Building men

The child needs more than books, 
Judgment he needs, 
And understanding, 
And maturity. 

For these, he looks to you
And you must give them to him.

Let yourself rub off on him, 
Let him sit beside you as you work,
To work with you, 
To study with you, 
To be perplexed with you, 
To analyze with you, 
And to dream with you. 

Give him the impossible task to do, 
The unanswerable question to answer. 
There is no better way to train --
Whether you be Socrates training athenian youth,
or an American man of business. 
Robert W. Murphy. 

Brutes find out where their talents lie:
a bear will not attempt to fly. 
A founder'd horse will oft debate,
Before he tries a five-barr'd gate;
a dog by instinct turns aside,
Who sees the ditch too deep and wide;
But men we find the only creature
Who, led by folly, combats nature;
Who when she loudly cries -- forbear,
With obstinacy fixes there; 
and, where his genius least inclines, 
Absurdly bends his whole design. 
Jonathan Swift

Essay On Man

At ten, a child; at twenty, wild
At thirty, tame, if ever
At forty, wise; at fifty, rich;
At sixty, good or never. 

Anonymous 

The whole period of youth is one essentially of formation, edification, instruction, I use the words with their weight in them; intaking of stores, establishment in vital habits, hopes and faiths There is not an hour of it but is trembling with destinies, -- not a moment of which once past , the appointed work can ever be done again, or the neglected blow struck on the cold iron. John Ruskin. 

Maybe too much, maybe not enough, but this is how I lay it out.

Marriage vows to Christ

Do you solemnly swear to put your life in the hands of Christ; so much as you are able at this moment in time?

Will you determine to seek purity and goodness by His strength to guide and enable you?

Will you seek peace and turn from violence, so help you God?

Will you extend your hand to help the poor, the least, the last and the lost?

Will you let the mercy of Christ teach you how to forgive all who have sinned against you?

Do you swear to seek honesty in all your ways, so help you God?

Will you seek justice, show mercy and be faithful to all? Beginning with family, friends and to the stranger so much as lies within you?

If you have said yes, I pronounce you a child of God, washed in His blood, forgiven, clean and blameless, born again and adopted into the kingdom of God.

  "I would teach a child, in defiance even of reason, that God is the one Power that loves and understands him through thick and thin, that He punishes with anguish and sorrow; that He exults in forgiveness and mercy; that He rejoices in innocent happiness; that He loves courage, and brightness, and kindness, and cheerful self-sacrifice; that things mean and vile and impure and cruel, are things that He does not love to punish, but sad and soiling stains that He beholds with shame and tears. This, is seems to me, is the Gospel teaching about God, impossible only because of the hardness of our hearts. 

 I remember a terrible lecture which I heard as a bewildered boy at school; given by a worthy Evangelical clergyman, with large spectacles, and a hollow voice, and a great relish for spiritual terrors! 

The subject was "the exceeding sinfulness of sin." Arthur Benson.  

 How do we know Christianity is real and truth? 

                              

   As for me, I always want to know the truth, whether it is the one I've discovered or if it refutes the one I've discovered. It is too big and too important of an issue to be casually bantered around like the latest fashion.

 I want something that will hold the heaviest burden, will lift the darkest heart; will break into freedom those in the strongest chains; like slavery, addiction, victims of trauma, neglect and abuse, and all the deepest questions and thoughts of the heart. 

Not a dogma, not a theory or rhetoric, creed or party, but something that gets into the deepest, darkest valleys of human frailty.

 So, if someone shows me a way of great nobility, a way of deep sacrificing compassion; a way that demonstrates sacrificial love that I have never seen, then, and only then, will they get my full and focused attention. 

 When I watched the documentary of Mother Teresa's work in Calcutta with the dying wretches that laid in the street with maggot filled wounds, and watched this little woman of faith carry them back to her home for the dying, and even though she knew that they were dying, she offered them unconditional love, regardless of caste, religion or race, and gave them the gift of 'dying with dignity and love,' I knew I saw truth in action. 

These things are what I have come to know as "Truth" these are the deeds of God, the mercies of Christ.