VOCATION

'Nothing is worth doing that can be achieved in our lifetime; therefore we must be saved by hope. Nothing which is true or beautiful or good makes complete sense in any immediate context of history; therefore we must be saved by faith. Nothing we do, however virtuous, can be accomplished alone; therefore we are saved by love. No virtuous act is quite as virtuous from the standpoint of our friend or foe as it is from our standpoint. Therefore we must be saved by the final form of love, which is forgiveness.'

Reinhold Niebuhr in David Brooks, The Road to Character, p.46.

VOCATION

'...vocations almost always involve tasks that transcend a lifetime. They almost always involve throwing yourself into a historical process. They involve compensating for the brevity of life by finding membership in a historic commitment.'

David Brooks, The Road to Character, p.46.

VOCATION

'At what points do my talents and deep gladness meet the world's deep need?'

Frederick Buechner in David Brooks, The Road to Character, p.22.

HUMANKIND

'If we acknowledge that our inclination to sin is part of our natures, and that we will never wholly eradicate it, there is at least something for us to do in our lives that will not in the end seem just futile and absurd.'

Henry Fairlie in David Brooks, The Road to Character, p.11. 

WISDOM

'...wisdom isn't a body of information. It's the moral quality of knowing what you don't know and figuring out a way to handle your ignorance, uncertainty, and limitation. 

The people we think are wise have, to some degree, overcome the biases and overconfident tendencies that are infused in our nature.'

David Brooks, The Road to Character, p.9

CHANGE

'Moral improvement occurs most reliably when the heart is warmed, when we come into contact with people we admire and love and consciously and unconsciously bend our lives to mimic theirs.' 

David Brooks, The Road to Character, p.xiii.

PROGRESS

',...one of the characteristic diseases of the twentieth century was making its way: the suspicion that they would be greatly improved if they were somewhere else.'

Wendell Berry, 'Pray Without Ceasing' in That Distant Land, p.49.

HUMILITY

'...we are as little children. Some know it and some don't.'
Wendell Berry, 'Pray Without Ceasing' in That Distant Land: The Collected Stories, p.44. 

THE PURPOSE OF MORTAL LOVE

'The supernatural purpose of mortal love, and the cause of its sweet sorrow, is to awaken in us the longing for that greater love which alone can give us all that we long for.' 

J Budziszewski, On the Meaning of Sex, p.142. 

EVANGELICAL GNOSTICISM

'...too often the church...has syncretized biblical theism and the modern worldview, resulting in "evangelical gnosticism" a worldview that confines God to a spiritual realm that is disconnected from the rest of creation. At its core, evangelical gnosticism fails to understand who Jesus Christ really is, replacing the the biblical Jesus with "Star Trek Jesus," who beams our souls up out of this world, a world in which He is fundamentally disinterested, a world from which He is fundamentally disconnected. "Star Trek Jesus" has nothing to do with our daily human  existence, promising one day to transport our souls out of here into some disembodied, new, nonhuman existence called heaven; an existence that, quite frankly, doesn't sound very appealing to most of us, because we are humans and can only imagine what its like to be, well, human! 

In contrast, "Colossians 1 Jesus," is the Creator, Sustainer, and Reconciler of all things, the King whose kingdom is wiping out all of our diseases and all of our poverty. "Colossians 1 Jesus" doesn't ask us to stop being humans in this world or the next. Rather "Colossians 1 Jesus" cares about our bodies, cares about our souls, and cares about the entire world that those bodies and souls are experiencing.'

Steve Corbett and Brian Fikkert, When Helping Hurts: How to Alleviate Poverty without Hurting the Poor and Yourself, p.248.