Spiritual Awakening

 

                       Spiritual Awakening

There are two equally dangerous extremes- to shut reason out, and to

let nothing else in.                    Pascal

Conscience is God's presence in man.    Swedenborg

Your old men shall dream dreams,

Your young men shall see visions.    Old Testament

                                     Joel II, 28

A man must not swallow more beliefs than he can digest.

                                     Havelock Ellis

Why is it that we rejoice at a birth and grieve at a funeral? Is it

because we are not the person concerned?

I remember, I remember 

The fir trees dark and high;

I use to think their slender tops

Were close against the sky:

It was  childish ignorance,

But now 'tis little joy

To know I'm farther off from heav'n

Than when I was a boy.

               Thomas Hood

God offers to every mind its choice between truth and repose.

                                        Emerson,  

                                     Essays\Intellect

Perhaps the only true dignity of man is his capacity to despise

himself.                                George Santayana

Oh Lord - if there is a Lord; save my soul - if I have a soul.

Amen.                                   Ernest Reman

                                    "Prayer of a Skeptic"

There is more faith in honest doubt, Believe me, than in half

creeds.                                  Tennyson

The tulip and the butterfly

Appear in gayer coats than I:

Let me be dressed fine as I will,

Flies, worms, and flowers exceed me still.

                                   Isaac Watts

Jupiter has loaded us with two wallets: the one, filled with our

own faults, he has placed at our backs; the other heavy with the

faults of others, he has hung before us.       Phaedrus     

It was fear that first made gods in the world.   Statius

God Almighty first planted a garden. And indeed, it is the purest

of human pleasures.                        Francis Bacon

The kiss of the sun for pardon,

The song of the bird for mirth,

One is nearer God's Heart in a garden

Than anywhere else on earth.

                    Dorothy F. Gurney

Happiness is the only good, reason the only torch, justice the only

worship, humanity the only religion, and love the only priest.

                                        R. G. Ingersoll

You have no more right to consume happiness without producing it

than to consume wealth without producing it.

                                        Bernard Shaw 

                                          "Candida"

An honest man is the noblest work of God.   

                                        Burns

I loaf and invite my soul,

I learn and loaf at my ease

observing a spear of summer grass.

                    Walt Whitman

                   "Song of Myself"

Is there beyond the silent night

         An endless day?                                          

Is death a door that leads to light?

         We cannot say.

                    R.G. Ingersoll                                

                "Declaration of the Free"

To desire immortality is to desire the eternal perpetuation of a

great mistake.                          Schopenhauer

                                 "The World as Will and Idea"

I swear I think now that everything without exception has an

eternal soul! The trees have, rooted in the ground! The weeds of

the sea have! The animals!                      Walt Whitman

Lo, the poor Indian! Whose untutor'd mind sees God in clouds or

hears him in the wind.                        Pope

                                          "Essay on Man"

To see the world in a grain of sand.

And a heaven in a wild flower,

To hold infinity in the palm of your hand,

And eternity in an hour.

                         Blake

Thou O God doest sell us all good things for the price of our

labor.

                                        Leonardo De Vinci

                             A New Day

     This is the beginning of a new day. God has given me this day

to use as I will. I can waste it- or use it for good, but what I do

today is important, because I am exchanging a day of my life for

it! When tomorrow comes, this day will be gone forever, leaving in

it's place something that I have traded for it. I want it to be

gain, and not loss; good ,and not evil; success, and not failure;

in order that I shall not regret the price that I have paid for it.

                                        Dr. Heartstill Wilson

So often we seek a change in our condition when what we need is a

change in our attitude.

There is no pillow so soft as a clear conscience.

An atheist has been called "One without invisible means of

support."

If you insist on perfection, make the first demand on yourself.

You cannot draw neigh to God if you are at a distance from your

brother.

To fall in love with God is the greatest of all romances; to seek

Him the greatest adventure; to find Him the greatest achievement.

Atheism is blind faith in the strange proposition that this

universe originated in a cipher and aimlessly rushes no where.

Caring is the art of sharing.

Sharing is the art of living,

Living is the art of loving,

Loving is the art of caring.

My creed is this:

     Happiness is the only good.

     The place to be happy is here.

     The time to be happy is now.

     The way to be happy is to make others so.

                         Robert G. Ingersoll

The preservation of health is a duty. Few seem conscious that there

is such a thing as physical mortality.  Herbert Spencer

Christmas is a strange time of the year.  That's when we celebrate

the Prince of Peace by buying rockets, submarines, artillery and

hand grenades for our children.

Blessed is he that expecteth nothing, for he shall not be disappointed.