"Nothing that we despise in the other man is entirely absent from ourselves. We must learn to regard people less in the light of what they do or don’t do, and more in light of what they suffer."
Dietrich Bonhoeffer
"Imagination is more important than knowledge. For while knowledge defines all we currently know and understand, imagination points to all we might yet discover and create." Albert Einstein
"Don’t ask what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive, and go do it. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive." Howard Thurman
"A nation that continues to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death."
-Dr. Martin Luther King
"Our relationship with each other is the criterion the world uses to judge whether our message is truthful--- Christian community is the final apologetic."
-Francis Schaefer
"It is not allowable to love the Creation according to the purposes one has for it, any more than it is allowable to love one’s neighbor in order to borrow his tools."
Wendell Berry
"All wars are civil wars, because all men are brothers. Each one owes infinitely more to the human race than the particular country in which he was born."
-Francois Fenelon
"The paradox of hospitality is that it wants to create emptiness, not a fearful emptiness, but a friendly emptiness where strangers can enter and discover themselves as free; free to sing their own songs, speak their own languanges, dance their own dances; free also to leave and follow their own vocations."
Henri Nouwen
"Ministry cannot be about maintenance, but it is about gathering, about embrace, about welcoming home all sorts of and conditions of people; home is a place for mother tongue, of basic soul food, of old stories told and treasured, of being at ease, known by name,
belonging without qualifying for membership."
-Walter Brueggemann
"Many poets are not poets for the same reason that many religious men are
not saints: they never succeed in being themselves. They never get round to
being the particular poet or particular monk that they are intended to be by
God."
"In order to become myself I must cease to be what I always thought I wanted
to be."
-Thomas Merton
"God spoke to Balaam through his ass, and God's been speaking through them ever since. So, if God chooses to speak through you don't think to highly of yourself."
-Rich Mullins
"We must become holy not because we want to feel holy but because Christ must be able to live his life fully in us."
Mother Teresa
"I am deeply convinced that the Christian leader of the future is called to be completely irrelevant and to stand in this world with nothing to offer but his or her own vulnerable self."
Henri Nouwen
I am re-evaluating the claims of Christianity by journeying with some believers and non-believers. A skeptic searching for truth and engaging people with ultimate questions is my life. Wherever I end up, as a Christian or non-believer, I aim to always be open to considering thoughtful input about questions concerning God, meaning, morality, and religion. Check out my blog to look at some objections I am currently working through.
Posted by: Sarah Schoonmaker | November 30, 2008 at 09:54 PM
Forgot to include my blog address: www.questionchrist.blogspot.com
why are you collecting statements? Just curious!
Posted by: Sarah Schoonmaker | November 30, 2008 at 09:56 PM
I appreciate your honesty, Sarah, in regard to your current season/quest. You wouldn't be the only one that I went to seminary with that has recently left christianity.
Why am I asking? I saw the idea and it got me to thinking as to what people would include in their statement if they only had 140 spaces to use. And I've wonder if many people even care enough about their faith claims to come up with a personal statement.
I guess the question isn't limited to "christian" statements of faith, so it might be interesting for you to throw something together even during this season.
Posted by: Ryan | November 30, 2008 at 10:17 PM
I shouldn't have read yours first, I thought it was good and now as I try to think what mine would be those phrases keep coming. I'll come back to it later, it's a good thing to consider.
Posted by: Trevor | December 03, 2008 at 12:23 PM
Happy Holidays from Vegas. Outlined below is my 140 characters on faith. Of note, it's worth remembering that Christ had doubts as well. Perhaps it's the question, not the answer that leads us home. Does the sun shine the same through a prison as it does through a palace? Of course it does! You just need to know why the sun shines to begin with.
Statement:
My hands shook as I put on the parachute. My heart raced as the plane took off. A chill pervaded the whole my spirit before leaping. Once I jumped, the fear went away.
Posted by: David Swanagon a.k.a. Mr. Fabulous | December 07, 2008 at 09:36 PM