I am working on a nice huge assignment this week, and glad I have time in the day at the moment to do so, because this one is a big topic to get my head around, with loads of ins and outs!!
Anyway, the following are a few quotes that really encouraged me, and stood out for various reasons, so since I have enjoyed them, and typed them out, thought I would share them. Funny thing was though, that I didn't realise that two of the quotes were by the same person till I put them here, but thinking back... it makes sense:)
Without forgiveness we can never be free to try again. Without forgiveness we can never love another person for what that person is, and loving a person for what that person is and not for what we want that person to be is the only kind of love which allows us to life freely without the demands and expectations which cripple and isolate us.. Forgiveness and love are inseparable. We cannot have one without the other. We cannot live in relationships with others unless we can forgive others and forgive ourselves. (Dorothy Rowe)
Hatred is simple. Love, real love, is much more complicated. The problem about love is that it is inexorably linked with freedom, Love is spontaneous. We cannot love on demand. We cannot order someone to love us. …..but we all know that the mystery and wonder of love lies in the fact that it cannot be commanded and it can only be freely given. I cannot love you just because I feel I ought to or because you want me to. The fondness we feel for people who give us things, in the hope, perhaps, that we shall love them, we call ‘cupboard love’ and know it is not the real thing. We do not love someone just because that person gives us presents and does things for our benefit.
But love is a risky business. It means getting to know another person. It means loving a person as that person is, and not as we want that person to be. … (Dorothy Rowe)
Maslow characterizes the creative persons as those who objectively view and are comfortable with life, personal relationships, and reality itself. Like Paul, they have learned to ‘be content in whatever situation’- content, but not complacent. They are free to engage in flights of fantasy, to imagine the unimaginable, to see visions and dream dreams, and they are willing to act on what they envision. “I can do all things in him who strengthens me,” Paul exults.
To be creative one must not only be spontaneous in response to a problem, situation, or personal relationship, but also be willing to take risks. Taking risks means possible failure. People who must always be right, who are afraid a mistake will cut them off from acceptance, cannot create. The gospel liberates us for risk-taking precisely because it frees us from the need to be always right, correct, good, or sinless. Willingness to risk failure takes courage, as Luther knew in taunting meticulous Melanchthon, “Sin Bravely!”
Both the person living under the gospel and the creative person are characterized by freely given compassion. Compassion is generated by willingness to stay in touch with our almost automatic response to human suffering. Who can remain unmoved by accounts of kidnapped children, of suffering in a refugee camp? But most of us don’t act on the feeling of compassion. What stops our compassionate action is not insensitivity, but self-defensive fear. “I’d better not get involved”. In liberating us from self-defensiveness, the gospel frees us for compassionate action and for deeper, more genuine entry into human relationships and into the risk-encounter of love itself.
In life under the gospel, we become creative, free to lose ourselves in work, in problem solving, in a sense of mission. Because we no longer overprotect our ego or out reputation, we are able to lose ourselves in our tasks or our play in an unself-conscious fashion. The self-defensive need to count the cost no longer hampers and inhibits. In the gospel we can ‘press on towards the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus”. (A Becker)
No comments:
Post a Comment