OUR DESIRE FOR COMPLETION

'Man - of all ages and cultures - is confronted with the solution of one and the same question: the question of how to overcome separateness, how to achieve union, how to transcend one's own individual life and find at-onement.' 

Erich Fromm, The Art of Loving, p.8. 

HOLINESS

'Holiness...is the necessary effect and means of the gospel. In other words, holiness is not only the result of conversion, it's also the embodied argument in support of the gospel's veracity. We're saved to be holy, and we become holy so others will be saved.' 

Elliot Clark, Evangelism as Exiles: Life on mission as strangers in our own land, p.115. 

A SINGLE TEACHER'S LEGACY

'She had more children than any of her friends, and been loved and respected, fawned over and feared. She'd taught thousands of young people to read and think, and they had gone on to change the world and would continue to long after she was dust.' 

Stewart O'Nan, Wish You Were Here, p.315. 

HOW YOU REST DEPENDS ON HOW YOU WORK

'A man who works with his mind should sabbath with his hands, and a man who works with his hands should sabbath with his mind.' 

Abraham Heschel in Justin Whitmel Earley, The Common Rule, p.142. 

VULNERABILITY + TIME = FRIENDSHIP

'Vulnerability and time turn people who have relationship into a people who have a friendship. That's what friendship is: vulnerability across time. The practice of conversation is the basis of friendship because it's in the conversation that we become exposed to each other.' 

Justin Whitmel Earley, The Common Rule, p.98. 

IS THERE ANYTHING YOU'RE NOT TELLING ME?

'The question "Is there anything you aren't telling me?" gets at the heart of friendship, because friendship is being known by someone else and loved anyway. Friendships in which we're vulnerable make or break lives. Within them we thrive, and without them an essential part of us - if not all of us - dies.' 

Justin Whitmel Earley, The Common Rule, p.96. 

THE FIRST STEP IN EVANGELISM

'...one of the main things our neighbors who don't know Jesus need is simply to trust a Christian.'

Justin Whitmel Earley, The Common Rule: Habits of Purpose for an Age of Distraction, p.59. 

THE NEWS

'All information that comes in, if it is fresh, is wrong; if it is stale, it is possibly accurate, but also useless.' 

Hilary Mantel, The Mirror & the Light, p.324. 

THE ONLY SOURCE OF HUMAN SATISFACTION

'...the reasons why you have not got contentment in the things of the world is not because you have not got enough of them - that is not the reason - but the reason is, because they are not things proportionate to that immortal soul of yours that is capable of God himself.' 

Jeremiah Burroughs, The Rare Jewel of Christian Contentment, p.91.