Posts Tagged: "Human"

Advent Day 20: She Makes Oranges

The Christian religion asks us to put our trust not in ideas, and certainly not in ideologies, but in a God Who was vulnerable enough to become human and die, and Who desires to be present to us in our ordinary circumstances. —Kathleen Norris

In Phil Needham’s book When God Becomes Small, he shares the following…

I love the story Kathleen Norris tells about her three-year old niece. The girl’s father would drive her to day care in the morning on the way to work, and her mother would pick her up on the way home.

Often the mother would peel an orange and bring it to her daughter when she picked her up.

One day Norris came across her niece playing “Mommy’s office” on the front porch of their home. She asked her niece what her mommy (a stockbroker and financial planner) did at work.

“Without hesitation, and with a conviction I relish to this day,” says Norris, “she looked up at me and said, ‘She… Read More

The Point Of Being Human Is…

From Dr. David G. Benner’s book Surrender To Love: Discovering The Heart Of Christian Spirituality

Transformation into love is a shift from focus on me to an awareness of the greater we.

Egocentricity and its bondage of self is always the enemy of love.

Conversion points us toward fellow human beings, not simply toward God. Like the grain of wheat that must fall into the earth and die if it is to flourish, the person who is becoming love leaves behind the broken husk of the isolated self and embraces the new possibilities of life in the human community.

Self-interest suffocates life. Life implodes when self-interest is at the core. This is why the kingdom of self is based on death.

Ultimately, taking care of Number One takes care of no one.

For the only way to truly care for myself is to… Read More