoring in pre-dental. She came home for the weekend, so I was able to spend some time with here today.

DSCN2224Howard and Matthew also stopped by today.

DSCN2229Kelly was here again today. The picture above is Julie, Brian and Kelly.

DSCN2231

We had pizza for dinner.

Today's gospel and some comments:

In the course of his preaching John the Baptist said, ‘The one who is more powerful than I is coming after me; I am not worthy to stoop down and untie the thong of his sandals. I have baptized you withwater; but he will baptise you with the Holy Spirit.’  In those days Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee and was baptised by John in the Jordan. And just as he was coming up out of the water, he saw the heavens torn apart and the Spirit descending like a dove on him. And a voice came from heaven, ‘You are my Son, the Beloved;with you I am well pleased.’ Mark 1:7-11

Jesus is sort of anonymously there in the crowd, coming forward with the rest to meet the famous John the Baptist. It's impossible for us to see him as an anonymous person; to us he stands out from every crowd and from the whole human race: above them, beyond them; we can't imagine him not yet majestic. But there he is, the village man, Jesus, known only to his family and neighbors. He's not yet famous.

There's only one famous man there: John the Baptist. When we imagine a famous person among the crowds there's nearly always something false about it: he or she is looking for something, votes or applause or some other sort of ego-stroking. But John the Baptist isn't looking for anything; he's delivering! He's delivering a verbal lashing of extraordinary severity, calling the crowd "a brood of vipers." Jesus is there, watching, listening, anonymous. He is indistinguishable from the brood of vipers.  He is one of us. This is nothing new for him; this is how he has been all the thirty years of his life.

But this meeting with John the Baptist is a turning point. Something happened. He experienced the Spirit, and it is described in the kind of language that mystics have used throughout the ages to describe their union with God: "You are my son, the beloved." This is clearly the language of God and if we spend enough time in prayer this is what we too begin to hear. "You are my son, my daughter, the beloved?" If you experience God at all how could it be otherwise? God is love. 

Posted by Wang Peng 王朋 |

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