Page 12 - Reading Between the Lines - Sample

Proper 23
Exodus 32:1-14
contains only the external form; the blood and the flesh are gone.” So Ferreira had gone on with blazing eyes. And somehow in his words
From Essential Rumi, translations by Coleman Barks
Let yourself be silently drawn
by the strange pull of what you really love. It will not lead you astray.
there was a certain sincerity unlike the self- deception of a defeated man.
From “Camas Lilies” in Blessing the Bread: Meditations by Lynn Ungar
And you—what of your rushed
and useful life? Imagine it setting it all down— papers, plans, appointments, everything— leaving only a note: “Gone
to the field to be lovely. Be back
when I’m through blooming.”
From “To the Soul” by W.S. Merwin in Present Company
Is anyone there
if so
are you real
either way are you one of several
if the latter
are you all at once or do you
take turns answering
From “The Benedict Option” by David Brooks at NewYorkTimes.com
Faith seems to come in two personalities, the purist and the ironist. Purists believe that everything in the world is part of a harmonious whole. All questions point ultimately to a single answer. If we orient our lives toward this pure ideal, and get everybody else to, we will move gradually toward perfection.
The ironists believe that this harmony may be available in the next world but not, unfortunately, in this one. In this world, the
pieces don’t quite fit together and virtues often conflict: liberty versus equality, justice versus mercy, tolerance versus order. For the ironist, ultimate truth exists, but day-to-day life is often about balance and trade-offs. There is no unified, all-encompassing system for correct living. For the ironists, like Reinhold Niebuhr or Isaiah Berlin, those purists who aim to be higher than the angels often end up lower than the beasts.[...]
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