RITUAL

'The purpose of any ritual is to deepen one's commitment, to move a person deeper into a certain view of the world. Addictive rituals also have this purpose, pushing a person deeper into the the addictive process.'  

Craig Nakken, The Addictive Personality, p.44. 

THE NEED TO BE OUT OF CONTROL

'Addicts chase control - they believe they will find peace and happiness through total or perfect control. However, it's human to be imperfect and powerless, and chasing the illusion of control is really running away from the reality of being human. Addicts seek perfection instead of humanity.' 

Craig Nakken, The Addictive Personality, p.33. 

INTIMACY IS A SLOW BURNER

'Intimacy is something that is slowly built over time.'
Craig Nakken, The Addictive Personality, p.17. 

INTENSITY VS. INTIMACY

'Emotionally, addicts get intensity and intimacy mixed up.'

Craig Nakken, The Addictive Personality, p.15. 

ADDICTION & INTIMACY

'Addiction is an emotional relationship with an object or event, through which addicts try to meet their needs for intimacy.' 

Craig Nakken, The Addictive Personality: Understanding the Addictive Process and Compulsive Behavior, p.8. 

THE NEED FOR PERFECTION

'One of the fundamental truths of Christianity is that progress towards a lesser imperfection is not produced by the desire for lesser imperfection. Only the desire for perfection has the virtue of being able to destroy in the soul some part of the evil the defiles it.' 

Simone Weil, The Need for Roots, p.208. 

A BROAD EDUCATION

'The soul of a child, as it reaches out towards understanding, has need of the treasure accumulated by the human species throughout the centuries. We do injury to a child if we bring it up in narrow Christianity which prevents it from ever becoming capable of perceiving that there are treasures of the purest gold to be found in non-Christian civilizations. Lay education does an even greater injury to children. It covers up these treasures, and those of Christianity as well.' 

Simone Weill, The Need for Roots, p.87. 

WHY SONG OF SONGS?

'What is the Song's contribution within the whole of Scripture? The answer this time is very simple...the Song, after its way through theological allegory, provides the chief biblical resource for a believing understanding of human sexuality, of the lived meaning of "Male and female he created them."' 

Robert W Jenson, Song of Songs, p.14. 

A LACK OF ROOTS

'Whoever is uprooted himself uproots others. Whoever is rooted himself doesn't uproot others.' 

Simone Weil,. The Need for Roots, p.45. 

THE NEED FOR ROOTS

'To be rooted is perhaps the most important and least recognized need of the human soul. A human being has roots by virtue of his real, active and natural participation in the life of a community which preserves in living shape certain particular treasures of the past and certain particular expectations of the future. This participation is a natural one, in the sense that it is automatically brought about by conditions of birth, profession and social surroundings. Every human being needs to have multiple roots. It is necessary for him to draw wellnigh the whole of his moral, intellectual and spiritual life by way of the environment of which he forms a natural part.' 

Simone Weil, The Need for Roots, p.41. 

THE NEED TO BE NEEDED

'Initiative and responsibility, to feel one is useful and even indispensable, are vital needs of the human soul.' 

Simone Weil, The Need for Roots, p.14. 

WHY WE LOVE BEAUTY

'...we love the beauty of the world, because we sense behind it the presence of something akin to that wisdom we should like to possess to slake our thirst for good.' 

Simone Weil, The Need for Roots, p.10. 

HUMAN RIGHTS & OBLIGATIONS

'It makes nonsense to say that men have, on the one hand, rights, and on the other hand, obligations. Such words only express differences in point of view. The actual relationship between the two is between object and subject. A man, considered in isolation, only has duties, amongst which are certain duties towards himself. Other men, seen from his point of view, only have rights. He, in his turn, has rights, when seen from the point of view of other men, who recognize that they have obligations toward him. A man left alone in the universe would have no rights whatever, but he would have obligations.' 

Simone Weil, The Need for Roots: Prelude to a Declaration of Duties Towards Mankind, p.3. 

CHRISTIANS WHO BULLY

'...just as the insecure child becomes the playground bully, so the insecure Christian causes problems in the church, because he or she always has something to prove, is always seeking affirmation. By contrast, the Christian who grasps security in grace will build others up.' 

Christopher Ash, Teaching Romans (Volume 1), p.215. 

AUTHENTICATING FAITH

'Until we suffer, we are untested. Only suffering can stamp us with the hallmark of authentic faith...' 

Christopher Ash, Teaching Romans (Volume 1), p.197. 

CREATION & RECREATION

'The first home foreshadows the final home, and the final home hallows and fulfills what was most precious in the first.' 

Fredrick Buechner in John Inge, A Christian Theology of Place, p.140. 

THE SIGNIFICANCE OF PLACE

'We have given up the understanding - dropped it out of our language and so out of our thought - that we and our country create one another; that our land passes in and out of our bodies just as our bodies pass in and out of our land; that as we and our land are part of one another, so all who are living as neighbors here, human and plant and animal, are part of one another, and so cannot possibly flourish alone; that, therefore, our culture and our place are images of each other and inseparable from each other and so neither can be better that the other.' 

Wendell Berry in John Inge, A Christian Theology of Place, p.134. 

A NEW ROUTE TO WHOLENESS?

'...we are so accustomed to seeking personal wholeness through various forms of self-development, counselling, or therapy that it would occur to very few people to think of citizenship as a path to greater individual wholeness.' 

Daniel Kemmis in John Inge, A Christian Theology of Place, p.132. 

DEFINING COMMUNITY

'...common experience and common effort on common ground to which one willingly belongs.' 

Wendell Berry in John Inge, A Christian Theology of Place, p.131. 

DEFINING PLACE

'Place is a space which has historical meanings, where some things have happened which are now remembered and which provide continuity and identity across generations. Place is space in which important words have been spoken, which vows have been been exchanged, promises have been made, and demands have been issued. Place is indeed a protest against the unpromising pursuit of space. It is a declaration that our humanness cannot be found in escape, detachment, absence of commitment, and undefined freedom.' 

Walter Brueggemann in John Inge, A Christian Theology of Place,  p.36. 

OUR ARCHITECTURE SPEAKS

'The skyscrapers, airports, freeways and other stereotypical components of modern landscapes - are they not the sacred symbols of a civilization that has deified reach and derided home?' 

Anne Buttimer in John Inge, A Christian Theology of Place, p.17. 

PLACE MATTERS

'Whatever is true for space and time is true for place. We are immersed in it and could not do without it. To be at all - to exist in any way - is to be somewhere, and to be somewhere is to be in some kind of place. Place is as requisite as the air we breathe, the ground on which we stand, the bodies we have. We are surrounded by places. We walk over them and through them. We live in places, relate to others in them, die in them. Nothing we do is unplaced. How could it be otherwise? How could we fail to recognise this primal fact?' 

Edward S Casey in John Inge, A Christian Theology of Place, p.14. 

ANGRY LOVE

'Just as death achieves heights of fury in the work of destruction, so love achieves heights of fury in the work of salvation.' 

Augustine of Hippo in Robert W Jenson, Song of Songs, p.93. 

JEALOUS JESUS

'...the Lord will mot share us with other Lords, of whom notoriously there are many. Christ, we may say, is Jealousy incarnate.' 

Robert W Jenson, Song of Songs, p.93. 

WE ARE CREATURES

'We are creatures; and therefore dependence is the very mode of our being, and our glory is precisely that gift of dependence we call faith.' 

Robert W Jenson, Song of Songs, p.87. 

OUR PASSIONATE GOD

'...God is indeed impassible in the sense that external events cannot alter his personal identity or character. He is faithful, which is the chief point the Fathers intended by calling him "impassible."

Nevertheless it remains true that a hangover of the original pagan intention has controlled too much of what may be called our theological sensibility, and some points also of our more sophisticated theology...

No part of Scripture makes sense if our reading is controlled by by the dogma that to be God is simply to be without passion, and the theological allegory solicited by the Song least of all. Indeed, in our present poem the Lord does not merely respond to his people's passion for him, but has in himself an antecedent spring of longing for her; he is in himself passionate. He not only loves, but climbs the palm tree to grasp love, longing for what he will find. How should we correct our inherited interpretation of deity to accommodate the biblical God's passion for us is a matter much controverted in contemporary theology. Preachers and teachers of the Song must at least be aware how drastically the Song contradicts our usual theological prejudices.' 

Robert W Jenson, Song of Songs, p.77. 

GOD'S BODILY LOVE FOR US

'...it is vital to say...how very bodily that love is which the Song proposes as analogy for love between God and his people. Much of the West's tradition, in this stemming from Hellenism rather than from Scripture, has supposed that our loves for another would be "purified" or "ennobled" or otherwise improved by disembodiment. The Song does not agree. 

We will have to say again and again as we move through the Song: it is precisely our embracing sexually differentiated bodies whose union is sanctified by its likeness to God's own love. The heart is indeed the set of love, but it those hands and their placement - and the lips, and the paired organs of pleasure and procreation, and the tongues and...- which are the heart's actuality, at least for the Song.' 

Robert W Jenson, Song of Songs, p.33. 

LASTING SELF-ESTEEM

'....people cannot have enduring self-esteem unless they genuinely believe in their centrality in the world.' 

Yi-Fu Tuan, 'Place/ Space, Ethnicity/ Cosmos' in Why Place Matters, p.113. 

HUMANKIND

'Not so long ago, he was ranked just a notch below the angels. Now, he is considered no higher than the apes.' 

Yi-Fu Tuan, 'Place/Space, Ethnicity/Cosmos: How To Be More Fully Human' in Why Place Matters, p.110. 

THE SIGNIFICANCE OF WEDDING ANNIVERSARIES

'A couple celebrating their wedding anniversary actually offer a stronger picture of God's love than a couple getting married. The essence of faithfulness is that it holds steady in the face of alternatives. Faithfulness is nurtured, tested and, in the end, strengthened by temptations. The wife and husband who remain faithful to each other - for richer or poorer, in sickness and in health - not only bear testimony to the kind of love God has for us, but they put it on display.' 

Glynn Harrison, A Better Story, p.152. 

GRASPING GOD'S LOVE

'If we want to understand God's love for us, we are invited to look into the most intimate and private corners of our felt sexuality and cross-refer.' 

Glynn Harrison, A Better Story, p.146. 

WHY WE ARE RELATIONAL CREATURES

'The desire for relationships, for intimacy and affection, is fundamental to the purpose and meaning of our lives as creatures made in the image of God. We love like this because the One is whose image we are made loves like this. We are longing creatures because we long for him.' 

Glynn Harrison, A Better Story, p.139. 

THE POINT OF SEXUAL DESIRE

'...sexual desire is our inbuilt homing instinct for the Divine, a kind of navigation aid showing us the way home. You could think of it as a form of body language: our bodies talk to us about a greater reality of fulfillment and eternal blessing, and urge us to go there.' 

Glynn Harrison, A Better Story, p.137. 

PART IDENTITIES VS. TRUE IDENTITY

'...Christians repudiate the entire infrastructure of self-construction as too emaciated and deficient to bear the weight of being human. Characteristics such as gender, race, nationality and sexuality are important, but we reject the modern practice of elevating these part identities into whole identities. Nothing less than the whole glory of the restored image of God in humankind will do. That is our identity. That is who we are.' 

Glynn Harrison, A Better Story, p.130. 

INSATIABLE IDOLS

'...idols always ask for more and more, but give less and less, until in the end they have everything and you have nothing...' 

Glynn Harrison, A Better Story, p.12. 

WE NEED A SETTLED SENSE OF SELF

'The ability to act effectively and confidently, to give love and receive it...requires a sense of self-worth and significance. But if the self is constantly in flux, a shifting sand of doubt and reinvention, how can such a delicate thing sustain a sense of its own worth and value?'  

Glynn Harrison, A Better Story, p.118. 

PLAUSIBILITY STRUCTURES

'Because of the strength of the plausibility structures supporting the majority views in a society, if you have ideas different from everybody else, it is generally a good plan to be part of a support network...Kindred spirits are crucial to keeping minority ideas alive. And so cognitive minority groups, if they want to survive as a minority, must start to act like a minority. They need to make active efforts to nourish their beliefs and patterns of life in ways that make them plausible to their members. They need intellectual leaders, attractive role models and the opportunity for members to rehearse and consolidate their ideas in the conversational fabric of their group, juts like the majority outside.' 

Glynn Harrison, A Better Story, p.72.  

EVERY HUMAN HEART

'...the heart is the wanting, loving, seeking epicentre of the person...'
Glynn Harrison, A Better Story, p.57. 

WHY PEOPLE CHANGE

'What the heart  loves, the will chooses and the mind justifies.'
Thomas Cranmer in Glynn Harrison, A Better Story, p.57. 

CULTURAL CHANGE

'Many of the key players in the sexual revolution understood the need...for cultural embodiment. They showed they were willing to swim against the flow. They braved the stigma of difference, marched the streets, formed pressure groups and conjured up the determination to show the world what love could like. And if there's to be a Christian sexual revolution capable of turning the the tide, it will need to do the same.'  

Glynn Harrison, A Better Story: God, Sex & Human Flourishing, p.48.

CHRISTIAN MARRIAGE

'A marriage which does not constantly crucify its own selfishness and self-sufficiency, which does not "die to itself" that it may point beyond itself, is not a Christian marriage. The real sin of marriage today is not adultery or lack of "adjustment" or "mental cruelty." It is the idolization of the family itself, the refusal to understand marriage as directed towards the Kingdom of God.' 

Alexander Schmemann in James KA Smith, You Are What You Love, p.116. 

WHAT BAPTISM TEACHES US ABOUT FAMILIES

'Our promises in baptism - as parents and congregation - signal that what counts as "family" is not just the closed, nuclear unit that is so often idolized as "the family." Thus, if Christian congregations are truly going to live out of and into the significance of baptism, they will need to become communities in which the bloodlines of kin are trumped by the blood of Christ - where "natural" families don't fold into themselves in self-regard.' 

James KA Smith, You Are What You Love, p.116. 

OUR HEARTS

'Our hearts are like stringed instruments that are plucked by story, poetry, metaphor, images.' 

James KA Smith, You Are What You Love, p.91. 

VIRTUES

'...a virtue is a disposition that inclines us to achieve the good for which we are made.' 

James KA Smith, You Are What You Love, p.89.